School of Psychology

Professor

Director of Research, Cognition Development and Education Cluster

Chair of School Research Committee

Course Co-ordinator MSc in Atypical Child Development

Profile

Teresa McCormack is the Director of Research for the Cognition, Development, and Education research cluster. She also chairs the School of Psychology Research Committee. She acts as a University Harassment Advisor for staff or students who wish to confidentially discuss issues to do with harassment and is happy to be contacted in this capacity by any member of the university. She is involved with the work of the Queen’s Gender Initiative, and chairs the SWAN Champions group of representatives from academic schools in Queen’s working towards ATHENA SWAN awards for promoting gender equality in the sciences and engineering. She led the successful School of Psychology submission for a SWAN silver award. Outside of the University, she is a member of the committee of the Experimental Psychology Society and has recently been appointed Programme Chair for the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology.

School of Psychology Administrative Roles

• Director of Research, Cognition Development and Education Cluster
• Chair of School Research Committee
• Course Co-ordinator MSc in Atypical Child Development

Teaching

Teresa McCormack teaches developmental psychology at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, with a particular emphasis on cognitive development. She is module coordinator for the Level 2 module “Developmental Psychology and Conceptual Issues”. Her Level 3 module PSY3060 “Development in Infancy and Early Childhood” runs in alternating academic years. She coordinates the MSc programme in Atypical Child Development and also the postgraduate module PSY7048 “Perspectives on Development”. She contributes to teaching on the postgraduate module PSY7051 on “Research Design and Professional Skills”.

Research

Director of the Cognition, Development and Education Research Cluster

Much of Teresa McCormack’s work has addressed aspects of children’s temporal cognition. Recent projects have extended her research into the area of causal cognition. She is interested in the cues that children use to learn the structure of simple causal systems (especially temporal cues), and whether children can use their causal representations appropriately to make inferences (e.g., counterfactual judgments). This research is being conducted in collaboration with David Lagnado (UCL). She is also conducting research that examines developmental changes in cue competition effects such as blocking in causal learning, Along with Tom Beckers ( Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), she is exploring whether such effects should be explained in terms of higher-order inferential reasoning rather than more basic associative processes.

She has a long-standing collaboration with philosophers who are members of the Consciousness and Self Consciousness Research Centre at Warwick. She was co-director of the AHRC-funded project on Causal Understanding

Publications

Books

Hoerl, C., McCormack, T., & Beck, S. (2011). Understanding counterfactuals, understanding causation. Oxford University Press.

McCormack, T., Hoerl, C., & Butterfill, S. (2011). Tool use and causal cognition. Oxford University Press.

Eilan, N., Hoerl, C., McCormack, T. & Roessler, J. (2005) (Eds.). Joint attention and communciation. Oxford University Press.

Hoerl, C., & McCormack, T. (2001) (Eds.). Time and memory.  Oxford University Press.

Journal Articles

McCormack, T., Simms, V., McGourty, J., & Beckers, T. (2013). Blocking in children’s causal learning depends on working memory and reasoning abilities. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

McCormack, T., Simms, V., McGourty, J., & Beckers, T. (2013). Encouraging children to think counterfactually enhances blocking in a causal learning task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

Rankin, M., & McCormack, T. (2013). The temporal priority principle: at what age does this develop? Frontiers in Psychology: Special Issue on Time and Causation.

Simms, V., McCormack, T. & Beckers, T. (2012) Additivity pretraining and cue competition effects: Developmental evidence for a reasoning-based account of causal learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 38, 180-190. PDF

Frosch, C., McCormack, T., Lagnado, D., & Burns (2012). Are causal and intervention judgments inextricably linked? Cognitive Science. 36, 261–285 PDF

McCormack T., & Hanley, M. (2012). Children’s reasoning about the temporal order of past and future events. Cognitive Development. 26, 299-314. PDF

O’Connor, E., McCormack, T., & Feeney, A. (2012). The development of regret. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 111, 120-127. PDF

McCormack, T., & Atance, C. (2011). Planning in young children: A review and synthesis. Developmental Review, 31, 1-31.  PDF

Hoerl, C., & McCormack, T. (2011). Time in cognitive development. In C. Callender  (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of time. Oxford University Press.

McCormack, T., Frosch, C., & Burns, P. (2011). The relationship between children’s causal and counterfactual judgments. In C. Hoerl, T. McCormack, & S. Beck (Eds.), Understanding counterfactuals, understanding causation. Oxford University Press.  Word Document

McCormack, T., & Hoerl, C. (2011). Tool use, planning, and future thinking in children and animals. In T. McCormack, C. Hoerl, & S. Butterfill (Eds.), Tool use and causal cognition. Oxford University Press.  Word Document

McCormack, T., Butterfill, S., Hoerl, C., & Burns, P. (2009). Cue competition effects and young children’s causal and counterfactual reasoning. Developmental Psychology, 45, 1563-1575.  PDF

Burns, P., & McCormack, T. (2009). Temporal information and children’s and adults’ causal inferences. Thinking and Reasoning, 15, 167-196. PDF

Brown, G. D. A., Vousden, J. I., & McCormack, T. (2009). Memory retrieval as temporal discrimination. Journal of Memory and Language, 60, 194-208.  PDF

McColgan, K. L., & McCormack, T. (2008). Searching and planning: Young children’s reasoning about past and future event sequences. Child Development, 79, 1477-1497.  PDF

McCormack, T., & Hoerl, C. (2008). Temporal decentering and the development of temporal concepts. Language Learning, 58, 89-113.  PDF

McCormack, T., & Hoerl, C. (2007). Young children’s reasoning about the order of past events. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 98, 168-183.  PDF  

Neath, I., Brown, G. D. A., McCormack, T., Chater, N., & Freeman, R. (2006). Distinctiveness models of memory and absolute identification: Evidence for local not global effects. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59, 121-135.   PDF

Brock, J., McCormack, T., & Boucher, J. (2006). Probed serial recall in Williams Syndrome: Lexical influences on phonological short-term memory. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 

Brown, G. D. A., & McCormack, T. (2006). The role of time in human memory and binding: A review of the evidence. In H. D. Zimmer, A. Mecklinger, & U. Lindenberger (Eds.), Binding in human memory: A neurocognitive approach. Oxford University Press.  

Brown, G. D. A., McCormack, T., Smith, M. and Stewart, N. (2005) Identification and bisection of temporal durations and tone frequencies: common models for temporal and nontemporal stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31, 919-938.  PDF  

Brock, J., McCormack, T., & Boucher, J. (2005). Probed serial recall in Williams Syndrome: Lexical influences on phonological short-term memory. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 48, 360-371.  PDF

McCormack, T., & Hoerl, C. (2005). Children’s reasoning about the causal significance of the temporal order of events. Developmental Psychology, 41, 54-63.  PDF

Hoerl, C. & McCormack, T. (2005). From the present to the past: Joint reminiscence as joint attention to the past. In N. Eilan, C. Hoerl, T. McCormack, & J. Roessler. Joint attention: Issues in philosophy and psychology. Oxford University Press.   Word Document

McCormack, T., Wearden, J. H., Smith, M. C., & Brown, G. D. A. (2005). Episodic temporal generalisation: A developmental study. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Section A, 58, 693-704.  PDF

Elvevåg, B., Brown, G. D. A., McCormack, T., Vousden, J. I., & Goldberg, T. E. (2004). Identification of tone duration, line length and letter position: An experimental approach to timing and working memory deficits in schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 113, 509-521.  PDF

McCormack, T., Brown, G. D. A., Smith, M. C., & Brock, J. (2004). A timing-specific memory distortion effect. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 87, 33-56.  PDF

Elvevåg , B., McCormack, T., Gilbert, A., Brown , G. D. A., Weinberger, D. R. & Goldberg, T. E. (2003). Duration judgments in patients with schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine, 33, 1249-1261.  PDF  

McCormack, T., Brown, G. D. A., Maylor, E. A., Richardson, L. B. N., & Darby, R. J. (2002). Effects of aging on absolute identification of duration. Psychology and Aging.  PDF  

McCormack, T. & Hoerl, C. (2001). The child in time: Episodic memory and the concept of the past. In C. Moore & K. Lemmon (Eds.), The self in time: Developmental Issues. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

McCormack, T. (2001). Attributing episodic memory to animals and children. In C. Hoerl & T. McCormack (Eds.) Time and memory: Issues in philosophy and psychology. Oxford University Press.  Word document     

McCormack, T., Brown, G. D. A., Vousden, J. I., & Henson, R. N. A. (2000). Children’s serial recall errors: Implications for theories of short-term memory development. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 76, 222-252.

Brown, G. D. A., Vousden, J. I., McCormack, T., & Hulme, C. (1999). The development of memory for serial order: A temporal contextual distinctiveness model. International Journal of Psychology: Special Issue on Short-Term Memory, 34, 389-402.

McCormack, T., & Hoerl, C. (1999). Memory and temporal perspective: The role of temporal frameworks in memory development. Developmental Review, 19, 154-182.

McCormack, T. (1999). Temporal concepts and episodic memory: A response to Hoerl. Mind & Language, 14, 252-262.

McCormack, T., Brown, G. D. A., Maylor, E. A., Darby, R. J., & Green, D. (1999). The development of time estimation: Comparing childhood and old age. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1143-1155.

McCormack, T., & Russell, J. (1997). The development of recency and frequency memory: Is there a developmental shift from reliance on trace-strength to episodic recall? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 66, 376-392.

Russell, J., McCormack, T., Robinson, J., & Lillis, G. (1996). Logical (versus associative) performance on transitive reasoning tasks by children: Implications for the status of animals’ performance. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49B, 231-244.

Grants Awarded

A. Feeney, S. Beck (Birmingham), T. McCormack, & G. Humphreys (Oxford). (2012-2015). The Role of Regret in Decision-Making: A Developmental Study. Economic and Social Research Council. £396K

T. McCormack & T. Beckers (Leuven). (2009-2011). Reasoning and cue competition effects in causal learning: A developmental study. Economic and Social Research Council. £170K

T. McCormack & D. Lagnado (UCL). (2009-2011). Time and interventions in children’s causal structure learning. Economic and Social Research Council. £171K

C. Hoerl (Warwick), J. Roessler (Warwick), & T. McCormack. (2004-2008). Causal understanding: empirical and theoretical foundations for a new approach. Arts and Humanities Research Board (now AHRC). £223K

G. D. A. Brown (Warwick), & T. McCormack. (2001-2004). Distinctiveness models of human memory and timing. Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. £143K

T. McCormack, G. D. A. Brown (Warwick), & J. Wearden (Manchester). (2000-2003). The development of timing in children. Economic and Social Research Council, £136K

G. D. A. Brown (Warwick), E. A. Maylor (Warwick), & T. McCormack. (1997-2000). Temporal memory across the lifespan. Medical Research Council, £101K

Staff

• Academic Staff
• Teaching Fellows
• Computer Laboratory Supervisors
• Honorary Staff
• Research Staff
• Visiting Researchers
• Support Staff