http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/256 2026-04-22T10:16:11Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/32717 Title: Consistent Eye Movement Patterns in Static and Dynamic Face Recognition: A Hidden Markov Model Study Authors: Bennetts, RJ; Butcher, N; Lander, K Abstract: Background/Objectives: Eye movements provide important insights into face processing. Hidden Markov models of eye movements (EMHMMs) are a relatively new approach that identifies common patterns across observers, moving beyond region-of-interest analyses. Prior EMHMM studies with static faces have typically revealed two strategies: a central “holistic” style and a feature-based “analytical” style. However, it is unknown whether such patterns extend to dynamic faces, which more closely reflect real-world viewing. This study is the first to apply EMHMMs to dynamic face recognition. Methods: Participants completed a face learning task in which half of the identities were presented as static images and half as dynamic videos. Eye movements were analysed using EMHMMs during both learning and recognition phases. Results: Two consistent patterns emerged across conditions: Central-focused and Eye-focused. A small subgroup displayed a third, central-plus-right-eye pattern when learning static faces. Eye movement patterns were largely stable across static and dynamic conditions, with only 16–27% of participants switching between them. Patterns were generally unrelated to recognition accuracy; however, participants adopting Eye-focused patterns during static learning performed better on static recognition. Conclusions: EMHMM-identified patterns generalise from static to dynamic faces, indicating strong stability in face-viewing behaviour across stimulus types. This finding contrasts with previous region-of-interest analyses suggesting greater differences between static and dynamic faces. By extending EMHMMs to dynamic faces, this study underscores the value of diverse analytical approaches for capturing eye movement behaviour and advancing understanding in face processing. Description: Data Availability Statement: The individual participant data on which study conclusions are based and a list of all the stimulus materials have been made publicly available on the Open Science Framework (see https://osf.io/xz2hr/). 2025-10-30T00:00:00Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/32397 Title: Taking pride from cultures of shame: The influence of cultural values on the development of internalised attitudes towards same-sex attraction in gay men across cultures Authors: King, Tavis Ryan Abstract: Theoretically, internalised homonegativity (IH-) has been studied by mainstream and lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) psychology as an ill-defined individual difference investigated over several paradigms. Historically, psychology’s heterosexist bias has focussed on IH- as a pathologising construct for gay men, without considering how homopositive attitudes could be internalised. Moreover, cross-cultural research investigating gay men’s IH- is scant, and these few studies have not controlled for cultural values. Therefore, this thesis aims to address psychology’s heterosexism by introducing internalised homopositivity (IH+) alongside IH-, within a psycho-socio-cognitive theory of internalised attitudes towards samesex attraction (IASSA). Over three studies with multinational samples, crosssectional designs utilising hierarchical linear regressions (HLR) investigated the relationships between cultural values systems, parental acceptance-rejection, attachment styles and IASSA. 2,276 men sexually attracted to men were volunteer sampled via social media from Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States. Each study’s participants completed questionnaire batteries. Study 1 found that conservatism was positively associated with IH- while egalitarianism was negatively associated. Study 2 revealed maternal acceptance was positively associated with IH-, while maternal rejection and paternal acceptance/rejection were not. Study 3 initially found English-speaking cross-cultural validity via exploratory factor analysis for IH+. Subsequent HLR analyses then evidenced high paternal religiosity moderated a negative association between avoidant attachment and IH+; avoidant attachment to mothers was negatively associated with IH+; and cultural masculinity was negatively associated with IH- for both parents across anxious/avoidant attachments. These unexpected results warrant further investigation, particularly the positive association between maternal acceptance and IH- and the negative association between cultural masculinity and IH-. Additionally, the IASSAQ supports future research with a greater unified and less pathologising psycho-social-cognitive IASSA model. Moreover, cross-cultural psychology can be reconciled with LGBTQ psychology. When applied, the IASSA model could help psychological practitioners support ashamed gay men to discover pride. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/31490 Title: The effects of meditation on attentional capacity, emotion regulation, and sensory information processing Authors: Saifullah, Anam Hamid Abstract: Emerging evidence suggests beneficial effects of meditation generally, and mindfulness meditation specifically, on mental health and well-being via improved cognitive functioning and emotion regulation. The exact mechanisms underlying these effects, however, are yet to be fully understood, which is an overarching aim of three related studies reported in the thesis. One possible mechanism facilitating both more efficient attentional processing and emotion regulation in meditators is reduced attentional capture by salient stimuli, quantified in the present research using Attentional Blink (AB) phenomenon - a temporary inability to consciously perceive an attended stimulus when it is shortly preceded by another. Previous research using AB paradigms with neutral and emotional stimuli (referred to as Neutral Attention Blink (NAB) and Emotional Attentional Blink (EAB) paradigms, respectively) has shown that meditation practice (particularly mindfulness as secularly defined) attenuates NAB. Lower NAB has also been associated with higher trait non-reactivity (an aspect of mindfulness), both dispositional (innate) and trained through meditation practice. Study 1 (online behavioural study) investigated the effects of meditation on AB using both the NAB and EAB paradigms in meditators (n = 75) and non-meditators (n = 54), as well as the relationships of NAB and EAB magnitude with each other and with trait non-reactivity and equanimity (non-attachment), with the latter being another aspect of mindful awareness that should attenuate attentional capture by salient (emotional) stimuli. There were no significant NAB or EAB differences between meditators and non-meditators. However, lower EAB was significantly associated with higher trait non-reactivity and equanimity in meditators as a group and in the meditator practicing mindfulness as secularly defined, suggesting that non-reactivity and equanimity might be attenuating EAB via reduced attentional capture by emotional stimuli. Another mechanism that has been proposed to underlie AB is ‘gating’ or filtering of the sensory stimuli as a way to protect the processing of the first stimulus, given limited attentional capacity resources. Sensory gating is a fundamental mechanism protecting limited attentional processing capacity by an automatic inhibition of subsequent stimuli whilst the current stimulus is being processed and has been extensively studied using Prepulse Inhibition (PPI) – a modulation of the startle reflex when a startling stimulus (pulse) is preceded by a stimulus of less intensity (prepulse). Study 2 (lab-based study) explored the relationships of PPI with AB (with the focus on NAB) as well as with trait non-reactivity and equanimity in a separate sample of meditators (n = 23) and non-meditators (n = 21). There were no significant PPI differences between meditators and non-meditators and no significant associations of PPI with trait non-reactivity or equanimity. However, higher PPI was significantly associated with slower reaction times during NAB paradigm performance. The implications of this finding for the shared (or similar) mechanisms underlying AB and PPI are not clear, but given that PPI is an index of sensorimotor gating, they point to the relationship between automated (PPI) and voluntary (NAB) motor aspects engaged by the two paradigms. Yet another mechanism by which non-reactivity and equanimity might exert their attenuating effect on AB is the reduced activation of associative semantic memory networks in response to conceptually meaningful and/or emotionally salient stimuli, which has been observed in meditators in previous research. Associative semantic memory networks activation, alongside attentional capture, has been proposed as one of the mechanisms underlying the Affective Priming (AP) phenomenon – an impact that a first stimulus (prime) has on the speed and evaluation of the subsequent stimulus (target). Study 3 (online behavioural study) investigated the effects of meditation on AP and its relationship with EAB as well as trait non-reactivity and equanimity in meditators (n = 49) and non-meditators (n = 55) (a subsample of Study 1 participants). Congruent (same valence of primes and targets) and incongruent (opposite valence of primes and targets) were used in the AP paradigm. As expected, meditators were less impacted by the emotional valence of the primes or their congruity/incongruity with the targets, whereas non-meditators (particularly females) showed a strong priming effect. The correlation pattern between AP and EAB was somewhat inconsistent. Lower AP was associated with higher trait non-reactivity and equanimity in meditators for incongruent condition, suggesting that smaller AP in meditators may be due to reduced activation by the primes of associative semantic networks. Together, the findings highlight trait non-reactivity and equanimity as the mechanisms underlying the effects of meditation generally, and mindfulness meditation specifically, on attentional capacity and emotion regulation via reduced attentional capture and semantic associative network activation by affective stimuli. Longitudinal studies using the AB, PPI, and AP paradigms are required to further investigate where the observed cross-sectional and correlational findings are the effects of meditation rather than pre-existing individual differences between meditators and non-meditations (and within meditators) with the view of developing particularly AB and AP paradigms as objective tools of meditation practice on attentional capacity and emotion regulation. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/31139 Title: Intimate partner psychological abuse: What we knew and what we experienced Authors: Russell, Natalie A. Abstract: This doctoral research is designed to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of IPPA in adolescent relationships, using an intersectional perceptive to specifically focus on the victimisation of Black adolescent girls in England and to understand how adolescent girls learn about intimate partner psychological abuse (IPPA). Black feminism and the framework of intersectionality helps to highlight differences in how an individual or a specific group of people experience the world (Crenshaw, 2017; De Coster & Heimer, 2021). Black women and girls in England can view and experience the world through multiple lens including the lens of girlhood/womanhood, ancestral culture lenses, English culture lenses and other subsections of their identity. However, Black women and girls also uniquely experience a world where gendered oppression (e.g. sexism and violence against women) and racial biases (e.g. anti-black racism and stereotypes about Black people) collide and intertwine uniquely to affect Black women. To date past literature has not specifically explored IPPA perpetrated against Black adolescent girls in England. How IPPA is experienced, what is taught to Black adolescent girls about IPPA, and the factors affecting their perceptions of IPPA is not yet fully understood. As the unique IPPA experiences and needs of Black adolescent girls have not deliberately been considered in research in England, it is difficult to fully apply past studies about IPPA to the experiences of Black adolescent girls. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z