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Latest News

Up to 10 PhD-studentships available for October 2010

Pain sensation evoked by observing injury in others
Article in Press Journal of the IASP front cover

Feeling the Pain of Others

Congratulations to Nicola Bergin and Charlotte Easter who have each received the Head of School prize for the top student in the year on our Master of Research degree.

CN-CR Computational Neuroscience and Cognitive Robotics
The University of Birmingham is investing in a Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Cognitive Robotics (CN-CR). This investment will result in ten new permanent posts, seven in Neuroscience (in the School of Psychology) and three in Robotics (in the School of Computer Science). There will be 3 chair appointments, 4 lectureships and 3 technicians. The first two chair appointments are now being advertised.
http://www.download.bham.ac.uk/vacancies/jd/38192.pdf
http://www.download.bham.ac.uk/vacancies/jd/38193.pdf

Honey Pot - Researching psycholinguistics http://www.alumni.bham.ac.uk/fund/young/HPfrancis.shtml

Dr Suzanne Higgs has been elected as secretary of the international society of the study for ingestive behaviour.

From Stage to Stadium: New 3D Dance Research Could Aid Athletic Performance
this University showcase was done in collaboration with Sportex.

Psychology wins the Big Idea!

Wai Ling Bickerton and Glyn Humphreys have won the University of Birmingham's Big Idea competition (2009) to develop a commercial product. Wai Ling and Glyn's proposal is to commercialise their neuropsychological screen for cognitive deficits after stroke (the BUCS) - publishing the test, developing training packages for therapists and licencing access to their large database for cognitive problems after stroke. The work is supported by a programme grant from the Stroke Association and by the UK Stroke Research network.

Read press release for a publication by Dr Harriet Allen in the May 28 issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/cp-bor052109.php

School success in the Research Assessment Exercise

The School has been ranked 3rd out of all UK Psychology Departments in the newly released data from the Research Assessment Exercise, making the School the highest ranking Department outside of Oxbridge. Over 80% of our activity was judged to be at an internationally excellent standard and 25% of our activity was judged 'world leading'.
Glyn Humphreys, Head of School, states: 'We are delighted that the quality of our research has been recognized and that the hard work of all involved has been rewarded'.

http://www.newscentre.bham.ac.uk/press/2008/12/rae2008.shtml

http://www.research.bham.ac.uk/rae/2008/

Other News

Tony Beech has won an award for ‘a significant lifetime contribution to Forensic Psychology in the UK’ from the Division of Forensic Psychology, BPS.

Snow, J.S., Allen H.A., Rafal, R.D. & Humphreys, G.W. (2009) Impaired attentional selection after lesions to topographic maps in human ventral pulvinar. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106, 4054-4059.

This paper demonstrates for the first time that a sub-cortical structure, the pulvinar, plays a critical role in selecting visual stimuli based on their relative salience. In patients with selective pulvinar lesions, this ability can be disrupted, making it difficult for them to select low salient stimuli.

Professor Zoe Kourtzi has been given the first young investigator award from the Vision Science Society.

Congratulations to Ian Apperly, who has been awarded the Margaret Donaldson prize by the British Psychological Society for early career research.

Congratulations to Roberta Roberts who has just been awarded a 3-year British Academy Fellowship for her research on tactile perception.

New Scientist Article:
Memories of your last meal can help you stay thin

Publications