Applications are invited for a three-year, fully funded, full-time PhD studentship in the School of Psychology, Bangor University under the supervision of Prof Oliver Turnbull. The studentship is available from October 1st 2010 (or as soon as possible thereafter) and includes payment of UK / EU level tuition fees, a maintenance allowance of approximately £13,590 and a research allowance of £750 per year for 3 years.
Project
The last half-century has produced a vast literature on episodic memory systems, and their (hippocampally-mediated) biological underpinnings. There has also been a substantial literature on other memory systems, such as semantic or procedural skills, that are independent of episodic memory. However, despite a century-long anecdotal history (beginning with Claparade), the role for emotion-based learning systems, the role of emotion-mediated memory, has been far less investigated.
The proposed study will study the (previously un-investigated) issue of how emotions are modified in the patchy and distorted recall of these amnesic patients. In particular, the study seeks to establish whether specific classes of emotion are better recalled, do specific emotions prime each other, and whether these patterns of memory error relate to pre-morbid personality.
All of these issue bear on important emotion-related questions, especially on the relationship between emotions, and how these are developed and maintained throughout the life-span. However, studying this through the lens of amnesia represents a highly novel research strategy. Moreover, the topic has substantial clinical implications – perhaps most obviously in relation to dementia.
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