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I have been a Lecturer at the University of Sussex since July 2023. My teaching focuses on Developmental Psychology, and I research perceptual and cognitive development, particularly in relation to vision. I co-lead the Sussex Baby Lab, and lead the Nature and Development Lab.

Research Experience

07/2018 - 06/2023

Research Fellow B

Sussex Baby Lab and Sussex Colour Group, University of Sussex

ERC funded project COLOURMIND

Key Skills :

  • Research on visual perception in infancy, preschoolers, and across the life span

  • Cross-cultural research and collaboration

  • Expertise in eye-tracking, colorimetry, wearable devices, and psychophysics with infants, children, and adults.

  • Multivariate data analysis and management

  • Lab administration and support (e.g. data management and data security protocols)

  • Research supervision and co-ordination of junior members of the lab

  • MATLAB for experiment presentation and analysis

  • Delivery of UG and MSc lectures and seminars

  • Presentations at national and international conferences

  • Promotion from Research Fellow A to Research Fellow B in 2021

Jan 2018 - April 2018

Research Assistant

Sussex Baby Lab and Sussex Colour Group, University of Sussex
Employed as part of an ERC proof of concept COLOURSPOT (PIs: Jenny Bosten, Anna Franklin), developing a test for Colour Vision Deficiency (‘colourblindness’) for pre-school and school age children. Equipment calibration, data management, and data analysis.

Sept 2014 - April 2018

PhD : Infant Colour Perception

Supervisiors: Prof. Anna Franklin and Dr Jenny Bosten.

Part funded by ERC grant 'CATEGORIES' (to AF). Characterising colour perception and cognition in the first year of life.

2012 - 2014

Research Assistant

Sussex Baby Lab and Sussex Colour Group, University of Sussex

Part time whilst completing my MSc Cognitive Neuroscience (Distinction).
 

Key Skills:

  • Research on colour perception in infants

  • Scheduling and running testing sessions and participant recruitment

  • Data coding and eye tracking

  • Data management and analysis

  • Lab administration

Selected Publications and Presentations

Skelton, A. E., Franklin, A., Bosten, J.M., (under review). Colour vision is aligned with natural scene statistics at 4-months of age. Pre-print doi.org/10.1101/2022.06.06.494927

Skelton, A. E., Maule, J., & Franklin, A. (2022). Infant color perception: Insight into perceptual development. Child Development Perspectives, 16(2), 90-95. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12447

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Skelton, A. E. &  Flack, Z. M., (2022). When to use a cookie, and when to use a ruler: A response to Byers‐Heinlein, Bergmann and Savelei's “six solutions for more reliable infant research”. Infant and Child Development, e2337. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2337

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Tang, T., Álvaro, L., Alvarez, J. Maule J., Skelton, A. E., Franklin, A., Bosten, J. (2021). ColourSpot, a novel gamified tablet-based test for accurate diagnosis of color vision deficiency in young children. Behaviour Research Methods. doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01622-5

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Skelton, A. E., & Franklin, A. (2020). Infants look longer at colours that adults like when colours are highly saturated. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 27(1), 78-85. doi.org/10.3758/s13423-019-01688-5

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Skelton, A. E., Catchpole, G., Abbott, J. T., Bosten, J. M., &Franklin, A. (2017). Biological origins of color categorization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(21), 5545-5550. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1612881114

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Franklin, A., Skelton, A. and Catchpole, G. (2014). The case for infant colour categories. In: Anderson, Wendy, Biggam, Carole P, Hough, Carole and Kay, Christian (eds.) Colour studies: a broad spectrum. John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 169-180. ISBN 9789027212191

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Recent recorded presentations:

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Colour Discrimination and Natural Scene Statistics, Colour Group UK Jan 2022

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The Development of Colour Perception,Optica (formally OSA) Vision and Colour technical group, 2021

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Public Engagement

Select examples:

Are Instagram’s Aesthetic Moms Hindering Kids’ Development? Amelia Tait, Wired

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Meet The People Using ‘Dopamine Dressing’ To Boost Their Mood. Beth Ashley, Refinery29

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Through a Babies Eyes: the first 6 months (video co-directed with Etta Loves, animated by Gusto Media)

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Appearance on Canadian Broadcasting Company TV documentary ‘Living Colour’

Scientific American ‘ Are Colors Innate or Learned’

Invited TEDxISM talk

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Outreach talks at schools on colour vision, developmental science, and pathways to academic careers.

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Consultancies with Baby Theatre groups (e.g. Filskit, Flying Eye)

Grants and Awards

Research With Impact Awards University of Sussex : Emerging Impact (£1000. Employment of Research Software Developer for conversion of exisitng code to web app). The BabySee App: enabling parents, and those working in Early Years Education, Arts, and Industry to see what babies see. 2022.

ESRC NPIF Accelerating Business Collaboration Fund, University of Sussex Business Engagement Fund. (£3000. Production of video on the development of vision in collaboration with Etta Loves). 2021

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University of Sussex internal ECR Research Fund (£2494. Employment Research Assistant). 2021

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Palmer award from Colour Group UK (2019). This award supports a number of outstanding Early Career postgraduate members
 

Speaker award for presentation at International Colour Vision Symposium (ICVS) in Riga, Latvia, July 2019, awarded by the Optical Society of America.
 

Grant for attendance of International Colour Vision Society Summer School (2018).

Teaching

MSc:

Contemporary Issues in Child Development

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UG:

Psychology of Child Development ​

Developmental Psychology

Everyday Problems in Psychology

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Additional Teaching:

UG and MSc module: Cogntive Psychology

Lecture (2020, 2021) on Visual Development and Natural Scene Statistics; seminar  (2018-2021) on the 'Big Questions' of Colour Science ('Is my red the same as your red?') ; UG Developmental Psychology and Discovering Statistics Seminars (2015 - 2017). TA for seminars during my PhD.

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etc.

Academic memberships:

  • Colour Group UK

  • Vision Science Society

  • International Colour Vision Society

  • International Congress of Infant Studies.

  • Editorial Board for Scientific Reports

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Our Photo Research spectrascan needed troubleshooting a while ago, but I couldn't find a manual. It then broke. But, thanks to the kind people on the CVNet mailing list I did eventually find manuals and possible repair solutions, these are collated here

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