Catherine Anne MacLeod

I graduated in 2006 with a BSc (Hons) Psychology (first class) from the University of Stirling. I was awarded the Peter McEwen prize for best single honours student and also the Alan Baddeley prize for best final year project. My undergraduate project, supervised by Professor David Donaldson, investigated the neural activity associated with recognition memory processes using a time-locked procedure.  In 2007 I gained an MSc (with distinction) in Psychological Research Methods as part of a 1+3 ESRC funded PhD, and I am currently in the final year of my PhD which is supervised by Professor David Donaldson and Professor Lindsay Wilson.

The aim of my PhD is to investigate the relationship between individual differences and episodic memory.  More specifically I am looking at the role of cognitive ability, genetic variation, personality and frontal brain function on the neural correlates of episodic memory.

I am generally interested in the study of memory and cognition, and have been a member of the Psychological Imaging Laboratory at Stirling University since 2004.  In addition to my undergraduate and masters dissertations, which looked at the neural correlates of recognition memory processes, I have worked on projects looking at memory and time perception and also the verbal mediation of metacognition.  In 2005 I received a Nuffield Undergraduate research bursary to work on a project investigating the expectancy effect in language comprehension.

I have been involved in teaching on the following courses:

- 1st year lab demonstrator on the Introductory Psychology I course.

- 1st year tutor on the Introductory Psychology II course.

- Project supervisor for 3rd year developmental projects.

Conference Presentations

MacLeod, C.A., Donaldson , D.I. Decision bias and old/new ERP effects of recognition memory. Poster to be presented at the Federation of European Neurosciences Annual Meeting, Amsterdam, July 2010.

MacLeod, C.A., Donaldson , D.I. Investigating Individual Differences in Episodic Memory: What do the Neural Correlates of Recognition Reveal? Poster presentation at the British Society for the Psychology of Individual Differences Inaugural Conference, Edinburgh, UK, April 2010.

MacLeod, C.A., Donaldson , D.I. Episodic recognition memory for faces: Event-Related Potential evidence that the typical neural correlates of familiarity and recollection are not universal. Poster presentation at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, Chicago, USA, October 2009.

MacLeod, C.A., Wheeler, M.E., Donaldson, D.I. Examining Recognition Memory Processes Using a Slow-Reveal Paradigm: A Response-Locked Event-Related Potential Study. Poster presentation at the Scottish Imaging Network - A Platform for Scientific Excellence (SINAPSE) Annual Meeting, Edinburgh, UK, June 2009.

MacLeod, C.A., Wheeler, M.E., Donaldson, D.I. Examining Recognition Memory Processes Using a Slow-Reveal Paradigm: A Response-Locked Event-Related Potential Study. Poster presentation at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting, San Francisco, USA, April 2009.

MacLeod, C.A., Donaldson, D.I. Investigating the neural correlates of recognition memory using a response-locked procedure. Slide Presentation at the Cognitive Electrophysiology UK Seminar, Stirling, UK, August 2008.

MacLeod, C.A., Donaldson, D.I. The Effect of Genotype on Declarative Memory. Poster presentation at the Stirling Graduate Research School Postgraduate Research Conference, Stirling, UK, April 2008