Dr Nathan Ridout

Lecturer in Psychology

Psychology Group
School of Life & Health Sciences
Aston University
Aston Triangle
Birmingham
B4 7ET, England

Room: SW 508B
Tel: +44 (0)121 204 4162
Fax: +44 (0)121 204 4090
Email: n.ridout@aston.ac.uk

Office Hours: Usually Tuesdays 9 - 11 & Thursdays 3;30 - 5:30 follow this link to make an appointment online: https://shib02.aston.ac.uk/wass/pages/login.page.php

• Lecturer on the Psychology Teaching Programme
• Member of the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Research Group
• Member of research strand 'Mechanisms of age-related transitions' - Aston Research Centre for Healthy Ageing 
• Member of research strand: 'Ageing lives: the social, psychological and public policy contexts of health behaviour and medicines management' -  Aston Research Centre for Healthy Ageing 

Teaching Commitments

Undergraduate

Abnormal Psychology, Studying Psychology in Higher Education, Individual Differences & Psychometrics, Psychology Practicals, Cognitive Neuroscience of Affective Disorders (Final Year Option) 

Postgraduate

MRes in Cognitive Neuroscience/ MSc in Neuroimaging, PG Dip in Psychology

Administrative Roles

Admissions Tutor (Single Honours Psychology)

Associate Director of the MRes (Psychology)

Module convenor of Abnormal Psychology, and Individual Differences & Psychometrics (Undergraduate)

Module convenor of Personality & Intelligence, Advanced Research Methods in Cognitive Neuroscience and Research Practicals in Cognitive Neuroscience (Postgraduate)

Member of School of Life & Health Sciences and Psychology Ethics Committees

Research Student Supervision

I have successfully supervised one full-time PhD student to completion. Saima Noreen's work (funded by a LHS School Studentship) involved utilising experimental psychological methods in order to determine factors (e.g. inhibition, cognitive control, rumination) influencing depressed individuals' ability to intentionally forget unwanted information. Prior to undertaking her PhD Saima completed an MRes in Cognitive Neuroscience here at Aston, where she conducted an investigation into short-term/ working memory for emotional faces in dysphoria (subclinical depression). Dr Noreen is now a post doc at the University of St Andrews working with Professor Malcolm McLeod looking at mechanisms of forgetting.

Current Research Interests of Dr Nathan Ridout

The influence of clinical and subclinical psychopathology on social and emotional processing

This work involves application of experimental psychological methods in order to determine how different psychopathologies (including depression, anxiety, social phobia, delusion-proneness, eating disorders and somatoform disorders) influence emotion recognition (from faces and videotaped social interactions), selective attention (to emotional words, faces and images) and implcit/ explicit memory (for emotional words and faces). I am particularly interested in the role of inhibition in emotion processing, especially in relation to the function (and dysfunction) of the anterior cingulate region of the prefrontal cortex.   

Alexithymia, Health and Psychopathology

This work has been conducted primarily in collaboration with my colleagues at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich and has investigated the relationship between degree of alexithyimia (inability to describe one's feelings & those of others, and an externally focused-analytical cognitive style) and certain biological indicies of health (e.g. blood lymphocytes and cortisol). Further work, in Germany and in Birmingham, has determined the extent to which alexithymia can account for emotion recognition deficits that are associated with certain psychopathological conditions (notably depression, eating disorders and somatoform disorders).      

Factors influencing autobiographical memory (ABM) retrieval

My initial work in this area was conducted as part of my PhD at St Andrews working with Dr Barbara Dritschel (University of St Andrews), Professor Ronan O' Carroll (University of Stirling) and Professor Keith Matthews (University of Dundee) and concerned the effect of depression on specificity of ABM retrieval and, in particular, whether manipulating the type of memory cue could improve access to specific event memories in depressed individuals. More recently, I have been using experimental psychological studies to determine the role of executive processes in the retrieval of ABMs. This work has been conducted in collaboration with my colleague at Aston, Dr Carol Holland. In addition, we are interested in ABM retrieval in older adults, in particular factors that influence ABM specificity in these participants (e.g. retrieval instructions, cue type and cognitive capacity).   

Published Papers

Noreen, S. & Ridout, N. (2010) Short-term memory for emotional faces in dysphoria Memory 18(5):486-97

Ridout, N., Thom, C. & Wallis, D. J. (2010) Emotion recognition and alexithymia in females with non-clinical disordered eating. Eating Behaviours, 11, 1-5

Ridout, N., Noreen, A. & Johal, J (2009) Memory for emotional faces in naturally occurring dysphoria and induced negative mood, Behaviour, Research & Therapy, 47, 851-860

Ridout, N., Dritschel, B., Matthews, K. McVicar, M. Reid, I. C., & O’ Carroll, R. E. (2009) Memory for emotional faces in major depression following judgment of physical facial characteristics at encoding. Cognition and Emotion. 23(4), 739-752

Pedrosa Gil F, Bidlingmaier M, Ridout N, Scheidt CE, Caton S, Schoechlin C, Nickel M. (2008) The Relationship between Alexithymia and Salivary Cortisol Levels in Somatoform Disorders. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry. 62(5) 366-373

Pedrosa Gil, F. Ridout, N., Neuffer, M., Schoechlin, C., Traue, H.,Kessler, H., & Nickel, M. (2008) Facial emotion recognition and alexithymia in adults with somatoform disorders Depression and Anxiety. 25:E133 - E141

Ridout, N., O’ Carroll, R.E., Dritschel, B., Christmas, D., Eljamel, M., & Matthews, K. (2007) Emotion recognition from dynamic emotional displays following anterior cingulotomy and anterior capsulotomy for chronic depression. Neuropsychologia 45(8) 1735 - 1743

Pedrosa Gil, F., .Schwarz, M. J., Müller, N.,MD, Nickel, M., Ridout, N., & Schmidmaier, R. (2007) Significant alterations in peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets in patients with Somatoform Disorder Acta Neuropsychiatrica 19(6) 368 – 378

Pedrosa Gil, F., Nickel, M., Ridout, N., Schwarz, M.J., Schoechlin, C., Schmidmaier, R. (2007) Alexithymia and Interleukin Variations in Somatoform Disorder. Neuroimmunomodulation; 14:235-242

Ridout, N., Astell, A. J., Reid, I. C., Glen, T. & O’ Carroll, R. E. (2003) Memory bias for emotional facial expressions in major depression Cognition and Emotion 17 (1) 101 – 122

Submitted Papers

Noreen, S. & Ridout, N. (under review) Thought substitution and intentional forgetting of neutral words in dysphoria Cognition and Emotion

Ridout, N., Wallis, D. J. , Autwal, Y. & Sellis, J. (under revision)The influence of emotional intensity on facial emotion recognition in sub-clinical disordered eating Appetite

Ridout, N. & Stapleton, H. (under review) Lateralisation of emotion in children, adolescents and young adults: evidence from a modified chimeric faces task Neuropsychology

Membership of Professional Bodies

British Psychological Society (BPS)

Psychobiology Section of the BPS

Committee Member (Treasurer/ Members Secretary) British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience (BACN) 

Editorial Board of Frontiers in Psychopathology