On Wednesday 4th, June 2014, Dr. Ashok Jansari held a mini conference for members of his research team to present their work. Having run a workshop on how to formally give an oral talk, abstracts were requested and a formal conference programme was created. The first half of the conference was devoted to facial processing research. Dr Friederike Zimmermann, who is on a one-year REF postdoctoral fellowship presented a talk on general issues in face-recognition particularly to do with rates of prosopagnosia (face-blindness) and super-recognition found in large-scale studies; these studies were conducted by Ashok during his Wellcome-funded Live Science residency at London's Science Museum and his involvement in Channel 4's Hidden Talent 'X-Factor meets Science' search for people who had cognitive skills that they were unaware of by using scientific principles to uncover them. Next, Sziliva Szekely presented her 3rd year project investigating the Own Race Bias (ORB). Szekely explained how she computer-generated faces to represent three different ethnicities, namely White Caucasian, South Asian and Black Afro-Caribbean. In a study using psychology undergraduates, it was found that students from each of these ethnic groups had better memory for the computer-generated faces from their own ethnicity than from other ethnicities. Szilvia finished her talk showing the real-world implications of using more ethnically-fair tests in the categorisation of prosopagnosics and super-recognisers. Next to present was Emily Farrell who was on a three month internship with Ashok. She presented the data from the 3rd year project conducted by Emily Green (who was unable to attend the conference); this research centred around the creation and validation of two new facial processing tests developed to address theoretical and practical limitations of existing tests used in the literature. The data, (which includes one sample size of 3,214 participants for one of the tests!) showed that the two new tests could be more sensitive than current tests at identifying people on the high and low end of facial recognition.
There followed a tea-break which was
catered for by one of Ashok's students (Rubina Akhtar) who runs a business making
wonderful cup-cakes! During the break, the attendees could discuss each other’s
research projects and network with one and other; in addition to the project
students a number of guests were present including Dr Davide Rivolta & Dr
Kirstie Soar, two members of the ReDS team (Sean Tonkin & Sonja Weirach), Dr
Stephen Eastwood who is a lecturer in film who is interested in research in
autism and even a playwright (Barry MacStay) who is writing a play involving an
amnesic character and is consulting Ashok to ensure that his depiction is true
to life .
The rest of the conference was
dedicated to students who are working with an assessment of 'executive
functions' which are the cognitive abilities that allow us to plan, organise
our behaviour, make decisions and multi-task. Using Tony Leadbetter's fantastic
virtual reality programming skills, since 2003, Ashok has developed The Jansari
assessment of Executive Functions (JEF©). Ashok gave a brief overview on the background to the
research and the need for more ecologically-valid tests that led to the
development of these two tests. Following this, Duncan Windsor, a 2nd year
student who has been interning in the group, gave a demonstration of JEF© and
went over the double-blind procedure that was used in the latest studies on the
impact of nicotine. Next to present was Rubina, whose 3rd year project was taking further the findings that Ashok and
Lynne Dawkins had published in 2013 which had showed that smokers deprived of
nicotine for as little as two hours performed significantly worse than
non-smokers on JEF© implying a withdrawal-related decrement in
executive functions which pay partially explain craving for more smoking.
Rubina looked at whether this impact of deprivation led to permanent problems
or whether it was reversible. She compared non-smokers, ex-smokers and current
smokers who were deprived of nicotine. Her findings were very interesting
showing that in fact, the impairment in executive functions is actually
reversible since the ex-smokers performed similarly to non-smokers. . Next
Victoria Douglas-Smith who has been awarded a UEL Summer Undergraduate
Studentship presented the proposal for her study which will be extending
Rubina's study as well as exploring the differential impact of method of
nicotine delivery by comparing smokers who use regular cigarettes and those who
use e-cigarettes. Finally, there was a presentation on a project funded by a
BPS Summer Undergraduate Studentship; there are only ten of these given across
all psychology departments in the UK and has been awarded to Ashok to employ
Victoria Jefferies, a current 2nd year student. Victoria will be using a
children's version of JEF©, imaginatively named JEF-C© that Ashok has developed to assess executive
functions in children. Executive functions are the last to develop in the
brain, not reaching full maturity until the early 20s (compared to, for example,
the visual areas which are fully functional by the age of seven) and are
implicated in a number of developmental disorders. Victoria's BPS-funded project
will use JEF-C© to look at executive functions in children with Autistic
Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
After the conference, ten of the
delegates went for a meal at a Greek restaurant in Westfield to continue
conversations which in true conference fashion were partly to do with the talks
and partly to do with some of the other questions in life. The ART conference
was a great success and truly gives the students the opportunity to own their
research. It is a wonderful program that allows students to give a formal
presentation in a relaxed atmosphere. The event not only allows students to
present their own research, but to also learn about the other student’s
research and see how their work contributes to the bigger picture. Hopefully
some of these students will use this experience positively in their future
careers.
Emily Farrell, BUNAC Intern Spring 2014
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