Physiological | Reality Bending Lab

Sussex Psychological Methods MRes: Tips and Advice

Tue, 19 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Ola! I’m Ana. As I’m starting to approach the end of the year, it might be a good time to reflect and share my experience of doing a research masters in psychological methods at the University of Sussex, during the 2023/2024 academic year. First, I will talk a little bit about the modules I took; then I will mentioned all the reasons why you should choose to work with the Reality Bending Lab (ReBeL) and lastly, I will share some gems on how to survive the masters 💎. Hopefully this blog will help you decide whether this degree is for you! Shall we start?

Overview of the Modules

Since this is a research masters (MRes) aiming to prepare students for a future career as psychology researchers, the modules will have a significant focus on different research frameworks and practices, statistics and coding. During the Autumn semester you will have three main modules: 1) a (re)introduction to statistical models; 2) an introduction to Qualitative Methods; and 3) an introduction to better quality research practices. This term is super heavy on its content (no jokes) and will feel like a lot to do and learn (see below for tips on how to survive). However, there are plenty of materials to help you through this term, such as the R tutorials from our own in-house celebrity Professor Andy Field.

The Spring semester is less content heavy and more practical focus. There are again, three main modules: 1) a theoretical and practical module on how to use advanced statistical methods; 2) an introduction to the Bayesian framework; and 3) an introduction to Python programming and how to use it to implement experiments. This has been a delightful term, not because it is easy, but because the focus is less on memorising and more on learning how. Similarly, there are plenty of amazing materials to help you through this term such as optional zoom meetings to help you understand the materials and continuous communication on discord between lecturers and students.

Additionally, there will be a research module that runs both in Autumn and Spring, and a dissertation module that starts in January and ends in August (i.e., when the dissertation project is due).

The Internship

Critically, you will also do an “internship” as part of this masters (named the “research process” module 🤷‍♀️). This is by far the most exciting part of this masters as you will learn first-hand what is like to be a researcher. You can essentially chose any psychology researcher from Sussex to work with, providing you with a great network and experience. Now… you may be wondering what lab to choose? And oh boy, do I have the answer for you!

Introducing the Reality Bending Lab (ReBeL)

Rebel is led by Dr. Dominique Makowski. He will be your Mr. Miyagi during the Autumn and Spring term (and also your lecturer for the Bayesian Module). His patience, humour, straightforwardness and unmatched theoretical and pragmatic knowledge will be one of the big reasons why you will desire to be a researcher at the end of this masters (PS: no payment has been received in exchange for this testimony). The lab focus a lot on innovation hence you will learn new ways to collect neuroscientific data and use new statistical methods. There will also be a big focus on collaboration. Yes you will work independently, however more likely than not you will have the support of everyone in the lab, and you will be giving support yourself (getting a bit of experience on supervision and mentoring). Curiosity is welcome and encouraged. Ask your questions, get involved in all aspects of the process if possible, and take advantage of the fact you will have a ‘mentor’ for the whole academic year.

During my time at ReBeL, I have been involved in various projects, such as “Exploring the Correlation between Interoception and Primal World Beliefs” and a meta-analysis of a widely used questionnaire of Interoception. These projects have taught me a lot, from how to collect and analyse both physiological and behavioural data, access and collect data for a meta-analysis, and report the work I did in oral and written format. Throughout the year, with the guidance and expertise of everyone involved in the lab, I gained a lot of confidence in my abilities as a researcher. Which is why I found this internship the most influential aspect of my masters. Ultimately, at the ReBeL lab, you will not only investigate exciting concepts and topics but you will also have first hand experience on what it actually takes to be a researcher (including the need to have a twitter account, apparently).

Survival Tips

Now… You might be wondering.. “How in the world will I do all of this in one academic year?” Here are some tips that helped me gain the most of this masters without loosing my mind.

Unsurprising tip: DO THE WEEKLY WORKSHOPS/TUTORIALS. They will provide with the majority of code, steps and knowledge necessary to complete the assignments.
Life saving tip: do meal prep for the 48-hour assignments. If you are anything like me you will rather lose sleep then a delicious home-made meal. However, with the short time window to complete these assignments, meal prepping will help you feel less anxious about “not having enough time” to complete it all whilst still giving your mind everything it needs to function (i.e., sleep and nutrients).
Qualitative tip: as part of the January assignments, you will be asked to analyse 5 interviews using a qualitative method. If you come from a mostly quantitative background like me, you will be unfamiliar to how long it takes to code qualitative data. Do not make the same mistakes as I did and start that assignment as early as possible.
Student formatting tip: when lectures say “I want it in APA format” some will expect you to write a piece of work that equates a publication level piece of work. When in doubt, ask them!
Practical life skills tip: communication is key with your supervisors. Especially during your internship; be honest about what you can and can not do, your preferred ways of working, your goals and dreams, and mostly important when you need help.
Ultimate tip: do consider part-time , especially if you want/need to be working more than 20 hours a week on top of doing this masters. It is full on, and even as part-time all the lectures will be taught in the first year and hence there is still a lot of work to do. But it is possible, and can even be enjoyable.

Junior Research Assistant (JRA) at Sussex: is it worth it?

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Hi all, I am Jing, and I thought I would share my experience as a Psychology Junior Research Assistant (JRA) at the University of Sussex, as many students might wonder how it is really like. Obviously, I cannot speak for all the labs, but I hope my experience can give you a general idea of what to expect.

I worked as a JRA during summer 2023 at the Reality Bending Lab (ReBeL). And to put it simply, I think it was the most valuable experience during my undergraduate journey (PS: I have not written this at gunpoint). During these three months, I was supervised by Dr Makowski to work on a piece of original research, that thought me a lot about programming, cognitive neuropsychology, physio recordings and how real research is done. Additionally, know that it is possible to stay in the same lab next academic year, to do your final year dissertation with a strong head start in terms of skills and knowledge.

I had the pleasure of joining the Reality Bending Lab (ReBeL) along with Auz, as the first two members since the lab moved to the UK. The title of my project was “Exploring the Correlation between Interoception and Primal World Beliefs”, which involved collecting physiological data (e.g., heart rate, respiration, …) in various tasks, analysing them, and investigating the relationship between various measures. The project started from scratch, where I learned how to use the JavaScript package JsPsych to build the entire paradigm via coding. I also received detailed training on how to run a lab-based experiment, something I used to be worried but am now extremely confident about. After collecting the data from 20 participants (summer time goes by veryyyy fast!), I learned how to make and visualize Bayesian correlations in R. The output of this project was made into an academic poster, where I had to be creative and selective, to be presented at the poster session (see below). Additionally, we created the “Sussex Psychophysiological Research Protocol”, a document aiming at providing guidelines for the best practices in psychophysiological research, to benefit future research done at Sussex. It might not seem like much, but it felt like doing real contributions to research, which was great!

Something important I learned is, beyond pure academic excellence, research is also about community and networking. It was a great occasion to informally meet many researchers, and make bonds with other students. What is cool is that the JRA journey doesn’t stop abruptly and continues into the next academic year, as all candidates are invited to present their work at the JRA conference held by the university in October. This was an amazing opportunity to get a glimpse of what a scientific conference might be, feel proud about your work, connecting with fellow students, learning how to talk about research with other staff members, and gaining public speaking skills. For those who are more ambitious, why not submit your work to the national level, and present it in the British Conference for Undergraduate Research (BCUR)?

In summary, I see the JRA as a golden key to open countless possibilities for your future career path. For those considering applying to postgraduate studies or research assistants, the strong research experience you gained will put you at the top of the list. Even for those who decided to not do research in the future, it will still be rewarding as it gives a clear idea of what career you do not want. Don’t miss on it!

- Jing

Generate an articial ECG signal in Python

Fri, 17 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Create a natural ECG signal

Generating artificial physiological signals can be very useful to build, test your analysis pipeline or develop and validate a new algorithm.

Generating a synthetic, yet realistic, ECG signal in Python can be easily achieved with the ecg_simulate() function available in the NeuroKit2 package.

In the example below, we will generate 8 seconds of ECG, sampled at 200 Hz (i.e., 200 points per second) - hence the length of the signal will be 8 * 200 = 1600 data points. We can also specify the average heart rate, although note that there will be some natural variability (which is a good thing, because it makes it realistic).

import neurokit2 as nk  # Load the package

simulated_ecg = nk.ecg_simulate(duration=8, sampling_rate=200, heart_rate=80)

nk.signal_plot(simulated_ecg, sampling_rate=200)  # Visualize the signal

The simulation is based on the ECGSYN algorithm (McSharry et al., 2003).

However, for fast and stable results (as the realistic algorithm naturally generates some variability), one can approximate the QRS complex by a Daubechies wavelet. An ECG based on this method can also be obtained in NeuroKit by changing the method as follows:

simulated_ecg = nk.ecg_simulate(duration=8, sampling_rate=200, method="daubechies")

nk.signal_plot(simulated_ecg, sampling_rate=200)

While faster and stable, the generated ECG is far from being realistic.

👉 Discover more about NeuroKit here 👈

Have fun!

References

McSharry, P. E., Clifford, G. D., Tarassenko, L., & Smith, L. A. (2003). A dynamical model for generating synthetic electrocardiogram signals. IEEE transactions on biomedical engineering, 50(3), 289-294.

Thanks for reading! Do not hesitate to tweet and share this post, and leave a comment below 🤗

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