Jonathan Smallwood
Professor
Department of Psychology
BA Hons University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 1996
PhD University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 2012
Name Pronunciation Guide:
"jaa nuh thn s-m-AW-l-w-UU-d"
Click below to hear pronunciation
Research Interests
Human cognition is not always directly related to the events taking place in the here and now and understanding the neural basis behind the thoughts and feelings that occupy our daily lives is one of the most important questions facing cognitive neuroscience. To address this important question Professor Smallwood鈥檚 work uses state-of-the-art techniques for brain analysis as well as novel methods for assessing both patterns of ongoing thought, and task driven behaviour. Ongoing work focuses on the relationship between different patterns of ongoing experience and both positive and negative features of health and well being and how the structure of these complex patterns of thought are constrained by the organisation of the structure of the cortex.
Relevant Papers
(Smallwood & Schooler, 2015; Margulies et al., 2016; Sormaz et al., 2018; Ho et al., 2019; Hong et al., 2019; Murphy et al., 2019; Turnbull et al., 2019)
Ho, N. S. P., Wang, X., Vatansever, D., Margulies, D. S., Bernhardt, B., Jefferies, E., & Smallwood, J. (2019). Individual variation in patterns of task focused, and detailed, thought are uniquely associated within the architecture of the medial temporal lobe. NeuroImage, 202, 116045. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116045
Hong, S.-J., De Wael, R. V., Bethlehem, R. A., Lariviere, S., Paquola, C., Valk, S. L., . . . Smallwood, J. (2019). Atypical functional connectome hierarchy in autism. Nature communications, 10(1), 1-13.
Margulies, D. S., Ghosh, S. S., Goulas, A., Falkiewicz, M., Huntenburg, J. M., Langs, G., . . . Smallwood, J. (2016). Situating the default-mode network along a principal gradient of macroscale cortical organization. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 113(44), 12574-12579. doi:10.1073/pnas.1608282113
Murphy, C., Wang, H.-T., Konu, D., Lowndes, R., Margulies, D. S., Jefferies, E., & Smallwood, J. (2019). Modes of operation: A topographic neural gradient supporting stimulus dependent and independent cognition. NeuroImage, 186, 487-496.
Smallwood, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2015). The science of mind wandering: empirically navigating the stream of consciousness. Annual review of psychology, 66, 487-518.
Sormaz, M., Murphy, C., Wang, H.-t., Hymers, M., Karapanagiotidis, T., Poerio, G., . . . Smallwood, J. (2018). Default mode network can support the level of detail in experience during active task states. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(37), 9318-9323.
Turnbull, A., Wang, H., Murphy, C., Ho, N., Wang, X., Sormaz, M., . . . Margulies, D. (2019). Left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex supports context-dependent prioritisation of off-task thought. Nature communications, 10(1), 1-10.