Professor John Towse
ProfessorResearch Interests
My work spans a number of research topics. Here is an overview of some of these
Working memory
Working memory refers to the active maintenance of transient information. We know that working memory is very important, for children's development and for adult cognitive skills. Tasks that measure working memory are often very good at predicting mathematics, reading, comprhension processes and so on. My research has attempted to document the relations between working memory and cognition, as well as develop more complete theoretical accounts of how working memory processes unfold.
Executive functions
Executive functions relate the the effective regulation of behaviours towards goals, targets, cognitions and responses. Executive functions form a complex interrelated set of behaviours. So it is important to understand how regulation takes place, the limits and the opportunities that they provide.
Mathematical cognition
Several research projects attempt to understand how children's understanding of mathematics concepts and mathematics processes unfold. We explore how education and cognitive development impact on the important domain of mathematics.
Cybercognition
Online environments are increasingly ubiquitous; we communicate through email, we browse websites, we live our lives through social media, etc. This presents cognitive systems with great challenges. We interact with complex systems involving many -sometimes unknown - permuations and consequences, and we are required to trust individuals and systems despite sometimes scant evidence to justify this. We seek to understand how cognitive decisions interact with computer systems & devices and study the software developers and engineers who create the products that we rely on
Metascience
How do we make the research process more effective? How might we increase the credibility of research and optimise the research processes in order to make the research pipeline stronger and better?
Web Links
18/10/2023 → 17/10/2025
Research
08/09/2023 → 31/03/2027
Research
08/12/2022 → 31/03/2023
Research
01/10/2020 → 30/09/2025
Research
01/03/2019 → 31/12/2019
Research
01/04/2017 → 31/12/2021
Research
01/02/2016 → …
Other
03/10/2011 → 30/09/2014
Research
01/02/2005 → 31/07/2008
Research
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Expert Opinion
Membership of network
Member of an organisation
Member of an organisation
Editorial activity
Membership of committee
Member of an organisation
Editorial activity
Security Lancaster, Security Lancaster (Software Security)
- Cyber Security Research Centre (Psychology)
- Language and Cognition
- Security Lancaster
- Security Lancaster (Academic Centre of Excellence)
- Security Lancaster (Behavioural Science)