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Advert for Gorilla Presents COVID Research

As we hit the 2 year anniver­sary of living in a pan­dem­ic, how are researchers using behav­iour­al research to measure the impact of the pan­dem­ic and inform policy responses?

 

Our expert panel share the results of their research into the cog­ni­tive con­se­quences of long COVID, the psy­cho­log­i­cal impact of lock­downs, and using respons­es to mes­sag­ing to inform the policy response to the pandemic.

 

They also share the methods they used to collect great quality data in online research with 1000s of par­tic­i­pants. You can find more infor­ma­tion about our speak­ers and their research in their bios below.

 

 

Expert Panel

 

Shane Timmons
Research Officer, Eco­nom­ic and Social Research Institute

Shane Timmons is a Research Officer at the Eco­nom­ic and Social Research Insti­tute (ESRI) and an Adjunct Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at Trinity College Dublin. A cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gist by train­ing, he spe­cialis­es in using the sci­en­tif­ic method to apply insights from psy­chol­o­gy and behav­iour­al eco­nom­ics to policy issues. Shane joined the ESRI’s Behav­iour­al Research Unit in 2017 and has worked on lab, online and field exper­i­ments related to con­sumer deci­sion-making, health and the envi­ron­ment. Since March 2020, the Behav­iour­al Research Unit has con­duct­ed mul­ti­ple studies to inform the policy response to the pan­dem­ic, includ­ing a highly-cited review of rel­e­vant lit­er­a­ture, exper­i­ments on risk per­cep­tions and deci­sions to self-isolate and a fort­night­ly social activ­i­ty monitor. His research has been covered in nation­al and inter­na­tion­al media and pub­lished in mul­ti­ple peer-reviewed jour­nals, includ­ing the Journal of Exper­i­men­tal Psy­chol­o­gy: Applied, Social Science & Med­i­cine and the Journal of Epi­demi­ol­o­gy & Com­mu­ni­ty Health. Prior to joining the ESRI, Shane received his PhD in Psy­chol­o­gy from Trinity College Dublin and holds a Diploma in Sta­tis­tics and BA in Psy­chol­o­gy from there, too.

 

Lucy Cheke
Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, Cog­ni­tion and Moti­vat­ed Behav­iour Lab, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cambridge

Lucy is an exper­i­men­tal psy­chol­o­gist with a focus on learn­ing and memory in health and disease. Having com­plet­ed a PhD study­ing memory and plan­ning in adults, chil­dren and crow-family birds, Lucy has main­tained her inter­dis­ci­pli­nary approach in her later work trying to under­stand the devel­op­ment and con­se­quences of learn­ing and memory deficits. Her work on Obesity explored how higher BMI was asso­ci­at­ed with impaired episod­ic memory per­for­mance, and how this may trans­late into altered con­sump­tion deci­sions. Recent­ly, she has been using Gorilla to explore the long term cog­ni­tive con­se­quences of Covid infection.

 

Melisa-Sinem Basol
PhD Can­di­date, Social Deci­sion Making Lab, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cambridge

Melisa is a Gates Scholar and final year PhD Can­di­date at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge. At the Social Deci­sion-Making Lab, her research focuses on atti­tudes, per­sua­sion, and resis­tance against mis­in­for­ma­tion through inoc­u­la­tion theory with a par­tic­u­lar focus on soci­etal­ly con­test­ed issues such as vaccine hes­i­tan­cy.  More­over, she is also a co-recip­i­ent of the What­sApp Research Grant for Mis­in­for­ma­tion to develop inter­ven­tions against the spread of harmful mis­in­for­ma­tion on What­sApp in India, Brazil, and the UK. Sim­i­lar­ly, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the UK Cabinet Office (and sup­port­ed by UNESCO, UN, and WHO), Melisa co-devel­oped Go Viral!, a gam­i­fied inter­ven­tion to combat the threat posed by COVID-19 mis­in­for­ma­tion. Lastly, Melisa is the Co-Founder of CUBIT, an inter-dis­ci­pli­nary ini­tia­tive to discuss and lever­age behav­iour­al insights to tackle press­ing soci­etal challenges.

 

Max­im­i­lien Chaumon
CNRS Research asso­ciate at the Paris Brain Insti­tute (ICM)

 

Max­im­i­lien Chaumon is a CNRS Research asso­ciate at the Paris Brain Insti­tute (ICM). With a PhD in cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science, he has worked on deci­pher­ing cog­ni­tive process­es such as atten­tion, uncon­scious memory and affect using mag­ne­toen­cephalog­ra­phy (MEG), elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy (EEG) and func­tion­al MRI using cutting-edge analy­sis methods. Max­im­i­lien started his current posi­tion at ICM in 2017, where he spe­cial­izes in scru­ti­niz­ing and estab­lish­ing the best sci­en­tif­ic prac­tice for MEG and EEG research, improv­ing sta­tis­ti­cal methods and doc­u­ment­ing emerg­ing trends in the field. He recent­ly used his tech­ni­cal com­pe­tence to curate the data of a large-scale behav­iour­al project explor­ing the con­se­quences of COVID restric­tions on tem­po­ral per­cep­tion. Gorilla was used to collect data from more than 2000 par­tic­i­pants in 30 dif­fer­ent tasks and ques­tion­naires across 9 countries.