Overview

I completed my PhD in 2011 at Exeter under the supervision of Prof. Stephen Monsell and Dr. Aureliu Lavric. My thesis investigated how the brain organises itself to perform the many tasks it is capable of and how it switches flexibly among them. In addition to the recruitment of active cognitive control, our capability to switch tasks efficiently also depends on passive processes such as priming, associative retrieval and interference. Together with behavioural measures I use electro-encephalography (EEG), which records electrical activity on the scalp that results from voltage fluctuations when our nerve cells communicate. With this online measure of brain activity, I examined at what time in the chain of task processing interference and priming show their effect.

In June 2012, I was awarded a postdoctoral Fellowship by the ESRC. This project was aimed at developing a computational model that can explain the ERP components typically found in ERP studies of task switching.

In collaboration with my colleagues in the cognition group I have worked on projects combining EEG with eye-tracking, and with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

From 2013 to April 2016 I worked on a project with Prof. Frederick Verbruggen (funded by the European Research Council), which investigated the proactive and reactive control processes that enable goal-directed behaviour, in particular behavioural change. We used EEG to examine the subcomponents of action updating and response inhibition and how they are implemented in the brain. We are now investigating how emotional information influences those subcomponents.

Since May 2016 I am a lecturer in Psychology. My latest project, funded by the British Academy, looked at whether and how mindfulness meditation affects different aspects of attentional control.

My most recent project investigates potential differences in cognitive functions between people who score either low or high on ADHD traits. I use EEG to monitor at which stage in task processing differences arise starting with anticipation and preparation for the task stimulus to appear, perceptual processing of the visual stimulus and detection of rare signals in the periphery, responding in a limited time window and inhibiting the response on signal trials. This task taps into sustained attention, re-orienting attention, decision-making, response planning and occasional response inhibition. Eventually, I would like to split the high ADHD trait people into two groups, those with higher inattention deficits and those higher on impulsivity to see whether and when task processing differs between those groups. I further plan to use machine learning to detect when and on which aspects EEG recordings differ the most between groups.

Qualifications

BSc Psychology, University of Exeter, 2006

MSc Psychological Research Methods, University of Exeter, 2007

PhD (Cognitive Neuroscience), University of Exeter, 2011

Research group links

• Cognition

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Publications

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Teaching

Modules

2023/24

• PSY1207 - Cognition, Emotion and Development
• PSY2209 - Cognition Practical I

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Office Hours:

Tuesdays 10 - 11: mostly Zoom

Wednesdays 12 - 1: mostly WLS room 235

Please email me in advance for an appointment and whether you prefer an in-person meeting or a Zoom meeting.

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