Dr Sophie Nightingale

Research Interests

My research interests concern the fast-moving area of digital technology and its effects on memory, cognition, and behaviour. I frequently combine methodological techniques from experimental psychology and computer science to address topical issues, such as identity fraud, online harm, forensic identification, and applied artificial intelligence. My research has implications for policy and practice within many domains and aims to ensure that technology is used in a manner that promotes fairness and wellbeing for all. In addition to the real-world applications, my findings contribute to theoretical understanding of human perception and models of memory processing.

Currently, I am particularly interested in conducting research in the following areas:

1. Understanding and enhancing people’s ability to detect fake content (e.g., face morphing, manipulated and synthetised images, deep fakes, misinformation)
2. The role of social media in the spread of misinformation
3. Improving expert forensic identification decision-making techniques
4. Examining bias in machine learning and finding ways to evaluate and improve techniques