Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience (C&CN)

About us

There are 3 dominant research strands in this group:

visual cognition
perception and action
remembering past and imagining future events.

Our research includes work in healthy adult populations, as well as in certain clinical groups such as those with dementia and Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Some members of the group work alongside clinicians at local hospitals and have collaborators at other academic institutions both nationally and internationally.

Neon lights illuminating a head and brain

Part of

Related courses

Psychology (MSc / PGDip / PGCert)

Leadership

Dr Sanjay Kumar

Reader in Psychology

View profile

Membership

Name	Role	Email
Dr Olivia Afonso	Senior Lecturer in Psychology	afonso.o@brookes.ac.uk
Professor Anna Barnett	Professor of Psychology	abarnett@brookes.ac.uk
Ms Nicole Clarke-Hands	Visiting Researcher	nclarke-hands@brookes.ac.uk
Professor Angus Gellatly	Emeritus Professor of Psychology	agellatly@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Lisa Hinkley	Senior Lecturer in Psychology	lhinkley@brookes.ac.uk
Ms Anna Markaki	Student Research Assistant	amarkaki@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Michael Pilling	Senior Lecturer in Psychology	mpilling@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Clare Rathbone	Reader in Psychology	crathbone@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Nichola Stuart	Associate Researcher in Psychology	nstuart@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Alfred Veldhuis	Senior Lecturer in Public Health	aveldhuis@brookes.ac.uk
Professor Kate Wilmut	Professor of Psychology	k.wilmut@brookes.ac.uk

Name	Thesis Title	Supervisors	Completed
Julie Bennett	Experiences of nostalgia in individuals both with and without Autism	Dr Clare Rathbone, Professor Kate Wilmut	2024
Sam Bond	A Detailed Exploration into the Constraints on Statistical Learning	Dr Michael Pilling, Dr Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez, Dr Olivia Afonso	Active
Sophie Harris	The influence of anxiety, self-efficacy and movement variability on the perceptual judgements and executed actions of adults with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)	Dr Clare Rathbone, Professor Kate Wilmut	Active

Methods and techniques

Various methods and techniques are used in this research, with a range of equipment in our specialised research labs:

PuMA Lab (Perception and Motion Analysis) houses a 3D motion analysis system, with 6 infrared cameras to track the coordinates of small reflective markers placed on the body. This equipment helps us understand how movements are planned and executed and to investigate the nature of movement difficulties, for example in individuals with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD).
PAAC Lab (Perception, Attention & Affective Cognition) encompasses 3 labs which house our state of the art electroencephalogram (EEG) recording facility for event related potential (REP) research, our Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) equipment which can temporarily excite or inhibit a small area of the brain, and our visual cognition lab.
Writing Lab offers a range of equipment to record and measure handwriting and keyboarding behaviour.