The Centre for Research in Psychology is organised around three dynamic research groupings. Each grouping boasts a range of strong links with practitioners and service users.
Director: Dr Rachel Wilcock
The Investigative Forensic Psychology group investigates eyewitness skills across the life span, focusing in particular on vulnerable groups of witnesses such as older adults and children with intellectual disabilities. For example, a series of studies has looked at the eyewitness identification accuracy of older adults. Older adults have subtle difficulties with understanding and retaining the instructions for video eyewitness parades, and these results have been fed back to relevant police officers. Additional work on interviewing older witnesses includes examining the effectiveness of a new sketch mental reinstatement of context interview protocol for frontline police officers and developing a more appropriate interview protocol for older adults. Further work is investigating the eyewitness identification skills of adults with intellectual disabilities (ID). This under-researched population is particularly vulnerable, with limited access to the criminal justice system, yet a heightened likelihood of being witnesses to or victims of crime. In addition, the group carries out research into the suggestibility of adults and children with and without ID, methods for enhancing evidence given by children, and the effects of cross-examination on the testimony of children with and without ID.
One of the key strengths of this group is the fact that the research findings are disseminated widely amongst practitioners, such as lawyers, barristers, disability specialists and police services.
Select members of this group to access their profile details in our staff directory:
Director: Dr Jamie Smith Spark
The Developmental Disorders group investigates the development of remembering, thinking and reasoning in individuals who have a range of developmental disorders. For example, several related projects are investigating ‘executive functioning’ in children and young people with specific language impairment, Williams syndrome, Down syndrome and intellectual disability. Executive functioning refers to a range of complex thinking skills relevant to dealing with novel situations that include: planning new solutions; focusing on and remembering relevant information; and switching attention as necessary. This work has a range of external and internal funding (ESRC, Leverhulme Trust, LSBU PhD bursary, Williams Syndrome Foundation), and is providing an in-depth comparative examination of higher order thinking and reasoning skills in young people with developmental disorders. Further work by this group is investigating dyslexia in children and adults.
Select members of this group to access their profile details in our staff directory:
Director: Dr Daniel Frings
The Psychological Applications in Culture and Society group investigates contemporary issues in society, such as immigration, drug use, addiction, mental health and sexual violence. There is a particular emphasis on the use and integration of diverse research methodologies and technologies to examine these issues. This leads to eclectic research from varying perspectives, bound together by a common goal of pushing forwards the boundaries of theory while maximising its impact on society.
Members of this grouping are engaged in a variety of diverse research projects. These include, testing the link between negative adaptation strategies and poor mental outcomes amongst immigrants, investigations of mental health professionals’ attitudes towards issues relating to sexuality, the effects of drugs on controlled and automatic cognitive processes and the role of implicit cognition in drug use and drug addiction.
Select members of this group to access their profile details in our staff directory:
