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Home Facilities
Facilities

CoCo has extensive facilities for basic and applied research in psychology.

As of January 2014, Facilities include:



Virtual Reality Laboratory

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We have a fully immersive large-space Virtual Reality facility that can be used for a number of psychology studies. The principle benefit of such a system is that it allows you to precisely control and manipulate a participants perspective in the first person. the lab contains 2 head mounted displays which allow for head movements to be tracked  using one of two motion capture systems.

The facility allows for full body tracking using either optical motion capture using an Optitrack 16 camera setup, or a Polhemus Latus magnetic tracking system which is especially useful when conducting studies where markers become occluded from camera views. The lab also features a pair of VR gloves for tracking of hand and arm movements (including finger movements) that allow users to fully interact with your environment. Other features include eye tracking and speech recording.

Creation of experiments is based on Vizard, a powerful Python set of modules and libraries that allows for seamless integration of motion tracking, environment models and experimental features.

 

The lab can be booked using the standard psychology facilities booking system.

 

fMRI Analysis Workstation

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An fMRI analysis workstation with BrainVoyager to localise brain areas that have specific functions in the interaction between perception and action. This research contributes to our understanding of brain and behaviour, but also allows us to make recommendations for treatment of disorders suffered by brain-damaged individuals.

 

Cognitive Development Laboratory

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A laboratory with child friendly furniture and artefacts to study the development of recognition memory, property ownership, young children's susceptibility to functional fixedness and young children's reasoning about artefact origins, functions and identity.

 

Observation Laboratory

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A laboratory with built-in video cameras and a two-way mirror which is used to assess how technology can improve the health and wellbeing of older people, to identify barriers that may prevent different types of people from using technology in their everyday lives and to determine what designers and product developers need to consider when developing technology for use by different types of people.

 

Vision and Action Laboratory

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Vision and action lab with tracking sensors, shutter glasses and eye tracking to study behavioural and neural correlates of human visual perception and action and spatial cognition.  Studies are done with both healthy people and patients with specific deficits following brain damage such as stroke, allowing unique insights into the functioning of visuo-motor control in the normal brain to be made.

 

Small Laboratories

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Several small laboratories are available for individual cognitive testing and interviews.

 

Group Laboratories

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Large group labs for running computer based batteries of cognitive tests and online studies.  Typical studies include assessing what makes us trust a message or information online, why and when we feel secure in disclosing information online and what types of privacy we seek to protect.

 

Eye Tracking

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We use a range of eye trackers, which include an SR-Research Eyelink 1000 desktop and Eyelink II head-mounted tracker , Tobii desktop eye tracker and an Arrington Research portable tracker.

 

These are used to conduct studies with a range of clinical populations in order to understand the underlying cause and cognitive effects of disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorders, Broca’s Aphasia, Dyslexia, and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

Eye tracking is also used to do usability testing by mapping how people pay attention to specific features of products and websites.

 

EEG equipment

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128 channel Biosemi EEG equipment to measure brain activity and response to cognitive events.  We use it to investigate the influence of diabetes and the ageing processes on different types of cognitive abilities with the view to designing interventions and compensatory strategies. It is hoped that these interventions will help improve the quality of life of people with diabetes and their carers.