Dr Clayton Hickey MA, PhD

Dr Clayton Hickey

School of Psychology
Associate Professor
BSc Neuroscience Programme Lead

Contact details

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

Dr Hickey uses tools from cognitive neuroscience – fMRI, EEG, MEG, TES, eye-tracking, and drug challenge – to study how our prior experience of the world dictates the manner in which we sense and perceive it.

Qualifications

  • MA (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
  • PhD (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Biography

Dr Hickey’s graduate training was completed under the supervision of John McDonald and Vince Di Lollo at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, and Jan Theeuwes at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. After receiving a PhD in 2011 he worked as assistant professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2011 – 2013) and the University of Trento, Italy (2013 – 2018), before beginning as senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham in September of 2018.

Postgraduate supervision

Dr Hickey is always interested in talking to potential students and postdoctoral fellows. Please do not hesitate to contact him via email.

Research

Research Interests:

Perception, Attention, Decision making, Reinforcement learning, Incentive salience, Dopamine, Plasticity, Naturalistic vision, Crossmodal integration

Current website: 

http://www.cognitionlab.org/

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Ferrante, O, Jensen, O & Hickey, C 2026, 'Predictive Distractor Processing Relies on Integrated Proactive and Reactive Attentional Mechanisms', Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 46, no. 6, e0740252025. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0740-25.2025

Simkova, KM, Doerig, A, Hickey, C & Charest, I 2026, 'Representations in vision and language converge in a shared, multidimensional space of perceived similarities', Journal of Vision, vol. 26, no. 5, 7. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.26.5.7

Menghi, N, Balestrieri, E, Grignolio, D, Coricelli, G & Hickey, C 2026, 'Temporal Dynamics of EEG Reflect Continuous Error Correction During Force Control', The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1513-25.2026

Menghi, N, Coricelli, G & Hickey, C 2025, 'How visual and proprioceptive feedback mediate the effect of monetary incentive on motor precision', Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-025-03132-4

Acunzo, D, Grignolio, D & Hickey, C 2025, 'Neural mechanisms for the attention-mediated propagation of conceptual information in the human brain', PLoS Biol., vol. 23, no. 3, e3003018. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.29.596408, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003018

Grignolio, D, Meyyappan, S, Geng, J, Mangun, G & Hickey, C 2025, 'Neural Mechanisms of Object Prioritization in Vision', Psychophysiology, vol. 62, no. 9, e70147. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.70147

Hickey, C, Grignolio, D, Munasinghe, V & Acunzo, D 2025, 'Using N2pc variability to probe functionality: Linear mixed modelling of trial EEG and behaviour', Biological Psychology, vol. 195, 108987. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2025.108987

Fakche, C, Hickey, C & Jensen, O 2024, 'Fast Feature- and Category-Related Parafoveal Previewing Support Free Visual Exploration', Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 44, no. 49, e0841242024. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0841-24.2024

Grignolio, D, Acunzo, DJ & Hickey, C 2024, 'Object-based attention is accentuated by object reward association', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 280-294. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001177

Ferrante, O, Zhigalov, A, Hickey, C & Jensen, O 2023, 'Statistical Learning of Distractor Suppression Downregulates Prestimulus Neural Excitability in Early Visual Cortex', The Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 43, no. 12, pp. 2190-2198. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1703-22.2022

Hickey, C, Acunzo, D & Dell, J 2023, 'Suppressive Control of Incentive Salience in Real-World Human Vision', The Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 43, no. 37, pp. 6415-6429. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0766-23.2023

Acunzo, DJ, Terhune, DB, Sharma, A & Hickey, CM 2022, 'Absorption and dissociation mediate the relationship between direct verbal suggestibility and impulsivity/compulsivity', Acta Psychologica, vol. 231, 103793. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103793

Wu, B, Bagshaw, A, Hickey, C, Kühn, S & Wilson, M 2022, 'Evidence for distinct neuro-metabolic phenotypes in humans', NeuroImage, vol. 249, 118902. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.118902

Comment/debate

Menghi, N, Coricelli, G & Hickey, C 2025, 'Correction to: How visual and proprioceptive feedback mediate the effect of monetary incentive on motor precision', Attention, perception & psychophysics, pp. 1-1. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-025-03143-1

Preprint

Simkova, KM, Doerig, A, Hickey, C & Charest, I 2025 'Representations in vision and language converge in a shared, multidimensional space of perceived similarities' arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2507.21871

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