Nicola Burns

Biography

Background

I am a PhD student specialising in spatial attention and advanced cognitive neuroscience methods. My research explores the neural mechanisms underlying spatial attention biases, with a particular focus (so far) on pupillary responses as an implicit measure of attentional allocation. I am currently conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of functional MRI studies investigating the neural correlates of line bisection and landmark tasks in healthy individuals. My work will extend to fMRI research on spatial reproduction, followed by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to selectively disrupt the identified brain regions to assess whether this induces spatial neglect-like biases. I have experience in advanced statistical analysis, including seed-based d-mapping (SDM-PSI) for meta-analysis. My methodological expertise spans R programming for data processing, pupillometry, and fMRI. My research contributes to a broader understanding of spatial attention mechanisms in both healthy and neuropsychological populations.

Qualifications

MSc Human Cognitive Neuropsychology - Distinction.

BSc (Hons) Psychology with Specialism in Clinical Health - First Class. 

Responsibilities & affiliations

Member of the British Neuropsychological Society.

Undergraduate teaching

Trained and supervised a group of Undergraduate students in fNIRS data collection and analyses as part of my Carnegie Trust Research Fellowship.

Currently tutor DAPR1 Undergraduate students in weekly labs, covering fundamental R programming, statistical concepts, tests (t-tests, chi-squared tests, covariance and correlations) and hypothesis testing. I also mark RMarkdown reports for DAPR1 ensuring accuracy and clarity in statistical coding and reporting.

Postgraduate teaching

Tutoring Psychological Research Skills Masters students at weekly seminars on various psychological research methods/skills, including writing research proposals, scientific papers, and power analyses. I also mark Ph.D. proposals for the MSc Psychological Research Skills course.

Research summary

Open research, advanced cognitive neuroimaging (pupillometry, eyetracking, fMRI, TMS, EEG, fNIRS), spatial attentional biases, spatial representation, location reproduction, neuropsychological deficits and conditions,  systematic review and meta-analysis, statistics, R and RStudio.

Current research interests

Open research, fMRI, TMS, spatial attentional biases, spatial representation, location reproduction, neuropsychological deficits and conditions,  systematic review and meta-analysis, statistics, R and RStudio.

Knowledge exchange

  • Stage 1 In-Principal Acceptance Registered Report: Burns, N. E., & McIntosh, R. D. (2023). Does pupillometry provide a valid measure of spatial attentional bias (pseudoneglect)?. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/UA9JN
  • Stage 1 Registered Report “Neural correlates of line bisection and landmark tasks in healthy people: A systematic review and SDM-PSI meta-analysis of fMRI studies”. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/3K9XV
  • Lisa DeBruine, Rebecca Lai, Benedict Jones, Gaby Mahrholz, Rifah Abdullah, Nicola Burns. (2021). Experimentum Web-based Software for Psychological Studies (v.0.2). https://doi:10.5281/zenodo.2634355
  • In preparation: “A multidisciplinary examination of the effect of reading tasks on poetic language processing.” 

Affiliated research centres

Project activity

Burns, N. E., & McIntosh, R. D. (2023). Does pupillometry provide a valid measure of spatial attentional bias (pseudoneglect)?. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/UA9JN

Neural correlates of line bisection and landmark tasks in healthy people: A systematic review and SDM-PSI meta-analysis of fMRI studies. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/3K9XV

Lisa DeBruine, Rebecca Lai, Benedict Jones, Gaby Mahrholz, Rifah Abdullah, Nicola Burns. (2021). Experimentum Web-based Software for Psychological Studies (v.0.2). https://doi:10.5281/zenodo.2634355

A multidisciplinary examination of the effect of reading tasks on poetic language processing.

Conference details

British Neuropsychological Society Autumn Meeting 2024: presented "Assessing spatial attention biases by pupillary constriction: A registered replication". 

Cognitive Science Conference Rotterdam 2024: presented "Effect of fatigue on word production in aphasia” and “Effects of ease of comprehension and individual differences on the pleasure experienced while reading novelized verb-based metaphors”.

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