Psychology Labs

Touching every aspect of society, from education and criminal justice to business, marketing and politics, it aims to provide people with the ability to understand and cope with the many psychological challenges of daily life such as relationships, financial issues and workplace stress.

The commercial and grant funded research carried out by the psychology team at Salford has investigated the impact of exercise on the sleep and word-learning of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. It’s helped the BBC understand how to design and evaluate creative activities for neurodiverse teams. And it’s briefed an all-party parliamentary group examining the impact of screen use by children. Members of the team have also contributed to the development of therapies to help support frontline staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As well as supporting the department’s research interests, the labs play a large role in Salford’s undergraduate and postgraduate psychology programmes and are supported by the hands on expertise of our multiple award-winning technical team.

Introduction

Psychology laboratories

Our eleven labs include interview spaces, cognitive testing suites and various specialist labs all featuring the latest advanced, experimental software for online and lab-based data collection. This set up allows us to take an integrated approach across the following areas of psychological interest.

Psychology Laboratories

The department features a variety of systems for neuroimaging, including functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIR) and electroencephalography (EEG). It also contains a neuronavigation system enabling the analysis of neuroimaging data in 3D space and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) equipment that allows researchers to disrupt specific functions in the brain.

Eye-tracking

We use a variety of systems, including static and portable desktop solutions that allow us to gather users responses to stimulus such as websites and television programmes. We also have a variety of head-mounted systems that are more like wearing glasses and allow for discreet data collection in real world environments.

Observation

Our observation suite features recording and display solutions as well as a one way-mirror and we also have a child-friendly observation suite.

Virtual reality

The department has a long history of combining virtual reality with neuroimaging methods. We use Oculus Rift and HTC Vive head-mounted systems to explore users responses to virtual scenarios and we also have access to Octave, the University of Salford’s world-class, fully immersive 3D experience.

Psychophysiology

We have a variety of systems for the collection of psychophysiological information such as skin response and emotional arousal. These include biomarkers, electrocardiograms and pulse oximetry.