Student Caucus Research Grant - 2019 Recipients

Congratulations to the four recipients of the 2019-2021 SARMAC Student Caucus Research Grants, who will be presenting their research at SARMAC XIV in Nagoya, Japan! These four proposals stood out for their rigorous methodological approaches and the clear theoretical and practical significance of the research.

Madison Harvey, Simon Fraser University

Project title: The Impact of Interview Styles and Delay on Children’s Memory for a Staged Event.

I am a PhD student at Simon Fraser University, Canada. My research focuses on witness memory and the credibility of witnesses. In particular, I am interested in long-term memory in the context of the justice system. My study will examine children's long-term memory (i.e., after a one-year delay), and how best practice interview techniques may impact the recall of a previously witnessed event.

Supervisors: Dr. Heather Price, Dr. Deborah Connolly, and Dr. Kaila Bruer

Kho Siew Kei, University of Nottingham Malaysia

Project title: The effect of anodal and cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on the recognition of other-race faces.

I am a full-time PhD student at the University of Nottingham Malaysia. My research focuses on exploring the effect of transcranial electrical stimulation (TES)—specifically transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)—over the right occipital cortex on face recognition. In the current study, I will investigate how anodal tDCS and cathodal tDCS applied to the right occipital cortex will affect the recognition of own and other race faces.

Supervisors: Dr. Alejandro J. Estudillo and Dr. David Keeble

Ellie Aniulis, Monash University

Project title: The Real Ideal: Mis-Estimation of BMI for Own and Ideal Bodies.

I am a PhD Student at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. My research focuses on perceptions of the ‘ideal’ body, and how these can change depending on context. This study will look at how accurately women are able to estimate Body Mass Index (BMI), and how this may impact the use of figural body dissatisfaction scales, which has implications for future development of body image interventions.

Supervisors: Dr. Nicole Thomas and Dr. Gemma Sharp

Emily Towner, University of California, Los Angeles

Project title: Adolescent Feedback Learning.

I am a research associate at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an incoming PhD Student at the University of Cambridge. My PhD research will focus on learning in adolescence and how individual differences in the neural and cognitive mechanisms that underlie learning might influence mental health across the lifespan. In this study, I will investigate the ways older adolescents learn from positive and negative feedback, and whether relative biases are influenced by anxiety, depression, and experiences of early life stress.

Supervisors: Dr. Bridget Callaghan

The Adjudication Process

This year we received 30 high-quality applications which were blindly adjudicated by the Student Research Grant Committee, comprised of senior PhD students. The Committee scored applications according to five key criteria: [1] research aims, [2] methods and analysis plan, [3] significance and innovation of the project, [4] feasibility of the project, and [5] articulation of the proposal. Each proposal was blindly scored by two members of the committee, and ties were reconciled using a third blind reviewer.