Psychology
Centre for Situated Action and Communication
This Centre has at its core the investigation of psychological phenomena as processes which take place in and create, material and social situations. The importance of this approach to psychology is partly in the explanatory power that comes from focusing on relation and change, and partly from its relevance to current multi-cultured worlds.
With its emphasis upon extended embodiment, meaning, place and materiality, the interdisciplinary and comparative work of the Centre is at the leading edge of current developments which challenge internal mental representational accounts of action and communication. Members of the Centre bring this situational approach to different areas of Psychology and to the historical processes through which Psychology defines and re-defines these ‘areas’.
Research Areas
- Language across cultures
- Infant social awareness
- Perceptual control of action
- Materiality, sociality and action
- Developmental trajectories in Autism
- Attentional engagements
- Cross-species communication
- Selves and Identities
- Learning and expertise
Members
Professor Vasudevi Reddy (Director)
Professor Alan Costall (Deputy Director)
Dr. Alessandra Fasulo
Dr. Endre Kadar
Dr. Beatriz López
Dr. Paul Morris
Professor Chris Sinha
Dr. Stefanie Sonnenberg
Dr. Joerg Zinken
Advisory Panel:
Prof Daniel Hutto (Department of Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire)
Prof Ivan Leudar (Department of Psychology, University of Manchester)
Prof Cíntia Rodríquez (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain)
Professor Tim Ingold (University of Aberdeen, UK)
Prof Sue Wright (Centre for European and International Studies, University of Portsmouth)
Current Projects
Children’s developing understanding of the functionality of material artefacts.
- PI Alan Costall with Beatriz lopez (funded by Marie Curie Initial Training Network).
Infant Feeding across Cultures
- PI Vasudevi Reddy with Cristina Costantini (Department of Psychology Bursary)
Infant responses to adult reaching
- PI Vasudevi Reddy, in collaboration with Dr. Gabriela Markova, Institute for Advanced Science, Prague
Infant awareness of intentional gestures
- PI Vasudevi Reddy with Beatriz Lopez (funded by the Marie Curie Initial Training Network)
Conversation analysis across cultures: Sharing responsibility – English, Polish and Mixed Couples sharing chores -
- PI Joerg Zinken, (funded by the ESRC, and in collaboration with the Marie-Curie Sklodowska University in Lublin) - more details
Directives in adult-child communication
- PI Alessandra Fasulo in collaboration with Georgia Galeano, (University of Rome)
Communicating with people within and outside the autism spectrum
- Beatriz Lopez & Alessandra Fasulo (University of Portsmouth)
Developmental trajectories for repetitive behaviours, sensory impairments and social skills in children with autism
- PI Beatriz Lopez in collaboration with Jason Hope, Hampshire Autism Society and Portsmouth Autism Support Network and Paul Tabraham.
Space-time mapping and quantification in an Amazonian language (Amondawa)
- PI Chris Sinha in collaboration with Roberto Bottini, (University of Bergamo), Daniel Casasanto, (MPI Nijmegen), and Wany Sampaio, (Federal University of Rondonia).
Niche construction theory, language, social cognition and the construction of social reality
- PI Chris Sinha in collaboration with Centre for Cognitive Semiotics (Lund University).
The ethnography of memory: Memorabilia, collections and expositions in senior citizen homes and in institutions
- PI Alessandra Fasulo in collaboration with Leslie Hakim-Dowek, School of Art, Design and Media (University of Portsmouth)
Consumer versus citizen: identity processes in economic attitudes and behaviour
- PI Stefanie Sonnenberg with Paul Morris (University of Portsmouth)
Sense of Community: community and belonging in relation to academic attainment
- Stefanie Sonnenberg and Karl Nunkoosing (University of Portsmouth)
Rough and tumble play: dogs and humans
- PI Paul Morris (University of Portsmouth)
The socio-ecology of anthropometrics
- PI Paul Morris (University of Portsmouth)
Visual control of locomotion
- PI Endre Kadar in collaboration with Alan Costall and Kim Nam-Gyoon (Keimyung University)
Principles of chemical search behaviour
- PI Endre Kadar in collaboration with Gurvinder S. Virk (Massey University)
Pictorial space and active perception
- PI Endre Kadar in collaboration with Judy Effken (University of Arizona) and Reuben M Baron (University of Connecticut)
Research Visitors to the centre:
- Cintia Rodriguez, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, October 2005- August 2006; May-June 2007; May-June 2008
- Cecilia Guarnieri-Battista, University of Campinas, Brazil, October 2007- February 2008
- Hanne De Jaegher, University of Heidelberg, May 2008; Nov-December 2009
- Gabriela Markova, Prague Institute of Advanced Science, November-December 2009
- Roberto Bottini, University of Rome, November 2009
- Cristina Costantini, La Sapienza University of Rome, January –July 2010
- Ana Flavia Gerhardt, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, September 2010-February 2011
- Chen Huijun, Beijing University of Geosciences, October 2010-July 2011
- Huang Huannai, X’ian Technological University, November 2010-July 2011
Centre Seminars
- Conversational Discourse Analysis Data Sessions (alternate Fridays). For details contact alessandra.fasulo@port.ac.uk
- Situations and Environments 4 pm Thursday 16th December 2010 (for details contact alan.costall@port.ac.uk)
- Professor Koichi Negayama, 4pm Wednesday 15th Body matters: Mothers and infants and inter-body relationships in early development (for details contact vasu.reddy@port.ac.uk)
- Niches and norms: 4 pm Thursday 26 January 2011 (for details contact Chris.Sinha@port.ac.uk)
International Workshops:
- Centre members organised the International Conference on Language, Culture and Mind at the University of Portsmouth, June 2004, which has now become a bi-annual event hosted in different countries with continuing involvement by Centre members
- International workshop on Materiality, Meaning and Semiosis, University of Portsmouth, June 2006
- International conference on Autism, Infancy and the Self, University of Portsmouth, November 2009
Facilities
Facilities include a Human Movement Laboratory, Infant Laboratory and Perception Laboratory
A sample of recent publications
Alan Costall: (more publications & contact)
Leudar, I & Costall, A. (January 2009) Against Theory of Mind. Palgrave Macmillan.
Drahota, A., Costall, A., & Reddy, V. (2008) Hearing smiles in the voice. Speech Communication, 50 (4), 278-287.
Costall, A., & Dreier, O. (Eds.). (2006). Doing things with things: The design and use of objects. London: Ashgate.(more info)
Costall, A. (2006). ‘Introspectionism’ and the origin myth of modern scientific psychology. Cognition and Consciousness. ISSN 1053-8100.
Costall, A. (2004). From Darwin to Watson (and Cognitivism) and back again: the principle of animal-environment mutuality. Behavior & Philosophy, 32, 179-195. ISSN 1053-8348.
Costall, A. (1995). Socializing affordances. Theory and Psychology, 5, 467-481.
Alessandra Fasulo: (more publications & contact)
Sterponi, L. & Fasulo, A. (2010) How to go on: Intersubjectivity and progressivity in the communication of a child with autism. Ethos, 38, 1, 116-142.
Fasulo, A. & Monzoni, C. (2009) Assessing Mutable Objects: A Multimodal Analysis, Research on Language & Social Interaction, 42: 4, 362-376.
Fasulo, A., & Zucchermaglio C. (2008). Narratives in the Workplace: Facts, Fiction and Canonicity. Text and Talk, 28, 3 351-376.
Fasulo, A., Loyd H, & Padiglione V. (2007). Children's Socialization into Cleaning Practices: a Cross-cultural Perspective. Discourse & Society, 18, 11-33.
Fasulo, A., & Fiore F. (2007) A valid person: Non-competence as a Conversational Outcome. In A. Hepburn & S. Wiggins (Eds.) Discursive Research in Practice. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Fasulo, A. (1997). Other Voices, Other Minds. The Use of Reported Speech in Group Therapy Talk. In L. Resnick, R. Säljö, C. Pontecorvo, & B. Burge (Eds.), Discourse, tools and reasoning: Essays on situated cognition. NATO Series, Berlin: Springer Verlag, pp. 203-223.
Endre Kadar: (more publications & contact)
Kadar, E. E. & Effken, J. A. (2008). Paintings as architectural space: "Guided tours" by Cezanne and Hokusai. Ecological Psychology, 20, 299-327.
Kadar, E. E. (2007). Navigare necesse est: A field theoretical approach to the perceptual control of motion. Budapest: Aron Publishers.
Kadar, E. E. & Effken, J. (2006). Beyond good and evil: Prelude to a science of the future. Ecological Psychology. 18, 319-363.
Lytridis, C., Kadar, E. E., & Virk, G. S. (2006). A systematic approach to the problem of odour source localisation. Autonomous Robots, 20, 261-276.
Kadar, E. E. & Effken, J. (2005). From discrete actors to goal-directed actions: Toward a process-based methodology for psychology. Philosophical Psychology, 18, 353-382.
Rogers, S., Kadar, E. E. & Costall, A. (2005). Gaze patterns in visual control of straight-road driving and braking as a function of speed and expertise. Ecological Psychology, 17,19-38.
Beatriz López: (more publications & contact)
Farley, A., López, B. & Saunders, G. (2010) Self-conceptualisation in autism: Knowing oneself versus knowing self-through-other, Autism 14(5), 519-530.
López, B., Leekam, S. & Arts, G. (2008). How central is central coherence: Preliminary data exploring the link between conceptual and perceptual processing in children with autism. Autism, 12(2), 159-171.
López, B. (2007). Building the whole beyond its parts: a critical examination of current theories of integration ability in autism. In E. McGregor, M. Núñez, K. Williams & J.C Gómez (Eds.) Autism: An integrated view. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Stoet, G. Markey, H. & López, B. (2007). Dyslexia and attentional shifting. Neuroscience letters, 427, 61-65.
López, B., Hadwin, J, Donnelly, N. & Leekam, S. (2004). Face processing in high-functioning adolescents with autism: Evidence for weak central coherence? Visual Cognition, 11, 673-688.
López, B. & Leekam, S (2003). The use of context in children with autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 44(2), 285-300.
Paul Morris: (more publications & contact)
Morris, P.H. & Lewis, D. (2010) Tackling Diving: The perception of deceptive intentions in association football (soccer). Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 34, 1-13.
Morris, P.H., Doe, C. & Godsell, E. (2008) Secondary emotions in non-primate species? Behavioural reports and subjective claims by animal owners. Cognition and Emotion, 22(1), 3-20.
Reddy, V. & Morris, P.H. (2004) Participants don't need theories: Knowing minds in engagement. Theory & Psychology, 14, 647-665.
Morris, P. H., & Gale, A., & Duffy, K. (2002). Can judges agree on the personalities of horses? Personality and Individual Differences, 33, 67-81.
Morris, P.H., Reddy, V., & Bunting, R.C. (1995). The survival of the cutest: who's responsible for the evolution of the teddy bear? Animal Behaviour, 50, 1697-1700.
Gale, A., Edwards, J., Morris, P.H., Moore, R. & Forrester, D. (2001). Extraversion-introversion, neuroticism-stability, and EEG indicators of positive and negative empathic mood. Personality and Individual Differences, 30, 449-461.
Vasudevi Reddy: (more publications & contact)
Reddy, V. (2010). Engaging with the self: Mirror behaviour in autism, Down syndrome and typical development. Autism.
Reddy, V. (2008). How Infants Know Minds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Reddy, V. (2007). Getting back to the rough ground: Deception and social living. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B, 362 (1480), 621-637, ISSN 1471 2970.
Reddy, V., & Morris P. (2004). Participants don't need theories: Knowing minds in engagement. Theory and Psychology, 14 (5), 647-665.
Reddy, V. (2003). On Being an Object of Attention: Implications for self-other-consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Science, 7 (9), 397-402. (doi: 10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00191-8)
Reddy, V. (1991). Teasing, joking and mucking about: Playing with others' expectations. In A. Whiten (ed.) Natural Theories of Mind. Oxford: Blackwell.
Chris Sinha: (more publications & contact)
Sinha, C., Silva Sinha, V. da, Zinken, J. and Sampaio, W. (2011, in press) When Time is not Space: The social and linguistic construction of time intervals and temporal event relations in an Amazonian culture. Language and Cognition.
Sinha, C. (2010) Language, Culture and Mind. 10 lectures on development, evolution and cognitive linguistics. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
Sinha, C. (2009) Objects in a storied world: materiality, narrativity and normativity. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 167-190.
Sinha, C. (2009) Language as a biocultural niche and social institution. In Vyvyan Evans and Stéphanie Pourcel (Eds.) New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 289-310.
Sampaio, W., Sinha, C. & da Silva Sinha, V. (2009) Mixing and mapping: motion and manner in Amondawa (Uru-eu-uau-uau). In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura & S. Özcaliskan (eds.) Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Psychology of Language. Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin. New York, Psychology Press, pp. 427-442.
Sinha, C. (2007) Cognitive linguistics, psychology and cognitive science. In D. Geeraerts and H. Cuyckens (eds.) Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp 1266-1294.
Stefanie Sonnenberg: (more publications & contact)
Sonnenberg, S.J., Burgoyne, C.B. & Routh, D.A. (accepted, pending revisions). Income Disparity and Norms Relating to Intra-Household Financial Organisation: Some Experimental Evidence from the UK. Journal of Socio-Economics
Morton, T. & Sonnenberg, S.J. (2010). Negotiating the past: When negative histories constrain identity. European Journal of Social Psychology (available online) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.770
Allen, M., Bromley, A., Kuyken, W. & Sonnenberg, S.J. (2009). Participants’ Experiences of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy: “It Changed Me in Just about Every Way Possible. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 37, 413-430
Burgoyne, C.B. & Sonnenberg, S.J. (2009) Financial Practices in Cohabiting Heterosexual Couples: A Perspective From Economic Psychology In Miles, J. & Probert, R. Sharing Lives, Dividing Assets: An Interdisciplinary Study. Hart Publishing: Oxford.
Sonnenberg, S.J. (2008). Household Financial Organisation and Discursive Practice: Managing Money and Identity. Journal of Socio-Economics, 37, 533-551
Joerg Zinken: (more publications & contact)
Zinken, J., Zinken, K., Wilson, J. C., Butler, L., & Skinner, T. (in press). Analysis of syntax and word use to predict successful participation in guided self-help for anxiety and depression. Psychiatry Research. More info
Zinken, J., Blakemore, C., Michałowska, K., Butler, L., & Skinner, T. (in press). Narrating psychological distress: Associations between cross-clausal integration and mental health difficulties. Applied Psycholinguistics.
Zinken, J. & Borek, A. (in press). Working side-by-side? Interaction and interview data in the study of household conflict. Qualitative Research in Pychology.
Zinken, J. (in press). Generic-level and specific-level metaphor. In P. C. Hogan (Ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the Language Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (peer reviewed)
Musolff, A., & Zinken, J. (Eds, 2009). Metaphor in discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Evans, V., Bergen, B., & Zinken, J. (Eds., 2007). The Cognitive Linguistics Reader. London: Equinox