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Professor Fiona Newell

Professor of Experimental Psychology (Psychology)

 Fiona.Newell@tcd.ie

 3531896

Professor of Experimental Psychology (Trinity Inst. of Neurosciences (TCIN))

 (3531896) 8402


Biography

My main research objective is to elucidate the cortical and behavioural processes involved in high-level human perception across the main sensory systems. This interest is motivated by the fact that perception is not a fixed concept since it is significantly modulated by information from other senses and other contextual factors such as past experience, internal predictions, on-going motor behaviour and the working range of the sensory system. Furthermore, Perception is the basis of Cognition, and an understanding of the mechanisms behind how we perceive provides a better route to understanding other high-level human functions. To date, my team and I have begun to shed light on some of the behavioural principles of how the senses interact with one another to form a unified perception of our world. The current challenge is to provide a better understanding of the cortical and genetic mechanisms behind these principles. To this end my team are conducting a series of studies investigating cortical correlates of multisensory perception using neuroimaging (i.e. fMRI and EEG) technology and, in collaboration with colleagues the Smurfit Institute of Genetics at TCD we are investating behavioural and neural correlates of synaesthesia. Lately, I have begun to develop my research towards a better understanding of multisensory processing in the normal, damaged and ageing brain through collaborations with colleagues in the School of Medicine, TCD. Finally, in collaboration with colleagues in Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering, we are currently investigating how virtual displays of crowd scenes can be improved by multisensory stimulation.

Research Tags

  BRAIN AGEING   BRAIN-FUNCTION   FACE PERCEPTION   FACIAL ATTRACTIVENESS   MULTISENSORY PERCECEPTION   OBJECT RECOGNITION   SPATIAL COGNITION   SYNAESTHESIA   Virtual Reality   VISION, AUDITION, SOMATOSENSATION

Research Projects

 weDraw
 CityQuest: a serious game to enhance cognition and improve balance control
 Socialising Agents: endowing virtual agents with multisensory social skills to increase appeal and user engagement
 VERVE
 The development of a novel, low-cost intervention games system designed to improve physical and mental well being in older adults

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Memberships

Membership of Professional Institutions, Associations, Societies

Details Date From Date To
Member of IEEE Robotics Jan 2008
Experimental Psychological Society, UK 2000
Psychonomics Society, USA 2000
British Neuroscience Association 1999
European Society for Cognitive Psychology 2002
Holmes, C.A. and Cooney, S.M. and Dempsey, P. and Newell, F.N., Developmental changes in the visual, haptic, and bimodal perception of geometric angles, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 241, (105870), 2024, Notes: [cited By 0], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
O†Dowd, A. and Hirst, R.J. and Setti, A. and Kenny, R.A. and Newell, F.N., Is a Sex Difference in Audioâ€"Visual Temporal Precision Consistent Across Age Groups? An Update on Hernández et al. (2019), Psychology and Aging, 2024, Notes: [cited By 0], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
O'Dowd A., O'Connor D.M.A., Hirst R.J., Setti A., Kenny R.A., Newell F.N., Nutrition is associated with differences in multisensory integration in healthy older adults, Nutritional Neuroscience, 2024, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
O'Dowd A., Hirst R.J., Setti A., Kenny R.A., Newell F.N., Individual differences in seated resting heart rate are associated with multisensory perceptual function in older adults, Psychophysiology, 61, (1), 2024, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Setti A, and Hernandez B, and Hirst R.J., Donoghue OA, Kenny R.A., and Newell F.N., Susceptibility to the sound-induced flash illusion is associated with gait speed in a large sample of middle-aged and older adults, Experimental Gerontology, 174, (112113), 2023, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Azizi Z, Hirst RJ, O' Dowd A, McCrory C, Kenny RA, Newell FN, Setti A., Evidence for an association between allostatic load and multisensory integration in middle-aged and older adults., Archives of gerontology and geriatrics, 116, 2023, p105155 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
O'Dowd A., Hirst R.J., Setti A., Donoghue O.A., Kenny R.A., Newell F.N., The temporal precision of audiovisual integration is associated with longitudinal fall incidents but not sensorimotor fall risk in older adults, Scientific Reports, 13, (1), 2023, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Ziat, M. and Pacic, K. and Buentello, I. and Varney, J. and Newell, F.N., Tactile perception of randomness: Effect of varying stimulus size and participants age, i-Perception, 14, (6), 2023, Notes: [cited By 1], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Azizi Z., Hirst R.J., Newell F.N., Kenny R.A., Setti A., Audio-visual integration is more precise in older adults with a high level of long-term physical activity, PLoS ONE, 18, (10 October), 2023, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Newell, F.N. and McKenna, E. and Seveso, M.A. and Devine, I. and Alahmad, F. and Hirst, R.J. and O'Dowd, A., Multisensory perception constrains the formation of object categories: A review of evidence from sensory-driven and predictive processes on categorical decisions, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 378, (1886), 2023, Notes: [cited By 3], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
  

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McHugh, J.E., McDonnell, R., Chan, J.S. & Newell, F.N., The Multisensory Perception of Emotions in Real and Virtual Humans, British Psychological Society Annual Conference 2008, Dublin, April 2008, 2008, Poster, PRESENTED
McHugh, J.E. & Newell, F.N. , Mixed emotions: audition can modulate the visual perception of the emotion of a crowd, International Multisensory Research Forum, CCNY, New York, June 2009, Poster, PUBLISHED

  

Awards and Honours

Award Date
Best Reported Impact, Science Foundation Ireland 13 November, 2017
Fulbright Scholar 2011-12
Fellow, Trinity College Dublin 2005
'Addison Wheeler' Research Fellow in Life Sciences, University of Durham 1995-1999

Research Interests

Description Of Research Interests

Multisensory perception; Synaesthesia; Object recognition; Scene recognition; Face perception and facial attractiveness; Perception in visual impaired individuals; Dynamic object recognition; Visual, haptic and auditory perception; Perception of crowds; Perception of emotion; Ageing and multisensory perception.