Projects
Here you can explore the projects I am currently working on
The Development of Body Representations in Childhood
Distinguishing one's own body from the external world is fundamental to our experiences. In adults, own-body representation is a complex network built upon multisensory information (e.g. vision. touch, proprioception) and prior knowledge of a body's likely form (e.g. a hand has five fingers). We are interested in how these processes develop and interact to establish a sense of bodily self in childhood. Using fully-immersive virtual reality to manipulate aspects of body form, function and movement, our aim is to determine how the perceptual & cognitive basis of body representation changes in the childhood years.
This work is funded by ESRC Grants:
ES/P008798/1 (2017-21) The development of own-body representation in childhood.
ES/W003120/1 (2022-25). The plasticity of the bodily self: how function and age shape the acceptance of virtual bodies.
Brain Organisation in Limb Differences
How are children with limb differences able to control their movements? How do they develop alternative motor strategies and solutions for everyday bimanual tasks like opening containers or zipping up a jacket? Are they better able to learn new motor skills than those with two hands? This project is done in collaboration with Prof Tamar Makin, UCL, as part of her Wellcome Trust Fellowship. For more details, please see here:
The Development of Visually Guided Walking
To walk in cluttered environments we need to be able to use visual cues about environmental obstacles to plan and control foot placement. By doing this, we can visually guide the feet to safe, appropriate footfalls. Using motion capture, we can explore how variability of foot placement in precise stepping movements is affected by visual occlusion across childhood. We do so for both for single stepping movements and during walking in complex environments via virtual reality.