Applications are invited for a 24 month full-time Research Assistant to support a Leverhulme Trust grant ‘investigating the role of movement in the recognition of facial composites’, awarded to Dr Karen Lander, Dr Charlie Frowd and Professor Tim Cootes. In this project we build on existing bodies of research regarding moving faces and composite creation, and investigate the role of motion in the recognition of identity from composites. In a criminal investigation, facial composites are images constructed by witnesses and victims of people they have seen to commit crime. This project will aid the theoretical understanding of the moving face advantage and investigate the interaction, and the relative importance, of static and dynamic information available from the face. Research on this issue may also aid the development of useful composite
Your role will be to be set up, run and analyse the experiments involved in the project. You will have a degree in psychology, neuroscience or a related discipline, with a strong interest in studying experimental psychology and, more specifically, face perception and recognition. Experience in scientific research and running experiments, particularly with human volunteers, is important. Good communication and team working skills are essential and familiarity with experimental presentation, statistical software packages (e.g. SPSS) and composite creation systems (e.g. Evo-FIT, PRO-fit) would be useful. Ideally you will also have experience of image manipulation and creation techniques, including running command line tools to manipulate data.
Closing date is 22nd August 2015
Many thanks
Karen Lander
Senior Lecturer
University of Manchester