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Professor Ben Tatler

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Professor Ben Tatler
Professor Ben Tatler
Professor Ben Tatler

Vice-Principal (Research)

About
Email Address
b.w.tatler@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number
+44 (0)1224 273930
Office Address

School of Psychology
William Guild Building
King's College
Aberdeen AB24 3FX

Office S11

School/Department
Provost
ORCiD
Scopus
Google Scholar
Pure
Linkedin

Biography

I obtained my undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences (Biological) at the University of Cambridge in 1998 and my DPhil in Neuroscience at the University of Sussex in 2002. After obtaining my PhD I worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sussex before moving to the University of Dundee in 2004, where I held the positions of Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader. I have been a Professor of Psychology at the University of Aberdeen since 2015. During this time, I led the UOA4 REF submission and served as Director of Research for Psychology. 

In 2024, I was appointed Dean for Research Culture, leading institutional work to strengthen research culture, researcher development and responsible research assessment. This role included developing the University’s Research Cultures Strategy, identifying key priorities, shaping policy and working across Schools and Professional Services to support a more inclusive, open and supportive research environment.

In May 2026, I was appointed Vice-Principal (Research).

Qualifications

  • MA Natural Sciences (Biological) 
    1998 - University of Cambridge 
  • DPhil Neuroscience and Psychology 
    2002 - University of Sussex 

Memberships and Affiliations

Internal Memberships

University committees – as chair

  • REF Strategy Group (2024-present)
  • University Research Committee (2023-present)
  • TRAC Steering Group (2026-present)
  • Interdisciplinary Institute Steering Group (2026-present)
  • Interdisciplinary Institute External Advisory Board (2026-present)
  • Joint Consultative Committee on Redundancy Avoidance (2026-present)
  • Technician Commitment Steering Group (2025-present)
  • Research Cultures Oversight Group (2025-present)
  • University Postdoctoral Research Committee (2024-present)
  • Research Centres Review Committee (2024-present)
  • Clinical Research Steering Group [co-chair] (2026-present)

University committees – as member

  • University Management Group (2024-present)
  • Senate (2024-present)
  • Senate Business Committee (2025-present)
  • University Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee (2024-present)
  • Honorary Degrees Committee (2026-present)
  • Digital Strategy Committee (2026-present)
  • Enterprise & Innovation Committee (2026-present)
  • Estates Committee (2026-present)
  • Information Governance Committee (2026-present)
  • International Research Oversight Group (2026-present)
  • NDC Executive Committee (2026-present)
  • NDC Operational Board (2026-present)
  • Aberdeen University Press Academic Advisory Board (2024-present)
  • Copyright Literacy Steering Group (2024-present)
  • Staff Experience Committee (2024-present)

Programme Boards and limited-life Working Groups

  • Adapting for Continued Success, Organisational Design (Academic) Workstream (2026-present)
  • Adapting for Continued Success, People and Culture Workstream (2025-present)
  • Adapting for Continued Success, Culture Audit Working Group (2025-present)
  • Labs of the Future Programme Board [chair] (2026-present)
  • Start Up & Spin Out Panel (2026-present)
  • Technical Review Group [chair] (2025-present)
  • Annual Review Working Group (2024-2025)
  • AI in research Task and Finish Group (2025)
  • Race Equality Charter Survey Working Group (2025)
  • Staff Survey Working Group (2024)
  • Reimagining the Campus – Research Working Group (2024)
External Memberships

External committees and boards representing Aberdeen

  • Universities Scotland Research & Knowledge Exchange Committee (RKEC)
  • Aberdeen/Calgary/Curtin Alliance Board
  • Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences (SGSSS) Supervisory Board
  • Wesley VPRs/PVC-Rs

External memberships

  • Member of the national Vitae Policy Advisory Group
  • Institutional lead for the UK Reproducibility Network
  • Member of the Evaluation Support Scotland Board of Trustees
  • Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society
  • Member of the Experimental Psychology Society
  • Member of the Psychonomic Society
  • Member of the Applied Vision Association
  • Fellowship in the Higher Education Academy
  • Emeritus member of the Young Academy of Scotland, having been one of the first cohort when this was established

Latest Publications

View My Publications

Research

Research Overview

Many of our everyday behaviours require visual input to guide them. My research focuses on two key questions that we must address to understand how vision supports natural behaviour: (1) where we look and (2) what we encode and retain from the objects we look at. A particular emphasis within this work is the importance of studying vision in the context of natural behaviour in real environments, rather than exclusively in laboratory settings. My research has contributed to our theoretical understanding of the factors that underlie decisions about where to look in complex scenes and to our theoretical understanding of the representations that underlie natural vision.

I apply these research interests to a range of real-world problems including hazard perception in driving, CCTV surveillance, and how comics can be used for conveying public health information.

Research Areas

Psychology

  • Supervising
View Research Area

Research Specialisms

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Research Methods in Psychology

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Funding and Grants

Recent funding:

Tatler, B. W. & Murray, C. (2021-2024). Comics vs. Covid: informing and evaluating the design of public health information comics SGSSS [PhD studentship]

Chu, M. & Tatler, B. W. (2020-2021). Giving cognition a helping hand: how gesture facilitates spatial thinking. The Leverhulme Trust. Awarded: £118,822

Phillips, L., Tatler, B. W., & Henry, J. (2017-2020). Adult aging and social attention: the role of cognitive decline and social motivation. ESRC. Awarded: £625,615

Teaching

Courses

Publications

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Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings

Contributions to Conferences

Contributions to Journals

Non-textual Forms

Working Papers

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