Professor Jon Catling BSc, PGCE, PhD

School of Psychology
Professor
Deputy Director of UG Studies
Student Enhancement & Outreach

Contact details

Email: j.c.catling@bham.ac.uk

Address: School of Psychology
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Jon Catling is a Professor of Psychology and Education, and is an expert in research design and analysis. His research interests cover three main areas: Language acquisition, especially the impact of the ‘Age of Acquisition’ of language; Mental and physical health in young people; and the relationship between cognitive and physical functioning, mental health and immune function in older adults.

Qualifications

PhD (Birmingham)
PGCE (Cambridge)
PGDip CBT (Birmingham)
BSc Psychology and Artificial Intelligence (Birmingham)

Biography

Dr Jon Catling completed a PhD at the University of Birmingham investigating the ‘age of acquisition’ effect within a range of perceptual, semantic and phonological tasks. He then went on to a Lectureship at the University of Worcester for 6 years, before returning as a Lecturer to the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham in September 2011. He became a Senior Lecturer within the School in 2013.

Teaching

Dr Jon Catling teaches Research Methods at Undergraduate level

Postgraduate supervision

Dr Jon Catling currently supervises a PhD student who is assessing the impact of mobile ‘Brain training’ Apps on the cognitive, physical and immune functioning of older people.

He also supervises a PhD that is assessing the Psychological factors predicting academic achievement at International Branch Campuses.

He is always interested to hear from any prospective PhD students who have ideas for a research project within his fields of research.

Research

Dr Jon Catling is an expert in research design and analysis.

His research interests cover three main areas:

1. Language acquisition, especially the impact of the ‘Age of Acquisition’ of language.

2. Mental and physical health in young people.

3. The relationship between cognitive and physical functioning, mental health and the immune system in older adults.

Other activities

Principal Fellow of the HEA
Member of the Undergraduate Education Committee of the British Psychological Society
Manuscript reviewer for the journals Visual Cognition, the European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Human Brain Mapping, Computers in human behavior and Psychology Teaching Review.
Grant reviewer for the ESRC and Higher Education Academy

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Elsherif, MM, Preece, E & Catling, JC 2023, 'Age-of-acquisition effects: a literature review', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, vol. 49, no. 5, pp. 812–847. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001215

Elsherif, MM & Catling, JC 2023, 'Are two words recalled or recognised as one? How age-of-acquisition affects memory for compound words', Journal of Memory and Language, vol. 132, 104449. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2023.104449

Asquith, E, Bould, K, Catling, JC, Day, EJ & Holt, A 2023, 'Behaviour regulation and the role of mental health in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease', BMC Gastroenterology, vol. 23, no. 1, 306. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12876-023-02941-x

AbuQamar, M, Eltayyan, D, Kuznetsova, I, Dhesi, S, Catling, J, Al-Dadah, R, Mahmoud, SM & Abuhaiba, M 2023, 'The impact of access to electricity on mental health in conflict-affected territories: An exploratory study in Gaza', International Journal of Social Psychiatry, pp. 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1177/00207640231194479

Sutton, E, Catling, J, Segaert, K & Veldhuijzen Van Zanten, J 2022, 'Cognitive Health Worries, Reduced Physical Activity and Fewer Social Interactions Negatively Impact Psychological Wellbeing in Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic', Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 13, 823089. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.823089

Catling, J, Bayley, A, Begum, Z, Wardzinski, C & Wood, A 2022, 'Effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on mental health in a UK student sample', BMC psychology, vol. 10, no. 1, 118. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-022-00732-9

Catling, J, Michail, M, Lakhani , N & Devine, RT 2022, 'Psychological and lifestyle predictors of mental health in higher education: how healthy are our students?', Journal of Mental Health, Training, Education and Practice, vol. 17, no. 6, pp. 562-571. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMHTEP-08-2021-0092

Doyle, I & Catling, J 2022, 'The influence of perfectionism, self-esteem and resilience on young people’s mental health', The Journal of Psychology, vol. 156, no. 3, pp. 224-240. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2022.2027854

Catling, J, Pymont, CP, Johnston, RA, Elsherif, M, Clark, R & Kendall, E 2021, 'Age of Acquisition effects in recognition without identification tasks', Memory, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 662-674 . https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2021.1931695

Elsherif, MM & Catling, JC 2021, 'Age of acquisition effects on the decomposition of compound words', Journal of Cognitive Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2021.2013246

Catling, J & Elsherif, M 2020, 'The hunt for the Age of Acquisition effect: It’s in the links!', Acta Psychologica, vol. 209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103138

Catling, J & Elsherif, M 2020, 'The hunt for the age of acquisition effect: It's in the links!', Acta Psychologica, vol. 209, 103138, pp. 103138. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/g8by5, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103138

Elsherif, M, Catling, J & Frisson, S 2020, 'Two words as one: a multi-naming investigation of the age-of-acquisition effect in compound-word processing', Memory and Cognition, vol. 48, pp. 511-525. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-019-00986-6