School of Psychology
 

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Harriet Allen

Professor of Lifespan Psychology, Faculty of Science

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Biography

I received my BSc and Phd from the University of Nottingham. My PhD investigated low level motion perception. During my BSc I spent a year working for the DRA on Human Factors of simulators and jet fighters.

After my PhD worked in Montreal, at McGill University, again looking at low level vision but this time investigating texture perception and amblyopia (lazy eye). I became interested in how higher level processes such as attention influence low level vision.

I returned to the Uk to spend several years at the University of Birmingham, including 5 as an RCUK fellow. I used behavioural measures and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to investigate the interaction of vision and attention through the adult life span.

I started at Nottingham in September 2011 and am investigating the interaction of attention with perception in multiple contexts including driving, low level and mid level vision and ignoring.

I'm particularly interested in how our brains represent things that we ignore. Do we process and then block these signals, or turn them down at source? Does it matter if we simply attend to something else or if we specifically choose to ignore an object. Do these processes get harder with age?

Research Summary

I measure the neural processes of combining sensory information. My recent research has found differences in the relationship between perception and attention in obesity, autism, and ageing and has… read more

Recent Publications

Current Research

I measure the neural processes of combining sensory information. My recent research has found differences in the relationship between perception and attention in obesity, autism, and ageing and has applied this to human factors, vehicle design, and the everyday environment.

School of Psychology

University Park
The University of Nottingham
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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www.nottingham.ac.uk/enquire