Staff profile

About me

I investigate how children and adults use sensory information to ground the sense of bodily self, and to guide movement. My current projects examine plasticity in the developing sensorimotor system.

I lead an ESRC-funded grant (2022-25), in collaboration with Profs Gillies & Pan at Goldsmiths. We use combined motion capture and virtual reality to study how children can accept virtual bodies which are different from their own. Together with Prof Tamar Makin, at Cambridge, I examine how children with limb differences learn to interact with their environments.

For more detail, please check out my website or follow me on Twitter (@dcowiedurham).

Recent Funding:

2022-25 ESRC, £608,382. The plasticity of the bodily self: how function and age shape the acceptance of virtual bodies. (PI).
2022 British Psychological Society bursary to I Castelow under my supervision.
2022 Durham Doctoral Studentship to E Grimshaw under my supervision.
2020 British Psychological Society bursary to E Grimshaw under my supervision.
2020 Guarantors of Brain, £3000. Workshop grant (CoI).
2017-21 ESRC, £500,131. The development of own-body representation in childhood. (PI).

• Sensorimotor development
• Limb differences
• Embodied virtual reality
• Body representation

• Developmental Science

• 2022: Action Editor: Multisensory Research.:
• 2022: External Examiner, Psychology BSc, UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences:
• 2022: External Examiner, Summer School, UCL Centre for Languages and International Education:

Chapter in book

• Bremner, A.J. & Cowie, D. (2013). Developmental origins of the hand in the mind, and the role of the hands in the development of the mind. In The hand: An organ of the mind. What the manual tells the mental. Radman, Z. MIT Press. 27-55.
• Nardini, M. & Cowie, D. (2012). The development of multisensory balance, locomotion, orientation and navigation. In Multisensory Development. Bremner, A., Lewkowicz, D. & Spence, C. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 137-159.

Journal Article

• Cowie, Dorothy, Gottwald, Janna M., Bird, Laura-Ashleigh & Bremner, Andrew J. (2022). The role of hand size in body representation: a developmental investigation. Scientific Reports 12(1): 19281.
• Keenaghan, Samantha, Polaskova, Marie, Thurlbeck, Simon, Kentridge, Robert W. & Cowie, Dorothy (2022). Alice in Wonderland: The effects of body size and movement on children’s size perception and body representation in virtual reality. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 224: 105518.
• Dewe, Hayley, Gottwald, Janna, Bird, Laura-Ashleigh, Brenton, Harry, Gillies, Marco & Cowie, Dorothy (2022). My virtual self: the role of movement in children's sense of embodiment. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 28(12): 4061 - 4072.
• Mathew, RK, The Immersive Healthcare Collaboration & Mushtaq, F (2021). Three principles for the progress of immersive technologies in healthcare training and education. BMJ Simulation and Technology Enhanced Learning
• Gottwald, J., Keenaghan, S., Zampieri, E., Tosodduk, H., Bremner, A.J. & Cowie, D. (2020). The developing bodily self: How posture constrains body representation in childhood. Child Development 92(1): 351-366.
• Mowbray, Rachel & Cowie, Dorothy (2020). Mind your step: learning to walk in complex environments. Experimental Brain Research 238(6): 1455-1465.
• Keenaghan, Samantha, Bowles, Lucy, Crawfurd, Georgina, Thurlbeck, Simon, Kentridge, Robert W. & Cowie, Dorothy (2020). My body until proven otherwise: Exploring the time course of the full body illusion. Consciousness and Cognition 78: 102882.
• Dayal, V, Rajabian, A, Jahanshahi, M, Aviles-Olmos, I, Cowie, D, Peters, A, Day, B, Hyam, J, Akram, H, Limousin, P, Hariz, M, Zrinzo, L & Foltynie, T (2020). Pedunculopontine Nucleus Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinsonian Disorders: A Case Series. Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery
• Knight, Frances Le Cornu, Bremner, Andrew J. & Cowie, Dorothy (2020). Does the language we use to segment the body, shape the way we perceive it? A study of tactile perceptual distortions. Cognition 197: 104127.
• Thaler, L., Zhang, X., Antoniou, M., Kish, D. & Cowie, D. (2020). The flexible Action System: Click-based Echolocation may replace certain visual Functionality for adaptive Walking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 46(1): 21-35.
• Mowbray, R., Gottwald, J.M, Zhao, M., Atkinson, A.P. & Cowie, D. (2019). The development of visually guided stepping. Experimental Brain Research 237(11): 2875-2883.
• Mora, Laura, Cowie, Dorothy, Banissy, Michael J. & Cocchini, Gianna (2018). My true face: Unmasking one's own face representation. Acta Psychologica 191: 63-68.
• Cowie, D., McKenna, A., Bremner, A. & Aspell, J. (2018). The development of bodily self-consciousness: Changing responses to the Full Body Illusion in childhood. Developmental Science 21(3): e12557.
• D'Souza, H., Cowie, D., Karmiloff-Smith, A. & Bremner, A. (2017). Specialization of the motor system in infancy: From broad tuning to selectively specialized purposeful actions. Developmental Science 20(4): e12409.
• Le Cornu Knight, F., Cowie, D. & Bremner, A. (2017). Part-based representations of the body in early childhood: evidence from perceived distortions of tactile space across limb boundaries. Developmental Science 20(6): e12439.
• Cowie, D., Sterling, S. & Bremner, A.J. (2016). The development of multisensory body representation and awareness continues to 10 years of age: evidence from the rubber hand illusion. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 142: 230-238.
• Begum Ali, J., Cowie, D. & Bremner, A.J. (2014). Effects of posture on tactile localization by 4 years of age are modulated by sight of the hands: evidence for an early acquired external spatial frame of reference for touch. Developmental Science 17(6): 935-943.
• Bremner, A.J., Ali, J.B. & Cowie, D. (2014). The origins of ability and automaticity in tactile spatial perception. Developmental Science 17(6): 946-947.
• Cowie, Dorothy, Makin, Tamar R. & Bremner, Andrew J. (2013). Children’s Responses to the Rubber-Hand Illusion Reveal Dissociable Pathways in Body Representation. Psychological Science 24(5): 762-769.
• Cowie, D. Braddick, O. & Atkinson, J. (2012). Visually guided step descent in children with Williams Syndrome. Developmental Science 15(1): 74-86.
• Cowie, D., Limousin, P., Peters, A., Hariz, M. & Day, B.L. (2012). Doorway-provoked freezing of gait and its treatment in Parkinson’s disease. Movement Disorders 27(4): 492-499.
• Aviles-Olmos, I., Foltynie, T., Panicker, J., Cowie, D., Limousin, P., Hariz, M., Fowler, C.J. & Zrinzo, L. (2012). The surgical anatomy of the pedunculopontine nucleus cannot be disputed, buried or exhumed. Acta Neurochirurgica 154(8): 1531-1533.
• Aviles-Olmos, I., Foltynie, T., Panicker, J., Cowie, D., Limousin, P., Hariz, M., Fowler, C.J. & Zrinzo, L. (2012). Uncertainty, misunderstanding and the pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus - Response to letter by Mazzone et al. Acta Neurochirurgica 154(5): 839-841.
• Aviles-Olmos, I., Foltynie, T., Panicker, J., Cowie, D., Limousin, P., Hariz, M., Fowler, C.J. & Zrinzo, L. (2011). Urinary incontinence following deep brain stimulation of the pedunculopontine nucleus. Acta Neurochirurgica 153(12): 2357-2360.
• Cowie, Dorothy, Atkinson, Janette & Braddick, Oliver (2010). Development of visual control in stepping down. Experimental Brain Research 202(1): 181-188.
• Cowie, D., Limousin, P., Peters, A. & Day, B.L. (2010). Insights into the neural control of locomotion from walking through doorways in Parkinson's disease. Neuropsychologia 48(9): 2750-2757.
• Cowie, D., Smith, L. & Braddick, O. (2010). The development of locomotor planning for end-state comfort. Perception 39(5): 661-670.
• Nardini, M, Braddick, O, Atkinson, J, Cowie, DA, Ahmed, T & Reidy, H (2008). Uneven integration for perception and action cues in children’s working memory. Cognitive Neuropsychology 25(7-8): 968-984.
• Cowie, D., Braddick, O. & Atkinson, J. (2008). Visual control of action in step descent. Experimental Brain Research 186(2): 343-348.
• Curnow, T., Cowie, D., Henning, G.B. & Hill, N.J. (2007). Some observations on the masking effects of Mach Bands. Journal of the Optical Society of America A 24(10): 3233-3241.

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Cowie, D (2022). Own-Body Perception.