In August 2003, three separate groups merged into a single School of Psychology. The merger entailed the relocation of almost every office and laboratory into co-located space, and created one of the largest Psychology departments in the UK.
These developments have been underpinned by substantial investment in laboratory and office space, mostly funded from SRIF amounting to nearly £6 million. In order to co-locate the department, almost all our office and laboratory space was refurbished in 2003-4, and included establishing major new facilities such as a Human Psychophysiology Laboratory and a Human Psychopharmacology Unit. An imaging centre housing MRI and PET/CT scanners was opened in 2007, in association with the Brighton and Sussex Medical School.
The school has approximately 800 m2 of laboratory space, well equipped to support the needs of our research groups. In addition to these dedicated facilities, the School has a number of general facilities, including 12 cubicles (for individual testing) and a large room used for the simultaneous testing of groups of participants. The school also has 2 dedicated computer teaching labs which can be combined into a single room of 50 computers.
Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience group:
- Ancillary Unit: A state of the art, conventional facility of 650 m2 usable space, commissioned in 1994.
- Behavioural Neuroscience laboratories. Sole use of a microscopy and histological suite (37m2), renovated in 2001 with support from JIF and the Wellcome Trust; a laboratory dedicated to electrophysiological studies in brain slices(12.4 m2); and shared use of a molecular biology laboratories (35 m2)
- Human Psychopharmacology laboratory. This laboratory was relocated in 2003 at a cost of £450k, funded by SRIF 2, and occupies 160 m2. It comprises a bedded unit, cubicles, and a fully-equipped kitchen for preparation of food for research on human ingestion.
Cognitive Psychology group:
- Clinical Imaging Sciences Centre. This was opened in Spring 2007, in association with Brighton and Sussex Medical School, at a cost of £3 million, partly funded by SRIF 3. It houses a 1.5T Siemens MRI and PET/CT scanners.
- Human Psychophysiology laboratory. This was established in 2003 from SRIF 2 funds and occupies 80m2 divided into 6 cubicles, a reception area, and a room with a Faraday cage to ensure full electrical insulation. Equipment includes both Neuroscan and EGI rigs for EEG/ERP, a Magstim TMS rig, and three Eyelink II eye-trackers.
- Psychoacoustic laboratory. This occupies 25 m2 and was re-located in 2006 funded by SRIF 3. It comprises two double-skinned acoustic booths.
- Vision Laboratories. Members of the vision group each have their own laboratory space which currently comprises 6 rooms occupying approximately 90 m2. These include rooms designed to exclude all natural light, and specialist equipment for presenting visual stimuli.
- Dedicated laboratories for Mammal Vocal Communication (3 rooms, over 50 m2 with specialist audio-video equipment), Language (3 rooms, occupying 36 m2), and applied memory (1 room, occupying 20 m2).
Developmental & Clinical Psychology group:
- Developmental Psychology Laboratories. In 2012, the School’s space for developmental research was extensively remodelled into a suite of developmental research labs. The suite, named the ‘The Sussex Child Research Hub’ has research facilities to enable developmental research across the lifespan, and developmental research using a broad range of methods. There are ten research rooms and multiple waiting and play areas and tea/coffee facilities for visiting parents. Please see the Sussex Child Research Hub webpage for further details.
- Clinical Experimental Psychopathology. This includes 3 rooms, occupying 36 m2.
Social & Applied Psychology group:
- Social & Health Laboratories. These comprise 7 rooms, amounting to 80m2, equipped with computers and video equipment. We use Cardiff Teleform software on a PC with a high-speed duplex scanner for capturing questionnaire data, which is used especially by this research group.