Staff profile

About me

I obtained my undergraduate degree in 2003, and PhD in 2007, both from the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. My PhD thesis, supervised by Prof Oliver Braddick, examined the development of visual guidance in locomotion. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at UCL (2007-10), I examined locomotor control in Parkinson’s disease. In 2010 I became a Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, where I worked with Dr Andy Bremner on the development of own-body representation. Since moving to Durham in 2013, I have examined the development of visuomotor control and own-body perception. My work has been funded by the UK Economic & Social Research Council ('The Development of Own Body Representation in Childhood', 2017-21). For more detail, please check out my website.

• Motor control in childhood
• Embodied virtual reality
• Motor development in limb differences
• Body representation in childhood

• Developmental Science

• 2021: External examiner (L3), UCL PALS:
• 2018: Action Editor: Multisensory Research.:

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

• Dewe, Hayley, Gottwald, Janna, Bird, Laura-Ashleigh, Brenton, Harry, Gillies, Marco & Cowie, Dorothy (2021). My virtual self: the role of movement in children's sense of embodiment. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 1.
• 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, Rachel & Cowie, Dorothy (2020). Mind your step: learning to walk in complex environments. Experimental Brain Research 238(6): 1455-1465.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Cowie, D. Braddick, O. & Atkinson, J. (2012). Visually guided step descent in children with Williams Syndrome. Developmental Science 15(1): 74-86.
• 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, D., Smith, L. & Braddick, O. (2010). The development of locomotor planning for end-state comfort. Perception 39(5): 661-670.
• 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.
• 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.