Two UCL PALS academics have taken part in the Conscious Cities Conference this May.
Conscious Cities is a new field of research and practice focusing on people-centric environments that are aware and responsive; using data analysis, AI, technology, and cognitive science in design.
Conscious City events and publications aim to encourage novel methods of observation, drivers for design, methodologies for the production of space, and changes in policy and governance.
Prof. Kate Jeffery writes on the science of our internal compass in Concscious Cities Anthology, noting that;
"
Work in the past three decades has uncovered a network
of brain regions that collectively form the internal compass, or sense of
direction.
While Dr Hugo Spiers participated in a panel discussion at the Conscious Cities Conference on the topic of Creating Conscious Design, which asks: how does behavioural insight affect architecture and planning?
Hugo is interested in how our brain constructs representations of the world and uses them to navigate, imagine the future and remember the past. He employs cognitive and behavioural neuroscience techniques in his laboratory to study the neural basis of spatial cognition: brain imaging, neuropsychological testing, virtual reality, eye-tracking and single cell recording are used as methods to understand brain function and spatial cognition.
Research Themes
- Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology
- Experimental Psychology
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience
- Language & Cognition
- Linguistics
- Speech, Hearing & Phonetic Sciences
- UCL Interaction Centre





UCL ranked 2nd worldwide for Psychology in the latest THE rankings
Divisional Subject Pool

Sign up to the Divisional Subject Pool
Sustainability

Read about sustainability in the Division
Equality
The Division has been awarded an Athena SWAN silver award recognising our commitment to gender equality.