Dr Louah Sirri
Dr Louah Sirri
Lecturer in Educational Psychology
My profile
Biography
ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
PGCert Learning And Teaching In Higher Education (academic year - 2019/20)
Senior Research Associate (04/2015 – 12/2018)
Dept. of Psychology, Lancaster University; Post-doc funded by the ESRC LuCiD Centre.
PhD Psychology (10/2011 - 03/2015)
Thesis title: “Lexical-semantic system organization in the monolingual and bilingual developing brain”
Université Paris Descartes, CNRS - Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, France.
Diploma of Psychology (June 2011)
Université Paris Descartes, and the French Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research.
MSc Neuropsychology and Cognitive Psychology (2009 - 2011)
Institut de Psychologie, Université Paris Descartes, France
- 2nd year Project: Semantic priming as measured by event-related brain potentials for French-English bilingual children.
- 1st year Project: The effect of visual perception on the quadrupedal locomotion of newborn infants.
Neuropsychologist (intern) - Adult Neurology (2010 – 2011)
Hôpital Robert-Ballanger (Aulnay-sous-Bois, Île-de-France, France)
Neuropsychologist (intern) - Geriatric Psychiatry service (2009 – 2010)
Hôpital Sainte-Anne (Paris,France)
BSc Psychology (2006 - 2009)
Institut de Psychologie, Université Paris Descartes, France.
French Baccalauréat - Literature (June 2004)
Collège des Frères, Jaffa, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
LANGUAGES
Arabic (native), French, Hebrew, English.
MEMBERSHIP OF PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION
Chartered Member (CPsychol) of the British Psychological Society (BPS).
PRIZES AND AWARDS
PhD grant from the French Ministry of National Education, Higher Education, and Research (2011-2014).
Travel Award from the LuCiD centre for three-week research visit at the Cognitive Brain Research Unit (CBRU) Helsinki, Finland (October, 2018).
Travel Award from the Research group of “Neuroscience Cognitive du Développement” (CNRS – Paris) for:
- International Conference on Infant Studies, Berlin, Germany (July, 2014).
- Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), Seattle, Washington, USA (April, 2013).
- Bilingualism Summer School in Bangor University, UK (July 2012).
Mobility Scholarship from the Université Paris Descartes (Institut de Formation Doctorale) to conduct 4-month project in collaboration with Dr Alina Leminen at the Cognitive Brain Research Unit (CBRU), Helsinki, Finland (May – August, 2013).
Impact
Organizer and Chair of the webinar “Decolonizing the Curriculum in Educational Psychology” (3rd March, 2021)
Educational psychology has a vital role to play in challenging discriminatory practices and in untangling complex issues of race and disability in education. Whilst the field of educational psychology has travelled a long way from its historic links to the racist pseudo-science of eugenics, there is a continuing need to ‘decolonise the curriculum’. Speakers included educational psychologists, PhD students, a Principal Examiner for AQA highlighting links to the A-level psychology curriculum, and MMU’s Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) Ambassadors (student-led collaboration between The Students Union and the University). The event was supported by the British Psychological Society (BPS) and led to ManMetUni RISE Internship (in collaboration with Peter Hick and Dr Cian Carney) exploring students’ perception of ‘decolonizing the curriculum’.
Teaching
I am a Lecturer on the BPS accredited Educational Psychology programme.
Unit lead on
- The Science of Prevention (Level 4)
- The Science of Early Intervention (Level 4)
- Empirical Project Proposal (Level 5)
Tutor on
- The Psychology of Well-being (Level 5)
Courses
Supervision
I supervise third year projects (Empirical Project, Level 6) on the Educational Psychology programme.
Research outputs
I am interested in Cognitive Development both in young monolingual and bilingual children, including language development, social communication and multisensory perception. Research techniques used in my projects include EEG, eye-tracking, & NIRS.
INVITED TALK
January 2016 - Organization of the lexical-semantic system in young children.Language and Development Seminars - Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERSHIP
April 2020 - April 2021: Co-Editor on Research Topic “Neurobehavioral Changes in Language Learning”, in Frontiers in Psychology.
Summer 2021 - present: Guest Associate Editor in Language Sciences, Frontiers in Psychology.
REVIEWER
Peer-review of empirical articles on cognitive Development and Language Learning for journals such as Infant and Child Development, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Frontiers in Psychology, International Journal of Cognition and Behaviour.
CONFERENCE ORGANIZING
Spring 2017 - Member of the organizing committee for the ESRC LuCiD conference in Lancaster.
Summer 2017 - Member of the organizing committee for the 2nd Lancaster Conference on Infant and Early Child Development.
November 2020 - Member of the support team for the ESRC Festival of Social Science event ‘What makes a Good Digital Home visit’, organized and led by Professor Deborah James, in partnership with Home-Start Host.
CHAPTERS IN BOOKS
Street, M., Sirri, L. (in press). Commentary on Chapters 6 & 7: Supporting communication practices: Beyond the focus on the child. In: (Re)conceptualising children’s rights in infant-toddler care and education: Transnational conversations, Ed. by Fran Press and Sandra Cheeseman. Springer Heidelberg.
Sirri, L., Flewitt, R. (2022). Early language and literacy development. In: Psychology of Education: Theory, Research and Evidence-Based Practice, Ed. by Janet Lord. SAGE,
Sirri, L., Lord, J. (2022). Cognitive development. In: Psychology of Education: Theory, Research and Evidence-Based Practice, Ed. by Janet Lord.
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Chapters in books
Street, M., Sirri, L. (2022) 'Commentary on Chapters 8 and 9.' In Press, F., Cheeseman, S. (ed.) (Re)conceptualising children's rights in infant-toddler care and education: transnational conversations. Springer Heidelberg,
Lord, J., Rhodes, L. (2022) 'Cognitive Psychology..' Psychology of Education; Theory, Research and Evidence-based practice.. Sage,
Sirri, L., Lord, J. (2022) 'Cognitive development.' In Lord, J. (ed.) Psychology of Education: Theory, Research and Evidence-Based Practice. SAGE,
Sirri, L., Flewitt, R. (2022) 'Early language and literacy development.' In Lord, J. (ed.) Psychology of Education: Theory, Research and Evidence-Based Practice. SAGE,
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Journal articles
Kimppa, L., Leminen, A., Sirri, L., Festman, J. (2022) 'Editorial: Neurobehavioral changes in language learning.' Frontiers in Communication, 7pp. 1003686-1003686.
Sirri, L., Guerra, E., Linnert, S., Smith, E.S., Reid, V., Parise, E. (2020) 'Infants’ conceptual representations of meaningful verbal and nonverbal sounds.' PLoS One, 15(6) pp. e0233968-e0233968.
Sirri, L., Linnert, S., Reid, V., Parise, E. (2020) 'Speech Intonation Induces Enhanced Face Perception in Infants.' Scientific Reports, 10(1) pp. 3225-3225.
SIRRI, L., RÄMÄ, P. (2019) 'Similar and distinct neural mechanisms underlying semantic priming in the languages of the French–Spanish bilingual children.' Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 22(1) pp. 93-102.
Rämä, P., Sirri, L., Goyet, L. (2018) 'Event-related potentials associated with cognitive mechanisms underlying lexical-semantic processing in monolingual and bilingual 18-month-old children.' Journal of Neurolinguistics, 47pp. 123-130.
Sirri, L., Rämä, P. (2015) 'Cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying semantic priming during language acquisition.' Journal of Neurolinguistics, 35pp. 1-12.
Helo, A., Pannasch, S., Sirri, L., Rämä, P. (2014) 'The maturation of eye movement behavior: scene viewing characteristics in children and adults..' Vision Res, 103pp. 83-91.
Fagard, J., Sirri, L., Rämä, P. (2014) 'Effect of handedness on the occurrence of semantic N400 priming effect in 18- and 24-month-old children.' Frontiers in Psychology, 5(APR)
Rämä, P., Sirri, L., Serres, J. (2013) 'Development of lexical-semantic language system: N400 priming effect for spoken words in 18- and 24-month old children.' Brain and Language, 125(1) pp. 1-10.
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Posters
Sirri, L., Linnert, S., Guerra, E., Helo, A., Smith, E., Reid, V., Parise, E. (2018) 'Are words more efficient than sounds in activating conceptual representations?.' [Poster] In 3rd Lancaster Conference on Infant and early Child Development. Date viewed 6/9/2018.
Sirri, L., Linnert, S., Reid, V., Parise, E. (2018) 'Infant-directed speech enhances face processing.' [Poster] In 3rd Lancaster Conference on Infant and early Child Development. Date viewed 5/9/2018.
Sirri, L., Linnert, S., Guerra, E., Helo, A., Smith, E., Reid, V., Parise, E. (2018) 'The effect of words and sounds on conceptual representations for preverbal infants.' [Poster] In International Conference on Infant Studies, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Date viewed 2/7/2018.
Sirri, L., Linnert, S., Reid, V., Parise, E. (2018) 'Infant-directed speech enhances neural activity during face perception.' [Poster] In XXI International Conference on Infant Studies, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Date viewed 1/7/2018.
Sirri, L., Reid, V., Parise, E. (2017) 'The effect of labels and associated sounds on object recognition..' [Poster] In 2nd Lancaster Conference on Infant and early Child Development. Date viewed 24/8/2017.
Sirri, L., Reid, V., Parise, E. (2017) 'The effect of labels and associated sounds on object recognition.' [Poster] In 14th International Congress for the Study of Child Language, Lyon, France. Date viewed 19/7/2017.
Sirri, L., Rämä, P. (2015) 'Two languages, one mind: Within language priming in French-Spanish bilingual children.' [Poster] In Biennial Society of Research in Child Development, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Date viewed 20/3/2015.
Sirri, L., Rämä, P. (2014) 'SOA-dependent N400 priming effect in 18-month-old monolingual children.' [Poster] In XIX Biennial International Conference on Infant Studies, Berlin, Germany.. Date viewed 3/7/2014.
Goyet, L., Sirri, L., Rämä, P. (2014) 'ERP modulations in mono- and bilingual children: is the N400-like effect language dependent?.' [Poster] In VI Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science “Language and Conceptual Development”. Date viewed 22/5/2014.
Helo, A., Sirri, L., Rämä, P. (2013) 'Mechanisms of scene perception at different ages: The development of eye-movement control.' [Poster] In 17th European Conference on Eye Movements, Lund, Sweden. Date viewed 11/8/2013.
Sirri, L., Helo, A., Rämä, P. (2013) 'Lexical-semantic language organization in monolingual developing brain.' [Poster] In Biennial Society of Research in Child Development, Seattle, Washington (USA). Date viewed 18/4/2013.
Sirri, L., Rämä, P. (2012) 'Auditory lexical-semantic priming in mono- and bilingual infants as measured by ERPs.' [Poster] In Bilingualism Summer School, Bangor University. Date viewed 19/7/2012.
Rämä, P., Sirri, L. (2011) 'Translation priming and cross-language semantic priming in bilingual infants.' [Poster] In Aix-en-Provence Workshop on Bilingualism, Neurolinguistic and Psycholinguistic perspectives, Aix-en-Provence, France. Date viewed 13/9/2011.