Mind, Action and Development in the Environment (MADE) Lab

About us

The Mind, Action and Development in the Environment (MADE) Lab investigates how environments shape cognitive development and learning. We focus on abilities typically associated with the frontal lobes including executive function and motor cognition, examining how these systems interact to support learning outcomes and explain educational attainment. By studying cognition in context (e.g. home, school, neighbourhood) we aim to understand how everyday experiences and environments influence how children think, act, and learn. Our research integrates behavioural, developmental, and applied perspectives to inform educational outcomes and practice and promote positive developmental pathways.

• Research themes
• Lab members
• Publications
• Additional information

Research themes

• Executive function
• Motor cognition
• Mathematics learning
• Reading
• Science learning and causal cognition
• Learning behaviours
• Environment
• Dyslexia
• Teacher education
• Pedagogy 

Lab members

Director

• Dr Rebecca Gordon

Co-Director

• Professor Emeritus, Andy Tomie

Members

• Dr Rosanne Esposito
• Dr Liory Fern-Pollak
• Professor Eirini Flouri
• Dr Zoe Gallant
• Dr Spencer Hayes
• Dr Juhayna Taha
• Dr Roisin Perry, University of West London
• Dr Erika Galea
• Dr James Smith-Spark, London South Bank University
• Dr Ori Ossmy, Birkbeck University
• Dr Roberto A. Ferreira Campos, Universidad de Talca, Chile
• Dr Cristina Rodriguez, Universidad Católica del Maule, Talca, Chile

Completed PhD students

• Dr Zoe Price – Teachers’ perspectives on executive functions and classroom support
• Dr Yasin Arslan – Teachers’ Understanding of Educational Neuroscience: A Mixed-Method Approach to Understanding Knowledge, Attitudes and Application
• Dr Qiuyu Du – Relationships between mind wandering, working memory capacity and creativity
• Dr Christopher Quinton – School-based mindfulness programmes and executive functions: a systematic review and meta-analysis of complex intervention studies
• Dr Louise Livingston – Motor control, executive function and academic attainment in early years’ educational environments
• Dr Jasmine Cockcroft – Predictors of individual variation in school science with a focus on KS3
• Dr Erica Ranzato – Comparing the development of mathematical abilities in individuals with different neurodevelopmental conditions
• Dr Roisin Perry – Social inequalities in executive function development and attainment during adolescence: an examination of longitudinal relations in the Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones

Current PhD students

• Emma Marshall – Early numeracy experience, manipulatives, and working memory
• Deborah Hofmeyr – Closing the educational attainment gap: A toddler language intervention
• Jeongmin Shin – Early reading as a predictor of later maths: The roles of executive function, imagery, and abstraction
• Selma Al Makzomy – Exploring the impact of teaching neuroplasticity on children’s self-efficacy and school achievement
• Ruth Martin – Interoception skills and grit: Factors of influence from 3 to 7 years of age
• Ria Shah – Neurodevelopmental Variability in Executive Function: A Longitudinal Study of Educational Outcomes, Environmental Influences, and Implications for Personalised Intervention
• Tom Northrop – Temporal parsing of events in infant-mother interaction
• Yuxi Zhou – Examining the interconnections between adaptive motor control, executive function, and academic achievement in early adolescence
• Nina Peleg – Better together: multi-sensory social intervention to improve spatial skills in primary education 

Publications

• Perry, R., Booth, E., Thomas, M. S. C., Tolmie, A., Röösli, M., Toledano, M. B., Shen, C., & Dumontheil, I. (2026). Longitudinal associations between socioeconomic status and executive function during adolescence: Evidence from the SCAMP study. Learning and Individual Differences, 125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2025.102822
• Smith-Spark, J. H., & Gordon, R. (2026). Memory in adults with dyslexia. Dyslexia in Adulthood: A Research Perspective.
• Van Herwegen, J., Masterman, T., Dockrell, J., Marshall, C., Gordon, R., & Thomas, M. S. (2026). Raising educational outcomes for students with special educational needs and disabilities: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. Review of Education, 14(1), e70127.
• Van Herwegen, J., Masterman, T., Dockrell, J., Gordon, R., Marshall, C., & Thomas, M. S. (2025). Raising educational outcomes for individuals with Down syndrome: Findings from a larger systematic review of targeted interventions for individuals with SEND. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 25(4), 714-723.
• Antalek, C., Dockrell, J. E., Thomas, M. S., Masterman, T., Gordon, R., Marshall, C., & Van Herwegen, J. (2025). Raising Educational Achievement for Students with Special Educational Needs: Perspectives on Evidence‐Based Interventions from Educational Practitioners. Mind, Brain, and Education, 19(4), 260-274.
• Du, Q., Gordon, R., & Tolmie, A. (2025). The Role of Mind Wandering During Incubation in Divergent and Convergent Creative Thinking. Brain Sciences, 15(6), 595.
• Miller-Cotto, D., & Gordon, R. (2025). Revisiting working memory 50 years after Baddeley and Hitch: A review of field-specific conceptualisations, use and misuse, and paths forward for studying children. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 78(2), 425-435
• Arslan, Y., Gordon, R., & Tolmie, A. (2025) Predictors of Teachers’ Knowledge of Educational Neuroscience: A Role for Formal Training. Mind, Brain, Education
• Zhou, Y., Youyou, W., & Tolmie, A. (2025). Open-skills sports, especially team ball games, are associated with adolescents’ cognitive abilities: Longitudinal evidence from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study. Cognitive Development, 76, 101640
• Zhou, Y., Hartley, R., Bernadelli, A., & Tolmie, A. (2025). The impact of spaced learning within physics lessons in secondary schools. PLoS ONE, 20(4): e0321552.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321552
• Hodgkiss, A., Thomas, M.S.C., Tolmie, A.K., & Farran, E.K. (2025). Associations between spatial skills and physics knowledge in primary school: spatial skills are more important for conceptual scientific knowledge than factual knowledge retrieval. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106135
• Zhou, Y. & Tolmie, A. (2024). Associations between gross and fine motor skills, physical activity, executive function and academic achievement: Longitudinal findings from the UK Millennium Cohort Study. Brain Sciences, 14(2), 121
• Gordon, R., Ferreira, R. A., Rodriguez, C., & Tolmie, A. (2024). Educational neuroscience: key processes and approaches to measurement. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1342147
• Mayall, L.A., Tolmie, A., & Farran, E.K. (2023). Influence of motor ability on daily living ability in individuals with Williams Syndrome and individuals with Down Syndrome. In R.M. Hodapp, D.J. Fidler & S. Lafranchi (Eds.) International Review of Research in Developmental Disabilities, Vol 65. pp 189-216. Cambridge, MA: Academic Press [ISBN: 978-0-443-19376-7]
• Zhang, Y., Tolmie, A., & Gordon, R. (2023) The Relationship between Working Memory and Arithmetic in Primary School Children: A Meta-Analysis. Brain Sci. 2023, 13, 22.
• Smith-Spark, J. H., & Gordon, R. (2022). Automaticity and executive abilities in developmental dyslexia: A theoretical review. Brain Sciences, 12(4), 446
• Smith-Spark, J. H., Gordon, R., & Jansari, A. S. (2022). The impact of developmental dyslexia on workplace cognition: Evidence from a virtual reality environment. In Proceedings of the 33rd European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics (pp. 1-4)
• Arslan, Y., Gordon, R., & Tolmie, A. (2022). Teachers’ understanding of neuromyths: A role for educational neuroscience in teacher training. Impact.
• Gordon, R., Santana De Morais, D., Whitelock, E., & Mukarram, A. (2022). Mapping components of verbal and visuospatial working memory to mathematical topics in seven‐to fifteen‐year‐olds. British Journal of Educational Psychology. doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12440.
• Van Herwegen, J., Thomas, M., Marshall, C., & Gordon, R. (2022). Neuromyths about Special Educational Needs: What should teachers know. Impact.
• Dumontheil, I., Brookman-Byrne, A., Tolmie, A.K., & Mareschal, D. (2022). Neural and cognitive underpinnings of counterintuitive science and maths reasoning in adolescence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 34(7):1205-1229; https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01854
• Ranzato, E., Tolmie, A., & Van Herwegen, J. (2021). Home learning environment of primary school children with Down Syndrome and with Williams Syndrome. Brain Sciences, 11(6), 733; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11060733
• Hodgkiss, A., Gilligan, K.A., Thomas, M.S.C., Tolmie, A., & Farran, E.K. (2021). The developmental trajectories of spatial skills in middle childhood. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 39(4), 566-583. http://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12380
• Dündar-Coecke, S., Tolmie, A., & Schlottmann, A. (2021). The development of spatial-temporal, probability, and covariation information to infer continuous causal processes. Causal Cognition in Humans and Machines, Frontiers in Psychology, 12:525195; https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.525195
• Gordon, R., Smith-Spark J. H., Newton E J., and Henry L. A. (2021) Children’s verbal, visual and spatial processing and storage abilities: An analysis of verbal comprehension, reading, counting and mathematics. Frontiers in Psychology, section Education. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.732182.
• Dündar-Coecke, S., Tolmie, A., & Schlottmann, A. (2020). The role of spatial and spatial-temporal analysis in children’s causal cognition of continuous processes. PLoS ONE15(7): e0235884. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235884
• Ranzato, E., Tolmie, A., & Van Herwegen, J. (2020). Perceptual subitizing and conceptual subitizing in Williams syndrome and Down syndrome: insights from eye movements. Research in Developmental Disabilities. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2020.103746
• Mayall, L.A., D’Souza, H., Hill, E., Smith, A.K., Tolmie, A., & Farran, E.K. (2020). Motor difficulties in individuals with Williams syndrome and how they relate to participation in physical activity. Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41252-020-00173-8
• Avgerinou, V.A., & Tolmie, A. (2020). Inhibition and cognitive load in fractions and decimals. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(S1), 240-256. doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12321
• Dündar-Coecke, S., & Tolmie, A. (2020). Nonverbal ability and scientific vocabulary predict children’s causal reasoning in science better than generic language. Mind, Brain, and Education, 14(2), 130-138. DOI: 10.1111/mbe.12226
• Dündar-Coecke, S., Tolmie, A., & Schlottmann, A. (2020). Children’s reasoning about continuous causal processes: the role of verbal and nonverbal ability. British Journal of Educational Psychology. 90(2), 364-381. DOI: 10.1111/bjep.12287
• Mayall, L.A., D’Souza, H., Hill, E., Smith, A.K., Tolmie, A., & Farran, E.K. (2020). Motor difficulties in individuals with Williams syndrome and how they relate to participation in physical activity. Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders
• Gordon, R., Smith-Spark J. H., Newton E J., and Henry L. A. (2020). The relationship between working memory and high-level cognition in children: An analysis of timing and accuracy in complex span tasks. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104736.
• Wilkinson, H.R., Smid, C., Morris, S., Farran, E.K., Dumontheil, I., Mayer, S., Tolmie, A., Bell, D., Porayska-Pomsta, K., Holmes, W., Mareschal, D., Thomas, M.S.C. & the UnLocke Team. (2019). Domain-specific inhibitory control training to improve children’s learning of counterintuitive concepts in mathematics and science. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement, 4, 296–314. DOI: 10.1007/s41465-019-00161-4
• Dündar-Coecke, S., & Tolmie, A. (2019). A short-term intervention improved children’s insights into causal processes. The Psychology of Education Review, 43(2), 20-28.
• Brookman-Byrne, A., Mareschal, D., Tolmie, A.K., & Dumontheil, I. (2019). The unique contributions of verbal analogical reasoning and non-verbal matrix reasoning to science and maths problem-solving in adolescence. Mind, Brain, and Education, 13, 211-223. DOI:10.1111/mbe.12212
• Gordon, R., Smith-Spark J. H., Newton E J., and Henry L. A. (2018) Executive Function and Academic Achievement in Primary School Children: The use of task-related processing speed. Frontiers in Psychology, section Cognitive Science. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00582
• Brookman-Byrne, A., Mareschal, D., Tolmie, A.K., & Dumontheil, I. (2018). Inhibitory control and counterintuitive science and math reasoning in adolescence. PLOS-One, 13(6). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198973
• Hodgkiss, A., Gilligan, K., Thomas, M.S.C., Tolmie, A.K., & Farran, E.K. (2018). Spatial cognition and science achievement: the contribution of intrinsic and extrinsic spatial skills from 7-11 years. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 675-697. DOI:10.1111/bjep.12211

Additional information

Related links

• Centre for Educational Neuroscience