Prof Gillian Forrester
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Overview
Overview
Biography
Gilly is a Professor of Comparative Cognition and the Deputy Dean for the School of Science at Birkbeck, University of London. She is the director of the Comparative Cognition Group investigating the behaviours and brain organisation of children, gorillas and chimpanzees focusing on how cognitive abilities evolve and develop over time and across species. Her current research is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Gilly is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Authority and a former Daphne Jackson Trust Research Fellow. She is the founder and director of the Me, Human project (www.mehuman.io, @Me__Human) through which regularly engages in public outreach and education and advocates for women and girls in science. Through the Me, Human project Gilly collaborates with the public to investigate and educate about human cognition by hosting talks and live demonstrations (e.g. Live Science, Psyched!). She has featured on radio (BBC Radio 4, BBC Local); TV (BBC4, CNN, Reuters, BBC South East); science podcasts (e.g. Level Up Human, BBC Crowd Science); has written articles published by: The Conversation, Discover Magazine, Psychology Today, Early Years Educator, Autism Parenting Magazine; and has had her research featured in The Washington Post, Discover Magazine and The Scientist Magazine.
Highlights
Founder/Director of the Me, Human project dedicated to public engagement, science communication, outreach and citizen science.
Co-Director of the SOFAR Network @NetworkSOFAR - Supporting Outstanding Female Academics and Researchers
New 2022 Publications
Social gaze in preterm infants may act as an early indicator of atypical lateralisation (Child Development - in press)
The Precision of the Human Hand: Variability in Pinch Strength and Manual Dexterity
Recent Publications
Get a Grip: Variation in Human Hand Grip Strength and Implications for Human Evolution
Hindsight 20/20: The future of laterality research
Evolutionary motor biases and cognition in children with and without autism
Gaze behaviour to lateral face stimuli in infants who do and do not receive an ASD diagnosis
Current Leverhulme Trust Funded Research: Hand to Mouth: The Role of Tool-Use in the Evolution and Development of Language (studies focus on chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and human children)
Office hours
Mondays 4:30-5:30pm ('in person' term time, Rm 526)
Thursdays 5-6pm (online, term time)
https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/d04a03feaabd4ce89b17163a5eab2488
Qualifications
- DPhil Experimental Neuroscience, University of Oxford
- Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Advance HE
- BSc (Hon) Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego
Web profiles
Professional memberships
Primate Society of Great Britain
The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
Senior Fellow Higher Education Academy
ORCID
0000-0001-8321-719X -
Research
Research
Lab information
Comparative Cognition Group
Post doctoral staff
- Dr Georgina Donati
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Teaching
Teaching modules
- Human Evolution and Evolutionary Psychology (SCPS155H6)
- Research@Birkbeck (SCPS204H4)
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Davis, R. and Donati, Georgina and Finnegan, K. and Boardman, J. and Dean, B. and Fletcher-Watson, S. and Forrester, Gillian (2022) Social gaze in preterm infants may act as an early indicator of atypical lateralization. Child Development ISSN 0009-3920. (In Press)
- Bardo, A. and Town, K. and Kivell, T. and Donati, G. and Ballieux, H. and STAMATE, Cosmin and Edginton, T. and Forrester, Gillian (2022) The precision of the human hand: variability in pinch strength and manual dexterity. Symmetry 14 (1), pp. 71. ISSN 2073-8994.
- Bardo, A. and Kivell, T. and Town, K. and Donati, Georgina and Ballieux, H. and Stamate, Cosmin and Edginton, T. and Forrester, Gillian (2021) Get a grip: variation in human hand grip strength and implications for human evolution. Symmetry 13 (7), pp. 1142. ISSN 2073-8994.
- Donati, G. and Forrester, Gillian (2021) Hindsight 20/20: the future of laterality research. Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition ISSN 1357-650X. (In Press)
- Forrester, Gillian and Davis, Rachael and Malatesta, Gianluca and Todd, Brenda (2020) Evolutionary motor biases and cognition in children with and without autism. Scientific Reports 10 (17385), ISSN 2045-2322.
- Donati, Georgina and Davis, Rachael and Forrester, Gillian (2020) Gaze behaviour to lateral face stimuli in infants who do and do not gain an ASD diagnosis. Scientific Reports 10 (13185), ISSN 2045-2322.
- Malatesta, G. and Marzoli, D. and Apicella, F. and Abiuso, C. and Muratori, F. and Forrester, Gillian and Vallortigara, G. and Scattoni, M.L. and Tommasi, L. (2020) Received cradling bias during the first year of life: A retrospective study on children with typical and atypical development. Frontiers in Psychiatry 11, ISSN 1664-0640.
- Forrester, Gillian and Davis, R. and Mareschal, Denis and Malatesta, G. and Todd, B. (2019) The left cradling bias: an evolutionary facilitator of social cognition?. Cortex 118, pp. 116-131. ISSN 0010-9452.
- Rogers, D. and Forrester, Gillian (2017) The promising benefits of aiding hand dominance in Autism. Autism Parenting Magazine (59),
- Forrester, Gillian (2016) How children’s brains develop to make them right or left handed. The Conversation
- Forrester, Gillian and Rawlings, B. and Davila-Ross, M. (2016) An analysis of bimanual actions in natural feeding of semi-wild chimpanzees. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 159 (1), pp. 85-92. ISSN 0002-9483.
- Forrester, Gillian and Rodriguez, A. (2015) Slip of the tongue: implications for evolution and language development. Cognition 141, pp. 103-111. ISSN 0010-0277.
- Forrester, Gillian and Thomas, Michael S.C. (2015) What is universal and what differs in language development?. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 30 (8), pp. 922-927. ISSN 2327-3798.
- Forrester, Gillian and Crawley, M. and Palmer, C. (2014) Social environment elicits lateralized navigational paths in two populations of typically developing children. Brain and Cognition 91, pp. 21-27. ISSN 0278-2626.
- Quaresmini, C. and Forrester, Gillian and Spiezio, C. and Vallortigara, G. (2014) Social environment elicits lateralized behaviors in Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Journal of Comparative Psychology 128 (3), pp. 276-84. ISSN 0735-7036.
- Forrester, Gillian and Pegler, R. and Thomas, Michael S.C. and Mareschal, Denis (2014) Handedness as a marker of cerebral lateralization in children with and without autism. Behavioural Brain Research 268, pp. 14-21. ISSN 0166-4328.
- Tabiowo, E. and Forrester, Gillian (2013) Structured bimanual actions and hand transfers reveal population-level right-handedness in captive gorillas. Animal Behaviour 86 (5), pp. 1049-1057. ISSN 0003-3472.
- Forrester, Gillian and Quaresmini, C. and Leavens, D.A. and Mareschal, Denis and Thomas, Michael S.C. (2013) Human handedness: an inherited evolutionary trait. Behavioural Brain Research 237, pp. 200-206. ISSN 0166-4328.
- Forrester, Gillian and Quaresmini, C. and Leavens, D.A. and Spiezio, C. and Vallortigara, G. (2012) Target animacy influences chimpanzee handedness. Animal Cognition 15 (6), pp. 1121-1127. ISSN 1435-9448.
- Forrester, Gillian and Leavens, D.A. and Quaresmini, C. and Vallortigara, G. (2011) Target animacy influences gorilla handedness. Animal Cognition 14 (6), pp. 903-907. ISSN 1435-9448.
- Quaresmini, C. and Forrester, Gillian and Spiezio, C. and Leavens, D.A. and Vallortigara, G. (2011) Gorillas and chimpanzees vary handedness based on the animacy of target objects: a theory for hemispheric specialization based on an evolutionary distinction of object animacy. Folia Primatologica 82 (4-5), pp. 264. ISSN 0015-5713.
- Forrester, Gillian (2008) A multidimensional approach to investigations of behaviour: revealing structure in animal communication signals. Animal Behaviour 76 (5), pp. 1749-1760. ISSN 0003-3472.
- Forrester, Gillian (2008) A multidimensional approach to investigations of primate communication. Folia Primatologica 79 (5), pp. 329-330. ISSN 0015-5713.
- Forrester, Gillian and Forrester, N.A. (2005) Methodology for detecting multimodal communication in western lowland gorillas. American Journal of Primatology 66 (S1), pp. 167. ISSN 0275-2565.
- Nobre, A and Forrester, Gillian and Gitelman, D.R. and Frith, C.D. and Mesulam, M.M. (2002) Filtering of distractors during visual search studied by Positron Emission Tomography. NeuroImage 16 (4), pp. 968-976. ISSN 1053-8119.
- Nobre, A.A. and Forrester, Gillian and Miniussi, C. (2000) The dynamics of shifting visuospatial attention revealed by event-related potentials. Neuropsychologia 38 (7), pp. 964-974. ISSN 0028-3932.
- Nobre, A. and Forrester, Gillian and Gitelman, D.R. and Mesulam, M.M. and Frackowiak, R.S. and Frith, C.D. (1997) Functional localization of the system for visuospatial attention using positron emission tomography. Brain 120 (3), pp. 515-533. ISSN 1460-2156.
- Nobre, A.C. and Mesulam, M.M. and Forrester, Gillian and Frackowiak, R.S.J. and Frith, C.D. (1996) Functional localisation of the neural network for visual spatial attention by positron-emission tomography. NeuroImage 3 (3), pp. S192. ISSN 1053-8119.
- Pineda, J.A. and Forrester, Gillian and Nava, C. (1994) Face recognition as a function of social attention in non-human primates: an ERP study. Cognitive Brain Research 2 (1), pp. 1-12. ISSN 0926-6410.
Audio
- Forrester, Gillian (2017) What happens when you go into shock?.
- Forrester, Gillian (2016) Speaking in public.
Book
- Forrester, Gillian and Hudry, K. and Lindell, A. and Hopkins, W.D., eds. (2018) Cerebral lateralization and cognition: evolutionary and developmental investigations of behavioral biases. Progress In Brain Research. 238, Elsevier. ISSN 796123. ISBN 9780128146712.
Book Section
- Forrester, Gillian and Todd, B.K. (2018) A comparative perspective on lateral biases and social behavior. In: Forrester, Gillian and Hudry, K. and Lindell, A. and Hopkins, W.D. (eds.) Cerebral Lateralization and Cognition: Evolutionary and Developmental Investigations of Behavioral Biases. Progress In Brain Research. Elsevier. ISSN 796123. ISBN 9780128146712.
- Forrester, Gillian (2017) Hand, limb and other motor preferences: methodological considerations. In: Walz, W. (ed.) Lateralized Brain Functions: Methods in Human and Non-Human Species. Neuromethods. New York, U.S.: Springer. ISBN 9781493967254.
- Forrester, Gillian and Quaresmini, C. (2012) The right hand man: manual laterality and language. In: Csermely, D. and Regolin, L. (eds.) Behavioral Lateralization in Vertebrates: Two Sides of the Same Coin. Berlin, Germany: Springer Verlag. pp. 125-141. ISBN 9783642302022.
- Business and community