Staff profile

B.Sc. & M.Sc. (Psychology), University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. D.Phil. (Psychology), University of Oxford, England, 1993 - 1997. Lecturer in Psychology, King Alfred's College Winchester (now University of Winchester), England, 1996 - 2003.

• Social cognitive neuroscience
• The emotions
• The perception of faces, emotions, and biological motion
• The scientific study of consciousness
• Conceptual issues in evolutionary & cognitive psychological explanation

• 2023: Associate Editor: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance (APA) - from January 2023
• 2022: Faculty Member of Faculty Opinions: for the section Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuropsychology & Experimental Psychology - 2022 to present
• 2019: Associate Editor: Frontiers in Psychology: Emotion Science, 2019-2022
• 2012: Guest Associate Editor for the journal Emotion Review: 2011-2012.
• 2012: Consulting Editor, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance: January 2012-December 2022

Chapter in book

• Atkinson, A. (2013). Bodily expressions of emotion: Visual cues and neural mechanisms. In J. Armony, & P. Vuilleumier (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Human Affective Neuroscience (198-222). Cambridge University Press
• Atkinson, A., Heberlein, A., & Adolphs, R. (2010). Are people special? A brain’s eye view. In R. Adams Jr., N. Ambady, K. Nakayama, & S. Shimojo (Eds.), The science of social vision (363-392). Oxford University Press
• Dittrich, W., & Atkinson, A. (2008). The perception of bodily expressions of emotion and the implications for computing. In J. (. Or (Ed.), Affective Computing: Focus on Emotion Expression, Synthesis and Recognition (pp.157-184). I-Tech Education and Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5772/6181
• Atkinson, A. (2007). Face processing and empathy. In T. Farrow, & P. Woodruff (Eds.) (Eds.), Empathy in mental illness (pp. 360-385). Cambridge University Press
• Atkinson, A., & Adolphs, A. (2005). Visual emotion perception: Mechanisms and processes. In L. Barrett, P. Niedenthal, & P. Winkielman (Eds.) (Eds.), Emotion and consciousness (pp. 150-182). Guilford Press
• Atkinson, A., & Wheeler, M. (2003). Evolutionary psychology's grain problem and the cognitive neuroscience of reasoning. In D. E. Over (Ed.), Evolution and the psychology of thinking : the debate (61-99). Psychology Press
• Wheeler, M., & Atkinson, A. (2001). Domains, brains, and evolution. In D. Walsh (Ed.), Naturalism, evolution and mind (239-266). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511563843.012

Journal Article

• Shafir, T., Taylor, S., Atkinson, A., Langenecker, S., & Zubieta, J.-K. (online). Emotion regulation through execution, observation, and imagery of emotional movements. Brain and Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2013.03.001
• Heesen, R., Szenteczki, M. A., Kim, Y., Kret, M. E., Atkinson, A. P., Upton, Z., & Clay, Z. (2024). Impact of social context on human facial and gestural emotion expressions. iScience, 27(11), Article 110663. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.110663
• Atkinson, A. P., & Vuong, Q. C. (2023). Incidental visual processing of spatiotemporal cues in communicative interactions: An fMRI investigation. Imaging Neuroscience, 1, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1162/imag_a_00048
• Howlett, P., Baysu, G., Atkinson, A. P., Jungert, T., & Rychlowska, M. (2023). Friendship habits questionnaire: A measure of group- versus dyadic-oriented socializing styles. PLoS ONE, 18(6), Article e0285767. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0285767
• Duran, N., & Atkinson, A. P. (2021). Foveal processing of emotion-informative facial features. PLoS ONE, 16(12), Article e0260814. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260814
• Atkinson, A., & Smithson, H. (2020). The Impact on Emotion Classification Performance and Gaze Behavior of Foveal versus Extrafoveal Processing of Facial Features. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 46(3), 292-312. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000712
• Ross, P., & Atkinson, A. (2020). Expanding simulation models of emotional understanding: The case for different modalities, body-state simulation prominence and developmental trajectories. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00309
• Mowbray, R., Gottwald, J., Zhao, M., Atkinson, A., & Cowie, D. (2019). The development of visually guided stepping. Experimental Brain Research, 237(11), 2875-2883. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-019-05629-5
• Siqi-Liu, A., Harris, A. M., Atkinson, A. P., & Reed, C. L. (2018). Dissociable Processing of Emotional and Neutral Body Movements Revealed by μ-Alpha and Beta Rhythms. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(4), 1269-1279. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsy094
• Insch, P., Slessor, G., Phillips, L., Atkinson, A., & Warrington, J. (2015). The Impact of Aging and Alzheimers Disease on Decoding Emotion Cues from Bodily Motion. AIMS Neuroscience, 2(3), 139-159. https://doi.org/10.3934/neuroscience.2015.3.139
• Missana, M., Atkinson, A., & Grossmann, T. (2015). Tuning the developing brain to emotional body expressions. Developmental Science, 18(2), 243-253. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12209
• Missana, M., Rajhans, P., Atkinson, A., & Grossmann, T. (2014). Discrimination of fearful and happy body postures in 8-month-old infants: an event-related potential study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00531
• Atkinson, A., & Smithson, H. (2013). Distinct contributions to facial emotion perception of foveated vs nonfoveated facial features. Emotion Review, 5(1), 30-35. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073912457226
• Thoresen, J., Vuong, Q., & Atkinson, A. (2012). First impressions: Gait cues drive reliable trait judgments. Cognition, 124(3), 261-271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2012.05.018
• Atkinson, A., Vuong, Q., & Smithson, H. (2012). Modulation of the face- and body-selective visual regions by the motion and emotion of point-light face and body stimuli. NeuroImage, 59(2), 1700-1712. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.08.073
• Dzhelyova, M., Ellison, A., & Atkinson, A. (2011). Event-related repetitive TMS reveals distinct, critical roles for right OFA and bilateral posterior STS in judging the sex and trustworthiness of faces. The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23(10), 2782-2796. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2011.21604
• Atkinson, A., & Adolphs, R. (2011). The neuropsychology of face perception: Beyond simple dissociations and functional selectivity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1571), 1726-1738. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0349
• Philip, R., Whalley, H., Stanfield, A., Sprengelmeyer, R., Santos, I., Young, A., Atkinson, A., Calder, A., Johnstone, E., Lawrie, S., & Hall, J. (2010). Deficits in facial, body movement and vocal emotional processing in autism spectrum disorders. Psychological Medicine, 40(11), 1919-1929. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0033291709992364
• Peelen, M., Atkinson, A., & Vuilleumier, P. (2010). Supramodal representations of perceived emotions in the human brain. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(30), 10127-10134. https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.2161-10.2010
• Sprengelmeyer, R., Atkinson, A., Sprengelmeyer, A., Mair-Walther, J., Jacobi, C., Wildemann, B., Dittrich, W., & Hacke, W. (2010). Disgust and fear recognition in paraneoplastic limbic encephalitis. Cortex, 46(5), 650-657. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2009.04.007
• Atkinson, A. (2009). Impaired recognition of emotions from body movements is associated with elevated motion coherence thresholds in autism spectrum disorders. Neuropsychologia, 47(13), 3023-3029. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.05.019
• Heberlein, A., & Atkinson, A. (2009). Neuroscientific evidence for simulation and shared substrates in emotion recognition: beyond faces. Emotion Review, 1(2), 162-177. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073908100441
• Peelen, M., Atkinson, A., Andersson, F., & Vuilleumier, P. (2007). Emotional modulation of body-selective visual areas. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2(4), 274-283. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsm023
• Atkinson, A., Tunstall, M., & Dittrich, W. (2007). Evidence for distinct contributions of form and motion information to the recognition of emotions from body gestures. Cognition, 104(1), 59-72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2006.05.005
• Atkinson, A., Heberlein, A., & Adolphs, R. (2007). Spared ability to recognise fear from static and moving whole-body cues following bilateral amygdala damage. Neuropsychologia, 45(12), 2772-2782. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.04.019
• Atkinson, A., Tipples, J., Burt, D., & Young, A. (2005). Asymmetric interference between sex and emotion in face perception. Perception & psychophysics, 67(7), 1199-1213. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03193553
• Atkinson, A. (2005). Staring at the back of someone's head is no signal, and a sense of being stared at is no sense. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12(6), 50-56
• Atkinson, A., Dittrich, W., Gemmell, A., & Young, A. (2004). Emotion perception from dynamic and static body expressions in point-light and full-light displays. Perception, 33(6), 717-746. https://doi.org/10.1068/p5096
• Atkinson, A., & Wheeler, M. (2004). The grain of domains: The evolutionary-psychological case against domain-general cognition. Mind and Language, 19(2), 147-176. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2004.00252.x
• Tipples, J., Atkinson, A., & Young, A. (2002). The eyebrow frown: a salient social signal. Emotion, 2(3), 288-296. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.2.3.288
• Atkinson, A. (2002). Emotion-specific clues to the neural substrate of empathy. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25(1), https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x02240017
• Atkinson, A. (2001). Pathological beliefs, damaged brains. Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology, 8(2-3), 225-229. https://doi.org/10.1353/ppp.2001.0003
• Atkinson, A., Thomas, M., & Cleeremans, A. (2000). Consciousness: mapping the theoretical landscape. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(10), 372-382. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1364-6613%2800%2901533-3
• Atkinson, A. (2000). Review of 'The descent of mind: Psychological perspectives on hominid evolution.'. Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. B, Comparative and physiological psychology, 53(4), 375-378
• Atkinson, A., & Thomas, M. (1999). What makes us conscious?. Journal of Intelligent Systems, 9(5-6), 307-354
• Thomas, M., & Atkinson, A. (1999). Quantities of qualia. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(1), https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x99461795
• Atkinson, A. (1998). Persons, systems and subsystems: The explanatory scope of cognitive psychology. Acta Analytica, 20, 43-60
• Atkinson, A., & Davies, M. (1995). Consciousness without conflation. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 18(2), 248-249. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x00038206
• Rhodes, G., Brake, S., & Atkinson, A. (1993). What's lost in inverted faces?. Cognition, 47(1), 25-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277%2893%2990061-y