Rosemary Drysdale

Rosemary Drysdale

Miss

Personal profile

Educational background

In September 2019 I joined the Lab of Action and Body as a PhD student following completion of my BSc in Psychology at the University of Birmingham that summer, under supervision of Prof. Andrew Bremner and Dr. Giulia Orioli. My research there focused on how multisensory integration of visual-tactile events in the first months of life might underpin social cognitive processes such as empathy. I used electroencephalography (EEG) in my undergraduate research project and I am keen to employ other neuroscientific techniques, such as fNIRS, in the future.

Research interests

My research focuses on understanding how infants develop an awareness of their body through multisensory processes involving vision, touch and internal bodily signals such as heartbeats. I am interested in the role of the bodily self in infants’ developing awareness and distinction of self- and other- representations.

The plan for my PhD is to investigate the trajectories of body awareness and social development across the first months and years of life, tracing the development of interoceptive and exteroceptive bodily awareness and their relation to infants' developing social perception. To do this, I will conduct a longitudinal study, inviting the same families to the Baby Lab for several visits. I will use a variety of physiological and behavioural methods such as electrocardiogram (ECG), eyetracking and visual-tactile bodily illusions. General research interests include multisensory body perception, biobehavioural dynamics of caregiver-infant embodied interactions, and atypical sensory processing in development.

Personal profile

I have always been fascinated by babies' early self and social development, and I thoroughly enjoy working with families of young children. I have worked and volunteered in several early years settings, including a nursery and in a previous Baby Lab. I have also been involved with Sense charity for 3 years, advocating for British Sign Language to be taught in schools, and for fairer treatment of the Deaf community.