Författare: Abigail Sellen

Prof. Cathy Craig is a professor of Perception and Action Psychology and Director of the state-of-the-art Movement Innovation Lab at Queen”s University Belfast, N. Ireland. Her cutting-edge research is primarily concerned with how sensory information picked up by the brain is subsequently used to guide all kinds of action. She uses this knowledge to develop innovative interventions that help improve movement performance in different groups of people (e.g. older adults, people with Parkinson”s disease, children with autism). The caliber of her work has been recognized through the award of a prestigious ERC (European Research Council) grant, reserved for the very best scientists in Europe. This funding has allowed her to test how different types of multi-sensory virtual environments can be used to invite users to move in certain ways, whilst taking into account the action capabilities of the end-user. By adopting some basic principles of perception/action coupling she has developed a series of gamified scenarios that intrinsically motivate older adults to perform certain actions. To date she has successfully applied her perception/action research to successfully improve balance control and mobility levels in older adults, but also to understand differences in performance in elite sportsmen and women. Her ERC funded work was one of only four projects chosen to be showcased at the 1st Innovation EU Convention in Brussels and the ERC”s 5th Birthday celebrations. She was runner up in the Health Innovation Awards in N. Ireland in 2011 and was a finalist in the 25k Innovation awards for her work on Parkinson’s and falls prevention in older adults.