- Room 305, Link Block, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA
- +44 1752 588079
- stephanie.hartgen@plymouth.ac.uk

Profiles
Mrs Stephanie Hartgen-Walker
Teaching and Research Associate (TARA)
School of Psychology (Faculty of Health)
Biography
Biography
Qualifications
- PhD Psychology, University of Plymouth, 2017 - present; "Extreme mental imagery: An exploration of aphantasia and its implications for cognition"
- Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP), University of Plymouth, 2020, Distinction
- MSc Psychological Research Methods, University of Plymouth, 2017, Distinction
- BSc (Hons) Psychology, University of Plymouth, 2016, First Class Honours
Professional membership
- Experimental Psychology Society Postgraduate Member
- Higher Education Academy (HEA) Fellow
Teaching
Teaching
Teaching interests
As a Teaching and Research Associate, I lead and support workshops and offer one-to-one support in our undergraduate and master's programmes with a heavy focus on research methods and statistics.
My teaching interests and skills include:
- Experimental design, qualitative research (focus groups), and the research process
- Regression, multiple regression, ANOVA, Bayesian statistics, thematic analysis
- Science communication
- RStudio
- OpenSesame, JATOS
I typically teach on the following modules:
- PSYC411: Learning
- PSYC414: Relationships
- PSYC516: Applied psychology
- PSYC519, PSYC719, PSYC520, PSYC720: Research methods in practice
Research
Research
Research interests
Keywords: Mental imagery; extreme imagery; aphantasia
My research interests lie in the exploration of individual differences in mental imagery, with particular focus on the absence of imagery, known as aphantasia. For many, mental imagery is a ubiquitous feature of daily life, from trying to remember where you last had your keys, to visualising how best to rearrange your living room furniture. Imagery also serves as a component in several models of cognitive function and has a role in many interventions and clinical treatments. Thus, aphantasia is not only a fascinating phenomenon in its own right, it also has implications for our understanding of cognition and how we can manage when things go awry.
I like to use a range of methods to explore the imagery spectrum, including self-report, large scale online behavioural experiments, lab-based behavioural experiments, and neuroimaging with electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERP).
Research software
- RStudio
- IBM SPSS
- Jamovi
- OpenSesame
- PsychoPy
- Qualtrics
- JATOS