Professor Andrew J. Bremner DPhil

Professor Andrew J. Bremner

School of Psychology
Professor of Developmental Psychology
Head of Education

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0) 121 41 43833
Email
a.j.bremner@bham.ac.uk
Twitter
@Andy_Bremner
View my research portal
Address
School of Psychology
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Professor Andy Bremner is a developmental psychologist with expertise in multisensory perceptual development and the development of touch perception. He has particularly focused on examining how infants come to perceive their own bodies and their relation to the external world around them.

Qualifications

  • BA (Hons.) Experimental Psychology, Keble College, University of Oxford
  • DPhil Experimental Psychology, Christ Church, University of Oxford

Biography

Andy Bremner took his BA in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford where he then went on to research for a DPhil with Prof. Peter Bryant, FRS. Andy worked on two postdoctoral appointments, firstly with Prof. Denis Mareschal at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London, and later with Prof. Axel Cleeremans at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. In 2005 Andy took up an academic post at Goldsmiths, University of London where he was latterly Professor and Head of Psychology. In 2018, Andy moved to the School of Psychology, University of Birmingham where he is using a range of behavioural and physiological methods to investigate the developmental origins of perceptual, sensorimotor and cognitive abilities in infants and children. A particular focus of Andy’s research is the development of multisensory processes, particularly those underlying body representations. From 2009-2015, Andy’s research was funded by the European Research Council grant, “Human Embodied Multisensory Development”. In 2012 Andy co-edited the book Multisensory Development (Oxford University Press) with Profs. David Lewkowicz and Charles Spence.

Teaching

Professor Bremner teaches a final year BSc Psychology module: Social cognitive development in infancy and early childhood.

Postgraduate supervision

Professor Bremner supervises PhD students interested in perceptual, sensorimotor and cognitive development, with particular emphasis on the following areas:

  • The development of body perception in infancy and childhood
  • Sensorimotor development in infancy
  • Multisensory development in infancy and childhood
  • The development of touch perception in infancy and childhood
  • The development of object perception and spatial representation in infancy
  • Crosscultural differences in perception
  • The development of visual and multisensory illusions

Research

Research Interests: 

The development of multisensory perception, object knowledge, spatial representation, body representation, in infancy and early childhood.

Other activities

Prizes, awards and honorary roles

2013                      The Margaret Donaldson Early Career Prize for an outstanding contribution to developmental psychology. Awarded annually by the Developmental Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society

2009                      European Research Council Starting Independent Researcher Award “Human Embodied Multisensory Development” (1.2m€).

2005 – date        Honorary Research Fellow of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London

2003                      ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship Award

 

Editorial work

2016 – 2018        Editorial Board Member of Goldsmiths Press

2016 – date        Editorial Board Member of the British Journal of Developmental Psychology

2016 – date        Editor (with Robin Banerjee) of Infant and Child Development

2008 – 2016        Associate Editor of the British Journal of Developmental Psychology

 

External examining

2016 – date        External Examinerfor MSc in Child Development and Education, Department of Education, University of Oxford

2013 – date        External Assessor for Psychology programmes, City University, Hong Kong

2013 – date        External Examiner for the BSc (Hons.) Psychology, Queens University, Belfast

2010 – date         External Examiner for the MSc Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Durham University

Publications

Representative publications:

Orioli, G., Bremner, A.J., & Farroni, T. (in press). Multisensory perception of looming and receding objects in human newborns. Current Biology.

Leman, P., Bremner, A.J. (in press). Developmental Psychology, 2nd Ed. London, UK: McGraw-Hill.

Linnell, K., Bremner, A.J., Caparos, S., Davidoff, J., & De Fockert, J.W. (2018). Urban experience alters lightness perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance.

Rigato, S., Banissy, M., Romanska, A., Thomas, R., van Velzen, J., & Bremner, A.J. (2017). Cortical signatures of vicarious tactile experience in four-month-old infants. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.

Bremner, A.J., & Spence, C.(2017). The development of tactile perception. In J. Benson (Ed.), Advances in Child Development and Behavior, Vol. 52. Oxford, UK: Elsevier.

D’Souza, H., Cowie, D., Karmiloff-Smith, A., & Bremner, A.J. (2017). Specialization of the motor system in human infants: From broadly tuned to selectively specialized purposeful actions. Developmental Science, 20, e12409.

Bremner, A.J. (2017). The origins of body representations in early life. In A. Alsmith & F. De Vignemont (Eds.), The body and the self, revisited. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Freier, L., Mason, L., & Bremner, A.J. (2016). Perception of visual-tactile co-location in the first year of life. Developmental Psychology, 52,2184-2190.

Bremner, A.J., Doherty, M., Caparos, S., de Fockert, J.W., Linnell, K.J., & Davidoff, J. (2016). Effects of culture and the urban environment on the development of the Ebbinghaus illusion. Child Development, 87, 982-981.

Begum Ali, J., Spence, C., & Bremner, A.J. (2015). Human infants' ability to perceive touch in external space develops postnatally. Current Biology, 25, R978-R979.

Bremner, A.J., Lewkowicz, D.J., & Spence, C. (Eds.) (2012). Multisensory Development. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Rigato, S., Begum Ali, J., van Velzen, J., & Bremner, A.J. (2014). The neural basis of somatosensory remapping develops in human infancy. Current Biology, 24, 1222-1226. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.04.004

Cowie, D., Makin, T., & Bremner, A.J. (2013). Children’s responses to the Rubber Hand Illusion reveal dissociable pathways in body representations. Psychological Science, 24, 762-769.

Bremner, A.J., Caparos, S., Davidoff, J., de Fockert, J.W., Linnell, K.J., & Spence, C. (2013). “Bouba” and “Kiki” in Namibia? A remote culture make similar shape-sound matches, but different shape-taste matches to Westerners. Cognition, 126, 165-172.

Bremner, A.J., Holmes, N.P., & Spence, C. (2008). Infants lost in (peripersonal) space? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 298-305.

Bremner, A.J., Mareschal, D., Lloyd-Fox, S., & Spence, C. (2008). Spatial localization of touch in the first year of life: Early influence of a visual spatial code and the development of remapping across changes in limb position. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137, 149-162.

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