Dr Rebecca Bull School of Psychology, William Guild Building University of Aberdeen Aberdeen, AB24 2UB Tel:  +44 1224 272235 Fax:  +44 1224 273426

Click on one of the links below to read more about my research interests

Development of children’s maths skills	Numerical skills in deaf adults and children	Development of working memory and executive function skills
	Cognition, Theory of Mind, and Social Cue Decoding across the Lifespan

Publications:

Bull, R., Espy, K. A., Wiebe, S. A., Sheffield, T., & Nelson, J. M. (in press). Using confirmatory factor analysis to understand executive control in preschool children: Sources of variation in emergent mathematic achievement. Developmental Science.

Slessor, G., Laird, G., Phillips, L. H., & Bull, R., & Filippou, D. (2010). Age related changes in gaze following: Does the age of the face matter? Journal of Gerontology, 65, 536-541.

Bull, R., Davidson, W.A., & Nordmann, E. (2010). Prenatal testosterone, visual-spatial and numerical skills in young children. Learning and Individual Differences, 20, 246-250.

Slessor, G., Phillips, L. H., & Bull, R. (2010). Age-related changes in the integration of facial cues. Emotion, 10, 555-562.

Slessor, G., Miles, L. K., Bull, R., & Phillips. L. H. (2010). Age-related changes in detecting happiness: Discriminating between enjoyment and non-enjoyment smiles. Psychology and Aging, 25, 246-250.

Slessor, G., Phillips, L. H., & Bull, R. (2008). Age-related declines in basic social perception: Evidence from tasks assessing eye-gaze processing. Psychology and Aging, 23, 812-822.

Bull, R. & Espy, K. A., & Wiebe, S. (2008). Short-term memory, working memory and executive functioning: Longitudinal predictors of mathematics achievement at age 7. Developmental Neuropsychology, 33, 205-228.

Bull, R., Phillips, L. H., & Conway, C. A. (2008). The role of control functions in mentalizing: Dual task studies of Theory of Mind and executive functioning. Cognition, 107, 663-672.

Whyte, J. C., & Bull, R. (2008). Number games, magnitude representation, and basic number skills in preschoolers. Developmental Psychology, 44, 588-596.

Slessor, G., Phillips, L. H., & Bull, R. (2007). Exploring the specificity of age-related differences in Theory of Mind tasks. Psychology and Aging, 22, 639-643.

Brown, E. L., & Bull, R. (2007). Can task modifications influence children’s performance on false belief tasks? European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 4, 273-292.

Hopkins, N., Reicher, S. D., Harrison, K., Cassidy, C., Bull, R., & Levine, M. (2007). Helping to improve the group stereotype: On the strategic dimension of pro-social behaviour. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 776-788.

Espy, K. A., Bull, R., & Martin, J., & Stroup, W. (2006). Measuring the development of executive control with the Shape School. Psychological Assessment, 18, 373-381.

Bull, R., Blatto-Vallee, G., & Fabich, M. (2006). Subitizing, magnitude representation, and magnitude retrieval in deaf and hearing adults. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 11, 289-302.

Bull, R., & Benson, P. J. (2006). Finger length ratio (2D:4D) and the spatial representation of magnitude. Hormones and Behavior, 50, 194-199.

Bull, R., Marschark, M., & Blatto-Vallee, G. (2005). SNARC hunting: Examining number representation in deaf students. Learning and Individual Differences, 15, 223-236.

Espy, K. A., & Bull, R (2005). Inhibitory processes in young children and individual variation in short-term memory. Developmental Neuropsychology, 28, 669-688.

Bull, R., Espy, K. A., & Senn, T. E. (2004). A comparison of performance on the Towers of London and Hanoi in young children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 743-754.

Rennie, D. A. C., Bull, R., & Diamond, A. (2004). Executive functioning in preschoolers: Reducing the inhibitory demands of the Dimensional Change Card Sort task. Developmental Neuropsychology, 26, 423-443.

McKenzie, B., Bull, R., & Gray, C. (2003). The effects of visual-spatial and phonological disruption on children's arithmetical skills. Educational and Child Psychology, 20, 93-108.

Phillips, L. H., Bull, R., Adams, E., Fraser, L. (2002). Positive mood and executive function. Evidence from Stroop and fluency tasks. Emotion, 2, 12-22.

Bull, R. & Scerif, G. (2001). Executive functioning as a predictor of children’s mathematics ability: Shifting, inhibition, and working memory. Developmental Neuropsychology, 19, 273-293.

Mon-Williams, M., & Bull, R. (2000). The Judd Illusion: Evidence for two visual streams or two experimental conditions? Experimental Brain Research, 130, 273-276.

Bull, R., Johnston, R. S., & Roy, J. A. (1999). Exploring the roles of the visual-spatial sketch pad and central executive in children’s arithmetical skills: Views from cognition and developmental neuropsychology. Developmental Neuropsychology, 15, 421-442.

Bull, R., & Johnston, R. S. (1997). Children’s arithmetical difficulties: Contributions from processing speed, item identification, and short term memory. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 65, 1-24.

BOOK CHAPTERS.

Bull, R. (2008). Deafness, numerical cognition, and mathematics. In M. Marschark and P. Hauser (Eds.), Deaf Cognition: Foundations and Outcomes. New York: Oxford.

Espy, K. A., Bull, R., Kaiser, H., Martin, J., & Benet, M. (2008). Methodological and conceptual issues in understanding the development of executive control in the preschool period. In V. Anderson, R. Jacobs, & P. Anderson (Eds.), Executive functions and the frontal lobes: A lifespan perspective. Psychology Press

Bull, R. (2007). Commentary for Section III (Neuropsychological Factors). In Daniel B. Berch and Michèle M. M. Mazzocco (Eds.), Why is Math So Hard for Some Children? The Nature and Origins of Mathematical Learning Difficulties and Disabilities. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Bull, R., & Espy, K. A. (2006). Working memory, executive functioning, and children’s mathematics. In S. Pickering (Ed)., Working memory and education. Elsevier Press.

Teaching: All students should access my lecture notes directly from WebCT.

Postgraduate students.

· Thomas Mitchell graduated from York in 2008 and completed a Masters Degree at the University of Lincoln in 2009. He began his PhD in September 2009 under the supervision of Rebecca Bull & Sandie Cleland. His research focuses on automaticity of number and language processing in children and adults.

· Pauline Insch graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 2009 and began her PhD under the supervision of Louise Phillips and Rebecca Bull. He research is looking at social information processing in Dementia.

· Emily Nordmann graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2008, and began her PhD part time in September 2008 under the supervision of Rebecca Bull & Sandie Cleland. Her research is looking at language production in BSL.

· Wendy Davidson graduated from Aberdeen with a Neuroscience degree in 2005. She began her PhD part in September 2008 under the supervision of Rebecca Bull and Louise Phillips. Her research is examining attentional biases in anxious children.

Postgraduate Alumni

· Dr Gillian Slessor finished her PhD in Octover 2009. Her research focuses on social understanding and aging, and was supported by a studentship from the Carnegie Trust. Gillian now holds a 6^th Century Fellowship at the University of Aberdeen.

· Dr Emma Brown successfully defended her PhD thesis in December 2005. Her research examined factors influencing young children’s performance on false belief tasks. Emma is now an Educational Psychologist.

· Dr Claire Conway finished her MRes degree in September 2005. Her research examined the executive functioning demands of adult theory of mind tasks. She completed her PhD under the supervision of Dr. Ben Jones in 2008.

· Dr Carmen-Maria Fyfe successfully defended her PhD thesis and graduated in November 2005. Her research examined children’s national identity. She is now a part-time lecturer at Robert Gordon University.

· Laura Kelly completed her Master of Research degree in 2003, examining the development of basic numerical and arithmetical skills in deaf children. She is now a Clinical Psychologist.

Undergraduate students 2010-2011

Nina Batty – Theory of Mind and social interaction skills

Emilia Retkiewicz – Automatic number processing in adults

Rebecca Britain – Spatial biases caused by number processing in children

Anja Heinenson - Automatic number processing in adults

Lauren Pirie (Behavioural Studies) – Review of working memory training in children.

Disclaimer: The information found and the views expressed in these homepages are not the responsibility of the University of Aberdeen nor do they reflect institutional policy.