Dr Rachel Swainson
Lecturer
Aberdeen
AB24 2UB
Tel: +44 1224 273918
E-mail: r.swainson@abdn.ac.uk
TEACHING
MSc Social
Cognitive Neuroscience: ERP methods
RESEARCH
I am
interested in what it means to be in a particular ‘cognitive set’
(or ‘frame of mind’).
We all experience the benefits of being in the right frame of mind to
perform a particular task and the costs of having to switch from one to
another. This type of effect can be
studied in the laboratory using ‘task-switching’ experiments where
participants have to perform different tasks on different trials; the costs of
switching tasks (and the benefits of maintaining tasks) are measured in terms
of changes in performance (e.g. response times and accuracy) and brain
function.
Most of my
recent work has involved looking at the electrical activity of the brain
associated with switching between different ‘task-sets’ using
dense-sensor event-related potentials (ERPs).
I have also
looked at the same type of issue using different methods, in particular how
patients with degeneration of or damage to specific regions of the brain
perform when required to learn to use specific cognitive sets and then switch
between them.
PUBLICATIONS
Jackson GM, Swainson R, Mort D, Husain
M, Jackson SR (2009) “Attention,
competition, and the parietal lobes: Insights from Balint’s
syndrome” Psychological Research 73(2): 263-270
Rorden C, Guerrini C, Swainson
R, Lazzeri M, Baylis G
(2008) “Event
related potentials reveal that increasing perceptual load leads to increased
responses for target stimuli and decreased responses for irrelevant stimuli”
Human Frontiers in Neuroscience 2(4):1-7
Mueller
SC, Swainson R, Jackson GM (2007) “Behavioural
and neurophysiological correlates of bivalent and
univalent responses during task switching” Brain Research 1157: 56-65
Swainson
R, Jackson SR, Jackson GM (2006) “Using advance information
in dynamic cognitive control: An ERP study of task-switching” Brain Research 1105(1):61-72
Swainson
R, SenGupta D, Shetty T,
Watkins LH, Summers BA, Sahakian BJ, Polkey CE, Barker RA, Robbins TW (2006) “Impaired dimensional selection
but intact use of reward feedback during visual discrimination learning in
Parkinson's disease” Neuropsychologia
44(8):1290-1304.
GM
Jackson, R Swainson, D Mort, M Husain, SR Jackson (2004) “Implicit
processing of global information in Balint’s Syndrome”. Cortex
40: 179-180
GM
Jackson, R Swainson, A Mullin, R Cunnington, SR
Jackson (2004) “ERP
correlates of receptive language switching” Quarterly Journal of
Experimental Psychology 57A(2):223-240
K Cornish, R Swainson, R Cunnington, J Wilding, PG Morris, GM
R Swainson, R Cunnington,
GM Jackson, C Rorden, A Peters, PG Morris, SR Jackson
(2003) “Cognitive control
mechanisms revealed by ERP and fMRI: Evidence from
repeated task-switching” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
15(6):785-799
AM
Plodowski, R Swainson, GM Jackson, C Rorden, SR
R Swainson, TW Robbins (2001)
“Rule-abstraction deficits following a basal ganglia lesion” Neurocase 7: 433-443
R Swainson, CJ Galton, JR
Hodges, A Michael, J Semple, BD Dunn, MC Jefferies, JL Iddon,
TW Robbins, BJ Sahakian (2001) “Early detection
and differential diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and depression with
neuropsychological tasks” Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders
12:265-280
GM Jackson, R Swainson, R Cunnington, SR Jackson (2001) “ERP Correlates of
executive control during repeated language-switching” Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 4(2):169-178
MA
Mehta, R Swainson, AD Ogilvie, BJ Sahakian, TW
Robbins (2001) “Improved spatial span but impaired reversal learning
following the dopamine D2 agonist bromocriptine in
human volunteers” Psychopharmacology
159:10–20
R Swainson, RD Rogers, BJ Sahakian, BA Summers, CE Polkey,
TW Robbins (2000)
“Probabilistic learning and reversal deficits in patients with
Parkinson’s disease or frontal or temporal lobe lesions: possible adverse effects of dopaminergic medication”. Neuropsychologia 38: 596-612
RD Rogers, TW Robbins, A Baldacchino, AJ Johnson, R Swainson, M London, BJ Sahakian, JWF Deakin, BJ Everitt (1999)
“Dissociable deficits in the decision-making cognition of chronic
amphetamine abusers, opiate abusers, patients with focal damage to the
prefrontal cortex, and tryptophan-depleted normal volunteers: evidence for monoaminergic
mechanisms” Neuropsychopharmacology 20: 322-339
Book chapters:
C Williams-Gray, RA Barker, R
Swainson, TW Robbins (in press) “Cognitive dysfunction in early
Parkinson’s disease” To be published in: Mental
Dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease
SR
Jackson, R Newport, D Mort, M Husain, GM Jackson, R Swainson, S Pears, B Wilson
(2005) “Action binding and
the parietal lobes: some new
perspectives on optic ataxia”.
In: Attention in Action. Ed:
GW Humphreys, MJ Riddoch. Psychology Press,
R Cools, R
Swainson, AM Owen, TW Robbins (1999) “Cognitive dysfunction in
non-demented Parkinson's disease”. In: Mental Dysfunction in Parkinson's
disease II. Ed:
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