BIOGRAPHY

I completed a BSc in Psychology with Cognitive Science at University College London. I then worked with Prof Anthony Marcel at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, investigating tactile spatial attention and body representation in healthy observers and neuropsychological patients. This was followed by a PhD on the processing of vibrations (in touch and hearing) at Birkbeck College London, supervised by Prof Martin Eimer. I then returned to University College London to work with Prof Cecilia Heyes on the role of sensorimotor learning in the imitation of actions, subsequently worked with Dr Bettina Forster at the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit at City University London investigating tactile spatial attention and body representation in perception and action, and then joined the Department of Psychology here at Essex in 2009.

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

My research is inspired by how our sense of self and of the world around us is interlinked with our body, our actions, and the external space in which we act. To investigate how we represent bodily information, our own and that of others, I measure behavioural and brain responses when people experience or observe touch, view their own or another’s body, and prepare and observe motor actions. I’m particularly interested in touch because it gives us a distinct knowledge of bodily self that cannot easily be blotted out from experience. Touch is also crucial to our development as humans because it firmly places us into our social environment – we need it to develop emotionally-balanced relationships, and, later, to build intimacy. In my research I explore how we map other people’s bodies and their actions onto our own representations. I also explore how we integrate the external space around us, and the objects within it, into a functional representation of our body. I’m particularly interested in the role that spatial attention and sensorimotor learning play in these processes, and in the consequences of their malfunction through injury or abnormal development.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Gillmeister, H., Cantarella, S., Gheorghiu, A.I., & Adler, J. (in press, 2012). Object-guided spatial selection in touch without concurrent changes in the perceived location of the hands. Experimental Psychology.

Gillmeister, H. & Forster, B. (in press, 2012). Adverse effects of viewing the hand on tactile-spatial selection between fingers depend on finger posture. Experimental Brain Research.

Gillmeister, H. & Forster, B. (2012). Hands behind your back: Effects of arm posture on tactile attention in the space behind the body. Experimental Brain Research, 216, 489-497.

Forster, B. & Gillmeister, H. (2011). ERP investigation of transient attentional selection of single and multiple locations within touch. Psychophysiology, 48, 788-796.

Gillmeister, H. & Forster, B. (2010). Vision enhances selective attention to body-related information. Neuroscience Letters, 483, 184-188.

Gillmeister, H., Sambo, C.F., & Forster, B. (2010). Which finger? Early effects of attentional selection within the hand are absent when the hand is viewed. European Journal of Neuroscience, 31 (Special Issue on Multisensory Integration), 1874-1881.

Gillmeister, H., Adler, J., & Forster, B. (2010). Object-guided spatial attention in touch: Holding the same object with both hands delays attentional selection. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22, 931-942. (download pdf)

Sambo, C.F., Gillmeister, H., & Forster, B. (2009). Viewing the body modulates neural mechanisms underlying sustained spatial attention in touch. European Journal of Neuroscience, 30, 143-150. (download pdf)

Catmur, C., Gillmeister, H., Bird, G., Liepelt, R., Brass, M., & Heyes, C.M. (2008). Through the looking glass: Mirror system origins revealed by counter-mirror activation. European Journal of Neuroscience, 28, 1208-1215. (download pdf)

Gillmeister, H., Catmur, C., Liepelt, R., Brass, M., & Heyes, C.M. (2008). Experience-based priming of body parts: A study of action imitation. Brain Research, 1217C, 157-170. (download pdf)

Press, C., Gillmeister, H., & Heyes, C. (2007). Sensorimotor experience enhances automatic imitation of robotic action. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 274, 2509-2514. (download pdf)

Gillmeister, H. & Eimer, M. (2007). Tactile enhancement of auditory detection and perceived loudness. Brain Research, 1160, 58-68. (download pdf)

Press, C., Gillmeister, H., & Heyes, C. (2006). Bottom-up, not top-down, modulation of imitation by human and robotic models. European Journal of Neuroscience, 24, 2415-9. (download pdf)

Marcel, A., Postma, P., Gillmeister, H., Cox, S., Rorden, C., Nimmo-Smith, I., Mackintosh, B. (2004). Migration and Fusion of Tactile Sensation – Premorbid Susceptibility to Allochiria, Neglect and Extinction? Neuropsychologia, 42, 13, 1749-1761. (download pdf)

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