John MacDonald
Contact Details
Room L244 (Paisley Campus)
Tel: 0141 848 3787
E-mail: john.macdonald@uws.ac.uk
Staff Profile
Profoessor John MacDonald is currently the Dean of the School of Social Sciences in addition to holding a personal chair. He joined the University in 2001, having previously been at the University of Portsmouth, where he was Head of Psychology. He is a Chartered Psychologist and member of the British Psychological Society, and sits on a number of committees concerned with psychology education. His interests are broadly in the area of applied aspects of cognitive psychology, particularly how these relate to speech, language and literacy. His most well known and most cited research is in the area of auditory-visual speech processing, where he was one of the discoverers of the ‘McGurk’ effect. He has carried out research investigating the relationship between memory, speech, language and reading, in typically developing and learning disabled children. More recently he has been studying the cognitive aspects of mood. Current projects that he has been involved with include: investigation of literacy levels and health promotion literature, depression and suicidal ideation in young people; and the use of bibliotherapy in helping people with mild mental health problems.
Selected Publications
Rutherford, J., Holman, R., MacDonald, J., Taylor, A., Jarrett, D. and Bigrigg, A. (2006) Health Literacy Skills among Family Planning Clinic Clients. Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care, 32, 235-240
MacDonald, J. (2006) Hearing Lips and Seeing Voices: Illusion and Serendipity in Auditory-Visual Perception Research. In Atkinson, J. and Crowe, M. (Eds) Interdisciplinary Research: Diverse Approaches in Science, Technology, Health and Society. 2006. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Christopher, G. and MacDonald, J. (2005) Central Executive Functioning in Clinical Depression. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry. 2005, 10, 379-399
Jemkins, C. and MacDonald, J. (2004) Developing the language skills of adults with Down syndrome. In Rondal, J.A., Rastore-Quartine, A. & Soresi, S. (Eds) The adult with Down syndrome: A new challenge for society. 2004. Whurr, London.
Hewitt, A.K., Foxcroft, D.R. and MacDonald, J. (2004) Multitrait-multimethod confirmatory factor analysis of the Attributional Style Questionnaire. Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 1483-1492.
Gibbard, D., Coglan, L. and MacDonald, J. (2004) A cost-effectiveness analysis of current practice and parent intervention for children under 3 years presenting with language delay. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 39, 229-244
Byrne, A., MacDonald, J. and Buckley, S. (2002) Reading, language and memory skills: a comparative longitudinal study of children with Down syndrome and their mainstream peers. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 72, 513-530
Taylor, J. and MacDonald, J. (2002) The impact of Computer-mediated Group Interaction on Decision-making, Communication and Inter-personal Perception. Social Science Computer Review, 20, 260-274.