Mark Gardner

Mark Gardner is a Principal Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Westminster, Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Psychology. He has been with the university since 2000 and serves as the course leader for the BPS-accredited MSc Psychology conversion program. He is affiliated with the Centre for Psychological Sciences and is actively engaged in research, teaching, and academic leadership.

His educational background includes a PhD from University College London, supervised by Prof Cecilia Heyes, focusing on animal imitation, and postdoctoral research under Prof Lucy Yardley on attention and balance systems in a Wellcome Trust-funded project.

His research spans three major areas: visual perspective-taking and its role in social cognition and mental state attribution (Theory of Mind), with implications for autism and schizophrenia; the cognitive effects of hydration, particularly how water consumption influences attention, memory, and academic performance; and higher education research, including interdisciplinary learning, open science, and the impact of lecture capture on student learning. His work integrates experimental psychology and quantitative methods.

His recent publications (2018–2025) show a consistent focus on spontaneous perspective-taking, interoception, hydration effects across age groups, and educational innovations. These studies employ diverse methodologies, from behavioral experiments to longitudinal learning analytics, and are published in journals such as Journal of Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, Appetite, and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology.

He has received the Westminster Teaching Fellowship in recognition of his contributions to pedagogy. His professional memberships include:

• Advance HE (since 2015)
• Experimental Psychology Society (since 2013)
• British Psychological Society (since 2011)

Mark Gardner has supervised several doctoral researchers, including Tamara Przelonskowski, Rosa Leino, Jeremy Corcoran, and Maria Flynn. He has secured funding from the Experimental Psychology Society for projects such as 'Arrows or Agents? Re-evaluating evidence for implicit mentalising in the dot perspective task'. His teaching focuses on research methods, quantitative methods, and statistics for both undergraduate and postgraduate psychology students.

He is actively involved in research groups and centers, particularly the Centre for Psychological Sciences, and contributes to initiatives promoting open science and interdisciplinary collaboration in education.