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Biography
My research interests lie in the cognitive and psychological processes underlying how we perceive ourselves, spanning self-face recognition, appearance-related concerns, and psychological well-being. My PhD thesis, completed at the University of Nottingham Malaysia in 2023, examined the perceptual and attentional mechanisms behind the self-face advantage using eye-tracking and behavioural experimental paradigms. Before returning to Nottingham, I spent three years as a lecturer at the University of Reading Malaysia, and prior to that taught at Heriot-Watt University Malaysia. I joined the University of Nottingham Malaysia in 2026.
Since 2022, I have designed and taught a range of psychology modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level, including The Science of Face Processing (a Year 3 specialist module I developed from inception), Behaviour Change, Research Methods in Psychology, Cognitive and Biological Psychology, Debates in Mental Health, Forensic Psychology, and Cognition Across the Lifespan. I have also contributed to the development of a Master's in Clinical Psychology programme and its BPS and MQA accreditation. I hold Associate Fellowship of Advance HE and am working towards Fellowship.
Beyond the classroom, I care about the people my work reaches, both students and the wider public. I have served as Chair of the University Research Ethics Committee, Placement Coordinator, and Student Engagement Experience Lead, during which I founded the PsychScope career series and the ACE Volunteering Project, which supports refugee education. I am also a strong believer in science communication and that research should find its way back to the public rather than stay within academic walls.
Expertise Summary
My research sits at the intersection of self-perception, appearance-related concerns, and psychological well-being. Using experimental and behavioural methods, including eye-tracking and survey-based paradigms, I study how we see ourselves, both literally and psychologically.
My work spans three connected strands. The first concerns the basic cognitive processes underlying face perception, particularly self-face recognition and the self-face advantage, which formed the basis of my doctoral work. The second examines how modern digital environments, such as social media and AI-generated imagery, reshape our relationship with appearance and identity. The third turns to the psychology of self-transcendence, specifically how experiences like awe temporarily reduce self-focused thinking and may buffer against appearance anxiety and psychological distress.
These strands are united by a single question: what happens, cognitively, emotionally, and behaviourally, when we shift attention away from ourselves? Much of the existing literature on self-focused attention relies on self-report, which is hard to separate from insight, mood, and culturally shaped response styles, a concern that is especially acute outside Western samples. A central aim of my current work is to give self-focused attention an objective behavioural signature, so that its role in appearance anxiety, social anxiety, and low mood can be measured rather than only self-reported. Studying these questions in Malaysian and Southeast Asian samples is central to this: it lets me test whether patterns established largely in Western populations hold here, and grounds the work in the communities it aims to serve.
Teaching Summary
I teach Developmental Psychology and Practical Methods in Psychology at undergraduate level, and I contribute to the MSc Developmental Psychology programme through Developmental Disorders in Context… read more
Research Summary
I lead the Beyond Self Lab, a research programme investigating self-focused attention as a measurable and movable driver of appearance anxiety, social anxiety, and low mood in emerging adults, and… read more
Selected Publications
LEE, J.K.W and ESTUDILLO, A.J., 2026. Eye on the Self: Self-Disgust, Self-Esteem, and Facial Dissatisfaction Do Not Predict the Self-Face Advantage Psychological Reports. (In Press.)
LEE, J.K.W, WONG, Y.S. and FONG, S.F., 2026. Instructor Characteristics and Generation Z’s Study Intention: The Mediating Role of Academic Self-Efficacy. Cogent Education. (In Press.)
LUA, L.F., KONG, X.N., LEE, J.K.W and SIDHU, S.K., 2026. The sound of fear: how horror soundtracks shape threat perception of emotional faces Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 17470218261447279
Current Research
I lead the Beyond Self Lab, a research programme investigating self-focused attention as a measurable and movable driver of appearance anxiety, social anxiety, and low mood in emerging adults, and awe as a candidate means of shifting it. The programme runs from foundation (establishing an objective marker of self-focused attention) through mechanism (testing what moves it) toward intervention, with a particular focus on Malaysian and Southeast Asian samples.
Current and ongoing projects include:
- Establishing an objective behavioural marker of self-focused attention using the self-prioritisation paradigm, and testing whether it reflects a specific difficulty in disengaging attention from self-associated information
- Locating the neural signature of self-focused attention, using EEG to identify an electrophysiological marker of the attentional effect and how it relates to anxiety and low mood
- Awe as a means of shifting self-focused attention: testing whether brief awe experiences reduce the objective marker of self-focus and buffer appearance-related distress
- Effects of self-editing on attentional bias to the self-face: a dot-probe study (Stage 1 Registered Report, in-principle acceptance, Scientific Reports; with Dr Wong Hoo Keat)
- Body ideals, dissatisfaction, and individual differences among Malaysian Chinese adolescents (PhD project, with Lua Li Fun), a multi-method investigation of how exposure to thin, fit, and slim-thick body ideals on social media shapes body dissatisfaction, and the individual factors, such as self-compassion and self-concept clarity, that protect against it
The lab works in partnership with a lived-experience group to keep the research grounded in the communities it aims to serve.
Techniques: behavioural experimental paradigms, eye-tracking, EEG, survey-based methods, self-prioritisation paradigm