Dr Sophie Milward
Biography
I completed my PhD at the University of Birmingham under the supervision of Ian Apperly and Sotaro Kita. I then spent 2 years at the Central European University as a postdoc working with Natalie Sebanz and then 18 months at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, working with Malinda Carpenter, Josep Call and Mike Tomasello. I joined the department at Portsmouth as a lecturer in January 2018.
Research interests
My research focuses on development of social cognitive skills, particularly representations of mental states. Often when we are working in close proximity or in collaboration with others, we automatically track our partner's mental states (including their task, perspective and emotional responses), which can help us to predict their actions, but may also interfere with our own performance on a task. I am interested in how this develops in children across diverse cultures, and how we differ from our closest living relatives, the great apes.Teaching responsibilities
Social and Developmental Psychology, Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology, Applied Psychological Research Methods, Research-based learning.
Research outputs
2025
Milward, S. J., Whitehouse, J.
6 Feb 2025, In: PLoS One
Research output: Article
2022
Whitehouse, J., Milward, S. J., Parker, M., Kavanagh, E., Waller, B.
1 Jul 2022, In: Evolution and Human Behavior. 43, 4, p. 325-333
Research output: Article