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Merideth Gattis PhD FLSW

Professor Merideth Gattis

(she/her)

PhD FLSW

Professor of Psychology

School of Psychology

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Media commentator
Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Overview

I am a cognitive psychologist studying how interactions between people and their environments influence cognition and communication. I also study parenting cognitions during the transition to parenthood and infancy. I develop innovative methods to study cognition and communication in everyday environments using mobile and remote research tools. 

I lead undergraduate and postgraduate teaching on research design and methods, including the philosophy of science, observational and survey methods, quasi-experimental and other mixed methods, and cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, as well as more advanced topics. I  supervise research internships on cognition and development.

I partner with external organisations to address societal needs and to ensure that my research contributes to society and the economy.  If you or your organisation think that our research could help with your work, please get in touch.

Developmental Science
Cardiff University Centre for Human Developmental Science
Neurodevelopment Research Network
Planetary Health Research Network

Publication

2024

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1998

  • Gattis, M. L., Bekkering, H. and Wohlschläger, A. 1998. When actions are carved at the joints [Letter]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21(5), pp. 691-692. (10.1017/S0140525X98301740)
  • Gattis, M. 1998. Mapping relational structure in visual reasoning. Presented at: Mind III: Spatial Cognition - Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society of Ireland, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland, 17-19 August 1998.
  • Gattis, M. L. 1998. Mapping conceptual and spatial schemas. Presented at: Advances in Analogy Research, Sofia, Bulgaria, July 1998 Presented at Holyoak, K., Gentner, D. and Kokinov, B. eds.Advances in Analogy Research: Integration of Theory and Data from the Cognitive, Computational, and Neural Sciences. NBU Series in Cognitive Sciences Sofia: New Bulgarian University pp. 210-220.
  • Schnall, S. and Gattis, M. L. 1998. Transitive inference by visual reasoning. Presented at: Twentieth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, WI, USA, 1-4 August 1998 Presented at Gernsbacher, M. A. and Derry, S. J. eds.Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum pp. 929-934.

1996

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Articles

Book sections

Books

Conferences

  • Scott, K., Sakkalou, E., Ellis-Davies, K., Hilbrink, E., Hahn, U. and Gattis, M. 2013. Infant contributions to joint attention predict vocabulary development. Presented at: 35th Annual meeting of the Cognitive Science SocietyProceedings of the 35th Annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Preceedings of the Cognitive Science Society pp. 3384-3389.
  • Gattis, M. 1998. Mapping relational structure in visual reasoning. Presented at: Mind III: Spatial Cognition - Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society of Ireland, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland, 17-19 August 1998.
  • Gattis, M. L. 1998. Mapping conceptual and spatial schemas. Presented at: Advances in Analogy Research, Sofia, Bulgaria, July 1998 Presented at Holyoak, K., Gentner, D. and Kokinov, B. eds.Advances in Analogy Research: Integration of Theory and Data from the Cognitive, Computational, and Neural Sciences. NBU Series in Cognitive Sciences Sofia: New Bulgarian University pp. 210-220.
  • Schnall, S. and Gattis, M. L. 1998. Transitive inference by visual reasoning. Presented at: Twentieth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, WI, USA, 1-4 August 1998 Presented at Gernsbacher, M. A. and Derry, S. J. eds.Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum pp. 929-934.

Research

Cognition and Communication

We often think of cognition and communication as abilities that exist within an individual, but every person is shaped by the people and environments around them, and so too are cognition and communication. Some of those influences are temporary - for example, without even thinking about it, you change the timing and prosody of your speech when talking to a baby versus a peer - but some are more durable. Social and environmental influences are more likely to have a long-lasting effects during infancy and early childhood, and furthermore, those effects influence other aspects of development, a process we call developmental cascades. 

My research involves people of all ages, including babies, children and adults, and investigates person-environment interactions and related developmental cascades. I study how interactions with other people and shared environments influence cognition and communication and the longer term effects of those influences. 

People and Nature

Several of our projects look at the relations between people and nature. 

Generation Wild is a programme developed by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) to connect children living in economically disadvantaged communities with nature. Cardiff University is working with WWT to help them evaluate Generation Wild. This project is a collaboration with Dr Kersty Hobson in the School of Geography and Planning and Professor Wouter Poortinga the Welsh School of Architecture and the School of Psychology. This project also involves two PhD students: Nicola Parkin, whose work is supported by the School of Psychology, and Magie Junker, whose work is supported by a collaborative studentship award from the Economic and Social Research Council. You can learn more about Generation Wild here.

Making Space for Nature is an academic and enterprise partnership centred around the aim of working with local communities to co-produce plans for making space for nature. This project is a collaboration with Dr Matluba Khan in the School of Geography and Planning and with several other people and organisations external to the university. You can learn more about Making Space for Nature and download the final report for our work funded by the European Regional Development Fund here. 

Moments of Change for pro-environmental behaviour shifts (MOCHA) is a Consolidator Grant funded by the European Research Council. I am collaborating with Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh, who leads the MOCHA project, and Kaloyan Mitev, whose PhD focuses on late adolescence as a moment of change for pro-environmental behaviour.

I also collaborate with Professor Thea Cameron-Faulkner on how natural environments influence communication between parents and children. You can learn more about our findings here. The Making Space for Nature project described above provides a valuable opportunity to replicate and extend our work on how natural environments influence communication.

Children and Parents

Parents are one of the most important influences on child health and development. Several of our projects evaluate how parents think about children, called parenting cognitions, and how children and parents relate, or to use a more technical term, how they interact.

Remarkably few studies have examined the beliefs that parents have about how to take care of a baby, particularly during the transition to parenthood and early infancy. This is an important gap because parenting beliefs are likely to influence how parents behave with their children, and thereby influence development. We developed the Baby Care Questionnaire (BCQ) to address the need for a valid and reliable tool to support research on parenting beliefs about caregiving during infancy. This work has been supported by Wellcome Trust, the National Institutes of Health, the Waterloo Foundation, and the Economic and Social Research Council. If you would like to use the BCQ in your own research, please email me for authorisation and supporting details.

An important step in our work with the BCQ is to understand whether it is a valid and reliable tool in different countries and cultural contexts. This is a big task and I am grateful to have numerous energetic and expert collaborators, including Professor Terry Au, Dr Carrie Barber, Dr Oleg Medvedev, and Professor Wendy Middlemiss, alongside many others. Our most recent work is funded by the Cardiff University and University of Waikato collaboration seed fund in support of the International Strategic Partnership between the two universities.

We are also using the BCQ in studies of parenting and child development following preterm birth. Preterm birth is very common and influences immediate risks as well as long-term outcomes for children. Preterm birth also affects parents and their interactions with children. Our research looks at the potential pathways between preterm birth and parent-child interaction. This work has been supported by Wellcome Trust, the National Institutes of Health, and the Waterloo Foundation. Collaborative partners include Dr Marc Bornstein and Dr Diane Putnick. 

I am also collaborating with Dr Hana D'Souza to study the processes that support communication and cognition during parent-child interactions by using innovative research tools that allow us to study naturalistic behaviour in everyday contexts. Our PhD student Kate Mee uses head-mounted eye-tracking during parent-child interaction to examine the attentional and sensorimotor behavioural mechanisms that support learning of sign-augmented language. We are also currently recruiting for a new, fully-funded PhD studentship on dynamic sensorimotor patterns during parent-child interaction. 

Teaching

I lead undergraduate and postgraduate teaching on research design and methods, including an introduction to research design for Year 1 students and MSc students and a final year module on research methods in developmental psychology. Topics include the philosophy of science, observational and survey methods, quasi-experimental and other mixed methods, and cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, as well as more advanced issues such as diary methods and other remote research tools, and scale development and evaluation.

I supervise undergraduate and postgraduate research projects and research internships on cognition and development.

I am a personal tutor for students on our undergraduate degree. You can learn more about how my experiences as a student have shaped my approach to personal tutoring here. 

Biography

Undergraduate education

B.A. Gordon College, Massachusetts, 1985; Psychology Magna cum Laude and Honours Scholar Fellow

Postgraduate education

Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles, 1995; Thesis 'From Implicit Learning of Visual Patterns to Explicit Knowledge of a Dynamic System,' funded by the National Science Foundation, supervised by Professor Keith Holyoak

Honours and awards

Professorial Leadership Programme, Cardiff University, 2022
Fellow, Learned Society of Wales, 2016
Welsh Government Universities Pairing Scheme 2012

Professional memberships

Cognitive Science Society
Daylong Audio Recordings of Children's Linguistic Environments (DARCLE)
International Society for Infant Studies
International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development
Learned Society of Wales

 

Academic positions

Professor, Cardiff University School of Psychology, 2014 - present
Reader, Cardiff University School of Psychology, 2011 - 2014
Senior Lecturer, Cardiff University School of Psychology, 2007-2011 
Lecturer, Cardiff University School of Psychology, 2002-2007 
Lecturer, University of Sheffield Department of Psychology, 1998-2002 
Research Scientist, Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, 1995-1998

Speaking engagements

Parenting Beliefs and Behaviours, Talk at Cardiff University Centre for Human Developmental Sciences Workshop on Parenting Infant Relationships, July 2024

Parent Infant Relationships following Preterm Birth, Poster at Cardiff University Centre for Human Developmental Sciences Workshop on Parenting Infant Relationships, July 2024

Distribution of Attention to People versus Objects: Converging Evidence from Diverse Samples, Symposium at International Conference on Infant Studies, July 2024

Parenting Beliefs about Attunement are Related to Responsive Parenting Behaviours, Poster at International Conference on Infant Studies, July 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.13153.52321

Committees and reviewing

Senior Member, Peer Review College, Economic and Social Research Council, UK, 2007 - present
Panel Member, European Research Council, SH4 2015 - 2022
Outcome Evaluator, European Research Council, SH4 2018
Scientific Evaluator, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Training Networks 2016
Scientific Evaluator, National Science Foundation, USA 2005
Scientific Evaluator, European Commission, 2004
Editorial Board, Parenting: Science and Practice, 2015 - present 
Editorial Board, Psychological Science, 2012 - 2018
Ad hoc reviewer for numerous journals and publishers
Programme Committee, Cognitive Science Society 
Programme Committee, Diagrams
Programme Committee, Visual and Spatial Reasoning in Design 
Programme Committee, Imitation in Animals and Artifacts
External Advisor, H2020 Project MoDeL Modelling Developmental Learning
External Advisor, National Museum of Wales
External Examiner, University College London
External Examiner, University of Lincoln
External Examiner, University of Plymouth

Supervisions

I supervise postgraduate research on cognition and development, including research with infants, children, and adults. I am particularly interested in turn-taking in human communication and in interactions between culture and human development.

I have archival data from two longitudinal studies of cognitive and communicative development during infancy, and welcome applications from prospective students interested in working with archival data to investigate research questions about the development of cognition and communication during infancy and early childhood.

I also welcome applications from prospective students interested in contingent and responsive communication, whether in infants, children, or adults. I supervise experimental and observational studies of turn-taking, for example in parent-child interactions. I am particularly interested in how natural environments influence turn-taking. 

I also supervise cross-national research on parenting beliefs about caring for infants. 

If you are interested in applying for a PhD, or for further information regarding my postgraduate research, please contact me directly, or submit a formal application.

Current supervision

Nicola Parkin

Nicola Parkin

Research student

Magie Junker

Magie Junker

Research student

Contact Details

Email GattisM@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone +44 29208 70034
Campuses Tower Building, 70 Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT

Research themes

Specialisms

  • Cognition
  • Infant and child health
  • Child and adolescent development
  • Parenting
  • Environmental Psychology
How to make good conversations a walk in the park

How to make good conversations a walk in the park

31 October 2018

External profiles