Professor Roger Watt

Emeritus Professor

Psychology University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA

Professor Roger Watt

Contact details

About me

I have been a researcher in psychology, and especially human perception for the whole of my career. Before moving to Stirling in 1988 I held a Scientist post at the MRC Applied Psychology Unit in Cambridge. That followed post-doc posts at Durham, UCL and Cambridge. My PhD was done in the Dept of Communication at Keele - where engineers were doing reserch into mechanisms of biological perception.

My research interests have included, basic mechanisms in visual perception, some aspects of music perception and latterly issues in the use of statistics in Psychology.

I have been involved as expert witness in a range of different forensic settings. The most significant was when I was instructed to provide evidence for the Cullen Inquiry into the Paddington Rail Disaster. I was credited with providing the most convincing explanation for a driver passing a red signal.

I have been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh since 1995.   I have been very much engaged with facilitating student-led teaching. Many years ago, I introduced the concept of final year undergraduate students developing and delivering their own 10-credit elective modules to their peers. Subsequently I led on a project that saw final year undergraduate students provide all the face-to-face teaching of statistics to second year students. Both of these initiatives continue.

I am an active researcher with interests in many aspects of human perception. I approach my research with a combination of empirical methods - measuring what people can perceive - and computational methods - developing and assessing computer models of the neuronal processes in human perception.

Award

Fellow Royal Society of Edinburgh