psychnews april 2011

letter just wouldn’t be possi-

ble without them.

As term 2 draws to a close

we take a look at some of the

studies Level Ones took part

in, how to combat all your

exam stress and much more.

Have a good break guys!

Welcome to issue #2 of

Psych News! Due to the pop-

ularity of the first issue Toby

has shared his wisdom (and

responsibilities!) on to me to

give him a helping hand.

Once again, you guys have

been awesome at emailing in

your articles and this news-

Letter from the Editor!

Brunel Psychology Society Needs

As a hatchling newsletter we

would like to expand our

reader base and find out

more about what you want.

So we’re asking you nicely

to fill in a quick survey for

us so we can get an idea

of what interests you in

psychology and what you

would like to see more of!

Regardless of what year

you’re in or even if you’re

not part of the society,

we’d still like to know

what you think.

The survey will

help us improve

our new society in ways

which benefit you. Next year

we want to plan events and

organise society meetings

however, we need to know

what types of things you’d

like to be organised in order

for it to happen.

Do you want more film

screenings? Group outings?

Or even just a coffee in Ro-

coco’s? We want to improve

your experience in the socie-

ty, so please take the time

to fill the survey in so we

can make what you want

to happen a reality.

http://

www.surveymonkey.com/s/

XFZM5TK

PSYCHOLOGY – FROM THE VIEW OF AN EPILEPTIC

2

LEVEL ONE STUDY GROUPS!

3

CELEBRATING BRUNEL’S FIRST BRAIN AWARE-

NESS WEEK.

4

DREAM CREATURES 5

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNI-

TY OF THE MONTH 7

THE IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP FOR SUCCESS.

8

LEVEL THREE: NATION-

AL STUDENT SURVEY

9

SOFTWARE OF THE

MONTH 10

BOOK OF THE MONTH 12

BEAT THE EXAM

STRESS! 10 SIMPLE

TIPS

6

WEBSITE OF THE MONTH 12

COURSE REP FEEDBACK 13

VIDEO OF THE MONTH 15

STRUGGLING WITH A

DISORDER? THERE’S

HELP

15

A FEW WORDS ON EEG 16

FACE WEEK 17

BPS EVENTS 18

STUDENT MEMBER

GROUP 20

BRUNEL VOLUNTEERS

AWARD 20

WORDSEARCH 21

Inside this issue:

B r u n e l P s y c h o l o g y S o c i e t y

Psych NewsPsych NewsPsych NewsPsych News Issue #2 April 2011 [email protected]

http://on.fb.me/fHhxZ5

By Emily Yates & Keir Jackson

L1 Psychology Students

By Emily Yates PsychNews Editor

What do

you want

from us?

Photo taken by Lynn Myers, published in Glove Box Guide to the East Kimberley 2011 edition

Top Tip:

If you’re looking

for a book in the

library and can’t

seem to find it,

check behind

the shelf;

sometimes they

get pushed

back.

Emily Yates

Epilepsy – A neuro-

logical condition

caused by excessive

neuronal activity within

the brain. I have suf-

fered from frontal lobe

epilepsy for much of

my life, the symptoms

first manifesting a few

years after I survived a

brain tumour at the age

of 7. After the surgery,

I experienced a noticeable

change in personality (even

now my cognition now under-

goes temporary changes fol-

lowing a seizure). Key chang-

es were a large dulling of

emotional attachment, or ra-

ther, the need for emotional

attachment, compared to be-

fore where I was a classic

“mummy’s boy”. This, as my

parents incessantly point out,

largely affected my approach

to familial relationships.

Still, these unusual

changes nurtured a

growing interest within

me for the nature of

the mind and exist-

ence itself

with both psychology and

philosophy becoming integral

to my interests (although with

my limited vocabulary as a

child I simply called this an

interest in “asking questions”).

Now at the age of 18, I am

studying for a BSc in psychol-

ogy, and I would say that

even though symptoms occa-

sionally appear despite my

medication, I think that epilep-

sy does anything but hinder

my ability to learn. In fact, I

would go as far to say it is

largely a motivational factor in

me. Experiencing these

changes and abnormalities,

while often painful and con-

fusing at the time, has lead

me to be greatly fascinated in

the workings of the mind. The

brain is an incredible system

and processor, as many of

our recent lectures in brain

and cognition have shown,

and to be able to experience

these dramatic changes my-

self is something I have come

to view as a privilege, an op-

portunity to understand neu-

rological symptoms first-

hand. While psychology was

something I could see myself

inevitably being interested in,

without the experiences I

undergo I doubt my interest

and willingness to learn more

about the “hows” of the brain,

mind, and life itself would be

so prominent.

Our lives and our society are

controlled by our actions,

every day we are exposed to

our own and other people’s

thoughts, ideas, differences

in people’s interpretations of

reality itself. There is not a

single area of our lives in

which psychology does not

remain as a factor. Under-

standing and analysing the

differences between the vari-

ous “lenses” through which

we view ourselves and oth-

ers, the very cognitive and

behavioural processes that

govern our existence, are the

crux of psychology.

Being a sufferer of a

condition that can at

times affect my atten-

tion, awareness and

mood, has pushed me

to be able to fully em-

pathise with all suffer-

ers of mental condi-

tions.”

While the experiences are

different, and indeed, un-

knowable to one another, I

believe the study of psycholo-

gy assists as a bridge of un-

derstanding and objectivity

between people with different

mentalities. It bridges areas

from behavioural and cogni-

tive abnormalities (such as

myself), to mere emotional

differences between people.

This understanding helps us

to relate to the lens through

which another might view the

world, making psychology

itself an invaluable area of

study.

Psychology – From the view of an epileptic

Psych NewsPsych NewsPsych NewsPsych News

“Epilepsy – A neuro-

logical condition

caused by excessive neuronal

activity within the

brain.”

By Keir Jackson

L1 Psychology Student

[email protected] http://on.fb.me/fHhxZ5

“...to be able

to experi-

ence these

dramatic

changes my-

self is some-

thing I have

come to view

as a privi-

lege.”

Keir “Clever Hans” Jackson.

Top Tip: When you

save a file, name it

appropri-ately. Re-member, your lec-turer can

see the name on U

-link!

tion revision, statistics or re-search methods, or even social sciences work.

We’re all in the same boat and we’re all here to help each other.

So don’t feel shy or embar-rassed about coming along. It’s very informal and we have chats about the work, discus-sions about our opinions and how we’re finding the mod-ules, and we even eat dough-nuts!

Join the BPS Brunel Psychol-ogy Society on Facebook to find out what room the study

With exams around the cor-ner and final coursework deadlines approaching I felt there was a need to write an article about the study groups we hold every Thursday.

Many of you have comment-ed on how you feel they would be useful and yet very few of you turn up! They’re held every Thursday from 11am-12pm.

You’re free to bring any work you want.

Whether it’s brain and cogni-

group will be in each week and come along.

Whether you’ve got your revi-sion sorted or you don’t even know where to start, we’re just here to support you and help you develop confidence in your own abilities.

You’re more than capable of getting that First!

Level One Study Groups!


By Emily Yates

PsychNews Editor


“Every

Thursday

from

11am-

12pm”

Throughout one week in March, 750 educational insti-tutions in 52 countries united under the banner of Brain Awareness Week: Research-ers and health professionals from across the globe contrib-uted to a series of concurrent events aimed at advancing public understanding of the progress in and benefits of brain research. The Dana Initiative, the founding organi-sation, proclaimed this year’s as the most successful cam-paign ever: Here at Brunel, we are extremely proud to have played a part in this international celebration of our amazing brains.

Brunel’s first contribution this annual series of events was jointly organised by Dr. Alex Nowicky (Health Sciences and Social Care), Dr. Adrian Williams, Dr. Andrew Parton, and Sean Williams (Social Sciences - Psychology). The organizers felt that the cam-paign provided an excellent opportunity for Brunel’s re-

searchers to engage with both the pub-lic and the wider aca-demic com-munity on issues relat-ing to brain health and function.

Brunel Brain Awareness Week (BBAW),

which took place from 15th - 17th March, provided accessi-ble and engaging public lec-tures led by expert research-ers from across the Universi-ty: The twelve talks show-cased Brunel’s diverse contri-butions to brain research in an entertaining and enlighten-ing manner. We are extremely

grateful to colleagues from the School of Social Scienc-es, the School of Health Sci-ences and Social Care, the Brunel Institute for Ageing Studies (BIAS), Sports Sci-ences, Biosciences, and Computing for taking the op-portunity to disseminate Bru-nel’s latest innovations in neuroscience to a broader audience. To view a full list of presenters, please visit www.brunel.ac.uk/brain.

In addition to the contribu-tions from Brunel, we were delighted to welcome Brian Butterworth, Emeritus Profes-sor at UCL, to deliver the keynote talk on Tuesday 15th March: Prof. Butterworth, a fellow of the British Academy, presented his latest research into ‘dyscalculia’ – the sci-ence of failing to learn arith-metic. Advancing ideas pre-sented in his seminal book ‘The Mathematical Brain’ (2004), Professor But-terworth contended that the reluctance to formally recog-nise dyscalculia heralds a great disadvantage, not only to those with the learning difficulty, but also to society in general. Whereas its linguis-tic counterpart, dyslexia, is systematically studied by eminent scientists, dyscal-culia has been peculiarly overlooked – in spite of its high incidence rate, as well as its impact on economic and social factors. This lively talk, attracting around 50 people, presented what will surely become the focus of intense research in the near future.

On Wednesday 16th March, the BBAW team, in collabora-tion with the Widening Partici-pation office, invited sixty Year 10 pupils from local schools to attend a series of workshops held in various labs across campus: Dr. Gus-tav Kuhn opened the day with a brain-related magic show; Dr. Alex Nowicky demonstrat-ed transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS); Dr. Adrian

Williams taught the pupils about our brain’s sensory system using the two-point discrimination task; Professor Michael Wright convened an EEG demonstration; and Dr. Andrew Parton demonstrated the plasticity of our visual system via the prism-adaptation paradigm. The Widening Participation day proved an excellent oppor-tunity to inspire young pupils to consider following a path into higher education. The workshops showed that the brain sciences are not impen-etrable and incomprehensible subjects; rather, they are accessible to all, and contain a wealth of exciting and inval-uable practical applications.

Having welcomed in excess of 100 attendees over the course of the two days of public lectures, BBAW high-lights the enthusiasm har-boured by individuals for dis-covering more about our amazing brains. The organis-ing team would like to thank all those who came along during the event, as well as those who contributed to making this Brunel’s first Brain Awareness Week a success.

To view our photos, please visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brunelbrainawareness/

Celebrating Brunel’s First Brain Awareness Week


By Sean Williams

BBAW Administrator


“provided ac-

cessible and en-

gaging public

lectures led by

expert research-

ers from across

the University.”

“The work-

shops showed

that the brain

sciences are

not impenetra-

ble and incom-

prehensible

subjects.”

Toby Berriman puts his brain

to the test.

Sean Williams

The Freudian part of my ex-planation would be that the dream characters arise from the primary process and have an intrinsic connection with the dreamer’s unconscious. Unconscious motivations construct who the characters “really are”, “really want” etc. However the guise in which they are clothed in the dream is based on the dreamer’s

memories of waking experi-ences – but in no particular form or order. The Neuropsy-chological part of my expla-nation is that executive pro-cesses – those conscious

mental pro-cesses that order our experi-ences - are weakened in the dreaming state. And Theory of Mind – our understanding of what other people can and cannot know, think and intend – depends at least in part on

I aspire to elegant theories and hard data, but what at-tracts me to psychology are fascinating phenomena. In 1999 I decided to go outside my comfort zone (which at that time was the psycho-physics of motion perception) and present a con-ference paper on dreams. I am puz-zled by characters in dreams – they are creations of the dreamer, yet they are “ego alien” and autonomous. They do things to us (the dreamer) and are things to us (and those things can be nice, scary or just strange). I did a small study at Brunel in which I collected dream reports from students, asking particu-larly about any dream charac-ters (people, animals, mon-sters, ghosts etc.) and sup-plemented them with a collec-tion of published dream re-ports. In some of these re-ports, the intrinsic connection between the dreamer and the dream character revealed itself, by-passing of the rules of ordinary communication.

Thus the dreamer “just knew” what the character thought, wanted or was going to do.

Or, despite appearances to the contrary, the dreamer “really knew” that the charac-ter was their mother, ex-boyfriend, or someone who had died. Freud (1922) wrote a very interesting paper enti-tled “Dreams and Telepathy”: telepathic-like phenomena are quite common in dreams. He sought psychological rather than supernatural causes for such anomalous experiences.

executive processes. Therefore, just as the narra-tive of dreams does not conform to the constraints of reality (nor indeed to the rules of conventional fiction) Theory of Mind in dreams should appear somewhat “leaky”. When the dreamer communicates with charac-ters in dreams, sometimes it appears in the dream reports as a fairly conven-tional interchange, but sometimes it appears as something different – something uncanny.

That, at any rate was the gist of my theory, which I illustrated with extracts from dream reports and proper references. The effect on the confer-ence was not what I expected. A very distin-guished psychologist, notorious for his com-bative style, absolutely tore into my presenta-tion. It was difficult to pin down what was making him so angry, but since he had worked with Perner (pioneer of Theory of Mind), I think he thought I was con-taminating the theory. I stood my ground as best as I could, hoping that the session Chair would bring proceedings to a rapid close. This didn’t hap-pen. Instead, the Chair was so caught up in the inter-change that he extended the session for 30 minutes while we battled it out, obliterating the coffee break. Somehow after 30 minutes I was still standing, still able to speak coherently, and that felt like some kind of achievement. However I have often asked myself whether these inter-ests and theoretical specula-tions were all complete and utter nonsense. I don’t think so. What do you think?

Dream Creatures: an adventure outside the Conference Comfort Zone


By Professor Michael Wright


“I am puzzled

by characters in

dreams – they

are creations of

the dreamer,

yet they are

‘ego alien’ and

autonomous.”

“...he ex-

tended the

session for

30 minutes

while we

battled it

out, oblite-

rating the

coffee

Top Tip:

Did you know the

library printers

have a scanner

function for just

2p a go?

It can even email

you the scanned

pages!

Professor Michael Wright

In the stressful exam period

there are simple ways we can

manage our academic perfor-

mance and our mental health,

you don't have to compromise

all your mental energy in or-

der to do well, in fact often

that is just counter productive.

Here, I go through 10 simple

every day things that hugely

contribute in the success of

maintaining my mental well

being and maximising my

academic potential.

1. Allocate a place to work

I find it helps me not to work

and sleep at the same place,

by this I mean not putting the

laptop on my bed, spreading

out books and papers and

working in that manner. It's

much better to allocate work-

ing space to a table and rest-

ing space to your bed. You

will find that you begin to as-

sociate your bed with working

and eating and it becomes

more of a living area rather

than a sleeping area which

may decrease the quality

of both your rest and your

work.

2. Keep a diary of events

or study schedule

Keeping a diary or an or-

ganiser of events helps in

taking all the information

that's crammed in your

head and placing it on a piece

of paper where it's nicely or-

ganised. This way you don't

need to worry about remem-

bering everything and you'll

find that you plan more effec-

tively when you have it written

down and can refer back to it.

It doesn't mean that you will

rigidly follow this agenda how-

ever just having that visual

outlet can help in reducing

the inner stress and being

more productive.

3. Be productive

When you do plan, try and

stick to it. Rather than spend-

ing time thinking about how

much you need to do actually

get yourself to do it. Even if

you don't finish everything on

your list for one day you will

find once you start being pro-

ductive the stress levels de-

crease rapidly and you start

planning more realistically.

Getting work done whether

it's doing the dishes or start-

ing an essay always has a

feel good factor which in turn

calms your nerves and reduc-

es stress levels.

4. Reward yourself

Sometimes getting things

done and the feel good factor

are reward enough for being

productive, however it's a

nice idea to give yourself a

treat every time you do some-

thing productive. For example

for every weeks worth of ef-

fective revision you do reward

yourself with a night out; on a

smaller scale for every time

you pass a practice paper

give yourself a chocolate.

This is an active way of rec-

ognising your own achieve-

ment and abilities however it

does take self-discipline

(don't just finish all the choco-

late half way through a pa-

per!).

5. Exercise

This is something many of us

know but very little of us actu-

ally do. Exercising is healthy

for your body and your brain,

getting that heart rate up and

pumping is a wonderful kick

start to the day or even a

good way to let out all the

stress at the end of the day.

Exercise can reduce your

stress hormones such as

cortisol and increase endor-

phins alongside generally

taking your mind off stressful

events.

6. Like what you see, hear

and smell

Engross yourself in positivity.

Be kind to your eyes by main-

taining a clean environment,

reduce the chaos around you

just by keeping your living

area clean.

There is some re-

search that indicates

sleeping in a cleaner

environment improves

the quality of your

sleep.

Be kind to your nose by main-

taining nice smells in your

room, personally I love the

smell of freshly cut grass

(perhaps not something I

would want in my room), light

some soft incense or simply

lovely smelling fresh sheets.

Try and listen to sounds you

enjoy, you may just enjoy the

sound of running water or you

may enjoy specific types of

music. Here I'm not suggest-

ing you leave the tap running

for hours or have your favour-

ite song on repeat on the

iPod for hours on end but

actually listen to them when

the sounds occur rather than

just hearing them. Also give

your ears a rest sometimes,

just enjoy the sweet sound of

silence.

7. Don't let screens take

over your life

People often complain of

Beat the exam stress! 10 simple tips


“Rather than

spending time

thinking about

how much you

need to do,

actually get

yourself to do

it.”

By Sidra Beg



“Exercising is

healthy for

your body

and your

brain.”

Sidra Beg

be for some people it's some-

what healthier to engage in

more wholesome discussion.

This will again give you a feel

good factor because you're

enriching your mind with

goodness and are having a

beneficial, enjoyable conver-

sation. The feel good factor in

turn reduces stress levels.

9. Have ‘me’ time

It' s just as important to give

yourself a break and have

time to yourself. This can

become difficult if you have

room mates or flat mates that

constantly pester you but find

a way to give yourself space

just to absorb life. Give your

mind a chance to cleanse

itself, give your thoughts a

chance to run free and get

creative! You can indulge in

some sort of art or even have

headaches and it very well

could be because our lives

are taken over by screens.

Mobiles, laptops, iPads,

iPods, lecture theatres, cine-

mas and televisions are

things that are part of our

everyday lives. Get out of

your computer screens and

spend time with some ani-

mate creation!

8. Talk to people

When I say people here I

mean people in person not

through some sort of mobile

or computer. Spend time with

real people, socialise whether

it's through sports or a night

out get some human interac-

tion and get talking! It's good

to keep yourself in good com-

pany so long as you discuss

healthy topics; as fun as find-

ing out the latest gossip might

your ‘me’ time whilst you

exercise but this time is im-

portant and is a key factor in

your emotional stability. ‘Me’

time allows you to be selfish

and for a while to only live

for what you enjoy best.

10. Smile

I find the more I smile the

more I realise how much I

have to smile about. Smiling

is a great way to boost those

endorphins and some opin-

ions believe that

smiling reduces

the chances of

getting a stroke or

heart attack be-

cause it is such

an effective

stress reducer!

Beat the exam stress! 10 simple tips


“...an

independent

charity

affiliated to

national Mind

that runs day

centres in


Volunteer opportunity of the month: MIND

Mind in Camden is an inde-

pendent charity affiliated to

national Mind that runs day

centres in Camden Town and

Swiss Cottage. There are

volunteer opportunities at the

moment for Foundation Sup-

port Time and Recovery

Workers.

“The volunteer Foundation

STR volunteer will provide

support and give time to an

allocated group of day ser-

vice members to assist and

promote their recovery. The

Foundation volunteer will

work alongside paid Interme-

diate and Senior STR Work-

ers and other volunteers.”

Mind in Camden request that

Foundation STR Volunteers

offer:

• At least 5 hours per week of

volunteering

• 6-12 months of service

• Submit to a CRB

• Attend 2 days training be-

fore starting

Mind in Camden provide op-portunities for training, includ-ing the Level 2 NVQ in Men-

“I find the

more I smile

the more I real-

ise how much I

have to smile

about.”

“...a truly

excellent

thing to have

on your

CV...”

By Toby Berriman


tal Health training, and is a truly excellent thing to have on your CV if you want to go into almost any psychology related field as you will have opportunities to improve and develop interpersonal skills, organisation, run groups for members, and first-hand ex-perience with a variety of mental health symptoms. http://www.mindincamden.org.uk/Click here to find out more about it!

Some of you may be aware

that last term Professor Mi-

chael Wright was running an

experiment that required par-

ticipants to perform a task

within an fMRI. I am a mas-

sive fan of neuropsychology

so I leapt at the chance, I

didn’t even care if he was

offering credits or not. Just in

case he is still running further

trials I won’t go into details

about the experiment but all I

was required to do was press

a button when a stimulus on

the screen popped up;

a very simple task.

Now let us rewind to

the night before. I live

on campus and the

girls in my flat (bless

their cotton socks) like

to party. A lot. They like

it so much that they put

the same amount of

enthusiasm into every-

thing they do as though it

were a party. Making toast in

my kitchen is an event worth

cheering about. The night

before the experiment some-

one made toast at 01:00.

Then one of the guys in my

flat came home with his drunk

friends at about 04:00. They

are the type of big lads that

don’t know their own strength

when closing doors and like

talking loudly in the kitchen.

At about 08:30 the cleaners

came into the flat to empty the

bins, clean the kitchen and

loudly have a conversation.

Did I mention that my room is

next to the kitchen? The ex-

periment was booked for

16:00 - plenty of time to sleep

you may think: you obviously

don’t live in halls. Throughout

the day everyone in my flat

went in and out of the kitchen

to eat, listen to music or

just stand in it and talk.

Let us fast forward back

to the experiment. I was

extremely pumped to be

inside an actual fMRI and

see how it worked. For

those that do not know an

fMRI is a functional mag-

netic resonance imager.

In order to find out what

my brain is up to it corre-

lates blood oxygenation

with neuronal activities

taking place in my thinker

-box and records them. Then,

using t-statistics (yeah all that

statistics malarkey), creates a

super amazing image of my

brain in a way I cannot under-

stand. It is also a massive

cylindrical magnet large

enough to fit a normal human

body. The magnet makes a

lot of noise. It is so loud that

while inside the machine you

have to wear earplugs and

are given a panic button just

in case you run into problems

(such as pain that wasn’t

there when you went in) and

can no longer speak/be

heard. Oh and it is quite ex-

pensive for the university to

book a session on one; I be-

lieve the amount I was told

was around the £400 mark.

It is very important that you

don’t move inside an fMRI,

the simplest movement could

make the difference between

actual activity being recorded

that supports your data or a

complete waste of time. To

ensure this won’t happen you

are placed inside a head-rest

and instructed to stay very

still. So while I was inside this

great whirring machine that

was making a great deal of

noise, restrained (in a very

comfortable way) and com-

pletely tensed lest I ruin the

experiment I came upon a

rather amusing realization: It

was much quieter than halls.

Comfier too. Rather relaxing

actually - I could almost imag-

ine myself falling asleep -

how hilarious would that be?

Falling asleep inside a loud

machine in one of the least

comfortable positions possi-

ble...And then I woke up with

a jolt. Michael Wright and the

man who was controlling the

fMRI were standing above

me and asking if I were okay.

I had stopped answering

them, without pressing the

panic button, so they had

come to check I was still con-

scious. I could have thought

of a really interesting phe-

nomenon to say had oc-

curred, saved a little face, but

instead I sleepily mumbled

I think...I fell

asleep...sorry.

The experiment couldn’t be

repeated because by then I

would have been used to the

task and would have a differ-

ent advantage than he was

interested in studying. £400

and half of the data from my

participation down the drain

Michael Wright, his co-worker

and I left. The drive back to

Brunel was very long.

When I got back to Brunel I

bought earplugs.

The importance of sleep for success


By Yazmin Banbury-Milton



“The experi-ment was

booked for 16:00 - plenty

of time to sleep you may think: you ob-viously don’t live in halls.”

“Falling asleep

inside a loud

machine in one

of the least

comfortable po-

sitions possi-

ble...And then I

woke up with a

jolt.”

Yazmin Banbury-Milton

Psych NewsPsych NewsPsych NewsPsych News [email protected] http://on.fb.me/fHhxZ5

centage of students satisfied so if you are in anyway satisfied with your time at Brunel you need to tick the ‘definitely satisfied’ or ‘often satisfied’ options as all the other op-tions (including the middle one) are not in-cluded in this calculation.

The results from the main 22 questions

are made available for prospective students

and their advisors on Unistats.com to help

them make informed choices of what and

where to study.

Level 3 students: Don’t for-

get that the National Student

Survey (NSS) is open until

the end of April so if you

haven't already completed

the form, please click on

www.thestudentsurvey.com

Results will show the per-

By Bridget Dibb

Psychology Touchpoint Leader

Level Three: The National Student Survey

How organised are your jour-

nal files? When you come to

look for a specific journal do

you know exactly where it is,

or do you have to open differ-

ent obscurely named files one

by one to find the one you are

looking for? That used to be

me. I would be opening files

looking for the one I got a

reference from…”987234.pdf?

hmm, no not that one.

2993302.pdf? No, not that

one either dammit!”

Mendeley is piece of

software which helps

you organise and use

your journals.

Just drag and drop the PDF

file onto the application and it

will automagically extract the

metadata from the file

(author, title, journal, year of

publication, keywords and so

on). It can even rename the

physical file according to the

metadata so instead of those

obscurely named files you

can have nice files like Has-

lam, Reicher - 2008 - Ques-

tioning the banality of evil.pdf

– Much easier to manage!

Once your journals are im-

ported into Mendeley you can

view them in a list, sort by

title, year etc., and easily

search through your docu-

ments. You can also add the

journals to collections, mak-

ing it easy to group related

files together (for example for

an essay).

Mendeley also allows you to

open your journals within the

application.

...and make highlights

and annotations di-

rectly on the file.

For journals that have come

down as images rather than

as text you can use a square

highlight rather than the text

highlight you would usually

use.

Finally, Mendeley can

export citations in any

of the supported

styles (including APA).

Simply right click on a docu-

ment in the list, choose “Copy

Citation” then paste directly

into your essay to get

“Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S.

(2008). Questioning the ba-

nality of evil, 21(1), 2005-

2008.” If you want something

even more advanced, install

the Word plug-in then you

can search journals by title

Software of the Month: Mendeley


By Toby Berriman

Mendeley Advisor


“Once your

journals are

imported into

Mendeley

you can view

them in a list,

sort by title,

year etc.”

“How organ-

ised are

your journal

files?”

Top Tip:

Allocate set

times for

work and

leisure.

This is the main view of your journals in Mendeley. Notice how organised it all looks!

directly from within word and

add a reference at the current

cursor position,

as well as automatical-

ly generating a refer-

ence list at the end of

the document.

This last feature is a real god-

send, without it I really strug-

gled to keep track of which

journals I had referenced in

the essay and whether I had


Software of the Month: Mendeley

“Mendeley

synchronises

your journals

and annota-

tions online so

you can ac-

cess them

from any-

where.” “Simply right

click on a doc-

ument in the

list, choose

“Copy Cita-

tion” then

paste directly

into your es-

say.”

included them in my refer-

ences list. And if I removed a

reference from the essay I

would invariably be left with

entries in my references list

for things that were no longer

there!

And if this wasn’t all enough,

Mendeley synchronises your

journals and annotations

online so you can access

them from anywhere. You

can also join groups to keep

up with, or participate in re-

search in various topics! Top Tip:

It’s easier to

save things to a

memory stick

than to mail

them backwards

and forwards

from home to

university.

This is the feature that allows you to highlight and make notes on your journals.

This is the search box you use when adding a reference to an essay.



structured and the highly vis-

ual layout make it a great

learning resource for people

like me who find reams of

plain text more effective than

sleeping tablets!

The Brain Book starts with 20

or so pages of sequential

MRI scans, showing cross-

sections right through the

brain to help you build up a

real understanding of the

internal anatomy and relate

later discussions of brain

parts (everything from the

corpus callosum to the globus

pallidus) back to a real brain.

The illustration diagrams,

again particularly of the anat-

omy of the brain, are clearer

and easier to understand

than any I have seen in any

of the many psychology text-

books I have looked at.

The book is broken into the

following sections, making up

Wow. What a book.

I'm not sure what I

expected from The

Brain Book, but it sur-

passed any expecta-

tions I might have had.

What looks on the

outside like a fun but

not very serious book

about the brain for mid

to late teens is actually

intensely packed full of

detailed information -

particularly anatomy -

wonderfully laid out

and illustrated. The

scope of this book and

the quality of the cov-

erage make this an

absolute must for

someone who wants

to learn about how the

brain functions and is

the circa 240 large-format

pages of the book:

Introduction

The Brain and the

Body, Brain Anatomy, The

Senses, Movement and Con-

trol, Emotions and Feel-

ing, The Social

Brain, Language and Com-

munication, Memory

Thinking, Conscious-

ness, The Individual

Brain, Development and Ag-

ing, Disease and Disorders

All in all this is a truly fantastic

book, put together with amaz-

ing attention to detail to cre-

ate something that is almost

as much a piece of art as it is

an informative resource! The

glossy pages, high quality

illustrations, and simple to

read show once again the DK

rule the roost when it comes

to publishing the best non-

fiction resources around!

Book of the Month: The Brain Book by Rita Carter

By Toby Berriman


Website of the Month: TED

By Emily Yates

PsychNews Editor

Ever wanted to watch a pro-

fessional talk but never

known how to go about it?

Have no fear, TED is here!

With full recordings of over

900 talks by experimenters

you’ll be studying. For in-

stance http://bit.ly/19g2QJ

this talk, by Zimbardo him-

self on people’s potential to

commit evil is not only rele-

vant to our studies, but it’s

also incredibly interesting!

If you wanted to take your

studying into new depths or

just fancied having a listen

to some new findings or dif-

ferent views on the topics

you’re studying then you’ll

love having them all at a

click of your mouse.

Here’s one for all you neuro-

psychs out there http://

bit.ly/12scyE

The search bar option en-

sures that the website is

easy to navigate (even for

us technophobes) and

there’s so much to watch

you can end up spending

hours fascinated by the find-

ings.

“...there’s so

much to

watch you

can end up

spending

hours

fascinated by

the findings.”

“...an absolute

must for some-

one who wants

to learn about

how the brain

functions.”


Hi, I’m Toby one of your L1

course reps. You should all

know by now what your

course reps do, and how

much effort goes into our

work, but what you don’t hear

about is the work that goes on

behind the scenes. So here I

am to fill you in on some of

what is going on at the mo-

ment.

Brunel’s scheme of course

and school reps is excellent

(and I haven’t even been paid

to say that, although I am

open to bribery!), but as good

as it is there is still room for

improvement and this is some

of what has been coming up

at the most recent meetings.

Below are some of the sug-

gestions that I have put for-

ward to UBS, and that I am

also pushing at course/school

level (but please don’t think I

am the only one with these

ideas by any means!). Please

bear in mind that at the mo-

ment these are only sugges-

tions and are not guaranteed

to happen, however we are

doing our best to push for

them for the benefit of all Psy-

chology students!

• Currently reps raise issues

with the staff at Student Staff

Liaison (SSL) meetings once

a term. It was agreed all

round that having so few

meetings makes it difficult to

Course Rep Feedback

get issues raised in a timely

fashion. In light of this we

have requested more regular

meetings so we, the course

reps, are better able to re-

solve any issues that need

escalating.

• Due to the high workloads of

individuals (who have kindly

given their time and skills to

the SSL meetings) the

minutes of meetings are

often not available until

shortly before the next one.

This makes it difficult to track

actions and keep on top of

issues, so we have suggest-

ed that possibly a student

can take on the role of sec-

retary and the psychology

society have offered their

own secretary for this task.

• When issues are dealt with

feedback is sometimes not

available until the next meet-

ing (again simply because

the people involved are so

busy!), which means us reps

cannot feed back to you in a

timely fashion. To address

this we have requested a

“feedback meeting” to occur

two weeks after each SSL

meeting.

• When a new rep starts it can

be confusing, even with the

training that is provided there

are a lot of questions that

arise through the year that

can be difficult for newcom-

ers to know how to handle.

We have proposed a “Rep

Mentor Scheme” whereby

any new rep is paired up

with someone who has al-

ready been in the role for a

while and who can provide

advice and answer ques-

tions. Hopefully this will

lead to more effective

course reps particularly at

level 1.

• Finally, the course rep sys-

tem is supposed to be a two

way communication be-

tween staff and students.

Currently it is very uni-

directional with issues com-

ing from students to staff,

but we would like staff to

make use of us too. To fa-

cilitate this we would like to

see a “meet and greet” at

the start of each year with

the course reps and the

lecture conveners and other

key staff from the course,

so that staff know who the

course reps are as well as

the students do.

Hopefully that gives you an

idea of what we are up to on

a wider scale, and how we

are trying to make improve-

ments wherever we can to

allow us to better support the

student population!

By Toby Berriman

L1 Psychology Course Rep

“…‘Rep Mentor

Scheme’ where-

by any new rep

is paired up

with someone

who has al-

ready been in

the role for a

while…”

“Currently reps

raise issues with

the staff at Stu-

dent Staff Liai-

son (SSL) meet-

ings once a

term.”


Video of the Month: So you want to be a Clinical Psychologist?

So you want to spend years

working for a PhD to enable

you to help people? Think

again.

By Emily Yates

PsychNews Editor

It is a well-known fact among students that those studying psychology tend to be doing so to find answers about themselves or loved ones. Be it for a mental disorder, learning disability or neuro-logical disease, these types of problems seem to pro-mote a passion for learn-ing about why our wir-ing is sometimes slightly askew.

So, I wanted to high-light a service within the university that you may not know about.

On the top floor of the library, there is the DDS, or Disability and Dyslexia Service. The DDS supports students from all levels and subjects with any kind of disability that may affect their time at university.

They can help with registering you as a known disabled stu-dent and getting you help from lecturers; such as lecture notes in advance or special exam considerations like extra

time or coloured paper. They can also help you apply for a non-repayable Disabled Stu-dent’s Allowance, or DSA, from Student Finance that

helps to fund any extra costs you may incur from your disa-bility.

They also run Disability Link Up, a service which links cur-rent students registered with DDS with new disabled stu-dents to help them settle in.

For example, I am registered with the DDS for Agoraphobia and Panic. Agoraphobia is a fear of not being able to es-cape crowded places. Things like lectures can sometimes be impossible for me to attend

due to my disorder. To help, Student Finance provided me with a voice re-corder that I can pass on to a friend to record the lec-ture for me. This help has been incredibly helpful and I wouldn’t be managing my work without it.

I know how hard it can be to disclose a disability but I really urge you to talk to the Disability and Dyslexia Service if you have one. They’re all really lovely people and incredibly supportive.

No one else at the university has to know of your disorder if you don’t want them to, but the service is there to help you with anything you may need. You don’t have to suffer a lower degree or less of a great time at university be-cause of a disorder and the DDS make sure you have the best and most effective time you can.

By Gabriella Ferrufino


Struggling With a Disorder? There’s Help

“The DDS

supports stu-

dents from all

levels and

subjects with

any kind of

disability.”

“...kind of like

the ‘gold at

the end of the

rainbow’.”

http://intranet.brunel.ac.uk/disability

This imaginative video

gives a whole new out-

look to the comparison

between Psychologists

and Counsellors.

Not only will it have you in fits

of laughter but it’s also an

entertaining idea; is it really

worth the years of hard work

and debt? Of course the

temptation of the wages at the

end of the hard work is a win-

ning feature, kind of like the

‘gold at the end of the rain-

bow’ but who knows!

http://bit.ly/efUgxc

Top Tip:

Post-it notes

are your friend.

Stationery will

be your saviour

for revision.


By Joshua Maguire


Firstly I'd just like to say I took part in a study on Electroen-cephalography and got roped in to this by Toby, who took constant pictures, thankfully he didn't take any of me washing the gel out of my hair but that's another story ;)

This article is a explanation of what an EEG is and how it is carried out. I took part in a study on it but as it is still being ongoing it may ruin the surprise for anyone who still wanted to take part, so I won't mention what happens in the experiment.

Electroencephalography (Or EEG as it is abbreviated to) is a non intrusive measure of the brain. It works by taking a gross measure of the electri-cal activity of the brain. The electric activity it measures, or event related potentials, was the cognitive processing

as a response to the stimuli.

The measure is made up by thousands possibly millions of neurons firing. It can't read them individually, but when they are grouped it can which is recorded through elec-trodes that have been placed on the participant.

The cap used is hand-made and costs about

trodes are made from rubber and silver-plated ceramic, you can also get gold but it would cost even more. Each one is labelled individually to mark its position. For exam-ple an electrode over the

A Few Words on EEG “EEG is a non

intrusive

measure of

the brain.”

“...the elec-

trodes are at-

tached and

then injected

with gel…”

Top Tip:

Get involved in as

many activities as

you can, you

might discover a

useful talent for

your CV!

Joshua Maguire in the Faraday Cage

£1,700.

The cap we used had 64 elec-trodes arranged in a linear style with gaps of 10% between them (other caps can be arranged in a geodesic pattern). The elec-


frontal cortex is labelled F1, one over the parietal cortex is labelled P3, and the central electrode is labelled CZ.

The cap is placed in a specific position over the head, with CZ being positioned ex-actly halfway between the nasion and the inion.

After using alco-hol wipes to make sure the area to where the electrodes are applied to is clean, the elec-trodes are at-tached and then injected with gel, this gel to act as a conductor and is called sa-line gel. The gel contains po-tassium and sodium salts, some starch for bulk, and a small quantity of soap. The salts provide conductivity, and the detergent breaks down the oils on the skin which can interfere with the conductivity.

The electrodes are placed around the eyes to record horizontal and vertical move-

A Few Words on EEG ment and on the mastoids, this is because they generate signals that are so strong they interfere and by measuring them we can then subtract them from the recording.

The EEG is however prone to a bit of interference so in the study I was placed inside a Faraday cage to make sure no interference took place.

The cage is grounded, so any electromagnetic waves from lights, computers air condi-tioning and so on will be ab-sorbed by the mesh and flow harmlessly to the ground.

Electric signals from the skin, muscles, blood and eyes can also inadvertently be measured by the EEG.

To get around this it's measurement rests on the fact that some EEG wave forms are associated with con-sciousness and specif-ic pathways in the brain. They generally look and compare the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Theta and Mu waves. A method used to help reduce back-ground noise is to Sig-nal averaging, where a base measurement is taken after a load of tests and then com-pared to the measure-

ment of when a stimulus is presented.

After the cap is on and the gel is in place the participant is usually presented with a control task to make sure the cap is working and the read-ings are being made, and any adjustments can be made. Then the experiment can begin.

“...EEG wave

forms are associ-

ated with con-

sciousness and

specific pathways

in the brain.”

“The elec-

trodes are

placed around

the eyes to rec-

ord horizontal

and vertical

movement...”

FACE Week

FACE is the Festival of

Awareness and Creative Ex-

pression, and it’s all about

YOU!

It’s about creating a friendly

environment, enhancing your

profile, developing our Brunel

community and interacting

with more FACE’s of the stu-

dent body.

“By having fun together we

can learn to live together”

It is also a chance for those of

you who aren’t members of

the Psychology Society (and

those of you who are this

year) yet to sign up for next

year!

Watch out for what we’ve got

planned for FACE week, we’ll

most definitely be doing

something so watch this

space!

Click the banner above to

view the official FACE page.

“By having

fun together

we can learn

to live

together”

This software screen shows resistance levels on

each electrode


The psychology of the eyewitness: Staged violence, ethics, and technology

technology to help improve

the accuracy of information

obtained from witnesses.

This has included research

with the West Yorkshire Po-

lice to develop the VIPER

video parade system, and

research developing several

iterations of the E-FIT sys-

tem, particularly work with

the Forensic Imaging Group

at Kent to develop the

groundbreaking EFIT-V sys-

tem.

User and public engagement

are a key feature of Gra-

ham’s research, as well as

working with the police, he

has worked with the Science

Museum to produce two

exhibitions and was

recently the academic

consultant and present-

er of the BBC 2 series

‘Eyewitness’.

His talk will investigate

the psychology of the

eyewitness and include

footage from the BBC 2

series in order to ex-

plore the dilemmas and

impact of using stage, vio-

lent crimes and cutting-edge

research technology.

Speaker: Graham Pike (The

Open University)

Date/Time: 24th may 2011

Location: BPS London Office,

30 Tabernacle Street, London,

EC2 4UE

Graham Pike is Professor of

Psychology, Head of the

Psychology Depart-

ment and Director

of the MSc Foren-

sic Psychology and

Criminology at the

Open University.

His research inter-

ests are in forensic

psychology and

applied cognition,

with a particular

focus on eyewit-

ness memory.

He has worked with many

UK policing services to de-

velop new techniques and

Tuesday 11 October 2011 at the Wellcome Collection Conference Centre, Euston Road, London NW1 2BE

Stories of Psychology: Archives, Histories and What They Tell Us 1.45pm-5.30pm

convened by Dr Alan Col-lins (University of Lancas-ter) and Dr Geoff Bunn (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Speakers:

Professor Richard Bentall (University of Liverpool) How we have changed the way we think about madness Professor Michael Billig (Loughborough University) Archival knowledge versus personal reminiscence: The

case of the social psycholo-gist Henri Tajfel Dr Rhodri Hayward (Queen Mary, University of London) Psychological knowledge and the making of the modern state

Graham Richards (Independent scholar and former Director of the His-tory of Psychology Centre) The psychology of archives - especially archives of psy-chology

Professor Sally Shuttle-worth (St Anne's College, Oxford) Studying the child in the nine-teenth century

The symposium will be fol-lowed by a reception in the Wellcome Library Reading Room to celebrate the col-laboration between the Wellcome Library and the British Psychological Socie-ty and to mark the transfer to the Library of the main BPS archives.

Advance free registration is essential - register here

For more information, e-mail

[email protected] or call Pe-

ter Dillon Hooper on 0116

252 9528.

History of Psychology Symposium

“Advance

free

registration

is

essential.”

Top Tip:

Take

regular

breaks

when

working

hard to

refresh your

brain.

Free entry to BPS

SMG members. Free

entry by ticket only,

available by emailing

londonandhc@googl

email.com Please

type “Public

Engagement” and

add your BPS

membership number

as ‘XXX’ in the

subject line of your

email.


The BPS SMG has a number of events scheduled, some of which are free for members!

BPS Event: Trauma, Neuroscience, and the Body

trauma in the body is rarely

foregrounded in more tradi-

tional forms of therapy. Cur-

rent findings from neurosci-

ence research are showing

major breakthroughs in what

happens in the brain follow-

ing trauma, indicating that

insight and understanding

may only have limited influ-

ence on the operation of

subcortical processes. A

body-orientated ap-

proach, such as Sen-

sorimotor psychothera-

py, may therefore offer

an alternative way of

working more directly

with the physiological

implications of trauma.

The primary focus of

this event will be on

understanding the neu-

rophysiological impacts

of trauma and how this may

be addressed through so-

matically-focused therapeu-

tic interventions.

Speaker: Dr. Andrew Harkin

Date/Time: 12th April 2011

9:30am—4:30pm

Location: Lecture Suite 1A7,

School of Psy-

chology, Peven-

sey Building, Uni-

versity of Sussex,

BN1 9QH

Cost: £120

(Members), £144

(Non-Members).

Includes refresh-

ments and buffet

lunch.

Trauma not

only has a dev-

astating effect on the mind,

but also on the body and

brain. Yet working with the

neurophysiological imprint of

If you would like

to attend this

event contact

Sheila Simmons,

Wessex Branch

Administrator at

[email protected]

g.uk, placing

Sussex: Trauma

in the subject

line. A booking

form and further

details will then

be sent to you.

sation, management of all

UBS global surveys, and de-

sign of global human capital

strategic metrics to increase

UBS’s understanding of the

value & impact of HR pro-

cesses.

Dr Hayley Mills is a Chartered

Sport and Exercise Psycholo-

gist (BPS & HPC). She grad-

uated from the University of

Surrey with both a Psycholo-

gy BSc (Hons) and an MSc in

Health Psychology. She went

on to complete a PhD in

Exercise Psychology at

the University of

Gloucestershire. Her

research interests

broadly span the psy-

chological outcomes of

exercise participation,

in conjunction with the

processes involved in

adherence and the in-

teraction of health relat-

ed motives. Her current

research and applied

projects involved part-

nerships with local health

care and exercise providers.

Speaker: Anna Adams and

Dr Hayley Mills

Date/Time: 9th May 2011

6:15pm—7:45pm

Location: UCL, Room LG04,

26 Bedford Way, Lon-

don, WC1 0AP

Anna Adams works as

the Employee Re-

search lead in the

Human Capital Perfor-

mance team at UBS

AG. This is a small,

specialized HR team

managing varied pro-

jects on a global ba-

sis. In this role she

covers a variety of

work, including strate-

gic analysis of global

performance management

data, validation of UBS selec-

tion processes through links

to performance and compen-

Career path talks—Careers in Occupational and Sports and Exercise Psychology

Free entry to BPS

SMG members. Free

entry by ticket only,

available by emailing

londonandhc@googl

email.com Please

type “Careers May”

and add your BPS

membership number

as ‘XXX’ in the

subject line of your

email.


Hello all,

Hope all is going well and that you are not too stressed with essays and exams.

For those of you who are on the Brunel Volunteers record for having done a number of volunteering hours this aca-demic year. What we would like to do at this stage is to invite you to update your records electronically. Please include any training/ volunteering/preparation hours you have done. If you have any difficulty backdat-ing, please come to the Bru-nel Volunteers office and we will deal with any problems you may have. Your award will be given to you on the basis of your record and the record that your supervisor/ organisation has provided for you.

The Levels: As you will see at the link provided below there are there levels: Bronze, Silver, and Gold.

For Bronze you will need to have completed 25 hrs of

volunteering. You are also required to provide evidence for two skills on the form pro-vided below. If you want to receive your Bronze award this year on May 23rd you need to complete the form by April 25th. If you have not com-pleted the 25 volunteering hours or the form, it’s not a problem, can simply roll over the hours for next academic year.

For Silver you need to have completed 50 hours and four skills on the form provided below. Again, if you have not completed the form by April 25th it is not a problem, you can simply roll over the hours you have accumulated for the next academic year. If you have not completed the 50

hours, you could apply for a Bronze award this year and carry the hours you have done to next year, making a silver award very easy. E.g. if you have completed 40 hours, you could receive your bronze award this year and you would only need a further 10 hours and evidence of two more skills to receive a silver award next year.

For Gold you need to have completed 100 hours and to complete eight skills on the form provided below. Again, if you have not completed the hours or the form by April 25th is not a problem, can simply roll over the hours you have accumulated for next academ-ic year. For example, if you have done 70 hours volun-teering you could apply for silver this year and you would only need 30 hours and evi-dence of four more skills to get a gold award next year.

NB: If you want to receive your award this year on May 23rd 2011 you need to com-plete the form given to the link below by April 25th

Here is the link: https://

surveys.brunel .ac.uk/

awards2011

The Brunel Volunteers Award By Anthi Vakali

“If you have

any difficulty

backdating,

please come

to the Brunel

Volunteers

office …”

“The SMG is

a branch of

the BPS for

students.”

all sorts of benefits including:

* Free or discount entry to

certain events

* An annual conference (this

year featuring a Q&A with

Prof. E. Loftus!)

* Monthly magazine The Psy-

chologist

* Quarterly magazine

PsychTalk

* Discounts on BPS books

Most psychology students

know about the British Psy-

chology Society (BPS), but

do you know about the BPS

Student Member Group

(SMG)? No? Well you’re not

alone, but that’s why I’m

here!

The SMG is a branch of the

BPS for students, and offers

* Free transfer to graduate

membership

* Reader access to Senate

House Library where the BPS

library is held

So lots of great benefits! For

more info go to the website,

or contact me, your BPS

SMG Representative, at

[email protected].

British Psychology Society Student Member Group

By Toby Berriman

http://www.bps.org.uk/smg/smg_home.cfm

Top Tip:

Ditch the

energy

drinks and

get a good

nights

sleep. Anthi Vakali


Send us your

submissions-

bpsbru-

[email protected]

m

Have you got something

good to say? A new piece of

research to share?

Without your

input this

newsletter

wouldn’t

happen,

so keep

sending

your sub-

missions in!

Submissions Wanted! Next Month is BPD aware-

ness month, we will also be

announcing the new commit-

tee and be talking more about

upcoming exams.

NEXT MONTH

Whether they’re long stories

or just quick tips, it’s all use-

ful and it all

has a place

in the news-

letter, so

get sending

your stuff!

bpsbru-

[email protected]

Psychology Wordsearch After putting together this month’s newsletter we’re completely worn out, and we bet you have had

just about enough reading for now! So here’s a quick wordsearch you can chill out with :)

Achromotopsia

Agnosia

Amnesia

Anterograde

Apperceptive

Astrocyte

Attention

Cognition

Conditioning

Frontal

Microglia

Neuron

Occipital

Oligodendrocyte

Parietal

Perception

Retrograde

Schema

Stimulus

Temporal

psychnews april 2011

Documents

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emily yates epilepsy

issue toby

new society

society meetings

year youre

quick survey

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