The Senses: More Than Meets the Eye

Why does time seem to pass faster as we get older? Why does it crawl when we are bored, or fly when we are having fun?  What does it really mean to have a ‘long week’? In this talk I will discuss our best explanations of our strange relationship with time, and what we do and don’t understand about it. Dr Luke Jones is the director of the Time Perception Lab at the University of Manchester.

Stigma has historically been defined as an "attribute that significantly discredits," reducing an individual from being perceived as complete and typical to being seen as tainted and devalued. It is a significant factor influencing health and well-being, affecting morbidity, mortality, and health disparities. Stigma is fundamentally a social phenomenon, and perceptions of disability, hearing impairment, and hearing aid adoption vary across cultures. Therefore, stigma research must account for how cultural norms, perpetuated at the population level, shape individual perceptions, which is what I will talk about!

Brain Machine interfaces (BMIs) are therapeutic devices intended to help people who have been severely paralysed due to damage to the brain or spinal cord. BMIs measure the activity of brain cells and translate it into commands of external devices (eg robot arm or communication device). I will talk about how BMIs work, the neuroscience behind them and some examples where they have been successfully applied.