Handout (project guidelines) to be distributed in Sep 2012 as paper copy (or request by email to supervisor, martin.schuermann (at) nottingham.ac.uk)
Reading list and web resources
Recommended project topics are related to multisensory processes in spatial attention (see for example Farah et al. Neuropsychologia 1989: 27, 461-470) or crossmodal aspects of spatial representations (see for example Nuerk et al Experimental Psychology 2005: 52, 187-194). Typical projects will be run in a computer classroom or experimental cubicle in the Psychology Building, with healthy volunteers as participants. Software E-prime can be replaced with PsychoPy depending on students' previous experience. Please note: References below that relate to functional neuroanatomy and brain imaging are of interest as background information but are not directly relevant to project work.
2011/2012: ABC Easy As 123? An Investigation into the SNARC and Size Congruity Effect in numerical and non numerical sequencing
2011/2012: Participant Observation of Tools Grasped Correctly or Incorrectly: A Behavioural and Pilot MEG Study
2011/2012: Cross modal interactions within perception; individual differences of audio-visual fusion
2011/2012: The effect of cross-modal and intra-modal linguistic visual and auditory cues on spatial attention
2010/2011: Crossmodal effects and the SMARC (spatial–musical association of response codes) effect
2010/2011: Investigating motor responses to high and low tones in relationship to positions in the visual
field
2010/2011: The Effect of Sound Cues on Visual Attention
2010/2011: The influence of biological and non-biological auditory and visual cues upon reflexive spatial attention
2010/2011: Investigating the Crossmodal Effects of Biologically Relevant Auditory and Visual Stimulus upon Reflexive Spatial Orienting/Attention
2009/2010: Investigating attention and emotion in a real-world search paradigm
2009/2010: The spatial-numerical association seen in time: The mental representation of numbers on a clock face
2009/2010: The mental architecture of number processing. An investigation whether the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect occurs with crossed hands
2009/2010: Investigating the effect of sound cues on spatial attention
2009/2010: Do facial expressions bias perception of an affective tone of voice and does a gender difference in perception exist?
2008/2009: Effects of different tones on spatial shift of attention for a piano player
2008/2009: Supramodal spatial representation of alphabetic letters
2007/2008: Multi Sensory Integration of Speech Perception: The Effect of Facial Expressions.
2007/2008: The Battle of the Senses: Is Audition or Vision Dominant in Capturing Attention and can Participants Learn to Rely More Heavily on one Modality than the Other?
2007/2008: Is attention cross-modal or bound to one modality? A study of visual and auditory stimuli
2006/2007: Cross modal interactions of vision and touch: attention and the perception of threat
2006/2007: Can our internal spatial representation of number magnitude induce external shifts in attention? Is this shift subject to the same cross-modal facilitation as external attention?
Please note that most research projects require that you prepare documents as if for submission to the Ethics Committee of the School of Psychology, in particular an outline of your project (e.g. 2 pages A4 including references). It is important for you to read the Code of Conduct of the Britisch Psychological Societ before you hand in these documents. Please do not begin pilot experiments before these documents have been approved.