Dr Kielan Yarrow

Overview

Dr Yarrow began his research career as a Research Assistant working at the MRC Human Movement and Balance Unit in Queen Square, London.

He subsequently completed a PhD with John Rothwell at the Institute of Neurology, UCL. Dr Yarrow continued to work at the ION during a four year period of postdoctoral research, which was also carried out in collaboration with Patrick Haggard at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL.

He joined City University London in October 2006 and is Director of the Research Methods with Psychology MSc.

Qualifications

• PhD: “Temporal illusions subsequent to movement.”, University College London, United Kingdom, 2003
• MSc Experimental Methods in Psychology (Distinction), University College London, United Kingdom, 1998
• BSc History and Psychology, joint degree with honours (First class), Keele University, Newcastle-under-Lyme, United Kingdom, 1997
• Introductory Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education, City, University of London

Employment

• Reader, City, University of London, Aug 2015 – present
• Senior Lecturer, City, University of London, Oct 2011 – Jul 2015
• Lecturer, City, University of London, Oct 2006 – Sep 2011
• Post-doctoral research assistant, Jointly at the Sobell department, ION, and the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL, Apr 2004 – Sep 2006
• College Teacher, Department of Psychology, UCL, Oct 2003 – Mar 2004
• Post-doctoral research assistant, University College London, Dec 2002 – Sep 2003
• Research assistant, MRC Human Movement and Balance Unit, Dec 1998 – Dec 1999

Teaching

Undergraduate teaching

- PS3025 Programming for Psychologists
- PS3001 Final-year project supervision
- PS1002 Professional & Academic Development for Psychologists

Postgraduate teaching

- PSM207 Research Methods & Programming
- PSM208 Statistical Models
- SAM003 Introduction to Quantitative Inference

Dr Yarrow's research interests include multisensory perception (particularly temporal perception), attention, decision making, and action. PhD students in Kielan's lab have investigated topics such as the automatic priming of the motor system by graspable objects, the way truthful responses leak into primary motor cortex during deception, how evidence for rapid decisions accumulates in the brain, and the cognitive basis of time perception.

Dr Yarrow has been the recipient of several large grants. The most recent, awarded to City University London by the Leverhulme Trust, was a three-year Research Project Grant (£216,306) with co-investigators Tina Forster (also at City’s Department of Psychology) and Sven Bestmann (UCL). The project was entitled "Novel neurometric measures to discriminate models of speeded decision making" and ran until November 2017. Overlapping that (with co-investigator Joshua Solomon, from City's Department of Optometry and Visual Science) was a BBSRC funded project, "New methodologies to explain and improve the expert anticipatory advantage in sports decision making" (2013-2016, FEC £469,644).

Dr Yarrow has also been a partner investigator on two ARC (Australian Research Council) Discovery Grants (with chief investigator Derek Arnold, University of Queensland), one entitled "Distorted Time Perceptions: Altered neural coding or decisional criteria?" (2014-2016, AU$163,000) and one entitled "Why does time seem to drag or fly?” (2018-2020, AU$199,000).

As part of City's Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, Kielan runs the transcranial magnetic stimulation lab, where a powerful magnet is used to interfere with the brain's activity.

Research students

Publications by category