Psychology
Centre for Human Ecology, Culture & Communication (CHECC)
The Centre was formed in 2007 from two existing research groups, Ecological Psychology and Language and Communication, as a result of a workshop held at Portsmouth on ‘Materiality, Meaning & Semiosis’ in June 2006. The aim of the workshop was to integrate the categories of “meaning” and “materiality”, by extending the ecological approach from the individual level to the sociocultural, and by relating cultural and linguistic differences to historical and cultural processes in the human shaping of the material world. These themes continue to be central to the work of the Centre. With its emphasis upon extended, situated embodiment, meaning, place and materiality, the interdisciplinary and comparative work of the Centre is at the leading edge of current developments, which challenge conventional accounts of mind and human development in terms of internal mental representation.
The Centre’s interdisciplinary focus is reflected in its institutional linkage with the Language Across Borders research cluster of the University’s Centre for European and International Studies Research.
Research projects in the Centre include a European Union grant under the FP6 ‘What it means to be human’ initiative, supporting a consortium involving Goldsmith’s University of London, Lund University, MPI Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig), INCM-CNRS (Marseille) and ISTC-CNR (Rome) (http://www.sedsu.org/), that funds two cross-cultural research projects at Portsmouth (€232,000) - with Brazil and India.
A new grant from the Volkswagen Foundation (€1,000,000) in collaboration with the University of Vidriana, Frankfurt funds three PhD students and a cross-species project for the classification of gestures.
Centre Director: Professor Alan Costall
Deputy Director: Dr Karl Nunkoosing
Research areas:
The Centre integrates three complementary lines of theory and research:
Advisory Panel:
- Prof Daniel Hutto (Department of Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire)
- Prof Ivan Leudar (Department of Psychology, University of Manchester)
- Prof Cíntia Rodríquez (Universidad Autonomata de Madrid, Spain)
- Emeritus Prof John Shotter (University of New Hampshire, US)
- Prof Sue Wright (Centre for European and International Studies, University of Portsmouth)
External collaborators:
- Josep Call, MPI Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
- Jules Davidoff, Goldsmith’s University of London
- Joel Fagot, CNRS Marseille, France
- Patrizia Poti, CNR Rome, Italy; Turku, Finland
- Cintia Rodriguez, Autonomous University, Madrid, Spain
- Wany Sampaio, Federal University of Rondônia, Brazil
- Beena Chintalapuri, Osmania University, India
- Cornelia Muller, European University Vidriana, Frankfurt, Germany
- Stephen Levinson, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- David Waller, Miami University, US
- Gurvinder Virk, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
- Judith Effken, University of Arizona, Tucson, US
- Kay Cook, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
- Jordan Zlatev, Lund, Sweden
Facilities:
Human Movement Laboratory
Infant Laboratory
Perception Laboratory
Courses taught by members of the centre:
Centre members contribute to the teaching and supervision of students on the following courses:
- BSc (Hons) Psychology (British Psychological Society accredited)
- BSc (Hons) Forensic Psychology (British Psychological Society accredited)
- BSc (Hons) Psychology & Criminology (British Psychological Society accredited)
- MSc Applied Psychology of Intellectual Disability (distance learning for professionals in the field)
- MSc in Psychological Research Methods (ESRC accredited)
- MSc in Psychological Research Methods in Communication and Language (ESRC accredited)
- PhD in Psychology and in Robotics Engineering
Activities:
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.
The Centre runs annual conferences for students on the MSc Applied Psychology of Intellectual Disabilities.
Contact information:
Prof Alan Costall,
Tel: 02392846316
email: alan.costall@port.ac.uk