Marina Wimmer
marina wimmer

Dr Marina Wimmer PhD, FHEA, MA

Associate Professor

Biography

I am an international expert in Cognition, how our mind deals with visual ambiguities, why people perceive stimuli in different ways, how we "see" environments in our mind in the absence of visual input, and true and false memories of our environemnt (memories for scenes, for fake news, for associative information) . My work has a broad reach (referenced in Wikipedia “ambiguous figures”, in focus at high-impact journals, monograph). The appeal of my research is also evidenced by funding success (e.g., ESRC, British Academy, EU). I am currently leading the “The centre for mind and creativity research – CEDAR” which vision is to examine Cognition in a fast changing world and to use the knowledge from Cognition in the building of our environment. I am also the research lead for Psychology at Napier University and mentor to early career researchers. I have a real passion for outreach and public engagement (ESRC festival of science, Health showcases, Big Bang STEM event, Medifest) reaching more than 1500 primary and secondary school children to date. My external profile roles also support activities in the centre: I am the Associate Editor for the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Member of the ESRC Peer Review College, Member of the Carnegie Peer Review College, Member of the Experimental Psychology Society. I obtained more than £100,000 in grant funding as principal investigator from the ESRC, British Academy and Experimental Psychology Society. I have also been Co-I of the interdisciplinary CogNovo consortium, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD training network funded by the European Union (approximately £4000,000). I originally gained my PhD from Stirling University working on the development of ambiguous figure perception. Since then I had various research positions at Stirling University, Lancaster University and Warwick University researching topics in Cognition such as false memories, mental imagery, and pictorial representation. I started my first lectureship at Plymouth University in 2011 before moving to Edinburgh Napier University as Associate Professor.

Esteem

Editorial Activity

  • Associate Editor British Journal of Developmental Psychology

 

Grant Reviewer

  • Carnegie Assessor
  • ESRC Peer Review Council

 

Date


27 results

Are children’s memory illusions created differently from those of adults? Evidence from levels-of-processing and divided attention paradigms

Journal Article
Wimmer, M. C., & Howe, M. L. (2010)
Are children’s memory illusions created differently from those of adults? Evidence from levels-of-processing and divided attention paradigms. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 107(1), 31-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2010.03.003
In two experiments, we investigated the robustness and automaticity of adults’ and children’s generation of false memories by using a levels-of-processing paradigm (Experiment...

Valence and the development of immediate and long-term false memory illusions

Journal Article
Howe, M. L., Candel, I., Otgaar, H., Malone, C., & Wimmer, M. C. (2010)
Valence and the development of immediate and long-term false memory illusions. Memory, 18(1), 58-75. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210903476514
Across five experiments we examined the role of valence in children's and adults’ true and false memories. Using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm and either neutral or ne...

The development of automatic associative processes and children’s false memories

Journal Article
Wimmer, M. C., & Howe, M. L. (2009)
The development of automatic associative processes and children’s false memories. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 104(4), 447-465. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2009.07.006
We investigated children’s ability to generate associations and how automaticity of associative activation unfolds developmentally. Children generated associative responses us...

The role of associative strength in children's false memory illusions

Journal Article
Howe, M. L., Wimmer, M. C., & Blease, K. (2009)
The role of associative strength in children's false memory illusions. Memory, 17(1), 8-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210802438474
The effects of associative strength on rates of 7- and 11-year-old children's true and false memories were examined when category and Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists were...

An associative-activation theory of children’s and adults’ memory illusions

Journal Article
Howe, M. L., Wimmer, M. C., Gagnon, N., & Plumpton, S. (2009)
An associative-activation theory of children’s and adults’ memory illusions. Journal of Memory and Language, 60(2), 229-251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2008.10.002
The effects of associative strength and gist relations on rates of children’s and adults’ true and false memories were examined in three experiments. Children aged 5–11 and un...

Investigating children's eye-movements: Cause or effect of reversing ambiguous figures?

Conference Proceeding
Wimmer, M., & Doherty, M. (2007)
Investigating children's eye-movements: Cause or effect of reversing ambiguous figures?. In Proceedings of the 29th Annual Cognitive Science Society. , (1659-1664
We examined whether eye-movements play a significant role in perceiving both interpretations (reversing) of ambiguous figures such as the duck/rabbit (Jastrow, 1900). In an ey...

Children's understanding of ambiguous figures: Which cognitive developments are necessary to experience reversal?

Journal Article
Doherty, M. J., & Wimmer, M. C. (2005)
Children's understanding of ambiguous figures: Which cognitive developments are necessary to experience reversal?. Cognitive Development, 20(3), 407-421. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2005.05.003
In two experiments involving one hundred and thirty-eight 3- to 5-year-olds we examined the claim that a complex understanding of ambiguity is required to experience reversal ...

Pre-Napier Funded Projects

  • Experimental Psychology Society
  • British Academy
  • Marie Sklodowska_Curie International Training Networks (ITN)
  • Experimental Psychology Society
  • British Academy
  • Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Current Post Grad projects