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Dr Brian Stollery
Senior Lecturer
PhD Psychology (Manchester)
B.Sc. (Hons.) Psychology (Manchester)

telephone: +44 (0)117 92 88575 email: Brian.Stollery@bris.ac.uk

Room 3D9

Biographical details

I started undergraduate life as a physicist at Manchester University, but transferred at the end of the first year into second year Psychology because I wished to pursue a more experimentally based science. I graduated with a B.Sc. (Honours) Psychology in 1974 and obtained my PhD, also at Manchester University, in 1980 for work on “The organisation and reorganisation of knowledge”. I then worked in the Department of Occupational Health (Manchester University) on various neurotoxicology related projects from 1980-1987. I joined the Age & Cognitive Performance Research Centre at Manchester as a Research Associate in 1987 to work on various ageing related projects and was appointed Assistant Director of the unit in 1990. I joined the Department of Psychology at Bristol University in 1994, and was appointed senior lecturer in 2002. I am a member of the Experimental Psychology Society.


Teaching and administration




Currently, I teach on the Level 1 undergraduate mandatory unit “Introduction to Research Methods & Research Skills”, Level 2 mandatory unit “Statistics & Methods”, and on the MSc in Research Methods unit “Psychological Statistics”. I also teach on the Diploma of Clinical Neuropsychology and Diploma of Applied Clinical Neuropsychology at the Institute of Psychiatry (London) on the cognitive effects of neurotoxic substances to qualified Clinical Psychologists.

I am the Teaching & Learning Advisor, Skills & Employability Network Officer, International Students Liaison Officer, Open Day Coordinator, represent the Department on the Early Childhood Studies Course Review Committee, and organise and run the Departments contribution to the Sutton Summer Trust School. I was Director of Undergraduate Studies 2000-2003.


Research interests

Keywords: neurotoxicology, aging, glucose, adaptation, post-operative recovery

I am a member of the Brian & Behaviour Research Group and, broadly speaking, my research covers the application of cognitive models to the areas of occupational health, human aging, functional changes in cognition and the moderating impact of individual differences.

The major theme of my occupational research concerns the acquired cognitive changes that accompany an individual's exposure to occupational neurotoxins (e.g., lead, aluminium, organic solvents, pesticides). This work seeks to integrate the biochemical, neurochemical and cognitive aspects of the resulting cognitive changes. My aging research is more conventional and covers the changes that accompany normal human aging. Of particular interest is the influence of cognitive training of the elderly where the main emphasis is on the rates of learning, asymptotes of learning, transfer of training and rates of forgetting of cognitive skills. One specific interest here is changes in executive functioning. Other related work examines metacognitive changes in relation to occupational stress and aging in working populations, and the relation between cardio-vascular function and cognitive functioning. My work on glucose seeks to delineate the various facilitation effects that glucose seems to have on selective cognitive functions, basis for these enhancements and whether these effects are influenced by “expectancies”. I also conduct work in the areas of post-operative recovery from day-case surgery, the ability to fake neurotoxic deficits (arising out of my medico-legal work), schizotypy and attention, the role of traumatic memories in depression and bulimia, stress and adaptation processes (particularly in students), and insomnia.

Recent and current grants

2001 – 2002: Development of the Blackboard system for undergraduate training in research methods. Joint applicant with Dr. Jan Noyes (Psychology).

2001 – 2002: Development of web-based packages for training postgraduates. Joint applicant with Dr. Jan Noyes (Psychology).

2000 – 2001: The role of traumatic memories in recovery from Bulimia. Joint applicant with Dr. Bill Jerrom (Barrow Hospital)

1997 – 2000: Non-ionisation radiation risk perception. Joint applicant with Prof. Alan Preece (Oncology) and Prof. Andy Smith (Psychology).

Collaborations

University of Bristol colleagues from Psychopharmacology.

Recent collaborators outside Bristol include:
Professor Peter Elwood & Colleagues (MRC Epidemiology Unit, Llandough Hospital)
Professor Tim Perfect (University of Plymouth)
Professor Pat Rabbitt (University of Manchester)
Dr. Bill Jerrom (Barrow Hospital)
Dr. Leigh Riby (Glasgow Caledonian University)
Dr. Ritva Akila (Finish Institute of Occupational Health)

PhD students supervised

Christian, Leonie: The influence of glucose on cognitive function: Further investigations of complexity relations. Part time, self-funded: 2002 – current

McCarter, Rene: The development and application of a scale to measure adolescents’ knowledge of epilepsy. Part time, self-funded: 2000 – current.

Al-Youself, H.A. Self-consistency, cognitive reactions and autobiographical memory in depression. Kuwait Government Funding. 2001-2004. Awaiting viva.

Mazarakis, Theo: Insomnia, sleep quality and daytime performance. Full time, Greek Government Scholarship: 2000-2004. Awarded subject to corrections.

Riby, Leigh: Aging and executive functioning in dual-tasks: Domain or difficulty? Full time, ESRC Scholarship. PhD Awarded: 2002

Meikle, Andy: Glucose and memory: Towards a condition-based hypothesis. Full time. Bristol University Scholarship. . PhD Awarded: 2002

Some recent publications

Stollery, B. T. (in press). Vigilance. In W. Karwowski (Ed.), International Encyclopaedia of Ergonomics and Human Factors (2nd ed.). New York: CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

Meikle, A., Riby, L. R., & Stollery, B. (2004). The impact of glucose ingestion and gluco-regulatory control on cognitive performance: A comparison of younger and middle aged adults. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental, 19(8), 523-535.

Riby, L.M., Perfect, T.J. & Stollery, B. (2004). The effects of age and task domain on dual task performance: A meta-analysis. The European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 16(6), 863-891.

Riby, L.M., Perfect, T.J. & Stollery, B. (2004). Evidence for disproportionate costs in older adults for episodic but not semantic retrieval. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 57A, 241-26.

Rabbitt, P., Osman, P., Moore, B., Stollery, B. (2001). There are stable individual differences in performance variability, both from moment to moment and from day to day. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54A(4), 981-1003.

Akila, R., Stollery, B.T., Riihimaki, V. (1999). Cognitive performance decrements in aluminium exposed metal inert-gas welders Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 56(9): 632-639.

Gallacher, J. E., Elwood, P. C., Hopkinson, C., Rabbitt, P. M., Stollery, B. T., Sweetnam, P. M., Brayne, C. & Huppert, F. A. (1999). Cognitive function in the Caerphilly study: Associations with age, social class, education and mood. European Journal of Epidemiology, 15(2), 161-169.

Elwood, P.C., Gallacher, J.E.J., Hopkinson, C.A., Pickering, J., Rabbitt, P., Stollery, B., Bryne, C., Huppert, F.A., Bayer, A. (1999). Smoking, drinking, and other life style factors and cognitive function in the Caerphilly cohort. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 53: 9-14.

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