News

Following the autumn EPS committee meeting, we are delighted to announce the Committee’s award nominations for approval at the Annual General Meeting in January 2023.

The Committee seeks approval for the following nominations:

Election of the Fifty-Second Bartlett Lecturer
Prof Marlene Behrmann (Carnegie Mellon University) 

Election of the Twenty-Second EPS Mid-Career Award Lecturer
Prof Geoffrey Bird (University of Oxford) 

Election of the Thirty-First EPS Prize Lecturer
Dr Nadine Lavan (Queen Mary, University of London) 

Election of the Twelfth Frith Prize Lecturer
Dr Tom Arthur (University of Exeter) 

It with great sadness that we inform you that Professor Oliver Braddick and Professor Martin Conway have recently passed away. Both were longstanding members of the EPS and will be greatly missed.

We are pleased to announce the joint winners of the President’s Poster Commendation Prize for the EPS Online (April 2021) meeting are Tom Arthur (University of Exeter, supervised by Samuel Vine, Gavin Buckingham and Mark Brosnan) and Cátia Ferreira De Oliveira (University of York, supervised by Lisa Henderson and Emma Hayiou-Thomas)!

Tom’s Research Study Poster is entitled ‘Expecting the unexpected: An examination of active inference in autistic adults using immersive virtual reality’ whilst Cátia’s Research Study Poster is entitled ‘Procedural learning in the SRT task: A long road to stability’.

Congratulations to both Tom and Cátia!

It with great sadness that I write to tell you that Professor Helen Pattison has passed away.

Helen joined Aston from the University of Birmingham 17 years ago, and before that, she was at Loughborough. She brought with her expansive knowledge and experience of clinical trials, interdisciplinary working, and a desire to set up a centre of excellence in health psychology. As a result Aston can claim to be the UK’s biggest provider of BPS-accredited health psychology training at MSc level with the largest cohorts of campus and online students.

Helen’s close collaborations with the Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital, with her clinical colleagues and those working in the areas of biomedical ethics and parental health behaviour brought with her a strong profile of applied health research, informed by psychology. Helen contributed psychological and methodological expertise to a number of clinical trials focusing on women’s reproductive health and paediatric health. She was also interested in women’s experience of pregnancy, and debunking urban myths such as ‘eating for two’ and the ‘pregnancy brain’ or ‘baby brain’.

Later in her career, and as technology progressed, Helen became interested in self-testing kits and the potential impact of those on illness perceptions, symptom perceptions, and ultimately the ways in which people managed their own diagnosis and health behaviours. This and other projects brought with them interdisciplinary collaborations within Aston, notably with pharmacy.

As well as her contributions to this highly impactful research, Helen has been a significant figure across the university. Most recently, she worked closely with others on the foundation of a new Medical School, bringing her many years’ experience to bear on the challenge. She held the position of Associate Dean for Research, and, for a number of years, and took up the position of Head of the Psychology Department. Helen’s commitment to rigorous research and to making a difference was evident throughout each of these roles.

As Head of Psychology, it was clear that Helen was always working towards creating a happy and supportive working environment. As we all know, this can be a particularly challenging task at times! Nevertheless, Helen has always been supportive to her colleagues, helping them to be the best that they can be.

This depth of commitment and mentorship was also extended to her students, at all levels. But this was not limited to her own students, Helen was always in favour of active research groups and providing researchers across their career trajectories with safe spaces to discuss their ideas, present their research, and to practise answering those tricky questions that Helen was always ready to ask.

Helen received her first degree in Psychology in 1977 from Cardiff, an MSc in Mathematical Psychology from Stirling in 1978, and a PhD from Reading in 1983. She was a member of the Experimental Psychology Society from 1985 until her death. Helen will be remembered with great fondness.

We are pleased to announce that the People’s Poster Vote winner for the EPS Online meeting is César Gutiérrez Silva (University College London, supervised by Jenni Rodd and Jo Taylor)!

César’s Research Study Poster is entitled ‘Reading rich semantic sentences to improve disambiguation skills in adults’.

Congratulations César!

We are pleased to announce the winner of the President’s Poster Commendation Prize for the EPS Online (January 2021) meeting is Jamie Cockcroft (University of York, supervised by Aidan Horner and Gareth Gaskell and thanks to co-author on this work Sam Berens)!

Jamie’s Research Study Poster is entitled ‘Schema influence on behaviour for both schema-relevant and -irrelevant information’.

Congratulations Jamie!

Congratulations to Jessica Teed from the University of Leeds (and Jessica’s supervisor, Dr Richard Harris) who has been selected as the winner of the EPS / BSA prize for best undergraduate research project in experimental psychology!

There were many outstanding submissions brought to the attention of BSA and EPS, congratulations to all nominated projects. More details of Jessica’s presentation to the EPS will be provided in the near future.

Following the autumn EPS committee meeting, we are delighted to announce the Committee’s award nominations for approval at the Annual General Meeting in January.

The Committee seeks approval for the following nominations:

Election of Fiftieth Bartlett lecturer

Professor Melvyn Goodale (University of Western Ontario, Canada)

Election of Twentieth EPS Mid-Career Award lecturer

Professor Kate Nation (University of Oxford)

Election of Twenty Ninth EPS Prize lecture

Dr Catherine Manning (University of Oxford)

Election of Tenth Frith Prize lecturer

Dr Jennifer Murphy (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Election of Officers and Committee Members

President Elect:

Professor Kathy Rastle (Royal Holloway)

Ordinary Committee Members:

Dr Brianna Beck (University of Kent; Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Representative)

Dr Joseph Brooks (Keele University; Data Protection Representative)

Dr Gavin Buckingham (University of Exeter)

Dr Joni Holmes (Cambridge University)

Dr David Sanderson (Durham University)

It is with great sadness that we have learnt that Bob Audley, who was EPS Hon. Secretary between 1962 – 1964 and President between 1975 – 1976, died last Friday (31st July 2020).
 
Along with AR Jonckheere and Tim Shallice, he was one of the primary figures in the brief flowering of mathematical psychology in the United Kingdom during the 1960s. It included work on mathematical learning theory and decision making – Audley’s (1960, Psyc Rev) Theory of Choice remains an important landmark paper. Later he worked on reaction times, map cognition, and, perhaps most importantly, he triggered the development of research into the psychology of medical accidents in the 1990s (Medical Accidents by C Vincent, M. Ennis & RJ Audley OUP, 1993).
 
Audley steered the UCL department of psychology through the years of the Thatcher cuts so that the department emerged from the 1980s bigger and stronger than at the beginning of the decade. At a national level, he was a major figure in UK psychology and he successfully argued in parliament that our discipline should be classified and funded as a laboratory-based biological science rather than as a social science.
 
As such, Bob Audley had a significant impact on EPS members and the direction of our discipline. We are most grateful to his contribution to the Society.

We are pleased to announce that the People’s Poster Prize winner for the EPS Online meeting is Elif Bastan!

Elif’s Research Plan Poster (University of Birmingham, supervised by Sarah Beck and Andrew Surtees) is entitled ‘Social Reasoning and Autism Spectrum Traits’.

Congratulations Elif!