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̽��ֱ��British Psychology Society award committee said that they were “tremendously impressed and despite the fierce competition were unanimous in their decision.” Rebecca’s paper, ‘Top-down attentional modulation in autistic spectrum disorders is stimulus specific’, will appear in the Psychological Science journal in the Autumn.

Rebecca received a BSc in Psychology in 2000 from the Department of Experimental Psychology at the ̽��ֱ�� of Bristol. As a Graduate Research Assistant at the Centre for Research into Psychological Development in the Department of Psychology at the ̽��ֱ�� of Southampton, she worked on a collaborative project with researchers from three research groups studying the development of typical attentional processes and attention in anxiety across childhood.

In a second research post at the ̽��ֱ�� of Southampton she worked on projects examining the role of attentional bias in the development and maintenance of addiction and anxiety, at the Centre for the study of Emotion and Motivation.

̽��ֱ��Neil O'Connor Award commemorates the eminent British developmental psychologist who died tragically in a road accident in 1997. His widow, Peggy O'Connor, founded a trust fund to encourage and support research into developmental disabilities, a field to which her husband was especially committed, and to provide an annual award for outstanding published research in this field.

Rebecca is currently a PhD student at Darwin College, Cambridge. Her research is carried out under the supervision of Dr Kate Plaisted and is funded by a Pinsent-Darwin studentship. Her PhD research involves investigating selective attention and perception in children with autistic spectrum disorders and typically developing children. During her PhD she has also enjoyed volunteering for ‘Umbrella Autism’, an affiliate of the National Autistic Society.