About this day
For A level and IB students
Join us for an exciting day of informative discussions, interactive sessions and inspirational stories that will give your students real insight into psychology beyond the classroom. Our experienced speakers will deliver five engaging sessions that examine the theories and applications of psychology in the modern world.
The day will also include a special session on examination success designed to provide students with the tools that they need to excel. With polls and quizzes throughout the day and plenty of opportunities to ask the scientists questions, this event is a must for KS5 (and keen KS4) psychology students! Book now and let us help your students realise their potential and discover the impact they can have on the world.
Host: Steve Cross (Stand-up comedian, Presenter and Producer)
“Every speaker was very enthusiastic, highly knowledgeable and really got our students interested!”
Psychology Teacher, Autumn 2022
Programme & speakers
The Experience of memory Veronica O’Keane, Trinity College Dublin
Memory is often presented as being a repository of sorts where short- and long-term information and/or events are stored in particular parts of the brain and are later recalled for processing. Memory though is very much alive and altering with each moment lived. In this talk we will explore how memory determines our sense of self.
About Professor Veronica O’Keane
Veronica O’Keane has spent almost four decades as a practicing psychiatrist and a clinical researcher. Her main research interests are mood disorders and perinatal psychiatry. Her life’s work is committed to making neuroscience alive through mapping brain function to human experience. Her book The Rag and Bone Shop examines memory as an experience.
Your Irrational Brain Nate Rae, Braintastic! Science Presenter and Psychology Teacher
Do you think that you make rational decisions? Think again… This interactive game show uses demos, experiments and quizzes to show how our brains trick us into making irrational decisions every day. You will learn to navigate the quirks of your brain and to identify unconscious biases to make smarter choices.
About Nate Rae
Nate has a masters in both English Literature and psychology, and has a passion for telling stories about science. When they are not presenting science on stage they are teaching psychology at London South Bank University, writing and edit children’s books, presenting podcasts, and doing mental health research with teenagers and transgender people.
Anthropomorphism: Our Ability to View Anything as Human Lasana Harris, University College London
People can view things that are not human as humans, including AI, pets, weather patterns, even geometric shapes in motion. This session explains the psychology and neuroscience behind how this phenomenon of anthropomorphism works, why people use it, and the consequences for decisions we make to non-human entities.
About Professor Lasana Harris
Professor Lasana Harris uses neuroscience techniques, including functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), electoencephalography (EEG), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and electromyography (EMG) to understand what makes humans unique and to investigate how we attribute humanity to non-human entities like artificial intelligence (AI) and pets.
Driverless cars: Would you trust them? Yee Mun Lee, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds
Driverless cars could be in full use on Britain’s roads in the not-so-distant future, but with this technological revolution comes a whole new set of challenges. How will pedestrians react to these autonomous vehicles? This is a session about judgement and perception in our rapidly changing world. Will we boldly step out in front of them or shrink back in fear?
About Dr Yee Mun Lee
Yee Mun Lee is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds. Her research interests include investigating the interaction between automated vehicles and other road users using various methods, especially virtual reality experimental designs.
Sleeping with the Fishes Jason Rihel, University College London
Nearly every kind of animal sleeps. By studying the universal features of sleep, researchers hope to answer fundamental questions about how and why we sleep. In this presentation, Jason will explain how to tell if a fish is asleep, what we can learn from watching the fish brain during sleep, and how these fish insights inform on sleep in humans.
About Professor Jason Rihel
Professor Jason Rihel investigates the mysteries of the timing, regulation, and purposes of sleep. Using the tropical zebrafish, Dr Rihel takes advantage of advanced genetic and imaging techniques available in that species to examine features of sleep shared by both fish and humans.