Ruihan has been awarded a student bursary to attend the Summer University program of the Central European University (CEU) “Representing the world in the developing mind: From objects to context”. The program gathered different fields of experts, such as cognitive and neurodevelopmental psychology, in one place to talk about how the developing mind represent the world. From the development of executive function to Theory of Mind, studies have assumed that developing minds have a stable representation of objects, which they enumerate and track according to the perceptual input and maintain despite occlusion. During the program, it has also been discussed that the interaction between different factors contributing to object perception and memory, from theoretical and empirical perspectives. The the ultimate goal of the program is to advance the understanding of how infants form representations of their environment, and how these representations develop throughout childhood.
Ruihan has been awarded a student bursary from the IMPRS NeuroCom and the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL London to attend the 10th IMPRS NeuroCom Summer School, taking place from 5th-8th July 2021. During the event, she presented a poster entitled ‘Can mentalizing measures be unsusceptible to compensation?’. It was a great event, that enlightened and discussed key topics of Cognitive Neuroscience.
Ruihan attended the Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) meeting on 14th-15th April 2021. She gave a talk entitled ‘Does prompted instruction in an anticipatory looking paradigm trigger compensation?’. The conference was hosted by the Experimental Psychology Society. We found our prompted anticipatory looking task can reliably trigger belief-based action prediction and assess mentalizing in adults. Most importantly, we provided evidence that the prompted anticipatory looking task was not susceptible to compensation, it seems like that this task is a more pure measure for mentalizing, which have the potential to refine our understanding of mentalizing per se. It was a wonderful opportunity to learn from and exchange ideas with peers and experts.
Ruihan attended the Kinds of Mindreading Graduate Conference on Theory of Mind on 6th February 2021. She gave a talk entitled ‘Do Autistic Adults Spontaneously Reason False and True Beliefs?’. The day-long virtual event was hosted by the Expression, Communication, and the Origins of Meaning (ECOM) research group at the University of Connecticut. It was a wonderful opportunity to learn from like-minded peers and experts, and to familiarise ourselves with the latest advances in mentalizing research.
We’re delighted that Ruihan has been transferred from the degree of MPhil to that of PhD with her study on “Effects of compensation on mentalizing and mental health in the broader autism phenotype”. Congratulations Ruihan!
We’re delighted that Ruihan has been awarded a 3-year Chinese Government Scholarship to support her PhD on “Do individuals with elevated BAP traits compensate more: effects of compensation on mentalizing performance and mental health”. Congratulations Ruihan!
Ruihan presented her first PhD project on ‘The Broader Autism Phenotype, Implicit Mentalizing and Camouflaging: An Eye-tracking Study’ at the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Annual Seminar 2019, and was awarded the Annette Karmiloff-Smith poster prize for the best poster presentation. It was a great opportunity to learn about neurodevelopmental disorders and exchange ideas with experts and like-minded peers.
