Dr Ellen Poliakoff 

I am interested in the overlap between cognition and motor processes, and the brain mechanisms underlying them; in particular, the relationship between eye movements and attention and cognitive changes in Parkinson’s disease. I am also interested in tactile and cross-modal attention.

Parkinson’s disease and cognition: My previous research suggests that patients with Parkinson’s disease find stimuli in their environment more attention grabbing than do healthy subjects of the same age. More recently, I have investigated how patients are affected by seeing action-relevant graspable objects and the sight of other people moving, in collaboration with Professor Steven Tipper and is supported by the Parkinson’s Disease Society. I am currently involved in a project about how Parkinson's Disease affects everyday cognition, such as memory and attention lapses and a project investigating the potential benefits of gym training on Parkinson's Disease, supported by the Parkinson's Disease Society and in collaboration with Bolton Arena.

Attention, the body and medically unexplained symptoms: I am interested in how we pay attention to touch and the body. I am collaborating with Dr Richard Brown and Dr Donna Lloyd to investigate how threat affects attention to the body and whether this is affected in patients with medically unexplained symptoms.

Smooth eye movements and memory for velocity: Following on from work on anticipatory smooth pursuit eye movements that I carried out with Professor Graham Barnes, I am currently working with Dr Andrew Stewart on a project investigating memory and priming of the velocity of moving objects.

Ageing, attention and multisensory integration: Integrating information from different modalities (vision, hearing, touch) is of fundamental importance in everyday life. I have recently begun investigating how visuotactile processes are affected in old age.

I am also Public Engagement Officer for Psychological Sciences. I have co-organised many events involving hands-on activities about the brain and senses for the public at different venues, from the Manchester Museum to the Arndale

PSYC10302 Perception

PSYC20402 Cognitive Neuroscience

PSYC30141 The Body in the Brain

PSYC60302 Advanced Statistics Course (MRes)

I am the Psychology course coordinator for the BSc(hons) Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology degree.

I completed my BSc in Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Manchester in June 1998. I carried out my PhD (‘Tactile Spatial Attention and Parkinson’s Disease’) at the University of Manchester , which I completed in 2002. I then worked for 18 months as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with Professor Graham Barnes at UMIST, before taking up a lectureship at the School of Psychological Sciences in September 2003.