Effie J. Pereira

Effie J. Pereira

Assistant Professor

The Fragility of Social Attention Part Quatre

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Published:

More exciting research news for the start of the year since Chapter 4 of my dissertation is officially out in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance. This was the final chapter from my dissertation left to be published and I’m really proud of this beast of a study that incorporated 6 separate experiments covering behavioural, eye tracking, and bayesian analyses!

My findings are also really captivating because this work shows that spontaneous attentional biasing to faces is biased by the external content factor of perceived facial attractiveness, and not other content factors like global luminance or featural configuration, demonstrating that attractiveness in faces is rather critical in eliciting these effects. My findings also further highlight the utility of reconceptualizing attention as an integrative system that can be influenced and controlled by not just stimulus factors and task information, but also internal preferences and personal experiences.

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Going QuADing

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So thrilled to show off our official name and logo for the Queen’s Attentional Dynamics Laboratory or the QuAD Lab for short. A big thank you to graphic designer Eric Brousseau for the mock up and can’t wait to get the space up and running once construction is complete!



I’m also so excited with how well my office space has come together too. Between the purple walls and all the orphan plants I’ve been taking in, it’s definitely become my cozy work spot this year. A big shout out to local Kingston artist Little Daydreamer for some great pixel art to help keep my head in the clouds!



Science Meets Parliament: Take Two

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I had a phenomenal time with CSPC Science Meets Parliament program last week, where brilliant researchers across Canada met with MPs & Senators on the Hill, bringing together the people generating knowledge in Canada with those who use it for the public good.





It was my first year being on the SMP Organizing Committee this time around and I loved talking about my past experience in the program and getting to work behind the scenes to help researchers understand the pivotal part we play in Canada’s policy-making landscape. SMP was easily the highlight of 2023 for me, and the fact that I can say that again this year is in no small part to the stellar team I get to work with who make this job immensely fun – shout outs to this amazing crew and can’t wait to grow the program with you all in the future!



Back Again

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We’ve officially made it to Kingston!! Loki might be a little suspicious of the new digs, but we’re so excited to get familiar with the city again!



Meeting Parliament

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I had a whirlwind of a week in Ottawa this past week, representing the University of Waterloo and Queen’s University, and meeting with MPs as part of the CSPC Science Meets Parliament program. The program brought together Tier 2 CRCs, Independent Indigenous Researchers, & Banting Postdoctoral Fellows to strengthen the connection between science & policy communities and learn about how scientific evidence is used for policy making in Parliament.





It was amazing to see the love for research and innovation at some of the highest levels of government, and I was thrilled to meet with Dr. Mona Nemer, Chief Science Advisor of Canada, Valerie Bradford, MP for Kitchener South-Hespeler, and numerous others. I cannot think of better people to champion the great scientific work we do here in Canada!









A hearty thanks to everyone involved in organizing this phenomenal event and helping us build lasting connections with other diverse researchers and with parliamentarians and their staff. I’m excited to put my new scicomm and policy skills to work!