Florence Enock

I am a DPhil student supervised by Professor Miles Hewstone and Dr. Jie Sui (previously supervised by Professor Glyn Humpreys).

My research is in the area of social cognitive neuroscience and explores the effects of self and in-group prioritisation on attentional and perceptual processes by measuring both behavioural and neural responses. It is well known that socially relevant information tends to be given high priority in many kinds of cognitive processes, from memory performance to empathy and facial recognition. My project explores the relations between self and in-group bias effects in lower-level cognition, along with some of the individual differences that may modulate the overlap between self and in-group representation. In addition to this, I have investigated how social context, such as cooperation vs. competition with in-group and out-group members, may alter these prioritisation effects. The final part of the project uses fMRI methods to explore the effects of positive and negative intergroup contact on neural activity associated with social biases.