The School of Design, Engineering & Computing Blog

On Saturday the 27^th of April 2013, the Psychology Research Centre at Bournemouth University hosted the Wessex Branch of the British Psychological Society (BPS) Annual Student Conference. This event provided an opportunity for students to showcase novel research and, in addition to Bournemouth, attracted Psychology students from a range of institutions (e.g. Universities of Surrey, Sussex, Winchester, and Southampton). Conference presenters included a range of students from undergraduate research assistants through to doctoral students who reported their work to an audience of approximately 100 delegates. The topics were as diverse as the students, including, for example, transmagnetic stimulation (TMS), the interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) of parental experience, class prejudice, media airbrushing, and developmental prosopagnosia.

In total, there were 28 oral presentations and 19 research posters. Parallel sessions enabled a large amount of presenters, with an afternoon session in one room dedicated uniquely to postgraduate research. In addition, we were fortunate to have two thought-provoking keynote speakers. First, Dr. Richard Stephens (Keele University) spoke about the role of swearing on pain tolerance (in short, it helps, particularly if you are normally an infrequent user of coarse vocabulary) and, second, Prof. Clare Wood (Coventry University) delivered a presentation on the effects of text messaging on literacy (in sum, ‘textisms’ are not rotting the brains of our nation’s youth).

The conference was successful in emphasising that student research is not a ‘box-ticking’ assessment exercise but an important and vibrant element of Psychology departments across the region.

Prizes were awarded for best undergraduate talk, best postgraduate talk, and best poster. As voted by our conference delegates, the winners were…

Best Undergraduate Talk

1^st Gareth Furneau (Bournemouth University)

2^nd Sophie Sowden (University of Surrey)

3^rd Julia Fernando (University of Surrey)

Best Postgraduate Talk

1^st Sara Robertson (University of Southampton)

2^nd Tamas Borbely (University of Surrey)

3^rd Marie Page (Open University)

Best Poster

1^st Sapphira Thorne (University of Surrey)

2^nd Emily Robinson (Bournemouth University)

3^rd Rhiannon Barrington (Bournemouth University)

Many of our first and second years were in attendance (particular thanks to our undergraduate volunteer helpers who ensured that the day ran smoothly), we hope that they have been inspired to participate in more staff projects and will return next year to present their research.

In an excellent recognition of our research profile, Psychology has been awarded four fully-funded PhD Studentships for 2013. The BU Studentships offer successful candidates a maintenance grant of £14,000 per annum and a fee waiver for 36 months. In addition, research costs, including field work and conference attendance, will also be met. Outstanding, motivated candidates are now being sought for the following projects:

• Understanding childhood dyslexia by measuring eye-movements during reading: A test of Magnocellular Theory (supervised by Dr Julie Kirkby).
• Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and the function of the Locus Coeruleus-Norepinephrine system (supervised by Dr Ben Parris).
• Dementia-friendly architecture: What do we know and where do we go? (supervised by Dr Jan Wiener).
• Forgetting Odours: Evidence for the Independence of Olfactory Memory (supervised by Dr. Andy Johnson and Dr. Jane Elsley).

Congratulations to these researchers for securing such comprehensive packages for their potential candidates. We look forward to meeting the four new Doctoral students later this year!

To read more about each project or to apply, visit the Graduate School’s Doctoral pages.