Visiting Professors

Siné J P McDougall

Siné McDougall is Professor of Psychology at Bournemouth University.  Her research seeks to explain how we understand and deal with symbols and signs. 

Letters are, of course, symbols for letter sounds that we need to be able to ‘decode’ quickly and effectively every day.  Professor McDougall’s research has focussed on the skills which children need to be able to learn to read.  These skills include phonological, sound-based, skills and memory skills.  She has also examined the efficacy of different interventions designed to help children learn, particularly if they are experiencing difficulties in early reading acquisition or suffer from dyslexia (specific reading difficulties).  Current research in this area is examining the efficacy of whole-word reading interventions in early readers.

Icons, symbols and signs are also used to communicate information on computers, in public spaces and roads and on home equipment.  Professor McDougall’s research has sought to understand more about the way in which icons are identified because they are encountered and used so frequently in today's world and she is recognised as an international expert in this area.  Recent research has focussed on how we attend to, and search for, traffic signs.  Her research has shown that our ability to attend to traffic signs is affected by the time of day at which we carry out such tasks and suggests that we are least able to attend to signs at times when traffic accidents are most likely. 

Other work is exploring the relationship between aesthetic appeal and user performance human-computer interaction, the role of attention and memory in emotional processing, the effects of chemotherapy on cognitive functioning and the effects of brain training on older adults. 

Her research has attracted funding from BAE Systems, the EPSRC, the Nuffield Foundation and Sure Start.