Birthday:
October 30
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Age:
60
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Peter Lovatt
About Me (human/individual)/interests, work..short bio/ THis is the most important. It is the only way to know that you are not a SPAMBOT!Be generous!
I am a Principal lecturer and Reader in Psychology. Before starting on an academic career I was a professional dancer and actor working in musical theatre. I trained at the Guildford School of Acting, on the three year Musical Theatre course. I left full time theatre to study Psychology and English at the Roehampton Institute, London, and graduated from the University of Surrey in 1993. Following this I took an MSc in Neural Computation from the Centre for Cognitive and Computational Neurosciences at the University of Stirling in 1994 (funded by a SERC scholarship), and thereafter went on to do doctoral research in the department of Psychology at the University of Essex (funded by a University Teaching Fellowship). In 1996 I was appointed to a lectureship in cognitive psychology at the University of Greenwich and in 1998 joined the Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics, at the University of Cambridge, as a Senior Research Psychologist. After a spell in industry, as a Principal Research Scientist for a speech-based R&D company, I joined Kingston University, where I was the co-ordinator of the Psychology Research Unit and Deputy Head of the School of Social Sciences. I joined the Psychology Department at the University of Hertfordshire in September 2004, where I have been a Principal Lecturer and Reader in Cognitive Psychology ever since. My aim is to become a Professor of the Psychology of Performing Arts. Research Member of Research Group: Learning, Memory and Thinking My research interests are in two broad fields. 1. The Psychology of Dance. I am interested in how we communicate through dance. This involves understanding how we express ourselves when we are dancing and also how people read us, or are affected by us, when we dance. I collect data in several ways for this project. For example, in controlled laboratory studies, in places where people dance and also through internet surveys, so that I can get a picture of people's dancing, and attitudes to dance, in a wide range of settings. One of my recent surveys was completed by over 13,000 respondents. Some of my recent work in this area has been covered a great deal in the media. It has been covered by the serious press (e.g. The Sunday Telegraph) and radio (Radio 4 Today programme). The appeal of my work also extends to light hearted television coverage (e.g. The Graham Norton Show - you can see the clip on YouTube). 2. The Psychology of Improvisation and Role-play. I am particularly interested in the cognitive basis of improvisation and role. I became interested in this area because I read a lot of work by non-academic practitioners who claimed that after people had engaged in improvisation activities their cognitive processes seemed sharper. For example, they wrote that people reported seeing colours as being brighter and their thoughts were more lucid. As a cognitive psychologist I wanted to test these claims under experimental conditions. My early research suggests that improvisation does indeed wake up the senses and so I am currently following this up with a series of experimental projects. I am also interested in how improvisation techniques can be used in large lectures to help people learn traditional academic content more effectively.
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