Mrs Stephanie Hartgen-Walker

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 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 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