VRA Scheme

Autistic people have been hypothesised to show lower social motivation levels than non-autistic people. However, social motivation levels may depend on contextual factors, such as the identity of the person to be interacted with, the environment, prior knowledge of the person etc. The current study is an experimental computer task examining whether autistic people show differences in social approach for autistic people, non-autistic people and objects. It will also be examined whether social motivation associates with mood.

VRA Role: Recruitment of autistic participants, Data collection – Running the computer experiment with participants and collecting questionnaire data.

The study will involve testing participants on a single occasion. Testing sessions will last approximately 1 hour: 45 minute to complete the experiment and questionnaire measures and an additional 15 for informing and debriefing. The VRA can work up to 8 hours per week, across approximately 2 months, with the aim of recruiting approximately 20 participants.

Experience in recruiting and testing participants, carrying out psychological testing, testing for autistic traits, and depressive symptoms. Training in psychological testing. Training in data management (e.g. encryption).

Understanding factors that influence facial expression recognition.

There are a number of factors that affect emotion recognition including age, gender and mental health.  Most research to date has investigated this by comparing the mean performance of two or more experimental groups.  This research seeks to understand the relationship between the visual signals in the image and emotion recognition performance at the level of the individual.  This will be achieved by presenting participants with a series of images on a computer screen and asking them to make decisions about the expressions.  Looking at their responses to these images tells us how sensitive they are to the emotions.

There are currently three projects that you can engage in:

• the effect of ageing on sensitivity to emotions
• does making stimuli perceptually equivalent affect performance on the emotional attentional blink task

• Edit images to create new stimuli
• Data collection; using themselves and others as participants
• Plot data and “tweak” the experimental parameters, where appropriate, to facilitate data collection
• Present data in the style of a results section

Eligibility: The candidates will need to have normal or corrected to normal vision.  The candidates will need to be confident using computers and have an interest in visual perception.

January 2020

As needed weekly from January 2020 until July 2020 (N.B. it is not expected that you will be available each week during this time, a schedule of engagement will be arranged between us, normally at least 2 hours per week during term time).

Experience collecting, analysing and preparing data for write up.  Training in data management, analysis and using Matlab software.  Working as part of a research team with other VRAs.

Dr. Louise Delicato

Edinburgh (predominantly), Dubai/Malaysia (Data analysis only)

Validation of a potential training paradigm for student presentation skills

We are looking for students who can help running the study which will involve groups sessions where students engage in presentation practice. You will help with administering feedback exercises and in analysing speech, motion and eye tracking data. 

Playing for boosting reading

We are looking for an enthusiast person, keen to work independently and to interact with children to pilot a set of on-line games aiming at boosting reading in children at the early stage of primary school.

Adaptation of the Comprehensive Aphasia Test in Malay and Italian

We are looking for a student who would like to gain experience in testing language abilities in adults and to learn psychometric properties related to language.