By Emily Rosina Carey 06.March.

2012

Psychology Dissertation Topics 2012-2013

N.B. Please refer to original .pdf document made by University, for full descriptions and Instructions, this document is just to easily compare project studies and topics.

Dr Chris Askew: c.askew@kingston.ac.uk 1. Vicarious learning and cognitive biases (4 students) Evidence suggests that people can acquire fear of a stimulus observationally (vicarious learning), by observing someone else acting fearfully with it. We also know that people with anxiety disorders exhibit certain sets of cognitive (e.g. attentional, memory and interpretive biases) and behavioural (e.g. avoidance) biases. This project would investigate the effects of vicarious learning on these information processing biases. 2. Vicarious learning and social anxiety (4 students) Clark & Wells (1995) produced a highly influential model of social anxiety, which offers a useful description of the cognitive processes involved in social anxiety. However, it is still not entirely clear how social phobia develops in the first place. This project will investigate the effects of vicarious (observational) learning on social anxiety. Dr Elisa Back: e.back@kingston.ac.uk 1. Facial expression recognition in adults with autism traits (4 students) Previous research has suggested that individuals with autism struggle to infer mental states from faces because they have difficulties in processing information from the eyes (Baron- Cohen et al., 2001). However, more recent findings suggest that individuals with autism have been underestimated as when using more naturalistic dynamic faces they are able to infer mental states and they especially rely on the eyes (Back et al., 2007). The project will involve investigating the attribution of complex emotions / mental states to facial expressions by examining errors, response times and potentially using eye-tracking in adults with autism traits. 2. Theory of Mind and visual perspective taking (4 students) This project will explore whether adults have the ability to rapidly take another persons visual perspective. Research suggests that even adults may not be as proficient at Theory of Mind processing as one might think. It will involve examining the everyday use of Theory of Mind and the developmental implications. Mr Chris Barker: c.barker@kingston.ac.uk 1. Emotional disorders 2. Imagery 3. Subliminal perception Dr Fiona Barlow-Brown f.barlow-brown@kingston.ac.uk 1. Development of blind children 2. Reading development (including both print and Braille) 3. Moral development; Development of fear and disgust in children

By Emily Rosina Carey 06.March.2012 Dr Georgia Butler gk.butler@kingston.ac.uk 1. Alcohol Use, Smoking and Impulsivity (3 students). Group Impulsivity and sensation seeking have been found to be related to alcohol use (Dom et al., 2006; Hair & Hampson, 2006). Impulsivity was found to be a significant predictor of alcohol use in a sample of undergraduate students (Magid & Colder, 2007) and in female college students (Hair & Hampson, 2006). 2. Impulsive and Risk Taking Behaviour, especially in relation to one or more of the following three topics (2-3 students). The students will be expected to come up with a proposal on the topic after a discussion with Georgia. This will be a single project, working on your own and not in a group. You should have an idea and then arrange for a meeting to discuss the idea. This discussion needs to take place prior to submitting your choices. Drug Use (both legal and illegal drug use) Eating Behaviours Gambling. 3. Attitudes to cosmetic surgery (3 students). Group This project assesses attitudes of young people to cosmetic surgery. It also assesses the relationship between body satisfaction, appearance investment and attitudes to cosmetic surgery. Research has found that body dissatisfaction is found among women who undergo cosmetic surgery (Slevec & Tiggerman, 2002). The conclusions on whether younger women have higher levels of investment in their appearance are inconclusive. Henderson-King & Henderson-King (2005) found that if attractiveness is important to women they are generally more accepting of cosmetic surgery. Dr Anthony Esgate a.esgate@kingston.ac.uk 1. Ergonomics. Laterality 2. Psychology of mathematics. Psychology of music 3. Sports psychology Dr Fatima Felisberti f.felisberti@kingston.ac.uk 1. Remembering people in different social contexts Face recognition involves a multitude of cognitive processes and it is usually fast and accurate. The ability to recognize the faces of potential cooperators and cheaters is fundamental to social exchanges, given that cooperation for mutual benefit is expected. Studies have shown that across a broad array of exchanges, individuals displaying prosocial (e.g. cooperation) and antisocial (e.g. cheating) behaviours are remembered to help decisions about approachability or avoidance, trust or distrust. The aim here is to investigate the effect of agency (myself & others) in prosocial and antisocial behaviours in memory biases for faces. 2. The effect of family size in emotion perception The ability to identify expressions of emotion is relevant to human communication and to survival in highly competitive social environments. Humans are able to detect faint or fleeting facial expressions of emotions in other people; Paul Ekman (1976) coined the term microexpressions for these. There is evidence that children from large families develop better social skills compared to only children, since they had to learn to interact more and share resources with other children (Downey & Condron, 2004, Lawson & Mace, 2010). The aim of this project is investigate whether family factors (number of siblings, order of birth) affect our ability to correctly identify microexpressions of emotion.

By Emily Rosina Carey 06.March.2012 Dr Chris Hewer: c.hewer@kingston.ac.uk 1. Social Memory 2. The Aesthetics of Photography 3. The current economic Crisis and attitudes to the European Union Dr Petko Kusev: p.kusev@kingston.ac.uk 1. Memory and Contextual Biases in Risky Preferences (4 students) Peoples behaviour in the face of risk implies that they judge and weight the probability of risky events in characteristic ways that deviate from Economic Theory (EUT). Nonetheless, both EUT and the leading psychological theory of human choice under risk share a common assumption: peoples risk preferences and decisions under risk and uncertainty are independent of task. In recent research we find evidence that choice is influenced by the accessibility of familiar events in memory. This suggests that peoples experiences leak into decisions even when risk information is explicitly provided (Kusev et al., 2009). Accordingly, this project aims to investigate the influences of context, memory, patterns and computational complexity on risky preferences. 2. Categorisation and Perceptual Classification (3 students) Categorisation research typically assumes that the cognitive system has access to a (more or less noisy) representation of the absolute magnitudes of the properties of stimuli, and that this information is used in reaching a categorisation decision. For example, it assumes you can remember how loud a sound is, or how bright a square is, and so on. In this project we are interested in how people categorise simple perceptual stimuli. The key question the project/experiments address is whether people can abstract and remember the properties of stimuli (e.g., size, brightness, loudness, etc) or whether they have to rely on comparisons with the context (e.g., other stimuli they can see or have just seen) in which the stimulus is presented. 3. Judgements of Frequencies, Patterns and Randomness (3 students) We often attempt to understand and make inductions about temporal sequences of events (e.g., busy and quiet business days, peoples good and bad moods, sunny and rainy days). A 6 long history of research analyzes how people reason about the processes underlying sequences and how they anticipate individual events in a sequence. Extensive research has also investigated memory for - and judgement of - the frequency of events encountered in temporal sequence. Sensitivity to the frequency of events is crucial for judgements and decisions concerning uncertain payoffs or threats. However, very little research has explored if and how the ordering of different sorts of item in a sequence affects judgments and choices about those items. The goal of this project is to address this lacuna: searching for evidence that simple strategies effectively exploit sequence properties to compensate for the processing-capacity limitations underlying memory and judgement. Dr Ana Nikcevic: a.nikcevic@kingston.ac.uk 1. Binge drinking (4 students) Examining the predictors of binge drinking in a student population. This will be a quantitative study; data will be collected via questionnaires. 2. Mindfulness (3 students) A group of three students will examine individual differences in mindfulness. Mindfulness is defined as an enhanced state of attention to and awareness of what is going on in the present moment. This is a quantitative study; data will be collected via questionnaires.

By Emily Rosina Carey 06.March.2012 Dr Sabira Mannan: s.mannan@kingston.ac.uk 1. Visual Search in Real World Scenes: the role of working memory and saliency (4 students) Previous research has shown a close relationship between information stored on-line in working memory and visuo-spatial attention. In particular, studies of visual search using simple artificial stimuli have demonstrated that our ability to select a visual target can be modulated by information stored in working memory. The guidance of attention from working memory occurs automatically, even when it is disadvantageous to performance. This study will examine the role of auditory and visual working memory in the guidance of attention during real world scene inspection. A high resolution infra-red based eye tracker with 2ms temporal resolution will be used to record saccadic search eye movements made to static and dynamic real world scenes. 2. Investigating the role of implicit capture and numerical expectation in Inattentional blindness (4 students) When attention is engaged in a demanding visual task, salient but unexpected events or visual stimuli will often go unnoticed. This effect is termed Inattentional Blindness (IB). The most striking example of IB was demonstrated by Simons & Chabris (1999). Here participants were engaged in a demanding visual task and partway through the task an unexpected figure (a person dressed in a gorilla suit) walked in and remaining visible for 5s Amazingly over 50% of participants remained unaware of the gorilla. Previous research has demonstrated that spatial factors play an important role in IB. However spatial factors cannot be the whole explanation for IB as sometimes the unexpected stimulus will fall within the participants zone of spatial attention and still not be noticed. Recent research has also demonstrated a role for numerical expectation in IB; participants are less likely to demonstrate IB if the entire visual display contains the number of items expected by the observer. It is possible that visual scanning is less complete for a visual stimulus that matches visual expectation. This study will test this suggestion using a high resolution infra-red based eye tracker to record eye movements during IB trials in which numerical expectation is violated. The recording of eye movements will also allow this study to examine whether the unexpected stimulus can capture the eyes implicitly without reaching conscious awareness. 3. Simulating neglect in healthy volunteers (2 students) Patients with hemi-spatial neglect are impaired at orienting to stimuli presented on the side of space opposite to the side of their lesion. Neglect usually arises from right-sided brain lesions leading to left-sided neglect. Such patients will sometimes only eat from the right side of their plate and shave only the right side of their face. It is thought that these patients have a bias to orientate to the right remaining unaware of visual stimuli to the left. A growing body of evidence appears to suggest that increases in attentional load, and decreases in alertness can 8 lead to rightward shifts in attention in healthy populations. It is unclear, however, how these factors affect spatial biases in attention. In this study we will examine the factors that influence simulated neglect in healthy volunteers and compare that to data from patients with hemispatial neglect. 4. Looking at you, looking at others (2 students) In recent years there has been a great deal of interest in how we view real scenes and what we remember. This project looks at how object memories are extracted and retained across eye movements to real CCTV video images. CCTV images of suspicious scenes/ images will be provided by colleagues in Computer Vision (Kingston University). Questionaire based studies will examine memory for person and object identity. Thus this study does not necessarily need to involve eye tracking. This may be of particular interest to students interested in change blindness and attention and/or criminology.

By Emily Rosina Carey 06.March.2012 Dr Louisa Pavey: l.pavey@kingston.ac.uk 1. Autonomy and health promotion (2-3 students) Previous research has identified a key role for autonomy in shaping recipients responses to health messages about the benefits of healthy diet. The current study will investigate the effect of embedded autonomy and heteronomy primes on the effectiveness of gain-framed and loss-framed health messages encouraging healthy diet. 2. Self-esteem and aggression (2-3 students) Evidence for the relationship between self-esteem and aggression is mixed. This may be due to the way self-esteem has been defined and measured in the literature. Researchers have suggested that the extent to which self-esteem is contingent on external approval may be more important for predicting aggression than whether self-esteem is considered high or low. The current study examines whether boosting non-contingent self-esteem reduces aggression for those experiencing a self-threat (2x2 ANOVA design). 3. Self-discrepancies, self-affirmation and body satisfaction (2-3 students) Self-discrepancy theory suggests that the discrepancies between peoples ideal self-image and their actual self-image can lead to negative feelings of self-worth and well-being. Self- affirmation theory suggests that the negative impact of self-threats and subsequent defensive strategies can be reduced by boosting self-integrity. This project examines whether 10 highlighting self-discrepancies leads to lower body satisfaction and self-esteem, and greater intentions to minimise self-discrepancy (via diet and exercise), and whether self-affirmation may reduce this effect. Dr Jess Prior: j.prior@kingston@ac.uk 1. Parent-child conversations 2. Qualitative methods 3. Issues concerning facial disfigurement and impairment Dr Ron Roberts: r.a.roberts@kingston.ac.uk 1. Representations of Psychoanalysis in UK university psychology departments (3 students). Despite its pre-eminence in lay perceptions and in academic, philosophy and cultural studies psychoanalysis remains an object of neglected study in UK academia. This project will explore the reasons for this. The methodology will comprise interviews and surveys so students should be interested in using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Some knowledge and interest in contemporary psychoanalysis would help. 2. Autobiographical memory and family history (3 students) There has been a resurgence of interest in studies of social and collective memory. This project will seek to investigate the modes and types of remembering which are passed down through generations of families. Students should have an interest family history, social memory and qualitative research methods. 3. Student participation in the sex industry (2 students) Aims: To investigate the extent, nature, and consequences (psychological and social) of involvement in the sex industry; to examine identity issues pertinent to sex work. Prospective researchers should have an active interest in student debt and the changing political and economic landscape of UK higher education.

By Emily Rosina Carey 06.March.2012 Dr Muthanna Samara: m.samara@kingston.ac.uk 1. Bullying and face recognition 2. Reasoning of Bullying Bullying is currently a high profile concern for policy makers, health practitioners, schools, parents, and communities across the world due to its long-lasting consequences of behavioural difficulties and psychomental problems. This project looks at the relationship between bullying (traditional and cyberbullying) at home and at school on one hand, and the ability to recognize faces with different emotions and relate this to behavioural and emotional difficulties on the other hand. The other project looks at the reasoning of bullying and why people justify bullying others because of gender and/or race 3. Cognitive, behaviour and eating problems amongst adolescents who were born premature compared to adolescents born full-term Preterm birth is a birth before 37 weeks gestational age. Premature infants are at greater risk for short and long term complications, including disabilities, and impediments in mental, behavioural and growth development.This project investigates the long term development of cognitive, behavior and eating problems amongst adolescents that were born premature in comparison to full-term born adolescents. 4. Investigation of the health and well-being development of refugee children in the UK: Emotional and behaviour problems and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Broadly speaking, there are around 22 million refugees in different countries across the globe. In this big population of refugees, half of them are children (UNHCR, 2002; Westermeyer, 1991). The current study aims to look at the well-being of school children refugees in the UK by taking into consideration a range of factors that can constitute the well-being of children. These include: behavioural problems, peer relationships, quality of friendships, psychosomatic and health problems, exposure to traumatic experiences and self-esteem. 5. 2D:4D Digit Ratio and Behaviour Problems and Bullying in University Students and/or School-Aged Children It has been known since 1875 that the length of index finger compared with ring finger (2D:4D ratio) is a sexually dimorphic trait. The ratios for women are close to 1, while men have lower ratios (Peters et al., 2002). 2D:4D was found to be associated with psychiatric traits, social behaviours, personality, autism, ADHD/ODD (de Bruin et al., 2006; Manning, 2000; McFadden et al., 2005; Wolke & Samara, 2008). This project will look at the relationship between 2D:4D with other psychopathologic behaviours, and bullying amongst university students and/or children at school. Professor Phil Terry p.terry@kingston.ac.uk 1. How different kinds of drinking behaviour are linked to different self-monitoring practices (4 students). Undesirable intoxication and acute problems caused by alcohol may reflect poor self- monitoring behaviours; the link will be examined by a survey that examines drinking behaviours and problems in relation to a number of potential self-monitoring practices. 2. Does genetically-determined taste sensitivity influence a persons preference for certain alcoholic drinks? (3 students). Certain common gene variants determine a persons sensitivity to certain tastes. The project will test whether being genetically-predisposed to detect bitterness in some substances affects choice and liking of alcoholic beverages in a simple taste-test experiment. 3. Contrasting health beliefs associated with different kinds of alcoholic drink (3 students). Different kinds of drink have different connotations in terms of their presumed effects on health and their appropriateness in different contexts. This survey-based project will examine how these beliefs vary in relation to different drinking motivations & different demographics.

By Emily Rosina Carey 06.March.2012 Dr Harriet Tenenbaum: h.tenenbaum@kingston.ac.uk

1. Views of Discrimination (4 students) Critically little past work has examined whether contextual variations in childrens evaluation of exclusion varies with the perpetrator of exclusion. In a notable exception, Moller and Tenenbaum (2011) found that 8- to 12-year-old children judged it less fair when teachers rather than students ordered peer exclusion based on gender or being Muslim. However, both teachers and peers excluded children from peer contexts. To date, however, no one has compared childrens views about head teachers and children excluded children in peer and school contexts. Such an examination will inform our understanding of how children delineate the boundaries of authority and contribute to the domain perspective. To conduct this study, you will interview children and adolescents about whether exclusion is acceptable in peer and school contexts. 2. Discovery Learning (4 students) 14 Debate exists in the education community as to whether discovery learning or direct instruction is more beneficial for children (Bok, 2006). Discovery learning occurs when learners must discover information on their own. Such pedagogical methods can range from pure discovery in which learners do not receive guidance, to guided discovery in which learners are led by an expert who supports their learning through asking questions as children undertake a task. A recent meta-analysis indicated that across the life span direct instruction is more effective for learning than unassisted or pure discovery, but that guided forms of discovery learning supported learning more than direct instruction (Alfieri, Brooks, Aldrich, & Tenenbaum, 2010; see also Tenenbaum, Alfieri, Brooks, & Dunne, 2008, for an example). Many important questions, however, remain unanswered. For example, it is uncertain if differences in working memory influence childrens ability to learn from discovery learning in the domain of science. To conduct this study, you will test childrens ability to learn from direct feedback versus discovery learning in a task focused on density. Professor Fred Valle-Tourangeau: f.vallee-tourangeau@kingston.ac.uk 1. Interactivity and problem solving (4 students) Traditional cognitive psychology examines problem solving with static noninteractive descriptions of problems. This project explores problem solving when participants can physically manipulate objects and reshape the problems physical representation. In addition, participants individual differences in terms of cognitive capacities and skills are measured and used as predictors of performance in interactive and non-interactive versions of the task. 2. Representational effects in rule discovery (2 students) Wasons 2-4-6 task offers a useful window onto the processes of hypothesis testing and discovery. However, most participants generally perform poorly, exhibiting unproductive hypothesis-testing strategies and little creativity. This project explores different representational formats to display the information as well as different artefacts employed to generate number sequences, in an effort to identify the factors that foster diligence, creativity and discovery. Individual differences in terms of cognitive and personality factors may also be explored. 3. Individual differences and causal reasoning (2 students) Research on causal reasoning has demonstrated that untutored participants can infer the causal relationship between two binary events (a candidate cause that is present or absent, a target effect that occurs or doesnt occur) on the basis of covariation information. However, people are still prone to a number of important biases when judging causality. This project explores the degree to which these biases can be explained in terms of individual 16 differences that is differences in cognitive abilities and personality.

By Emily Rosina Carey 06.March.2012 Dr Claudia Uller: c.uller@kingston.ac.uk (Will supervise projects on the following topics: Development of cognitive abilities in infants and children, with particular emphasis on the development of numerical abilities and social-emotional development.) Dr Jo Van Herwegen: j.vanherwegen@kingston.ac.uk 1. Metaphor and metonymy comprehension in young typically developing children (2 students) Figurative expressions (i.e. kick the bucket) are commonly used in daily language but very little research has examined when young children can actually understand these expressions. This research examines comprehension of different figurative expressions in young typically developing children. Children will be administered a computer game in which they are presented with a word (e.g. cold) and they need to pick the corresponding picture on a screen out of three options (e.g. a red square, a black square and a blue square). Furthermore, the relationship between performance and vocabulary/ conceptual knowledge will be explored. 2. Figurative language production in teachers (4 students) This study investigates the figurative language that teachers produce in their teaching. It has been proposed that teachers use figurative language when explaining new concepts to students (for example, teachers might use metaphors of a computer to explain how the brain works). Research suggests that there are differences for the use of figurative language between different subjects (e.g. more frequent in science) as well as between male and female teachers. However, research is still very limited in this field. 3. The influence of context on language processing using eye-tracking (2 students) Generally studies in language comprehension have investigated how verbal context can prime for certain meanings. However, in our daily lives we experience language not in an auditory vacuum but also are influenced by visual contexts. Using the case of homonyms (i.e. words with two meanings such as bank), this study will explore how visual information (congruent or incongruent) can prime for certain meanings. Furthermore, eye-tracking data will be obtained to further inform us about how language comprehension can be influenced by visual information. Dr Gaelle Villejoubert: g.villejoubert@kingston.ac.uk (Gaelles research aims to contribute to the psychology of risk and uncertainty and the psychology of decision-making. The focus is on how individuals reason about, judge, communicate, or make decisions under uncertainty both in the laboratory and in applied settings such as forensic, health or medical settings. This includes work on how individuals communicate and interpret uncertainty qualitatively, how they draw conclusions based on uncertain information, and how judgments, decisions, and choices are shaped by individuals motivations, mode of thinking (intuitive or deliberative) and the way information is distributed in their environment.)