COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE

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The Cognition and Neuroscience group brings together researchers who use a variety of experimental methods to study human cognition – both by asking fundamental questions regarding cognitive systems and processes and by extending our knowledge of cognitive processes to clinical, developmental and applied studies.  

Actively researched themes include cognitive development; attention and perception; memory; decision making; aspects of linguistic communication including sentence comprehension and production; discourse and dialogue; reading; embodied and situated approaches to cognition and communication; neurodevelopmental disorders; and sleep research.  

We incorporate various theoretical approaches and research methodologies in order to investigate cognitive processes and the corresponding neuroanatomical networks. Recently, the group has enjoyed a substantial growth, and the current projects cut across individual researchers’ interests and approaches.  

Research methods used by the group members cover a full spectrum of behavioural techniques, eye-tracking as well as neuroimaging methods including EEG and TMS. An example project is MapMe, a tool which has been developed to improve parental acknowledgement and understanding of childhood overweight and obesity. The intervention led to a reduction in children’s BMI and has now attracted further funding to for a large-scale trial with families recruited across 12 local authorities.  

The group’s research interfaces well with other research groups providing opportunities for interdisciplinary work. Cognitive research at Northumbria has been supported by both intramural and external grants and research studentships. Our work features prominently at international conferences and in top ranking journals including Cognition, Journal of Neuroscience, Cortex, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Journal of Memory and Language. The cognitive research group members actively collaborate with researchers both domestically and internationally.  

The group’s researchers work in the following general areas: