Dr Helen Keyes

Helen researches how cyclists and drivers process the road environment, how the brain processes faces, and how we can encourage higher education students to thrive.

[email protected]

Background

Helen is a cognitive psychologist specialising in driving and cycling research and face perception research. She uses experimental psychology (psychophysics, EEG, questionnaires) to discover how to improve road safety. Helen has produced a body of research on how our own face is processed as 'special' in the brain.

As an educator, Helen uses experimental methods to discover how best to motivate students in Higher Education to succeed.

Research interests

• Experienced vs novice drivers’ perception of road scenes
• Improving driver perception of motorcyclists
• Higher Education student engagement, wellbeing, employability and success
• Cyclist road scene perception and cycling behaviour
• Personally familiar face perception

Helen is a member of our Societies Research Hub which forms part of our ARU Centre for Societies and Groups. Her research also comes under our Cognition Group, which is part of our ARU Centre for Mind and Behaviour.

Areas of research supervision

Dr Keyes is happy to supervise research in most areas of visual and aural perception, particularly in the areas of:

• Driver perception and behaviour
• Cyclist perception and behaviour
• Face perception

Find out more about our Psychology PhD.

Teaching

Helen is module leader for Research in Action: Statistical Thinking (Level 5 and Level 7), and delivers the Perception teaching for Learning, Memory and Perception (Level 5) and Mind, Body and Behaviour (Level 4).

Qualifications

• PhD Psychology, UCD Dublin
• BSc (Hons) Psychology, First Class Honours, UCD, Dublin
• PGCert Learning and Teaching, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

Memberships, editorial boards

• Chair of the BPS East of England Branch
• Senior Fellow , the Higher Education Academy
• Associate Fellow, British Psychological Society
• Member of ARU Senate
• Academic Lead for Embedding Wellbeing into the Curriculum, ARU
• Chair of Academic Misconduct and Plagiarism work-stream, ARU
• Member of Student Wellbeing Strategy Steering Group, ARU

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

• Consultant for Colchester Borough Council, 2020: Enhancing Bikeability delivery
• Consultant for the Children’s Traffic Club, 2019
• Cambridgeshire County Council funding, 2017: Improving driver perception of oncoming motorcycles
• BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant, 2015: Preparing drivers to respond to road turns safely: What neural mechanism drives differences between experienced and novice drivers?

Selected recent publications

Driving and Cycling Research

Keyes, H., Green, F., Compton, C., & Staton, M., 2019. Short-term cognitive conspicuity training does not improve driver detection of motorcycles at road junctions: A reply to Crundall, Howard & Young (2017). Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour. doi: 10.1016/j.trf.2019.10.008.

Audio cues improve driver safety, The Naked Scientists podcast interview

Face Perception Research

Keyes, H. and Zalicks, C., 2016. Socially Important Faces Are Processed Preferentially to Other Familiar and Unfamiliar Faces in a Priming Task across a Range of Viewpoints. PLoS ONE 11(5): e0156350. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0156350.

Keyes, H. and Dlugokencka, A., 2014. Do I Have My Attention? Speed of Processing Advantages for the Self-Face Are Not Driven by Automatic Attention Capture. PLoS ONE, 9(10), e110792. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0110792.

Keyes, H., 2012. Categorical perception effects for facial identity in robustly represented familiar and self-faces: The role of configural and featural information. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(4), pp.760-762. doi:10.1080/17470218.2011.636822.

Rooney B., Keyes, H. and Brady, N., 2012. Shared or separate mechanisms for self-face and other-face processing? Evidence from adaptation. Frontiers in Perception Science, 3(66), doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00066.

Keyes, H. and Brady, N., 2010. Self-face recognition is characterised by faster, more accurate performance, which persists when faces are inverted. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(5), 840-847, doi: 10.1080/17470211003611264.

Keyes, H., Brady, N., Reilly, R. B. and Foxe, J.J., 2010. My face or yours? Event-related potential correlates of self-face processing. Brain and Cognition, 72(2), pp.244-254, doi: 10.1016/jbandc.2009.09.006..

Education Research

Keyes, H., Harvey, A., & Lee, E. (under review). Expecting better: Effectively conveying time allocation expectations to students. Submitted to Active Learning in Higher Education.

Harvey, A. J., & Keyes, H., 2019. How do I compare thee? An evidence-based approach to the presentation of class comparison information to students using Dashboard. Innovations in Education and Teaching International. Doi: 10.1080/14703297.2019.1593213.

Recent presentations and conferences

Keyes, H., Staton, M., Green, F., & Compton, C., 2018. Look-but-fail-to-see errors. The National Road Safety Conference. Brighton, UK.

Keyes, H., & Ray, P., 2017. Fast friends: Speeded processing for personally familiar faces compared to other highly familiar and unfamiliar faces. British Psychological Society Cognitive Section Conference. Newcastle, UK.

Keyes, H. and Zalicks, C., 2016. The social importance of a face affects recognition speed across a range of viewpoints. British Psychological Society Annual Conference, Nottingham, UK.

Keyes, H., Whitmore, A. and Naneva, S., 2016. The use of visual and audio primes while driving. British Psychological Society Annual Conference, Nottingham, UK. 

Keyes, H., Dlugokencka, A. and Tacel, G., 2013. Do I have my attention? Our own face may be special, but it does not grab our attention more than other faces. European Conference on Visual Perception, Bremen, Germany. Perception, 42, ECVP Abstract Supplement. doi:10.1068/v130176.

Keyes, H. and Dlugokencka, A., 2013. Don't mind me: Speed of processing advantages for self-referential material are not due to attention-grabbing properties of those stimuli. British Psychological Society Annual Conference, Harrogate, UK.

Keyes, H., 2010. Categorical perception effects for familiar face processing persist for inverted self-faces. British Psychological Society Annual Conference, Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK.

Keyes, H. and Brady, N., 2009. Self-face processing advantages persist when faces are inverted. British Psychological Society Annual Conference, Brighton, UK.

Keyes, H. and Brady, N., 2007. My face or yours? Early and late ERP correlates of self-face perception. European Conference on Visual Perception, Arezzo, Italy. Perception, 36, ECVP Abstract Supplement. doi:10.1068/v070367.

Keyes, H., Brady, N. & Rooney, B., 2007. 'Natural Categories' in self/other face perception? British Psychological Society: The XXIV Annual Cognitive Section Conference, University of Aberdeen, UK.

Keyes, H., Brady, N. and Reilly, R., 2006. Neurophysiological correlates of self-face recognition. British Psychological Society Annual Conference: Student Section, Cardiff, UK.

Keyes, H., Brady, N., Maguire, A. and Reilly, R., 2005. Neurophysiological correlates of self-face recognition. European Brain and Behaviour Society 37th Annual General Conference, Dublin, Ireland.

Media experience

• Helen is the resident neuroscience news expert for Naked Neuroscience
• Profile interview in The Psychologist
• Online BPS careers event – So you want to work with Children?