Debi Roberson

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Debi Roberson BSc, PhD Professor Contact Details Room 4.709 Department of Psychology University of Essex Colchester CO4 3SQ U.K. Tel: +44 (0)1206 - 873710 Fax: +44 (0)1206 - 873801 username robedd add @essex.ac.uk for email address Debi is currently the Treasurer of the British Neuropsychological Society Researching Language, Culture and Thought at Essex Biography Debi was one of the first graduates of the Department of Psychology at Essex, before gaining her PhD at the University of London. She was a Research Associate at Goldsmiths College, University of London, before joining the Psychology Department as a lecturer in 2000. Her PhD fieldwork was carried out with a remote hunter-gatherer tribe in Papua New Guinea and post-doctoral projects include a longitudinal study with the nomadic Himba people of northern Namibia. click on thumbnails to enlarge Research Interests and Overview Linguistic and cultural relativity. My main area of research concerns the relationship between language and thought, with a particular interest in cross-cultural differences in categorisation. Recent research programmes have examined Categorical Perception and the influence of language on perceptual categories, such as colour, shape and facial expression. I am currently studying the development of children?s categorisation abilities and its relationship to language development. Other paradigms have examined the effect of language loss on the categorisation abilities of a visually anomic patient and the effects of verbal interference on categorisation performance in normal adults. Hues and Views - A recent article in the APA Monitor reviews our longitudinal studies of category acquisition across-cultures.click here for article An article in the New York Times magazine highlighted cross-cultural work being done in the Psychology Department at the University of Essex. (you need to register if you are not a subscriber) click here for article Article in World Science click here for article	Recent Publications Ramos, S.D. & Roberson, D. (in press) What constrains grammatical gender effects on semantic judgments? Evidence from Portuguese. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology. Roberson, D., Damjanovic, L. & Kikutani, M. (in press) Show and tell: the role of language in categorizing facial expression of emotion. Emotion Review. Kikutani, M., Roberson, D. & Hanley, J.R. Categorical perception for unfamiliar faces: effect of covert and overt face learning. Psychological Science (in press). Damjanovic, L., Roberson, D., Athanasopoulos, P., Kasai, C. & Dyson, M. (in press) Searching for happiness across cultures. Journal of Cognition and Culture. Roberson, D. (2009) Color in mind, culture and language. In: Schaller, M., Norenzayan, A., Heine, S.H., Yamagishi, T. & Kameda, T. (Eds.) Evolution, Culture and the Human Mind, pp. 167-184. Hove: Psychology Press. Roberson, D. & Hanley, J.R. (2009). Only half right: Comment on Regier & Kay. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13, 500. Roberson, D. & Hanley, J.R. (2009) Relatively speaking: what is therelationship between language and thought in the color domain? Glimpse, 2:3, 68-77. (link to paper) Roberson, D., Hanley, J.R., & Pak, H.S. (2009) Thresholds for colour discrimination in English and Korean speakers. Cognition, 482-487. link to paper Pak, H.S. & Roberson, D. (2009) Unique Hue Judgment in Different Languages: A Comparison of Korean and English, Journal of Cognitive Science, 10, 21- 40. Roberson, D. & Pak, H.S. (2009) Categorical Perception of Color is Restricted to the Right Visual Field in Korean Speakers Who Maintain Central Fixation. Journal of Cognitive Science, 10, 41- 51. Agrillo, C. & Roberson, D. (2009) Colour language and colour cognition: Brown and Lenneberg revisited. Visual Cognition, 17, 412-430 Davidoff, J., Goldstein, J. & Roberson, D. (2009) Nature vs. nurture: The simple contrast. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102, 246-250. (download pdf) Goldstein, J., Davidoff, J. & Roberson, D. (2009) Knowing color terms enhances recognition: Further evidence from English and Himba. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102, 219-238. (download pdf) Hanley, J.R. & Roberson, D. (2008). Do infants see colors differently? Scientific American Mind and Brain, May 2008 (link to paper) Roberson, D. & Hanley, J.R. (Forthcoming) Relatively speaking; An account of the relationship between language and thought in the color domain. To appear in B.Malt & P. Wolff (Eds). "Words and the World: How words capture human experience". Oxford University Press.(download pdf) Kikutani, M., Roberson, D. & Hanley, J.R. (2008) What's in the name? Categorical Perception of unfamiliar faces can occur through labelling. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 787-794 (download pdf) Heaton, P., Ludlow, A. & Roberson, D. (2008) When less is more: poor discrimination but good colour memory in Autism. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders,2, 147-156. Roberson, D., Pak, H.S. & Hanley, J.R. (2008) Categorical perception of colour in the left and right visual field is verbally mediated: Evidence from Korean. Cognition, 107, 752-762. (link to paper) Roberson, D. & Hanley, J.R. (2007) Color categories vary with language after all. Current Biology, 17, 605-606.. Roberson, D., Damjanovic, L. & Pilling, M (2007) Categorical Perception of Facial Expressions: Evidence for a 'Category Adjustment' model. Memory & Cognition, 35, 1814-1829. (download pdf) O'Hanlon, C.G. & Roberson, D. (2007) What constrains children's learning of novel shape terms? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 97, 138-148. (download pdf) Jameson, K. A., Bimler, D., Dedrick, D. & Roberson, D. (2007). "Considering the Prevalence of the Stimulus Error in Color Naming Research." Journal of Cognition & Culture, 7,119-142. (download pdf) Roberson, D., Davidoff, J., Davies, I.R.L. & Shapiro, L. R. (2006) Colour Categories and Category Acquisition in Himba and English. In N. Pitchford & C. Bingham (Eds.) Progress in Colour Studies, 159-172. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (download pdf) O'Hanlon, C.G. & Roberson, D. (2006) Learning in Context: Linguistic and attentional constraints on children's color term learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 94, 275-300. (download pdf) Roberson, D., Davies, I.R.L., Corbett, G. & Vandervyver, M. (2005) Freesorting of colors across cultures: Are there universal grounds for grouping? Journal of Cognition and Culture, 5, 349-386.(download pdf) Roberson, D., & O’Hanlon, C. (2005) How culture might constrain colour categories. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 28, 505-506. (download pdf) Roberson, D., Davidoff, J., Davies, I. & Shapiro, L. (2005) Colour categories in Himba: Evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis. Cognitive Psychology, 50, 378-411. (download pdf) Roberson, D., Davidoff, J., Davies, I.R.L. & Shapiro, L. R. (2004) The Development of Color Categories in Two languages: a longitudinal study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 554-571.(download pdf) Davidoff, J. & Roberson, D. (2004) Preserved thematic and impaired taxonomic categorisation: A case study. Language & Cognitive Processes, 19, 137-174.(download pdf) Roberson, D. (2005) Color categories are culturally diverse in cognition as well as in language. Cross-Cultural Research, 39, 56-71.(download pdf) Roberson, D., Davies I. & Davidoff, J. (2002) Colour categories are not universal: Replications and new evidence . In B. Saunders & J. van Brakel (Eds.) Theories, technologies, instrumentalities of color: Anthropological and historical perspectives. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America Inc.(download pdf) Roberson, D., Davidoff, J. & Shapiro, L. (2002) Squaring the circle: The cultural relativity of good shape. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2, 29-53.(download pdf) Davidoff, J. & Roberson, D. (2002) Development of animal recognition: A difference between parts and wholes. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 81, 217-234. . Roberts, M.J. & Roberson, D. (2001) Predicting strategy use for the compass point directions task: Spatial versus verbal ability across the lifespan. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive/Current Psychology of Cognition, 20, 3-18. Roberson, D. & Davidoff, J. (2000) The categorical perception of colours and facial expressions: The effect of verbal interference. Memory & Cognition, 28, 977-986. Roberson, D., Davies I. & Davidoff, J. (2000) Colour categories are not universal: Replications and new evidence from a Stone-age culture. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , 129, 369-398. (download pdf) Roberson, D., Davidoff, J. & Braisby, N. (1999) Similarity and categorisation: Neuropsychological evidence for a dissociation in explicit categorisation tasks. Cognition 71, 1-42. Davidoff, J., Davies, I. & Roberson, D. (1999) Colour categories in a stone-age tribe, Nature, 402, 604-604. Davidoff, J., Davies, I. & Roberson, D. (1999) Colour categories of a stone-age tribe. Nature 398, 203-204. (download pdf) Davidoff, J. & Roberson, D. (1999) Similarity and categorization: Neuropsychological evidence for dissociations in categorization tasks. Brain and Language 69, 296-298.