Anna á Váli Guttesen
PhD student in Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging

Profile

Biography

• PhD student in Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, University of York, UK, 2018 – Present
• Research Assistant, Computational and Biological Learning Lab, University of Cambridge, UK, 2017 – 2018
• MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of York, UK, 2016 – 2017
• Research Assistant, SLAM lab, University of York, UK, 2015, 2016 – 2017
• Research Assistant, Department of Public Health, Faroe Islands, 2015
• BSc in Psychology, University of York, UK, 2012 – 2015

Departmental roles

• ReproducibiliTea York Coordinator (2019 – Present)
• Early Career Researcher Committee Member (2018 – Present)
• Graduate Teaching Assistant & Mentor (2018 – Present)

Research

Overview

The role of sleep in memory consolidation and subsequent learning

Projects

I am investigating how the sleeping brain prepares to process new memories. In particular, I am interested in whether overnight memory consolidation ‘paves the way’ for new declarative learning the next day. Using behavioural and electroencephalography (EEG) techniques across sleep and wake, I examine the relationship between sleep-associated memory consolidation and subsequent encoding.

Research group(s)

• Emotion Processing and Offline Consolidation (EPOC) Lab
• Sleep Language and Memory (SLAM) Lab

Grants

•  Departmental Scholarship, Department of Psychology, University of York, UK

Collaborators

• Dr Scott Cairney
• Prof Gareth Gaskell

Teaching

Other teaching

• GTA at undergraduate and postgraduate tutorials/seminars

Publications

Selected publications

• Strachan, J. W., Guttesen, A. Á. V., Smith, A. K., Gaskell, M. G., Tipper, S. P., & Cairney, S. A. (2019). Investigating the formation and consolidation of incidentally learned trust. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000752
• Ashton, J. E., Harrington, M. O., Guttesen, A. Á. V., Smith, A. K., & Cairney, S. A. (2019). Sleep Preserves Physiological Arousal in Emotional Memory. Scientific Reports, 9(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42478-2
• Cairney, S. A., Guttesen, A. Á. V., El, N. M., & Staresina, B. P. (2018). Memory Consolidation Is Linked to Spindle-Mediated Information Processing during Sleep. Current Biology: CB, 28(6), 948-954. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.01.087