International Summer School

1. Investigating how social anxiety influences episodic memory retrieval using Virtual Reality

Supervisor: Dr. Jamie Murray

Previous studies have revealed social anxiety can negatively bias our interpretations of social interactions. Experienced events, such as meeting new people, are often associated with negative self-evaluations, and this interferes with our ability to retrieve specific details accurately. However, many studies investigating social anxiety and memory often use experimental designs that lack ecological validity. Instead, this study will employ cutting edge virtual reality technology to mimic different real life social interactions and thereby provide more robust and valid assessment of the interaction between anxiety and memory recall.

2. Visual Veracity: How Image Type Shapes Perceived Truth

Supervisor: Dr. Jamie Murray

The rapid rise of AI-generated imagery makes it essential to understand how these visuals influence our judgments and decision-making across different contexts. Research using real images shows that when an image is relevant to a topic (such as accompanying a news headline or statement) we are more likely to believe the statement is true, a phenomenon known as the “truthiness effect.” As AI images can be created from almost any prompt, there is concern that highly topical but fabricated images could amplify perceived truthfulness of associated information, even when that information is false. This study aims to investigate how AI-generated images shape the way we process and evaluate online information.


3. Project Title: Attention contagion in online meetings

Supervisor: Dr. Dale Barr

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual interaction through video-based platforms such as Facetime, Zoom, or Teams has become commonplace. How do these platforms stand up against face-to-face communication? When speaking face-to-face, cues related to shared attention enable the regulation of turn-taking and help people come to a common understanding. Virtual environments are more challenging due to temporal asynchrony and the lack of a common spatial reference frame. Our proposal is to investigate how the attentional states of one's peers in an online interaction affect the quality of the interaction, feelings of social connection, and memories for what has been said.

To investigate this question, we will run experiments in which participants will take part in an online meeting. The content of the meeting will be held constant, while the attentive or inattentive non-verbal behaviours of other members are manipulated. Are non-verbal attentive (or inattentive) behaviours of audience members 'contagious', influencing the attentional states (and thus, memories) of other members in the meeting? While previous work has shown such 'attention contagion' effects in the context of watching lectures (Forrin et al., 2021), to date there are no studies documenting such effects in online meetings, which involve divided attention due to their interactive and improvisational nature. In this project, we will collect eyetracking data along with behavioural responses. Participants will wear a set of tracking glasses that measure features of the eye at a high sampling rate. Eyetracking data offers a rich potential for data exploration, including not just measures of gaze direction, but also physiological measures of attentiveness such as blink rate and pupil dilation.

4. Cortical magnification as a neural correlate of the uniformity illusion

Supervisor: Dr. Clement Abbatecola

Project summary: The uniformity illusion describes the spreading of the features of a central patch to an entire image ( http://www.uniformillusion.com/ ) caused by an imbalance in accuracy between foveal and peripheral vision. A neural correlate of this imbalance could be cortical magnification, under which a disproportionate territory of the primary visual cortex is devoted to foveal compared to peripheral parts of the visual field. If this is the case, reducing the size of the central patch might eventually induce a reversal of the illusion. In this project we will use a behavioural paradigm to investigate whether such a reversal occurs and, if so, what patch size constitutes the point of subjective equality where the illusion is equally likely to spread inwards and outwards.

5. Project title: Investigating the determinants of change blindness

Supervisor: Dr. Clement Abbatecola

Project summary: Change blindness happens when we fail to recognise a difference in the environment because our attention was drawn elsewhere (see some examples in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh_9XFzbWV8 ). Several features influence the likelihood of a change being noticed, such as its position in the visual field, its intrinsic saliency, or its relevance for you (e.g. you have a higher change to recognise your own name but not someone else’s). In this project, we will use a behavioural paradigm to investigate these features and how they interact to induce or break change blindness for different types of stimulation.

This course aims to provide an opportunity to undertake a research project and present the results both in the form of a research article and as an oral presentation.

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Prepare a preliminary list of goals to be achieved during the project in collaboration with the project supervisor
• Demonstrate an understanding of the literature related to the research project
• Demonstrate research skills appropriate to the area of specialisation
• Deliver a short talk, giving the background to the project and summarising its key outcomes
• Write a cogent, clear and concise written report summarising your findings and/or the state of research in your chosen field.

Project supervision meetings, practical workshops, and weekly seminars as part of the wider Summer School research community. This course is full time for 6 weeks.

• GPA of 3.0 (or equivalent). 
• You should be currently enrolled at an international higher education institution.
• You should be a Psychology or Science major or minor and have completed level 1 statistics.
• Experience of working with statistics is essential and of using R Studio is desirable.

​Students should ideally have completed second year of their Undergraduate Degree. Students having completed their first year may be considered for entry, this will be at the course convenors discretion. 

These projects will utilise data analysis using R Studio programming. Previous experience of R Studio is desirable but not necessary and the practical classes component of the method will introduce students to data wrangling and analysis using this software.

If your first language is not English, you must meet our minimum proficiency level:

• International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Academic module (not General Training) overall score of 6.0, with no sub test less than 5.5  (if English is not an applicant’s first language) and a GPA of not less than 3.0
• We also accept equivalent scores in other recognised qualifications such as ibTOEFL, CAE, CPE and more.