Personal Perception in Virtual Environments

What the self is and how the self-representation affects what we think and what we do are long-standing questions in different disciplines. It is also a topic of considerable public interest with relevance to quality of life - e.g., social interactions and mental health. However, our understanding of the nature of self-representation has remained limited, partly because we have lacked the objective measures/tools to analyse self-representations. In this project, we aim to develop a new account of personal perception that embodied representation of the self is a fundamental anchor in social behaviour through objective measures of self-biases which can be used as a proxy for self-representation.

This project aims to use cutting-edge virtual reality technology and adopt classic psychophysics procedures to manipulate complex social scenes and measure social interaction with high precision. The paradigm built in our prior study sets an example of quantifying the complex social factors such as self-reference in social settings.

RESEARCH TRAINING
You will be a key part of our multidisciplinary team. You will be provided with training in all the techniques needed to carry out the project, including data mining techniques, and advanced mathematical analyses to a large datasets.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE:
• Apply for Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology.
• State name of the lead supervisor as the Name of Proposed Supervisor
• State ‘Psychology PhD Scholarship’ as Intended Source of Funding
• State the exact project title on the application form

When applying please ensure all required documents are attached:
• All degree certificates and transcripts (Undergraduate AND Postgraduate MSc-officially translated into English where necessary)
• Detailed CV
• Details of 2 academic referees

Formal applications can be completed online: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/pgap/login.php.
Informal inquiries can be made to Professor Jie Sui ([Email Address Removed]) with a copy of your curriculum vitae and cover letter. General enquiries should be directed to the Postgraduate Research School ([Email Address Removed]).