Dr Thom Wilcockson

BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD, FHEA, CPsychol

  • Senior Lecturer in Psychology

Research groups and centres

Publications
ORCiD Google Scholar
Thom Wilcockson

Thom Wilcockson completed his BSc, MSc, and PhD at Swansea University. During his PhD, he conducted research into factors affecting eye movements. Thom then performed post-doctoral research for two years at London South Bank University, where he was able to continue eye tracking research. In May 2015, Thom moved to Lancaster University to work on a large eye tracking project, investigating whether eye tracking techniques could be utilised to aid in patient diagnosis.

Thom joined the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ as a Psychology Lecturer in January 2019, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in February 2023.

Thom Wilcockson uses eye tracking techniques in order to measure cognitive impairments within a number of different patient groups. His research has enabled him to work with concussion, neurodegenerative diseases, neurological disorders, and addiction. Thom is interested in pupillometry, saccadic eye movements, attention, and inhibitory control.

Thom Wilcockson is a member of the Applied Vision Association (AVA) executive committee. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society (BPS).

Thom is a reviewer for Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology; Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology; Health Science Journal; Journal of Dual Diagnosis; Journal of Medical Internet Research; Mental Health in Family Medicine; Addictive Behaviors; Addictive Behaviors Reports; Alcoholism, Drug Abuse & Substance Dependence; Appetite; Asian Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences; Frontiers Journal of Educational Psychology; PLOS ONE; Psychology of Addictive Behaviors.

Recent presentations

  • Wilcockson, T. D.W. (2022). Anticipatory smooth pursuit in schizotypy. ECVP, Netherlands (31st August 2022)
  • Wilcockson, T. D.W. (2022). Abnormalities of saccadic eye movements in dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment. Invited talk at Nottingham University Malaysia campus (10th May 2022)
  • Wilcockson, T. D.W. (2022). Abnormalities of saccadic eye movements in dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment. Talk at ACTInG conference (27th January 2022)
  • Wilcockson, T. D.W. (2021). Abnormalities of saccadic eye movements in dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment. Talk at ACTInG conference (6th July 2021)
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W. (2019). Alcohol usage predicts holistic perception: A novel paradigm to explore addiction. ECVP, Belgium (22nd August 2019)
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W. (2018). Gamma entrainment and Alzheimer’s disease. Invited talk at Defying Dementia Conference (22nd Sept 2018)
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W. (2017). Using eye movement for the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease. Talk at University Third Age Health Conference (26th Oct 2017)
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W. (2017). Monitoring Dementia using Eye Movements: Detecting Cognitive Decline Using Eye Movement Scanpaths. Talk at AAIC 2017 (18th July 2017)
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W. (2017). Nicotine-related attentional biases in dependent and non-dependent smokers. Poster at Gordon Conferences Eye Movements 2017, USA (9th July 2017)
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W. (2017). Using eye movements as diagnostic markers: Implications from HCI Devices. Talk at Intelligent Decision Technologies 2017, Portugal conference (23rd June 2017)
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W. (2016). Introduction to human eye-tracking. Invited talk at SynaNET, Lancaster (26th Sept 2016)
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W., Zhang, Y., Kwang I.K., Crawford, T.J. Gellersen, H. & Sawyer, P., (2016). Monitoring Dementia with Automatic Eye Movements Analysis. Talk at Intelligent Decision Technologies conference, Spain (18th June 2016)

Featured publications

  • Ales, F., Giromini, L., Warmelink, L., Polden, M., Wilcockson, T., Kelly, C., ... & Crawford, T. (2022). On the Use of Eye Movements in Symptom Validity Assessment of Feigned Schizophrenia. Psychological Injury and Law.
  • Begde, A., Hogervorst, E., & Wilcockson, T.D.W. (2021). Does physical exercise improve the capacity for independent living in people with dementia or mild cognitive impairment: an overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Aging & Mental Health
  • Gawor, A., Hogervorst, E., & Wilcockson, T.D.W (2021). Does an Acute Bout of Moderate Exercise Reduce Alcohol Craving in University Students? Addictive Behaviors.
  • Ales, F., Giromini, L., Warmelink, L., Polden, M., Wilcockson, T., Kelly, C., ... & Crawford, T. (2021). An eye tracking study on feigned schizophrenia. Psychological Injury and Law.
  • Wilcockson, T. D., Pothos, E. M., Osborne, A. M., & Crawford, T. J. (2021). Top-down and bottom-up attentional biases for smoking-related stimuli: comparing dependent and non-dependent smokers. Addictive Behaviors, 106886.
  • Lunn, J., Wilcockson, T., Donovan, T., Dondelinger, F., Perez Algorta, G., & Monaghan, P. (2021). The role of chronotype and reward processing in understanding social hierarchies in adolescence. Brain and Behavior, e02090.
  • Cosme, G., Rosa, P. J., Lima, C. F., Tavares, V., Scott, S., Chen, S., Wilcockson, T.D.W, Crawford T.J. & Prata, D. (2021). Pupil dilation reflects the authenticity of received nonverbal vocalizations. Scientific reports, 11(1), 1-14.
  • Polden, M., Wilcockson, T.D.W., & Crawford, T.J. (2020). The Disengagement of Visual Attention: An Eye-Tracking Study of Cognitive Impairment, Ethnicity and Age. Brain Sciences
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W., Burns, E.J., Xia, B., Tree, J., & Crawford, T.J. (2020). Atypically heterogeneous vertical first fixations to faces in a case series of people with developmental prosopagnosia. Visual Cognition.
  • Brown, C., Wilcockson, T, Lunn, J. (2020). Does sleep affect alcohol-related attention bias? Journal of Substance Use.
  • Mardanbegi, D., Wilcockson, T., Killick, R. C., Xia, B., Gellersen, H. W. G., Sawyer, P., & Crawford, T. J. (2020). A Comparison of post-saccadic oscillations in European-Born and China-Born British University Undergraduates. PLoS ONE.
  • Crawford T.J., Taylor S., Mardanbegi D., Polden M., Wilcockson T.W., Killick R., Sawyer P., Gellersen H. & Leroi I. (2019). The Effects of Previous Error and Success in Alzheimer’s Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment. Scientific Reports.
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W., Pothos, E.M., & Cox, W.M. (2019). An online cognitive bias task: The Rough Estimation Task using Qualtrics. Behavioural Pharmacology.
  • Wilcockson, T. D., Osborne, A. M., & Ellis, D. A. (2019). Digital detox: The effect of smartphone withdrawal on mood, anxiety, and craving. Addictive Behaviors.
  • Wilcockson, T. D., Mardanbegi, D., Xia, B., Taylor, S., Sawyer, P., Gellersen, H. W., ... & Crawford, T. J. (2019). Abnormalities of saccadic eye movements in dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment. Aging (Albany NY), 11(15), 5389.
  • Burns, E. J., & Wilcockson, T. D. (2019). Alcohol usage predicts holistic perception: A novel paradigm to explore addiction. Addictive Behaviors.
  • Mardanbegi, D., Wilcockson, T., Sawyer, P., Gellersen, H. W. G., & Crawford, T. J. (2019). SaccadeMachine: Software for Analyzing Saccade Tests (Anti-Saccade and Pro-saccade). In Proceedings of Communication by Gaze Interaction, Denver, CO, USA, June 25–28, 2019 (COGAIN@ETRA’19)
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W., McElhatton, C.M., & Fawcett, A.J. (2018). Why does likelihood of substance abuse vary for dyslexics as a result of socioeconomic background? International Journal of Mental Health & Addiction
  • Qureshi, A, Monk, R, Pennington, C, Heim, D, Wilcockson, T. (2019). Alcohol-related attentional bias in a gaze contingency task: Comparing appetitive and non-appetitive cues. Addictive Behaviors
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W., Mardanbegi, D, Sawyer, P., Gellersen, H, Xia, B, & Crawford, T.C, (2018). Oculomotor and inhibitory control in dyslexia. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience.
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W., Pothos, E.M., & Parrott, A.C. (2018). Substance usage intention does not affect attentional bias: implications from Ecstasy/MDMA users and alcohol drinkers. Addictive Behaviors.
  • Smith-Spark, J.H., Katz, H.B., Wilcockson, T.D.W. & Marchant, A., (2018). Optimal approaches to the quality control checking of product labels. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics.
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W., Ellis, D.A., & Shaw, H. (2018). Determining typical smartphone usage: What data is needed? Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 21(6),
  • Ellis, D.A., Kaye, L.K., Wilcockson, T.D.W., & Ryding, F.C. (2018). Digital Traces of behaviour within addiction: Response to Griffiths (2017). International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 1-6.
  • Mardanbegi, D., Wilcockson, T., Xia, B., Gellersen, H. W. G., Crawford, T. J., & Sawyer, P. (2017). PSOVIS: An interactive tool for extracting post-saccadic oscillations from eye movement data. COGAIN.
  • Wilcockson, T.D., Crawford, T., Mardanbegi, D., Sawyer, P., Gellersen, H., & Leroi, I. (2017). Monitoring of dementia using eye movements: detecting cognitive decline using eye movement scanpaths. Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, 13(7), P1137-P1138.
  • Mardanbegi, D, Killick, R, Xia, B, Wilcockson, T.D.W, Gellersen, H, & Sawyer, P. (2017). Effect of aging on post-saccadic oscillations. Vision Research , 143, 1-8.
  • Frings, D., Albery, I.P., Moss, A., Eskisan, G., Wilcockson, T.D.W., & Marchant, A. (2017). Environmental context influences visual attention to responsible drinking messages. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 53(1), 46-51.
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W (2017). Using eye trackers as indicators of diagnostic markers: Implications from HCI devices. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies. (pp. 308-315). Springer, Cham.
  • Albery, I.P., Wilcockson, T.D.W., Frings, D., Moss, A., Gabriele, C., & Spada, M. (2016). Examining the relationship between selective attentional bias for food- and body-related stimuli and purging behaviour in bulimia nervosa. Appetite. 107, 208-212
  • Zhang, Y., Wilcockson, T.D.W., Kwang I.K., Crawford, T.J. Gellersen, H. & Sawyer, P., (2016). Monitoring Dementia with Automatic Eye Movements Analysis. In Czarnowski et al. (eds.) Proceedings of Intelligent Decision Technologies 2016, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 57,
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W. & Sanal, N.E.M. (2016). Heavy cannabis use and attentional avoidance of anxiety-related stimuli. Addictive Behavior Reports 3, 38-42.
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W., & Crawford, T.J. (2016). Monitoring of Dementia using Eye Movements. Psychology of Older People: Faculty of the Psychology of Older People Bulletin. 135, p. 9.
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W & Pothos, E.M. (2016b). How cognitive biases can distort environmental statistics: Introducing the Rough Estimation Task. Behavioural Pharmacology. 27(2 and 3-Special Issue), 165-172.
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W., Pothos, E.M., & Fawcett, A.J. (2016). Dyslexia and Substance Use in a University Undergraduate Population. Substance Use and Misuse. 51(1), 15-22.
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W., & Pothos, E.M. (2016a). The automatic nature of habitual goal-state activation in substance use; implications from a dyslexic population. Journal of Substance Use. 21(3), 244-248.
  • Wilcockson, T.D.W., & Pothos, E.M. (2015). Measuring inhibitory processes for alcohol-related attentional biases: introducing a novel attentional bias measure. Addictive Behaviors, 44, 88-93.