BIOGRAPHY

His original undergraduate degree was in genetics from the University of Sheffield, and he obtained a PhD in molecular biology from Queens College, Cambridge in 1990. He worked for a number of years at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (now DEFR) as a science advisor and administrator; during this time he studied for a BSc in Psychology at Birkbeck College, London. He then worked as a research assistant – first at London Guildhall University and then at the University of Birmingham. While at Birmingham he started a PhD in cognitive development that he completed in 2005. He lectured at London Metropolitan University before joining the University of Essex in 2008.

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

I am interested in how we develop those cognitive abilities that make us human and different from other animals. How is it that we are able to understand the way that the world works; and to control our behaviour, to achieve our goals within this world?

I began with an interest in executive functions (the higher cognitive abilities necessary to engage in complex, flexible, goal-oriented behaviour).  Research has focused on the early development of inhibitory control and working memory – as these basic executive functions may underpin the development of more complex abilities in later childhood and adolescence.  In particular this work has questioned what makes some behaviours prepotent (so that they are sometimes triggered inappropriately – creating the need for inhibitory control).

Investigating what makes actions prepotent led to an interest in imitation (a ‘notoriously prepotent behaviour’) and in the habitual actions made when using tools.  This in turn has led to two further research questions.  1) How does children’s knowledge of tools develop, and so enable them to operate in artefact-dense cultures?  And, 2) What do children and adults think about when they see others act with tools?

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Forthcoming

Holland, A., Riggs, K.J., & Simpson, A. (submitted). Young children retain fast mapped object labels better than shape, colour and texture words. Developmental Psychology.

Riggs, K.J., Simpson, A., & Hyde, G. (submitted).  Fast mapping of novel actions to novel objects.  Cognition.

Riggs, K.J., & Simpson, A., & Jolley, R.P. (submitted). The role of inhibitory control in the development of human figure drawing in 3- to 5-year-olds. Developmental Psychology.

Simpson, A., & Roberson D. (resubmission).  Young children need linguistic support to engage in relational mapping. Child Development.

Simpson, A., Kostyrka, K., & Riggs, K.J. (submitted). When do children acquire the action and function knowledge needed to use artefacts? Child Development.

Simpson, A., Riggs, K.J., & Emrich, L. (submitted). Do habitualness and planning modulate the prepotency of the actions children make on artefacts? Developmental Psychology.

Published

Simpson, A., Riggs, K.J., Beck, S.R., Gorniak, S.L., Wu, Y., Abbott, D. & Diamond, A. (2012). Refining the understanding of inhibitory control: How response prepotency is created and overcome.  Developmental Science, 15, 62-73. (download pdf)

Riggs, K.J., Simpson, A., & Potts, T. (2011). The development of visual short term memory for multi-feature items in middle childhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108, 802-809.

Simpson, A., & Riggs, K.J. (2011a). Three and 4-year olds encode modelled actions in two way leading to immediate imitation and delayed emulation.  Developmental Psychology, 47, 834-840.

Simpson, A., & Riggs, K.J. (2011b). Under what conditions do children have difficulty inhibiting imitation? Evidence for the importance of planning specific responses. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 109, 512-524.

Simpson, A., & Riggs, K.J. (2009) What makes responses prepotent for young children? Insights from the grass-snow task. Infant and Child Development.  Infant and Child Development, 18, 21-35.

Simpson, A., & Riggs, K.J. (2007) Under what conditions do young children have difficulty inhibiting manual actions? Developmental Psychology. 43, 417-428.

Apperly, I. A., Riggs, K.J., Simpson, A., Samson, D., & Chiavarino, C. (2006) Are beliefs inferred automatically in a false belief task? Evidence from a reaction time study.  Psychological Science, 17, 841-845.

Riggs, K.J., Ferrand, L., Lancelin, D., Fryziel, L., Dumur, G., & Simpson, A. (2006) Subitizing in tactile perception. Psychological Science, 17, 271-272.

Riggs, K.J, McTaggart, J., Simpson, A., & Freeman, R.P.J. (2006) The development of visual working memory in 5 to 11 year olds. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 95, 18-26.

Simpson, A., & Riggs, K.J. (2006) Do young children experience inhibitory difficulty with a ‘button-press’ go-nogo task? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 94, 18-26.

Leeson, V.C., Simpson, A., McKenna P.J. & Laws K.R. (2005) Executive inhibition and semantic association in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research, 74, 61-67.

Riggs, K.J., & Simpson, A. (2005) Young children’s difficulty with true belief. Developmental Science, 8, 360-371.

Simpson, A. (2005) Investigating the factors that create inhibitory demands in developmental tasks. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Birmingham, UK.

Simpson, A., & Riggs, K.J. (2005a) Inhibitory and working memory demands of the day-night task in children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 23, 471-486.

Simpson, A., & Riggs, K.J. (2005b) Factors responsible for performance on the Day-night task:  Response set or semantic relation? Developmental Science. 8, 360-371.

Simpson, A., Simon, M. & Riggs, K.J. (2004) What makes the windows task difficult for young children: Rule inference or rule use? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 87, 155-170.

Ungar, S., Simpson, A. & Blades, M. (2003) Strategies for organising information while learning a map by blind and sighted people.  Touch, Blindness and Neuroscience. Madrid: Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia.