Professor Heather Ferguson

Professor Heather Ferguson completed her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience and Psycholinguistics at the University of Glasgow in 2007, followed by a two-year postdoctoral research position at University College London. She was appointed as a Lecturer in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Kent in October 2009, and was subsequently promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2012, Reader in 2015, and Professor in 2018. She is the Divisional Director for Research and Innovation (2020-2024), and Honorary Secretary for the Experimental Psychology Society (2019-2024).

During her time at Kent, Heather has led on several large research projects, examining different aspects of social communication. For example, a European Research Council Starting grant examined the cognitive basis of social communication and how this changes across the life-span, a Leverhulme Trust grant examined how autistic people imagine fictional events, and funding from the Leverhulme Trust and Templeton Religious Trust examined whether and how art (through fiction or film) enhances our cognitive and social wellbeing. She is currently running two large projects to track developments in perspective-taking and prosocial behaviour in adolescents (Leverhulme Trust) and whether social interaction can be consolidated through sleep (Economic and Social Research Council).  

Heather's primary research interest is in Cognitive Psychology. She is particularly interested in the interface between cognitive processes and social interaction, specifically the way that we access and represent other people's perspectives during communication. She uses a variety of techniques, including eye-movements, event-related brain potentials and reaction times to look at questions, such as:

• How do people understand and predict events in terms of other people"s mental states (e.g. their intentions, beliefs and desires)? And how quickly can they do this? What happens when these intentions, beliefs or desires are at odds with our own knowledge of the world?
• How do social abilities relate to cognitive skills (such as memory and inhibitory control)? Can social interaction be enhanced by training these cognitive skills? How does advancing age affect this relationship?
• How does social context (e.g. who we're interacting with, for what purpose etc) influence the language that we produce during an interaction?
• How do we separate reality from fantasy, and why do they get muddled up sometimes? Are there any social or cognitive benefits of imagining fictional versions of the world?

Please get in touch to discuss research supervision for undergraduate final year projects, MSc research projects, PhD theses or postdoctoral fellowships.

Current PhD supervision

• Hugo Bowles (1st supervisor), Title TBC.  
• Chloe Brunskill (2nd supervisor), Title 'How does counterfactual imagination produce memory distortions across ages?'.
• Vasileios Kotsaris (2nd supervisor), Title TBC.
• Natasha Scott (2nd supervisor), Title TBC.

Completed PhD supervision

• Jumana Ahmad (1st supervisor; 2014), 'An electrophysiological and computational exploration of the working memory deficit in developmental dyslexia'
• Eiman Alismail (1st supervisor; 2014), 'The role of familiarity in action understanding and imitation: investigating mirror neurons in Saudi children with ASD'
• David Atkins (2nd supervisor; 2014), 'Culture and empathy'
• Serena Vanzan (2nd supervisor; 2015), 'The effects of Caloric Vestibular Stimulation on Persistent Vegetative and Minimally Conscious States'
• Miriam Tresh (1st supervisor; 2016), 'Mental simulations of language in individuals with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)'
• Laura Smith (2nd supervisor; 2016), 'Neuro-stimulation in traumatic brain injury'
• Rachael Morris (2nd supervisor; 2019), ‘The effect of Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation on attention’. 
  
• Mahsa Barzy (1st supervisor; 2020), 'The effects of social context and perspective on language processing: Evidence from Autism Spectrum Disorder'
• Martina De Lillo (1st supervisor; 2021), 'Social cognition across the lifespan and its relation to executive functions'
  
• Marchella Smith (1st supervisor; 2023), 'Typical And Atypical Self-Other Distinction: Evidence From Neurotypical People And People With Autism Spectrum Conditions'  
• Nilda Karoğlu (2nd supervisor; 2023), ‘Theory of Mind, sexual offending against children and cognitive distortions: An analysis of quantity and content in Theory of Mind’
  

Current Roles

• Honorary Secretary for the Experimental Psychology Society
• Associate editor for Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition
• Editorial board member for Cognition
• Mentor in the Eastern Arc Mentoring Scheme
• Peer-reviewer for numerous grant funders (e.g. ERC, Leverhulme Trust, ESRC, MRC) and journals (e.g. Science, Nature Human Behaviour, Cognition), and a PhD examiner.

Recent Grants and Awards

Professional experience and recognition

Editorial and review work

• Peer reviews for Journals, including: Cognition, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Language and Cognitive Processes, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Journal of Memory & Language, Psychological Science, Journal of Cognitive Psychology, Linguistics, Journal of Research on Reading, Social Neuroscience, PLoS ONE, Experimental Psychology, Journal of Pragmatics, Developmental Psychology, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, Topics in Cognitive Science.Editorial and review work
• Peer reviews for Grants: Medical Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, British Academy, National Science Foundation, Israel Science Foundation, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.
• Peer reviews for conferences: CUNY conference on sentence processing, Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing, Text and Discourse, Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue, Experimental Pragmatics.