Current Research:

How does a psychological experiment work?

Disentangling the individual components of our mind that make our performance.

I am currently running an experiment integrating insight into attention, cognition, volition and all the processes that govern our behavioural. If you are interested in taking part, contact me!

Open to age groups 18-27 and those aged 55+, in Glasgow, UK.

Access the experiment on our .

Past Papers

Hanzal, S., Learmonth, G., Thut, G., & Harvey, M. (2024). Probing sustained attention and fatigue across the lifespan. PloS One, 19(7), e0292695. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292695

Turner, C., Baylan, S., Bracco, M., Cruz, G., Hanzal, S., Keime, M., Kuye, I., McNeill, D., Ng, Z., van der Plas, M., Ruzzoli, M., Thut, G., Trajkovic, J., Veniero, D., Wale, S.P., Whear, S. & Learmonth, G. (2023). Developmental changes in individual alpha frequency: Recording EEG during public engagement events. Imaging Neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.), 1, 1-14. doi.org/10.1162/imag_a_00001

Hanzal, S., Harvey, M. & Tvrda, L. (2022) An Investigation into Discomfort and Fatigue Related to the Wearing of an EEG Neurofeedback Headset. MedArXiv (pre-print). doi.org/10.1101/2023.02.16.23284115

Abstracts

Investigation of alpha rhythms during phasic alerting in young and older adults Phasic alerting involves presenting a brief alerting sound before a visual target. The tone induces a change in alertness, with a knock-on effect of improving the detection of visual targets that appear subsequently. Changes in attention and alertness are associated with changes in alpha power (8-14Hz) within the parieto-occipital cortex in young adults, but there are few studies investigating this in healthy older adults. A mixed design was used (2 x age groups: young/older, 2 x ROI: left/right, 2 x alpha power bins: high/low). 64-channel EEGs were recorded in 17 young (aged 19-24) and 15 older (aged 50-88) adults. Participants responded to a left/right visual target, either preceded by an alerting tone or silence. Alpha power was extracted before the tone and after the tone/silence. Reduced alpha was found after the alerting tone, but this was no different for young and older adults. Statistical analysis showed an effect of reduced alpha power on reaction time with a greater role of right-lateralised alpha reduction. Consequently, phasic alerting induces some beneficial effects on the alerting network by reducing alpha power which translates into a behavioural benefit. Effect of lateralisation also indicates the role of a distinct right-lateralised network for sustained attention.

Talks

Experimental Psychology Society Meeting 2022

Measuring attention in the general population: An online study.

Stirling, United Kingdom

July, 2022

Vacation Scholars Event

Optimising music listening interventions for individuals with neurological disorders

University of Glasgow, College of Science and Engineering Graduate School

September 2019

Posters

Organization for Human Brain Mapping

Neural correlates of inducing fatigue with a sustained attention task

Montréal, Canada

July 2023

Vision Sciences Society

Neural correlates of inducing fatigue with a sustained attention task

St Pete’s Beach, USA

May 2023