• Question: Do you guys ever invent things?

    Asked by lolax to Fiona, Jane, Joanna, Michelle, William on 15 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Michelle Murphy

      Michelle Murphy answered on 13 Jun 2010:

      Hey Lolax,
      Inventing stuff would be pretty cool. If I could invent something it would be a translocator (like the tvs in Charlie and the chocolate factory that didnt shrink people in the process). I travelled from Edinburgh to Nottingham this weekend. It took 5 hours by train and was really dull so if I could translocate from train stations instead it would save time and be much more fun. I don’t really invent stuff at work but you have to be imaginative doing experiments and making them work as best you can.

    • Photo: Joanna Brooks

      Joanna Brooks answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Yes, we invent lots of things! We have mainly designed lots of psychological tests. For example, we designed one test which required people to memorise a verbally described shopping street like this: “On the left there is a shop, a house, a café, a school, and on the right is a house, another house, a market, and a bar”. Then we test people’s ability to remember the landmarks on the left and on the right and see whether they were more accurate on one side. We have designed other tests similar to this which have been used not only in universities but also in hospaitals too.

    • Photo: Fiona Randall

      Fiona Randall answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      If I ever invent something it might make me rich, so hopefully one day I will, but not so far 🙂

    • Photo: William Davies

      William Davies answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      I haven’t invented anything yet. My current research is trying to work out how a particular gene affects attention. Once I’ve worked that out, I hope to start working on developing a new drug that affects attention and might be used to treat things like ADHD and also to improve attention in people like pilots etc.

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