I set office hours during term time. For meetings at other times please contact me by email.

• PhD (Birmingham)
• BA (Oxford)

Dr Beck completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford in Psychology and Philosophy (PPP) before moving to become a research assistant at the University of Birmingham, where she has studied and worked ever since.

Sarah Beck teaches a 3rd year optional module on comparative and developmental cognition: Higher Cognitive Functions.

Current PhD students:

Eva Reindl: Tool Cognition, co-supervised with Dr Claudio Tennie (Lead) and Prof Ian Apperly.

Clare Williams: Development of innovation and tool-making, co-supervised with Prof Ian Apperly and Dr Jackie Chappell

Caroline Putt: Counterfactuals and regret in neuropsychological patients, co-supervised with Prof Glyn Humphreys

Livia Colda: Counterfactual thinking in children (MSc by Research)

Catherine Darnell: Children’s decision making under uncertainty

Victoria Johnson, Decision Making and Executive Function in Cornelia de Lange Syndrome, co-supervised with Prof Chris Oliver

Previous PhD students:

Nina Powell: (2013) Moral reasoning, co-supervised with Dr Kim Quinn

Amélie Gourdon (2013) Communicating nonverbal probabilities

Nicola Cutting (2013) Children’s tool innovation, co-supervised with Prof Ian Apperly

Jane Waite (2012) Repetitive behaviours in Rubenstein Taybi Syndrome, co-supervised with Prof Chris Oliver

Daniel Weisberg (2011) Children's regret and relief

Clare Eddy (2009) Social cognition in basal ganglia patients, co-spervised with Dr Ian Mitchell

Gill Waters (2009) Children’s source monitoring  

• Counterfactual thinking
• Executive function
• Metacognition and uncertainty
• Tool use

• Awarded the 2011 Margaret Donaldson Early Career Prize by the British Psychological Society Developmental Section
• Psychology Programme Chair for the for the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology between 2008 – 2011

Representative publications

A full list of publications with reprints can be found at: www.sarahruthbeck.net

Beck, S.R., Wiesberg, D.P., Burns, P., & Riggs, K.J. (in press). Conditional reasoning and emotional experience: a review of the development of counterfactual thinking. Studia Logica. (Special Issue on Logic of Causal and Probabilistic Reasoning in Uncertain Environments. Schurz & Unterhuber (Eds.). DOI: 10.1007/s11225-013-9508-1

Chappell, J., Cutting, N., Apperly, I.A.,  & Beck, S.R. (In press). The development of tool manufacture in humans: what helps young children make innovative tools? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

Beck, S.R. & Riggs, K.J. (2013). Counterfactuals and reality. Chapter in The Oxford Handbook of the Development of the Imagination. M. Taylor (Ed.). New York, USA: OUP.

Eddy, C.M., Beck, S.R., Mitchell, I.J., Praamstra, P., & Pall, H.S. (2013). Theory of Mind deficits in Parkinson’s disease: a product of executive dysfunction? Neuropsychology, 27, 37-47. DOI: 10.1037/a0031302

Weisberg, D.P. & Beck, S.R. (2012). The development of children’s regret and relief. Cognition and Emotion, 26, 820-835.

Hoerl, C., McCormack, T., & Beck, S.R. (Eds.) Understanding counterfactuals, understanding causation. Oxford University Press (2011).

Beck, S.R., McColgan, K.L.T., Robinson, E.J., & Rowley, M.G. (2011). Imagining what might be: why children under-estimate uncertainty. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 110, 603-610. DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2011.06.010

Beck, S.R. & Guthrie, C. (2011). Almost thinking counterfactually: children’s understanding of close counterfactuals. Child Development, 82, 1189-1198. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01590.x

Beck, S.R., Apperly, I.A., Chappell, J., Guthrie, C., & Cutting, N. (2011). Making tools isn't child's play. Cognition, 119, 301-306.

Beck, S.R., Riggs, K.J., & Gorniak, S.L. (2009) Relating developments in children’s counterfactual thinking and executive functions. Thinking and Reasoning, 15, 337-354.

Robinson, E.J., Rowley, M., Beck, S.R., Carroll, D.J., Apperly, I.A. (2006) Children's sensitivity to their own relative ignorance: Handling of possibilities under conditions of epistemic and physical uncertainty. Child Development, 77(6), pp. 1642 - 1655

Beck. S.R., Robinson, E.J., Carroll, D.J, & Apperly, I.A. (2006) Children's thinking about counterfactuals and future hypotheticals as possibilities. Child Development, 77(2), pp. 413 - 426.