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Dr Greg Neil
BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD, FHEA

Research Fellow

Department of Social Sciences and Nursing

Portrait of Greg Neil

Biography

Greg is a cognitive psychologist specialising in learning, memory and metacognition, as they apply to education and police investigation. He is the head of the Wellbeing and Applied Research in Psychology Group (WARP). Greg pursues an active research career, while supervising PhD students and teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Greg came to academia from a career in business, during which he worked for diverse companies such as a dot com training company and National Air Traffic Services. Having left that career behind, he secured ESRC funding to complete a PhD in Cognitive Psychology, focusing on the learning of complex rulesets. Following that, Greg completed a post-doctoral roll on the SuperIdentity project, looking at different ways in which identification information can be used. As part of that Greg Co-ordinated a mass collection of identification information, involving months of planning, and a team of five other post-docs. Greg joined Solent University after this, in 2014.

Research interests

Greg's research interests primarily focus on learning and memory, and metacognition:

  • Misinformation and transcription guidelines: Current focus is in looking at the ways in which people’s memory can be influenced when listening to audio, especially when reading transcripts. As part of this work, Greg aims to develop police guidelines to improve transcription practices.
  • Memory in forensic settings: Witnesses of crime are frequently called upon to remember what they saw or heard. As such, Greg is interested in both face and voice memory, and of how forensically relevant factors might affect the accuracy of memory. He has also collaborated on several projects in which he has compared computers and humans on matching tasks, such as iris identification.
  • Learning: The process by which humans learn, both deliberately (explicit learning) and incidentally (implicit learning).
  • Metacognition: The extent to which people can accurately evaluate their own memories and decisions. In other words, when somebody says they are sure they have seen a face before, how much can you trust that judgement?

Greg uses a wide range of research methodologies in his research, with a particular focus on signal detection theory and ROC curve analysis.

ORCID ID

0000-0003-1360-5490

Keywords

memory, learning, metacognition, forensic, education, research methods

Further information

Transcription development pilot work (Policy Through Evidence Grant, 2020).

Concurrent misinformation effect in interviews (Research and Innovation Knowledge Exchange Grant, 2017)

Taught courses

BSc (Hons) Psychology

Psychology is about the study of mind, behaviour, experience and relationships. Become a Chartered Psychologist with our BPS accredited degree.

BSc (Hons) Psychology with Sociology

Explore the fascinating behaviours of individuals, as well as the cultural and political issues that shape collective experiences, on this BPS accredited degree.

BSc (Hons) Psychology with Counselling and Mental Health

Combine your skills in psychology and counselling to influence behaviour change and recovery on our BPS accredited degree.

BSc (Hons) Sport and Exercise Psychology

Understanding performance and wellbeing is essential for helping athletes to cope with pressure and regulate their emotions. Prepare for your future in sport psychology on this BPS accredited degree.