16 October 2026 - 16 October 2026
1:00PM - 2:00PM
L68, Psychology building
Free
This talk is part of the Department of Psychology seminar series.
After training at Oxford, UCL, and Goldsmiths, Dorothy joined Durham as a lecturer in 2013 and was promoted to Professor in 2023. Her research addresses a fundamental puzzle: how do children build a stable representation of their body and its abilities when their sensory systems are changing and their bodies are growing? Her work on sensorimotor development and body representation has spanned methods including motion capture, MRI, and virtual reality. In this talk, she will argue that body representation is subject to a long period of flux, and that developing sensorimotor skills must be studied in the context of dynamic, interactive environments.
Professor, Durham University
Prof Cowie investigates how children and adults use sensory information to ground their sense of bodily self and guide movement. She lead an ESRC-funded grant (2022-25), in collaboration with Prof Gillies & Pan at Goldsmiths, using combined motion capture and virtual reality to investigate how children can accept virtual bodies that differ from their own. Together with Prof Tamar Makin at Cambridge, she also examines how children with limb differences learn to interact with their environments.
/filters:quality(70)/prod01/prodbucket01/media/durham-university/departments-/psychology/60012-2276X1158.jpg)