news 2014

Our structure (research) Impact of our research Postgraduate research 01 Dec 2014 Each year, some 22,000 personnel leave the UK regular forces. Many leave before completing their service and are classed as 'early leavers'. New research from The University of Manchester shows that early leavers are more likely to have mental health problems than non-early leavers, and that these are likely to respond to specialist psychological treatment services.

Dogs listen to our words, not just our voices, says Sussex study Dog owners often claim their pets understand everything they say. Now a new University of Sussex study shows that our canine friends do actually process human speech in a similar way to us. Mammal communication researchers in the School of Psychology tested more than 250 dogs to see how they responded to a set of spoken commands, and found that, like humans, dogs use different parts of the brain to process the verbal components of a familiar sentence and the emotion or intonation of the speaker.

Researchers working on artificial intelligence at Queen Mary have taught a computer to create magic tricks. The researchers from the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science gave a computer program the outline of how a magic jigsaw puzzle and a mind reading card trick work, as well the results of experiments into how humans understand magic tricks, and the system created completely new variants on those tricks which can be delivered by a magician.

The importance of looking after the mental health of parents during pregnancy and after childbirth, in order to promote the physical and mental wellbeing of both parents and child, is highlighted by researchers in a new series of articles in The Lancet . The articles were edited by Professor Alan Stein of Oxford University and Louise Howard of King's College London, and discuss the range of mental health disorders that can occur during pregnancy and after childbirth.

Sussex study reveals how 'blind insight' confounds logic People can gauge the accuracy of their decisions, even if their decision-making performance itself is no better than chance, according to new University of Sussex research. In a study , people who showed chance-level decision making still reported greater confidence about decisions that turned out to be accurate and less confidence about decisions that turned out to be inaccurate.

Airport security study shows fraudsters more likely to be caught through conversation than body language A conversation-based screening method is 20 times more effective at catching airline passengers with false cover stories than the traditional method of examining body language for suspicious signs, according to new University of Sussex research.

People tend to perceive their dominant hand as staying relatively the same size even when it's magnified, lending support to the idea that we use our hand as a constant perceptual "ruler" to measure the world around us. The findings are published in Psychological Science , a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Brain scans reveal 'grey matter' differences in media multitaskers Simultaneously using mobile phones, laptops and other media devices could be changing the structure of our brains, according to new University of Sussex research. A study published today (24 September) in PLOS ONE reveals that people who frequently use several media devices at the same time have lower grey-matter density in one particular region of the brain compared to those who use just one device occasionally.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy could give people with a recent Bipolar Disorder diagnosis a better chance of recovery, a new study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry suggests. New research compared a group of people with a recent bipolar diagnosis who had an average of 14 hours Cognitive Behavioural Therapy alongside 'treatment as usual' which includes medication and support from community mental health teams, psychiatry or a GP.

A new study has found that children who revealed they had been bullied by their brothers or sisters several times a week or more during early adolescence were twice as likely to report being clinically depressed as young adults. They were also twice as likely to say they had self-harmed within the previous year compared with those who had not been bullied.

Gamblers are greedy bird-brains, University of Warwick research finds Gamblers show the same tendencies as pigeons when they make risky decisions, new research has shown. Researchers, led by Dr Elliot Ludvig of the University of Warwick's Department of Psychology, conducted tests that found that both human gamblers and pigeons were 35% more likely to gamble for high-value than low-value rewards.

Scientists from the University of Liverpool have demonstrated the effectiveness of a fibre-based dietary ingredient that makes people feel less hungry and consume less food. Hunger is a major barrier to successful weight control and consumers need healthy foods that will help them control their appetite.

Research by the University of Liverpool suggests that, contrary to popular opinion, it can be good to feel bad at work, whilst feeling good in the workplace can also lead to negative outcomes. In a Special Issue published in Human Relations , Dr Dirk Lindebaum from the University's Management School , together with his co-author Professor Peter Jordan, developed a new line of study, and commissioned research to further explore the role of emotions in the workplace.

Vulnerable young people have a higher occurrence of psychiatric disorders and there is a vital need for better uptake of long-term treatment services, a Cardiff University study has found. Led by the School of Psychology, the research examined the prevalence of conditions including substance misuse, eating disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder among young homeless people.

Mental health problems can have a devastating impact on people's lives and cost the UK an estimated £77 billion per year. Dr Milton and colleagues aim to understand how and why such disorders occur, and to develop new treatments. They use rodent models to define the psychological, neurobiological and neurochemical bases of different mental health disorders, to investigate why certain subpopulations are more vulnerable than others, and why they respond differently to treatment.

Introducing lessons in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to children in primary schools would significantly reduce anxiety levels among 9-10 year olds, according to new research published in The Lancet Psychiatry . The study, involving researchers from Oxford, in collaboration with the Universities of Bath, Cardiff and Exeter, suggests that anxiety prevention programmes given to Year 5 pupils in school significantly reduce anxiety symptoms.

Research paper: 'Decoding sound and imagery content in early visual cortex', Current Biology - Professor Lars Muckli: researcher profile - Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology research page 'Seeing is believing', so the idiom goes, but new research suggests vision also involves a bit of hearing.

New research at the University of Sheffield aims to help healthcare professionals understand and prevent the negative effects of psychological therapies. In the AdEPT study (understanding and preventing the Adverse Effects of Psychological Therapies), researchers from the University's School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) and the Department of Psychology, analysed the adverse effects of 'talking therapies' such as counselling and cognitive behaviour therapy.

Neurodevelopmental and psychosocial risk factors in serial killers and mass murderers Institute of Health and Wellbeing Mental health specialists at the University of Glasgow have conducted the first review of published research into what causes people to undertake serial killings and mass murder. The report, which is the first of its kind to look at all the available material around serial and mass killers, identified that a complex interplay between neurodevelopmental problems and psychosocial factors are most likely to lead to incidences of this kind.

Patients in Rampton Hospital, a secure psychiatric unit in Nottinghamshire, have reported that the single most important factor affecting their recovery was the support and commitment of their therapist. A new study by researchers Phil Willmot and Professor Mary McMurran at the Institute of Mental Health , a joint venture between The University of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Healthcare , explored the changes during treatment of male inpatients diagnosed with severe personality disorders.