23 Feb 2012 10:30 – 15:30

Lecture Theatre F21 & Basement Concourse, Psychology Building, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ

Workshop

An Innovative Learning Week (ILW) event: See what lies behind the closed doors of Psychology's experimental laboratories. Expert guides will show you around each of our specialised laboratories and offer you the opportunity to take part in cutting-edge research.

1. See what lies behind the doors of the... Cognitive Neuroscience suite
   Come and see the Visuomotor Laboratory in the newly established Cognitive Neuroscience Suite (Dugald Stewart Building). See our state-of the-art infrared motion tracking systems in action, and our combined eye/hand trackers for the study of eye-hand coordination. Let our postgraduate students tell you about their experiments, and take part in a 2-minute eye-hand coordination experiment, where they will track your grasping movements with electromagnetic sensors. The tour will start from the foyer of the Dugald Stewart Building.
2. See what lies behind the doors of the... Reading and Word Recognition Laboratory
   Visit the Reading and Word Recognition Laboratory (inside S17) to see our eye-tracker. We'll show you a striking example of the visual illusion of micropsia, where objects appear much smaller than they really are, and we'll show you examples of how our eye-movements respond to such stimuli. We'll also show you our custom-built haploscope, in which you can see artificially induced depth, and we'll explain briefly how such trickery can tell us about how words are recognized.
3. See what lies behind the doors of the... Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology
   Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology are two new and exciting areas of research in which the University of Edinburgh is world leading. The Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology (CCACE) www.ccace.ed.ac.uk is a centre of excellence to advance research into how ageing affects cognition, and how mental ability in youth affects health and longevity. The Centre’s mission is to explore changes in the ageing brain with the aim of preventing or reducing cognitive disability and its negative effect on health and wellbeing. Much of this work is done on a unique group of 75 year olds known as the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936. In 1947, over 70,000 Scottish 11 year olds sat the same intelligence test. Between 2004 and 2007 1,091 of them resat the test and became known as the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 (LBC1936). LBC1936 participants are now undergoing a 3rd wave of testing.
   
   Come and hear about the work of CCACE which leads to around 300 papers a year and two high profile Nature papers in the last 6 months. Catherine Murray, is a research associate who takes the participants through 5 hours of mental and physical testing. Catherine will explain this process and talk about the skills needed to conduct such a study. You will have the opportunity to try out some of the tests used to assess mental wellbeing. You can also find out more about CCACE on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. The tour will start from the Psychology Building concourse (far left, by doors for stairs) of 7 George Square at 15:30.

Target audience: All Psychology UG and PG students

0131 650 3194

Book places for these tours by adding your name and matric number to the sign-up sheet on the notice board (near the exit door) in the concourse of the Psychology Building, 7 George Square.

Innovative Learning Week timetable