Dr. Karen Lander received her PhD from the University of Stirling in 1999. She then worked as a Research Fellow for one year, at the University of Stirling, on an ESRC grant awarded to Professsor Vicki Bruce and herself. She has been a lecturer at the Department of Psychology, University of Manchester, since January 2001.

She is currently Director of Education for the Division of Psychology, Communication and Human Neuroscience. 

See http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=UqhdaIoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao for my profile on Google Scholar.

Role of motion in the recognition of familiar faces

My current research focuses on the importance of face animation in the recognition of familiar faces. Previous work has established that face movement aids the recognition of degraded famous faces. More recent work is investigating the impact of this finding, in applied contexts - for example, is the recognition of suspects from CCTV footage significantly more accurate (compared to the best still from the sequence) when moving footage is viewed? This information should be useful for police officers, when evaluating the usefulness of the captured CCTV images, for the accurate recognition of identity. I am also interested in the theoretical underpinings of the movement recognition advantage. Current models of familiar face recognition do not currently address why moving degraded faces are easier to recognise, compared to static face images. Investigation of this issue (for example, using priming techniques) should tell us more about the nature of the stored face representations, as well as how information is extracted and processed from the face.

Individual variation in face recognition

Some people are good at face recognition and others are poor at it.  I am interested in this individual variation and I have been conducting work looking at the relationship between face recognition and extraversion (Lander & Poyarkar, 2015).  Ongoing work with Kiki Giannou is looking at the importance of compassion and empathy on face recognition ability.  In addition I have worked with specific groups of participants who are very good (super-recognisers) or very poor (developmental prosopagnosics; with Rachel Bennetts & Natalie Butcher) at face recognition.

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning - student engagement and support

Each year, thousands of students across the UK are offered a ‘second chance’ in the form of a resit. While the sector talks confidently about progression and retention, the student experience of failing and facing resits remains under-explored, under-theorised, and under-supported. Ongoing work, supported by an Institute of Teaching and Learning fellowship, is looking at how best to support students during resits  and following interruption.  I am also interested in digital  accessibility and am working within a EuroSoTL writing group to explore ways to create institutional capacity and confidence - and address the reality 'gap'.

* 2nd Year Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience

* 3rd Year Cases in Clinical Neuropsychology

* 3rd year Emotion

* MRes Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuropsychology 

* MRes Experimental Psychology with Data Science

Dr Rachel Bennetts  - Brunel University London

Professor Charlie Frowd - University of Central Lancashire

Dr Natalie Butcher - University of Teesside

Professor Ellen Poliakoff  - University of Manchester

Professor Miyuki Kamachi - Kogakuin University, Tokyo

Professor David White - University of New South Wales