Professor Merideth Gattis

PhD

School of Psychology

: gattism@cardiff.ac.uk
: +44 (0)29 2087 0034
: Tower Building, 70 Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT

: Media commentator
: Available for postgraduate supervision

Research summary

I am a psychologist conducting research on cognition, communication & parenting. I am particularly interested in developing new research tools to capture cognition & communication in natural environments. I am also conducting cross-cultural studies of parenting during infancy with the Baby Care Questionnaire.

Teaching summary

I teach across all levels of the curriculum. I lecture on research design to Year 1 students, and lead a final year module on research methods in developmental psychology. I also conduct academic tutorials aimed at developing critical thinking and analytic skills. I supervise undergraduate and postgraduate research projects and research internships on cognition and development.

Undergraduate education

B.A. (1985): Gordon College, Massachusetts; Psychology (Magna cum Laude; Honours Scholar Fellowship)

Postgraduate education

Ph.D. (1995): supported by NSF; supervised by Professor Keith Holyoak; University of California, Los Angeles; Psychology; dissertation title: 'From Implicit Learning of Visual Patterns to Explicit Knowledge of a Dynamic System'

Honours and awards

Guest Professor, Catholic University of Milan, 2018
Elected Fellow, Learned Society of Wales, 2016
Visiting Scientist, Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 2005-2006
Visiting Scientist, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 2005

Professional memberships

Cognitive Science Society
International Society for Infant Studies
International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development
Learned Society of Wales
Society for Research in Child Development

Academic positions

October 2014: Professor, Cardiff University, UK
October 2011: Reader, Cardiff University, UK
2007-2011: Senior Lecturer, Cardiff University
2002-2007: Lecturer, Cardiff University
1998-2002: Lecturer, Sheffield University
1995-1998: Max Planck Institute Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich, Germany

Speaking engagements

BBC radio and television as well as various newspapers and news magazines, including:

Babies know a joke when they hear it (February 2012)
Babies can tell whether you made a mistake or not from the tone of your voice (January 2012)
Ducks say moo (December 2011)
Profs and Politicians Pair Up (October 2011)
Toddler Communication - Infants can understand intentions through tone of voice alone (Jan 2012)
Cardiff University research finds babies can understand parents’ meaning even when speaking in Greek (Jan 2012)
Humour opens up a new chapter in teaching toddlers to love story time (Dec 2011)
Group out to find what makes toddlers tick? (June 2008)
Baby Steps: Get Your Baby Laughing (June 2008)
BPS Research Digest - Little Comedians (April 2008)
icWales - Study reveals babies’ get the joke (7th March 2008)
News Wales - Toddlers get the joke (6th March 2008)
Science watch - The joke's in you (Nov 2007)
BBC Wales - Video insight into babies' minds (July 2005).

Committees and reviewing

Panel Member, European Research Council
Scientific Evaluator, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Innovative Training Networks
Senior Member, Peer Review College, Economic and Social Research Council
Scientific Evaluator, Science of Learning Funding Program, National Science Foundation (USA)
Scientific Evaluator, Information Societies Technologies Programme, European Commission

Editorial Board, Psychological Science
Editorial Board, Parenting: Science and Practice

2022

Mascheroni, E. et al. 2022. The role of experience in parenting beliefs of British and Italian women during pregnancy. Infant Mental Health Journal 43(6), pp. 835-848. (10.1002/imhj.22014)
Ionio, C., Mascheroni, E., Landoni, M. and Gattis, M. 2022. Caring for twins during infancy: A systematic review of the literature on sleeping and feeding practices amongst parents of twins. Journal of Neonatal Nursing 28(5), pp. 305-311. (10.1016/j.jnn.2021.08.017)
Hoicka, E., Soy-Telli, B., Prouten, E., Leckie, G., Browne, W. J., Nurmsoo, E. and Gattis, M. 2022. The Early Social Cognition Inventory (ESCI): an examination of its psychometric properties from birth to 47 months. Behavior Research Methods 54, pp. 1200-1226. (10.3758/s13428-021-01628-z)
Gattis, M., Winstanley, A. and Bristow, F. 2022. Parenting beliefs about attunement and structure are related to observed parenting behaviours. Cogent Psychology 9(1), article number: 2082675. (10.1080/23311908.2022.2082675)
Ionio, C. et al. 2022. Monochorionic twins and the early mother-infant relationship: an exploratory observational study of mother-infant interaction in the post-partum period. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19(5), article number: 2821. (10.3390/ijerph19052821)

2021

Kucirkova, N., Gattis, M., Spargo, T., Seisdedos de Vega, B. and Flewitt, R. 2021. An empirical investigation of parent-child shared reading of digital personalized books. International Journal of Educational Research 105, article number: 101710. (10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101710)

2020

Gattis, M., Winstanley, A., Sperotto, R., Putnik, D. L. and Bornstein, M. H. 2020. Foundations of attention sharing: orienting and responding to attention in term and preterm 5-month-old infants. Infant Behavior and Development 61, article number: 101466. (10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101466)

2019

Gerson, S., Weinstein, N., Paulmann, S. and Gattis, M. 2019. Infants attend longer to controlling versus supportive directive speech. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 187, article number: 104654. (10.1016/j.jecp.2019.06.007)

2018

Cameron-Faulkner, T., Melville, J. and Gattis, M. 2018. Responding to nature: Natural environments improve parent-child communication. Journal of Environmental Psychology 59, pp. 9-15. (10.1016/j.jenvp.2018.08.008)

2017

Cameron-Faulkner, T., McDonald, R., Serratrice, L., Melville, J. and Gattis, M. 2017. Plant yourself where language blooms: Direct experience of nature changes how parents and children talk about nature. Children Youth and Environments 27(2), pp. 110-124. (10.7721/chilyoutenvi.27.2.0110)

2015

Hilbrink, E. E., Gattis, M. and Levinson, S. C. 2015. Early developmental changes in the timing of turn-taking: a longitudinal study of mother-infant interaction. Frontiers in Psychology 6, article number: 1492. (10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01492)

2014

Winstanley, A., Sperotto, R. G., Putnick, D. L., Cherian, S., Bornstein, M. H. and Gattis, M. 2014. Consistency of maternal cognitions and principles across the first five months following preterm and term deliveries. Infant Behavior and Development 37(4), pp. 760-771. (10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.09.005)

2013

Hilbrink, E., Sakkalou, E., Ellis-Davies, K., Fowler, N. and Gattis, M. L. 2013. Selective and faithful imitation at 12 and 15 months. Developmental Science 16(6), pp. 828-840. (10.1111/desc.12070)
Over, H., Carpenter, M., Spears, R. and Gattis, M. L. 2013. Children selectively trust individuals who have imitated them. Social Development 22(2), pp. 215-224. (10.1111/sode.12020)
Sakkalou, E., Ellis-Davies, K., Fowler, N., Hilbrink, E. and Gattis, M. L. 2013. Infants show stability of goal-directed imitation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 114(1), pp. 1-9. (10.1016/j.jecp.2012.09.005)
Evans, L., Tsai, P., Wu, D. H., Lien, Y. and Gattis, M. L. 2013. The dimensional arrow: agreement in directional mapping of dimensions among Mandarin Chinese- and English-speakers. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 66(9), pp. 1729-1738. (10.1080/17470218.2013.763832)
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.
Winstanley, A. and Gattis, M. L. 2013. The Baby Care Questionnaire: A measure of parenting principles and practices during infancy. Infant Behavior and Development 36(4), pp. 762-775. (10.1016/j.infbeh.2013.08.004)

2012

Ellis-Davies, K., Sakkalou, E., Fowler, N., Hilbrink, E. and Gattis, M. L. 2012. CUE: The continuous unified electronic diary method. Behaviour Research Methods 44(4), pp. 1063-1078. (10.3758/s13428-012-0205-1)
Perra, O. and Gattis, M. L. 2012. Attention engagement in early infancy. Infant Behavior and Development 35(4), pp. 635-644. (10.1016/j.infbeh.2012.06.004)
Hoicka, E. and Gattis, M. L. 2012. Acoustic differences between humorous and sincere communicative intentions. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 30(4), pp. 531-549. (10.1111/j.2044-835X.2011.02062.x)
Sakkalou, E. and Gattis, M. L. 2012. Infants infer intentions from prosody. Cognitive Development 27(1), pp. 1-16. (10.1016/j.cogdev.2011.08.003)

2010

Perra, O. and Gattis, M. L. 2010. The control of social attention from 1 to 4 months. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 28(4), pp. 891-908. (10.1348/026151010X487014)
Over, H. and Gattis, M. L. 2010. Verbal imitation is based on intention understanding. Cognitive Development 25(1), pp. 46-55. (10.1016/j.cogdev.2009.06.004)

2008

Hoicka, E., Jutsum, S. and Gattis, M. L. 2008. Humor, abstraction, and disbelief. Cognitive Science 32(6), pp. 985-1002. (10.1080/03640210801981841)
Hoicka, E. and Gattis, M. L. 2008. Do the wrong thing: How toddlers tell a joke from a mistake. Cognitive Development 23(1), pp. 180-190. (10.1016/j.cogdev.2007.06.001)
Gattis, M. L. 2008. Diagrams are visual analogies. International Journal of Psychology 43(3-4), pp. 169-169.
Perra, O. and Gattis, M. L. 2008. Reducing the mapping between perception and action facilitates imitation. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 26(1), pp. 133-144. (10.1348/026151007x224442)

2005

Want, S. C. and Gattis, M. L. 2005. Are “late-signing” deaf children “mindblind”? Understanding goal directedness in imitation. Cognitive Development 20(2), pp. 159-172. (10.1016/j.cogdev.2004.12.003)
Gattis, M. L. 2005. Inferencing from spatial information. Spatial Cognition & Computation 5(2-3), pp. 119-137. (10.1080/13875868.2005.9683800)

2004

Gattis, M. L. 2004. Mapping relational structure in spatial reasoning. Cognitive Science 28(4), pp. 589-610. (10.1016/j.cogsci.2004.02.001)
Wohlschläger, A., Gattis, M. L. and Bekkering, H. 2004. Action generation and action perception in imitation: an instance of the ideomotor principle. In: Frith, C. D. and Wolpert, D. eds. The Neuroscience of Social Interaction: Decoding, Influencing, and Imitating the Actions of Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 131-158.

2003

Wohlschlager, A., Gattis, M. L. and Bekkering, H. 2003. Action generation and action perception in imitation: An instantiation of the ideomotor principle. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B - Biological Sciences 358(1431), pp. 501-515. (10.1098/rstb.2002.1257)
Gattis, M. L. 2003. How similarity shapes diagrams. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2685, pp. 249-262. (10.1007/3-540-45004-1_15)

2002

Gattis, M. L. 2002. Structure mapping in spatial reasoning. Cognitive Development 17(2), pp. 1157-1183. (10.1016/S0885-2014(02)00095-3)
Gattis, M. L. 2002. Imitation is mediated by many goals, not just one [Letter]. Developmental Science 5(1), pp. 27-29. (10.1111/1467-7687.00201)
Gattis, M. L., Bekkering, H. and Wohlschläger, A. 2002. Goal-directed imitation. In: Meltzoff, A. N. and Prinz, W. eds. The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution and Brain Bases. Cambridge Studies in Cognitive and Perceptual Development Vol. 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 183-205., (10.1017/CBO9780511489969.011)

2001

Gattis, M. L. ed. 2001. Spatial schemas and abstract thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gattis, M. L. 2001. Space as a basis for abstract thought. In: Gattis, M. L. ed. Spatial Schemas and Abstract Thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 1-12.
Gattis, M. L. 2001. Mapping conceptual and spatial schemas. In: Gattis, M. L. ed. Spatial Schemas and Abstract Thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 223-245.
Gattis, M. L. 2001. Space as a basis for reasoning. In: Gero, J. S., Tversky, B. and Purcell, T. eds. Visual and Spatial Reasoning in Design II. Sydney, Australia: Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, University of Sydney, pp. 15-24.

2000

Bekkering, H., Wohlschlager, A. and Gattis, M. L. 2000. Imitation of gestures in children is goal-directed. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Section A: Human Experimental Psychology 53(1), pp. 153-164. (10.1080/027249800390718)
Gattis, M. L. and Dupeyrat, C. 2000. Spatial strategies in reasoning. In: Schaeken, W. et al. eds. Deductive Reasoning and Strategies. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 153-176.

1998

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.
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.

1996

Gattis, M. L. and Holyoak, K. J. 1996. Mapping conceptual to spatial relations in visual reasoning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 22(1), pp. 231-239. (10.1037/0278-7393.22.1.231)
Bekkering, H., Wohlschläger, A. and Gattis, M. L. 1996. Motor imitation: What is imitated?. Corpus, Psyche et Societas 3(2), pp. 68-74.

1995

Holyoak, K. J. and Gattis, M. L. 1995. Review of Children's understanding: The development of mental models by G. S. Halford [Book Review]. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 41, pp. 402-407.
Gelman, R. and Gattis, M. L. 1995. Trends and developments in educational psychology in the United States. In: Recent trends and developments in educational psychology: Chinese and American perspectives. Educational studies and documents Vol. 61. Paris: UNESCO, pp. 23-52.

1994

Holyoak, K. J. and Gattis, M. L. 1994. Implicit assumptions about implicit learning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17(3), pp. 406-407. (10.1017/S0140525X00035159)
Richardson-Klavehn, A., Gattis, M., Joubran, R. and Bjork, R. A. 1994. Intention and awareness in perceptual identification priming. Memory & Cognition 22(3), pp. 293-312. (10.3758/BF03200858)

I teach across all levels of the undergraduate curriculum.

I lecture on research design to Year 1 students, and lead a final year module on research methods in developmental psychology.

I also conduct academic tutorials aimed at developing critical thinking and analytic skills.

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

I study cognition and communication in children and adults. Current projects include mixed-method studies of turn-taking in communication and studies of parenting with the Baby Care Questionnaire. Past projects have included experimental studies of attention, imitation, and spatial cognition.

Funding

2016: Cardiff University International Collaboration Seedcorn Fund. Parenting beliefs amongst Latina mothers
2015: University of Manchester. Parent and child interaction in the outdoors.
2012: ESRC. Cultural & individual influences on parenting during infancy
2010: Waterloo Foundation. PhD Studentship. Development following preterm birth
2010: Nuffield. Gaze following and emotion processing in human infants
2008: Waterloo Foundation. £12,000 for 1 year. Development@Cardiff participant programme
2008: ESRC. Competition studentship award. The role of joint attention in social cognition and language development
2008: Wellcome/NIH. £70,000 for 4 years. Mother-child interaction and the development of imitation in preterm infants
2008: Leverhulme. £252,343 for 3 years. Infant imitation in natural contexts
2007: Nuffield. £1,400 for 3 months. Developing a corpus of social learning in human infants
2006: Royal Society. £12,000 for 3 years. A comparison of linguistic polarity in Mandarin Chinese and English
2006: Wellcome Trust. £1,020 for 3 months. Infant ability to detect intention through acoustic cues
2005: Nuffield. £1,400 for 3 months. Infant imitation and attention
2005: ESRC. £42,000 for 1 year. Early imitation and disengagement
2001: ESRC. £37,000 for 18 months. Early imitation and gaze following
2000: Nuffield Foundation. £99,730 for three years. Social cognition in deaf and hearing children. PI Stephen Want
2000: British Council. £5,200 for two years. Goal-directed imitation.

I have also received various travel awards from the British Academy, Cardiff University, and the Royal Society.

Research groups

Baby Care Questionnaire
Development@Cardiff
Tiny to Tots

Research collaborators

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.

Past projects

Kaloyan Mitev, University of Bath, Emerging Adulthood And The Development Of Pro- Environmental Identity And Habits
Judith Wallis, University of Trier, Parenting Beliefs in Caregiving: A Cross-cultural Validation Study of the Baby Care Questionnaire
Eleonora Mascheroni, Catholic University of Milan, Twin Pregnancy and the Building of the Mother-Twin Relationship
Rebecca Sperotto, Cardiff University, The influence of gestational age on social attention and language in the second year of life
Katherine Scott, Cardiff University,
Kate Ellis-Davies, Cardiff University
Alice Winstanley, Cardiff University
Nia Fowler, Cardiff University
Elma Hilbrink, Cardiff University
Sarah May, Cardiff University
Harriet Over, Cardiff University
Elena Sakkalou, Cardiff University
Elena Hoicka, Cardiff University
Oliver Perra, University of Sheffield