Dr Louise Lakha

Dr Louise Lakha is a Lecturer in Cognition and Neuroscience. She has an interest in the processes by which we select visual information during tasks and the capacity limitations that affect performance. She has conducted research on the difference in the sensitivity to visual features when detecting compared with localising targets. Her research has involved subitization and change blindness tasks.  

Louise completed her PhD at the University of Birmingham, funded by the Ministry of Defence (DERA Malvern), where she studied how selection of multiple target locations can be affected by the feature sensitivity of the visual attentional system. Under the supervision of Professor Glyn Humphreys, Louise took measures of reaction time performance for targets defined by motion and form, which she combined with

studying the effects of lesions, to understand the associated brain areas involved in localising multiple targets. These research interests continued whilst working as a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at Brunel University investigating the over-writing of visual memory during change blindness, on a grant secured by Professor Michael Wright. They measured visual change thresholds whilst varying set size and cueing, to investigate the timing of when visual load leads to information loss. Additionally, they recorded VEP and fMRI signal during change detection tasks to localise the brain activity associated with visual awareness of feature changes.

In recent years, Louise has focused on teaching, taking a particular interest in supporting the learning of research skills and statistics, as well as teaching modules on brain & behaviour. She joined the University of Kent in 2023, where she has taught undergraduate and postgraduate research methods and statistics using ‘r’, contributed to the teaching of modules on neuroscience and been an active member of the teaching staff for the Foundation level programme. She is keen to encourage students in developing a range of approaches to research, including the use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods.