Johnny King Lam Lau

School of Psychology
Doctoral Researcher

Contact details

Address
School of Psychology
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Title of PhD: Neuroanatomy of Object Naming

Supervisors: Dr Pia Rotshtein, Dr Carmel Mevorach, Professor Glyn Humphreys

I have a broad interest in cognitive neuropsychology. My doctoral research focuses on object recognition and naming, an ostensibly simple task with a complexity of underlying multi-step processes. My objective is to identify the local brain regions and activities sustaining object naming.

Qualifications

BSc (Hons) Psychology

MRes Cognitive Neuropsychology & Rehabilitation

Biography

I completed my bachelor degree with a specialisation in Clinical and Health Psychology in Hong Kong and spent 6 months on an exchange programme at the University of Sydney (Australia) in my final year. After graduation, I worked as an assistant for clinical psychologists at the Counselling Division of a local university in Hong Kong.

I studied for an MRes degree here at the University of Birmingham. In the masters programme, I completed three research placements including (1) a study on temporal order judgement of stroke patients with hemispatial neglect; (2) an investigation on the food-related problems of children with neurogenetic disorder and (3) a project on the facilitating effect of light touch on postural balance in the elderly.

Prior to the start of my doctoral study, I worked as a research associate for a year on the Birmingham Cognitive Screen (BCoS) trial project. BCoS is a recently developed cognitive assessment that looks at the multiple cognitive processes (i.e. attention, language, memory, action planning and execution, and mathematical skills) after acute brain injury with an aim to identify the factors predicting cognitive deficits and recovery in various patient groups. The patient-testing and neuroimaging work I did in that year has been an inspiration for my current PhD project.

Research

Research interests

Cognitive Neuropsychology; Visual Cognition; Object Recognition & Naming; Cognitive Assessment; Resting State; fMRI; VBM

Other activities

Teaching Assistant

Undergraduate modules: 

  • Research Methods
  • Perception & Attention

Postgraduate modules: 

  • Computer Use

Publications

Roberts K.L., Lau J.K.L., Chechlacz M. & Humphreys G.W. (2012). Spatial and temporal attention deficits following brain injury: a neuroanatomical decomposition of the temporal order judgement task. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 29(4), 300-324.

Chechlacz M., Rotshtein P., Roberts K.L., Bickerton W-L, Lau J.K.L. & Humphreys G.W. (2012). The Prognosis of Allocentric and Egocentric Neglect: Evidence from Clinical Scans. PLoS ONE, 7(11): e47821. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.004782

View all publications in research portal