Dr Arran Reader

Lecturer in Psychology

Psychology Stirling

Dr Arran Reader

Contact details

About me

I received my PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Reading in 2018. After two and a half years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm, Sweden), I joined the University of Stirling in July 2020.

I'm interested in movement and in bodily self-perception during individual and social contexts. To study these topics I typically use motion-tracking, non-invasive brain stimulation, and sensory illusions.

My research on movement concerns how we effectively use the hand to interact with other people and our environment. My PhD focussed on imitation: an important skill for learning new actions. My work in this area aimed to distinguish the brain and behavioural mechanisms underlying the imitation of actions that we know and actions that we don’t know. More recently, I have been studying how people use a single hand to interact with multiple objects simultaneously, a common strategy for efficient object interaction (e.g., when clearing the dining table). I'm interested in both the strategies used in this context (e.g., grip types) as well as the underlying neural processes during action planning.

My work on body perception has mostly focused on examining the links between high-level perception of the body (i.e., the subjective experience of where it is, what it is like, and whether it is attributed to the self) and motor control. I'm also interested in developing a better understanding of illusions as a tool to study body representation.

You can follow me on BlueSky here: https://bsky.app/profile/arranreader.bsky.social

Please get in touch if you are interested in working with me on an internship, PhD, or postdoc related to body perception or movement in individual or social contexts.

Community Contribution

Associate/handling editor for Cognitive Processing

Associate/handling editor for Collabra: Psychology

Divisional / Faculty Contribution

Deputy Director of Postgraduate Research (Psychology)

Undergraduate Adviser of Studies (Psychology)

Professional membership

Fellow, Higher Education Academy
https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/

Member, British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience
https://www.bacn.co.uk/

Member, Experimental Psychology Society
https://eps.ac.uk

University Contribution

IAS PhD Studentship Cluster Co-Lead
I am a Co-Lead for the Accessible Environments cluster, funded by the Institute for Advanced Studies PhD Studentship scheme. At present the cluster supports 6 PhD students working on interdisciplinary projects related to accessibility.

Research projects (2)

Investigating the cortical control of multiple object handling
PI: Dr Arran Reader
Funded by: Royal Society
–

Understanding multiple object handling
PI: Dr Arran Reader
Funded by: Experimental Psychology Society
–

Outputs (22)

Article

Transcranial magnetic stimulation over supramarginal gyrus stimulates primary motor cortex directly and impairs manual dexterity: Implications for TMS focality

Holmes NP, Di Chiaro NV, Crowe EM, Marson B, Göbel K, Gaigalas D, Jay T, Lockett AV, Powell ES, Zeni S & Reader AT (2024) Transcranial magnetic stimulation over supramarginal gyrus stimulates primary motor cortex directly and impairs manual dexterity: Implications for TMS focality. Journal of Neurophysiology, 131 (2), pp. 360-378. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00369.2023

Commentary

Does apraxia support spatial and kinematic or mirror neuron approaches to social interaction? A commentary on Binder et al. (2017)

Reader AT & Candidi M (2019) Does apraxia support spatial and kinematic or mirror neuron approaches to social interaction? A commentary on Binder et al. (2017). Commentary on: Binder, E., Dovern, A., Hesse, M. D., Ebke, M., Karbe, H., Saliger, J., et al. (2017). Lesion evidence for a human mirror neuron system. Cortex, 90, 125e137. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.cortex.2017.02.008. Cortex, 111, pp. 324-326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.10.018

Article

To eat or not to eat? Kinematics and muscle activity of reach-to-grasp movements are influenced by the action goal, but observers do not detect these differences

Naish KR, Reader AT, Houston-Price C, Bremner AJ & Holmes NP (2013) To eat or not to eat? Kinematics and muscle activity of reach-to-grasp movements are influenced by the action goal, but observers do not detect these differences. Experimental Brain Research, 225 (2), pp. 261-275. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-012-3367-2

Teaching

I am the coordinator and primary lecturer for the second year module PSYU9A3: The Social Mind. I also teach an undergraduate elective on body representation in Spring semester (PSYU9X8), and a session on motion-tracking for the MSc module Research Methods in Psychology (PRMP132).

Research programmes

Research centres/groups