The University of Leeds

Graduate Student, Institute of Psychological Sciences

About

I came to the University of Leeds as a mature student at the grand old age of 24, after being employed for a few years in various roles in my home county of Cumbria.  I found I most enjoyed the research elements of my degree, and after working as a research assistant with Dr Charity Brown for a summer, decided to stay at the university to complete a PhD.  My 3rd year dissertation project concerned how eyewitness discussion can influence face memory and recognition. This lead me to wonder how discussing other types of memories could influence your memory of the original event, and this eventually lead to the development of my PhD topic.
 
I am interested in how the emotions that are associated with autobiographical memories fade in intensity over time (the Fading Affect Bias).  I am specifically interested in how social disclosure of event memories can influence this process; does talking about events help or hinder in the fading of emotional intensity?  Moreover, does the behaviour of your audience matter? 

My approach to answering these questions involves the experimental manipulation of audience behaviour during participant disclosures of event memories, and analysis of data using multilevel modelling.  I am also interested in mixing quantitative and qualitative methods to answer research questions, and so I am using conversation analysis to examine the interactions between the participants in my study.