Cambridge Festival 2025

 

The Department of Psychology had an incredible time participating in the Cambridge Festival 2025! A huge thank you to our volunteers for their hard work and dedication. Together, the team organized a series of engaging talks and workshops that inspired and educated attendees of all ages. The Main Psychology Building housed an original investigation trail managed by TRCNLabs. Each step of the trail had an interactive element! Our guests got to see their own gaze pattern; set up psychophysiological equipment; test their motor skills, memory, and learning; explore emotional cognition and language puzzles; and even ponder on the nature of human voting behaviour! This was made possible thanks to contributions from the following research groups: Prediction and Learning Lab; Adaptive Brain Lab; Emotional Cognition Lab; Cognition of Motivated Behaviour Lab; and Political Psychology Lab.

A volunteer in a green Festival t-shirt and child, using a pipette in their experiment.

Over at the Centre for Child, Adolescent and Family Research, our workshops featured fun games and art activities for young families, as well as creative sessions extracting DNA from strawberries and exploring family traits.  We also presented engaging exhibitions on the psychology of starting school and showcased the diverse work of our Centre. Additionally, our baby feeding room provided a quiet space for families, complete with activities for older siblings and changing facilities. Thank you to all of the involved members for all of your hard work!

                                                        A volunteer watches on as a baby leans against a brightly-coloured cushion and drinks a bottle, in the feeding area.

Across the two sites, we also put up a series of insightful talks covering topics from mental time travel, empathy in rats, and visual illusions, to starting school, dyslexia, and newborn language. A special shout-out to our wonderful speakers Prof Nicky Clayton & Mark Baldwin OBE, Prof Paul Bays, Prof Claire Hughes & invited panel, Prof Usha Goswami, Dr Sarah Lloyd-Fox and our guest speaker from CBU, Dr Estherina Trachtenberg!

We had a fantastic time at the Cambridge Festival 2025 and look forward to seeing you again next year! Pencil in your ideas for 2026; the next call for contributions is coming this autumn!

If you took part in any of the Psychology-offered activities over the Family Weekend 2025, whether as a volunteer, curator, or a guest, please fill out the following feedback form: CamFest 2025 - What Went Well/Even Better If.