Dr Rachel Swainson

Biography

I received my BSc in Neuroscience (1994) from the University of Sheffield and my PhD (1998) from the University of Cambridge, where I was supervised by Prof. Trevor Robbins.  I then worked with Prof. Barbara Sahakian at the University of Cambridge (1998-1999) and with Prof. Georgina Jackson and Prof. Stephen Jackson at the University of Nottingham (2000-2006).  I held a Leverhulme Special Research Fellowship (2002-2004) and my first lectureship (2004-2006) at the University of Nottingham.  I have been a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen since 2007.

Internal Memberships

Staff Development Lead, School of Psychology

Member of the School's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee

Research Overview

Human cognition is massively flexible.  There are innumerable ways in which we can process stimuli and respond to them, and when situations change, we can change our behaviour.  This flexibility brings the need for control so that our behaviour is reasonably consistent over time and yet also able to be changed when necessary.  Task-switching research enables us to examine these aspects of cognitive control in the lab.

Tasks can be thought of as rules for processing stimuli and selecting actions.  I am interested in the reasons for the switch costs in performance that arise when we need to switch between alternative tasks.  Recent research questions include:  whether the subsequent switch costs generated by simply preparing one of two tasks (without performing it) differ from those generated by performing the prepared task; and what it takes to abolish the effects of preparation – when we abandon a prepared task – before they impact upon subsequent performance in the form of a switch cost.

Teaching Responsibilities

• PS1009:   Introductory Psychology I: Concepts & Theory (Biological Psychology lectures)
• PS3014:   Biological Psychology (Psychopharmacology lectures)