Fraser Smith

Dr Fraser Smith is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of East Anglia (UEA), where he conducts research in cognitive neuroscience, perception, and emotion. He is a member of the Cognition, Action and Perception research group and currently serves as Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience MSc program. He is actively involved in supervising PhD and Master’s students and welcomes new research collaborations and students interested in neuroimaging and perception research.

Fraser Smith earned his B.Sc. in Psychology from the University of Glasgow and completed his PhD in Psychology at the University of Stirling. He held post-doctoral positions funded by the MRC and ERC at the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging and later a two-year fellowship in Computational Neuroscience at the University of Western Ontario’s Brain & Mind Institute, Canada.

His research focuses on how the human brain constructs perception through predictive processing and prior experience, particularly in multisensory contexts and emotion recognition. He uses fMRI, EEG, machine learning (e.g., MVPA), and behavioral methods to investigate how sensory modalities interact and how emotional expressions are processed in the brain. His work also explores how these processes are altered in neurodevelopmental and mental health conditions such as psychosis, autism, and psychopathy.

The recent trend in his publications highlights a strong emphasis on decoding neural representations across sensory modalities, particularly in early sensory cortices. His work increasingly integrates computational models with neuroimaging to test predictive processing theories, using multimodal deep neural networks and brain decoding techniques. Topics span facial expression recognition, cross-modal perception (e.g., sound and touch), object categorization, and contextual modulation in visual processing.

Fraser Smith has secured competitive research funding from bodies including the Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, and National Institute for Health and Care Research. His current and recent projects include 'Everything we touch: determining the neural basis of material perception', 'Decoding real tool use from visual fMRI response patterns', and 'BISP: Investigating usability of a wearable augmented reality device for brain injury survivors with vision loss'.

He supervises a dynamic group of students, including PhD candidates and MSc researchers, working on topics such as predictive processing in occlusion, emotion recognition under anxiety, and cross-modal brain activity. He also contributes to public engagement through media appearances, including coverage on how sounds help predict tactile experiences and research on 'reading minds' to understand tool use. He is a co-opted member of the Brain & Behavioural Advisory Grant Panel at the Wellcome Trust, reflecting his standing in the neuroscience community.