I am broadly interested in concepts of time and models of timing, and how these impact on our scientific methodology and day to day behaviour.

Currently I am researching how cognitive factors such as attention and working memory impact on sensorimotor timing. Sensorimotor timing can be investigated in a relatively simple manner, by examining how well people can synchronise their tapping to the beat of a metronome. Previous research has shown that people can make tiny adjustments of their tapping to keep in sych with a metronome even when the beat is occasionally perturbed. These adjustments are often below the levels of conscious awareness resulting in models which often exclude explicit roles for higher cognitive factors. If the ability to keep in synch is more sensitive to what people are consciously attending to and thinking about whilst tapping along than previously considered, this will require some adjustments to popular timing models.