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Dr Abbie Millett

Course Leader MSc Psychology; Senior Lecturer in Psychology

Phone
+44 (0)1473 338896
Email
a.millett2@uos.ac.uk
School/Directorate
School of Social Sciences and Humanities
Abbie Millett ORCID
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Abbie Millett staff profile photo

Dr Abbie Millett is the Course Leader for MSc Psychology (Conversion) and is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology for the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, having joined the team in October 2019. She is an experienced educator having taught in further education at Suffolk New College as a Secondary Teacher and higher education at the University of Essex as a Graduate Laboratory Assistant. Abbie is currently applying for Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. Her teaching ethos is that all knowledge is accessible, as long as both the facilitator and student are equipped with the right tools and expertise.

Abbie is an expert in Cognitive and Developmental Psychology with a focus on cognitive development, specifically in terms of Theory of Mind and perspective taking. Her research explores whether individuals do, and to what extent, assume the visual perspective of others. The current aim of Abbie’s research is to critically assess the extent to which individuals assume the perspective of others, as well as explore what factors may influence this process. Most recently, together with her PhD Supervisor, Abbie has developed an alternative theory to the previously concluded so-called spontaneous perspective taking and has since published two theoretical discussions on what precisely is perspective taking.

Alongside her main research aim, Abbie has also begun to explore the extent that cognitive psychology can be applied to magic, the validity of trypophobia as a potential registered phobia and the effects of daytime sleepiness within the student population.

Abbie contributes on the following modules:

Level 4

  • IMDPSY110 - Academic Development
  • IMDPSY110 - Social Science Research Skills
  • IMDPSY122 - Everyday Psychology

Level 5

  • IMDPSY224 - Questionnaire Design and Analysis (Module leader)
  • IMDPSY218 - Biological and Cognitive Psychology

Level 6

  • IMDPSY314 - Abnormal Psychology (Module Leader)
  • IMDPSY399 - Psychology Project

Research interests

Cognitive and Developmental Psychology, focusing on Theory of Mind, Perspective Taking, Automaticity, Visual/Social Attention, Mental Imagery/Rotation and Gaze Following/Cuing. However, also interested and researching into Phobias, specifically Arachnophobia and Trypophobia and the influence of cognition on magic tricks.

Current projects

  • A examination of spontaneous visual perspective taking

  • The meme theory of trypophobia

  • Cognitive applications to magic tricks

  • The effect of daytime sleepiness and general causality oreitnation on the well being of higher education students

Research skills

Experimental Techniques/Expertise: Behavioural measures, including reaction time, self-reported measures and Eye-Tracking. 

Statistical and Experimental Software/Hardware: Bayesian Analysis, SPSS, Qualtrics, SuperLab 5, EyeLink 1000, Experiment Builder, Data Viewer, JASP, Millisecond Inquisit, R, R Studio, GPower, DAZStudio, Adobe Photoshop.

Publications

Selected publications (see ORCID ID: 0000-0003-1382-9240 for full listing)

Cole, G. G., Millett, A. C., & Juanchich, M. G. (In Preparation). The meme theory of Trypophobia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

Cole, G. G., Millett, A. C., Samuel, S., & Eacott, M. J. (2020). Perspective-taking: in search of a theory. Vision, 4(2), 30.

Millett, A. C., D’Souza, A. D., & Cole, G. G. (2020). Attribution of vision and knowledge in ‘spontaneous perspective taking’. Psychological research, 84(6), 1758-1765.

Cole, G. G., & Millett, A. C. (2019). The closing of the theory of mind: A critique of perspective-taking. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 26(6), 1787-1802.

Millett, A., & Cole, G. (2019, March). Exploring the Effects of 'Validity 'and Visual Barriers Using the Ambiguous Number Paradigm Within Spontaneous Perspective Taking. In PERCEPTION (Vol. 48, No. 3, pp. 268-268). 1 OLIVERS YARD, 55 CITY ROAD, LONDON EC1Y 1SP, ENGLAND: SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD.

Kuhn, G., Vacaityte, I., D'Souza, A. D., Millett, A. C., & Cole, G. G. (2018). Mental states modulate gaze following, but not automatically. Cognition, 180, 1-9.

Atkinson, M. A., Millett, A. C., Doneva, S. P., Simpson, A., & Cole, G. G. (2018). How social is social inhibition of return? Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 80(8), 1892-1903

Conference Presentations

Millett, A. C., & Cole, G. G. (2020). What is the importance of first fixation, validity, SOAs and abstract directional cues in spontaneous visual perspective taking? Paper presented as part of the poster presentation for Psychonomic Society 61st Annual Meeting, Online.

Millett, A. C., D’Souza, A, D. & Cole, G. G. (2020). Attribution of vision and knowledge in ‘spontaneous perspective taking, Paper presented at the poster presentation for Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) Spring Meeting, Online.

Millett, A. C., D’Souza, A, D. & Cole, G. G. (2019). Does validity and visual barriers prevent spontaneous perspective taking? Paper presented at the poster presentation for Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) Spring Meeting, University of Manchester.

Millett, A. C., D’Souza, A, D. & Cole, G. G. (2018). Exploring the effects of ‘validity’ and visual barriers using the ambiguous number paradigm within spontaneous perspective taking, Paper presented at the poster presentation for Applied Vision Association (AVA) Christmas 2018 Meeting, University of Birkbeck.

Millett, A. C., D’Souza, A, D. & Cole, G. G. (2018). Is Spontaneous Perspective Taking a phenomenon based on Theory of Mind or an extension of knowledge attribution and mental rotation? Presentation at the Postgraduate Research Conference, University of Essex.

Cole, G. G., & Millett, A. C. (2018). What the avatar’s eye tells the observer’s brain: A critique of spontaneous perspective taking. Presentation at Psychonomic Society, New Orleans.

Millett, A. C., Kuhn, G., Vacaityte, I., D'Souza, A. D., & Cole, G. G. (2018). Mental states modulates gaze following, but not automatically. Paper presented at the poster presentation for Applied Vision Association (AVA) Spring 2018 Meeting and AGM, University of Bradford.

Millett, A. C., D’Souza, A, D. & Cole, G. G. (2017). Spontaneous Perspective Taking: A phenomenon based upon Theory of Mind or an inconclusive extension of Knowledge Attribution and Mental Rotation, presentation at the Postgraduate Research Conference, University of Essex.

Cole, G. G. & Millett, A. C. (2017). The closing of the Theory of Mind: Attribution of vision and knowledge in ‘automatic perspective taking’, presentation at the workshop on Reflective attentional shift: biologically or social determined, University of Sheffield.

Awards

Millett, A. C., D’Souza, A, D. & Cole, G. G. (2019). Does validity and visual barriers prevent spontaneous perspective taking? President’s Commendation Poster Award at Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) Spring Meeting, University of Manchester.

Abbie is the Psychology Social Media Champion.

  • Applied Vision Association (AVA)
  • Psychonomic Society
  • Experimental Psychology Society