• Question: what sort of experiments do you do

    Asked by anon-290039 to Ellen, Harry, Luan, Marjorie on 24 Mar 2021.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 24 Mar 2021:

      Hi,
      I do a mix of experiments! Firstly I do brain scans, where I use lots of electrodes on a cap that goes on your head and records (without feeling anything!) brain patterns. Then I also do cognitive tasks, so things like IQ testing and memory tests. Thirdly, I do eye-tracking experiments too (check out my profile on here for a picture!) that records your pupils movements on a computer screen when asked to look a to something, look away or just neutral movements when looking at faces or people.
      These experiments come together to see if there is a link ( correlation) between the three.

    • Photo: Ellen Smith

      Ellen Smith answered on 25 Mar 2021:

      I run intervention studies that look at how what we eat can effect our brain function. To do this I get participants to come into the research centre and give them a supplement (like a vitamin) that we are investigating. They do a lot of computerised cognitive tasks and I measure their performance before and after taking the supplement, to see if there’s any difference. For some studies I also measure changes in blood flow in the brain (using a piece of equipment called NIRS). Sometimes we also collect biological samples like blood, saliva, urine and stool, so that we can measure any changes in biomarkers or bacteria. You can read a bit more about my work and what a typical day is like on my profile.

    • Photo: Harry Piper

      Harry Piper answered on 25 Mar 2021:

      I do a mix of things like lots of people! The first experiment I did on this topic used videos and I asked people to predict if it would end in violence! I’ve also used a similar set of stimuli and asked them to rate a list of interpersonal cues that indicate violence and tell me how concerning each cue is! I’m repeating these experiments at the moment to see if the results hold, but I’m also interested in doing interviews and analysing data like that as well as neuroimaging, physiological responses and more!

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