Download Undergraduate Research Internship Scheme 2014 Name: Dr

Undergraduate Research Internship Scheme 2014
Name: Dr Friederike Zimmermann
School: Psychology
Research Area: Cognitive Psychology
Project Title: Have we met before? How semantic information can boost our visual memory
for faces
Project Summary
In everyday life, we encounter new faces all the time, yet most of them are easily forgotten
after one encounter. However, some factors increase the likelihood that a face will be
remembered and later recognized. One of these factors is rich semantic information at the
point of learning which has been shown to enhance our memory for faces (Bonner, Burton,
Jenkins, & McNeill, 2003; Kaufmann, Schweinberger, & Burton, 2008). This finding indicates
that we not only learn faces visually but rapidly integrate information from different sources
including visual information about a person’s looks as well as semantic information such as
their name or where you first met them. The aim of the proposed research project is to gain
a better understanding of the benefits of nonvisual information on face learning which
importantly might help us to find ways to improve face recognition in individuals with severe
problems in recognizing faces (i.e., prosopagnosia)
To summarize the main research questions that will be addressed are:
1. Does semantic information boost our ability to learn new faces?
2. What type of semantic information boosts face learning (e.g., visual descriptions of
faces, a person’s name, semantic associations)?
3. Are these effects long-lasting (i.e., are the benefits still present after a distractor
activity)?
You will be trained in how to conduct behavioural research including experimental design
and data collection/ analysis using Excel & SPSS. This project is ideal for someone who is
interested in gaining research experience in cognitive psychology.
Essential Criteria
1. Interest in cognitive psychology and willingness to read background literature on the
topic
2. Good skills in Excel/ SPSS
Desirable Criteria
1. Experience with Adobe Photoshop for stimulus preparation
2. Prior experience in experimental research