Overview
Peter is an award-winning lecturer with over 25 years of teaching experience.
He started out as a teaching assistant at Stirling University in 1993, where he ran seminars on Cognitive Psychology and had his first experience of marking coursework. This was followed by a Psychology Teaching Fellowship at Essex University where he taught Psychology undergraduates, while he completed his PhD.
At the same time Peter was also involved with teaching at the Centre for Continuing Education, which provided a range of open access courses for people to complete in the evenings and at weekends.
Peter got his first full-time lectureship in 1996 in the Department of Psychology at the University of Greenwich, where he taught Cognitive Psychology and Research Methods. In 1998 he moved to the University of Cambridge, where he taught on the MA in Applied Linguistics and supervised PhD students in the Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics (Faculty of English).
From 2001-2003 Peter was a visiting Lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he taught the Psychology of Language to undergraduates, and from 2001 to 2004 he held the full-time post of Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Kingston University. In 2004 Peter moved to the University of Hertfordshire to take up the post of Reader in Psychology where, in 2008, he set up the Dance Psychology Lab and established a course in the Psychology of Performing Arts, which included lectures on Dance Psychology.
In 2009 Peter’s teaching was Highly Commended in the Vice Chancellor’s Awards. From 2008 to 2019, Peter taught the Psychology of Performing Arts and Dance Psychology at every level of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching (from first year undergraduates to PhD candidates) in the Department of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. In 2017 Peter started to teach Dance Psychology at the Royal Ballet School in London.
Peter is setting up the Movement in Practice Academy in 2020
Peter's Academic Publications
- Rose, D., Ott, L., Guerin, S., Annett,L. E., Lovatt, P. J., & Delevoye-Turrell, Y., (2021). A general procedure to measure the pacing of body movements timed to music and metronome in younger and older adults. Scientific Reports, (2021) 11:3264 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-82283-4
- Rose, D., Mullensiefen, D., Lovatt, P.J., & Orgs, G. (2020). The Goldsmiths Dance Sophistication Index (Gold-DSI): A Psychometric Tool to Assess Individual Differences in Dance Experience. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts
- Karageorghis, C. I., Rose, D., Annett, L.E., Bek, J., Bottoms, L., Lovatt, P. J., Poliakoff, E., Schultz, B. G., Whyatt, C. P., Young, W. R., & Delevoye-Turrell, Y. N. (2020). The BASES Expert Statement on the Use of Music for Movement among People with Parkinson’s. The Sport and Exercise Scientist, Issue 63.
- Rose, D., Cameron, D. J., Lovatt, P. J., Grahn, J. & Annett, L. E. (2020). Comparison of spontaneous motor tempo during finger tapping, toe tapping and stepping on the spot in people with and without Parkinson's disease. Journal of Movement Disorders, 13(1), 47-57.
- Rose, D., Delevoye-Turrell, Y., Ott, L., Annett, L. E. & Lovatt, P. J. (2019). Music and metronomes differentially impact motor timing in people with and without Parkinson's disease: Effects of slow, medium and fast tempi on entrainment and synchronization performance in finger tapping, toe tapping and stepping on the spot. Parkinson's Disease.
- Lewis, C., Annett, L.E., Davenport, S., Hall, A. and Lovatt, P. (2016). Mood changes following social dance sessions in people with Parkinson's disease. Journal of Health Psychology, 21(4), 483-492.
- Lovatt, P. J. (2016). This is why we dance. BBC Science Focus, 302, 62-67.
- Lewis, C., Lovatt, P. and Kirk, E. (2015). Many hands make light work: The facilitative role of gesture in verbal improvisation. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 17, 149-157
- Lovatt, P. J. (2013). Dance Psychology: The Power of Dance across Behaviour and Thinking. Psychology Review, 19 (1), 18-21.
- Lovatt, P. J. (2013). Body, Thinking & Dance. The Psychologist, 26 (11).
- Lovatt, P. (2011). Dance confidence, age and gender. Personality and Individual Differences, 50, 668-672.
- Williams, J. N. & Lovatt, P. (2005). Phonological Memory and Rule Learning. Language Learning, 55, s1, 177-233.
- Joiner, R., Gavin, J., Duffield, J., Brosnan, M., Crook, C., Durndell, A., Maras, P., Miller, J., Scott, A.J. & Lovatt, P. (2005). Gender, Internet Identification, and Internet Anxiety: Correlates of Internet Use. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 8(4), 371-378.
- Lovatt, P.J., Avons, S. E. & Masterson, J. (2002). Output decay in immediate serial recall: Speech time revisited. Journal of Memory and Language, 46 (1), 227-243.
- Lovatt, P. J. & Avons, S. E. (2001). Re-evaluating the word-length effect. In (Ed.) J. Andrade Working Memory in Perspective. Psychology Press.
- Lovatt, P.J., Avons, S. E. & Masterson, J. (2000). The word-length effect and disyllabic words. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 53A, 1-22.
- Lovatt, P.J. (1998). Immediate Serial Recall and the word-length effect. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis. University of Essex.
- Lovatt, P. J. & Bairaktaris, D. (1995). A computational account of phonologically mediated free recall. In (Eds.) L. Smith and P. Hancock. Neural Computation and Psychology. Springer Verlag.
Latest academic research – A general procedure to measure the pacing of body movements timed to music and metronome in younger and older adults
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Latest academic research – The Goldsmiths Dance Sophistication Index (Gold-DSI)
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Research on Music for Movement among People with Parkinson’s
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Research on Parkinson’s Disease
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Research on Parkinson’s & Motor Timing
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Research on Mood Changes following Social Dance
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Research on Gestures, Improvisation and Thinking Skills
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Review: Body, Thinking & Dance
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Research on Dance, Behaviour and Thinking
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Research on Dance Confidence across the Lifespan
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Research on Internet Anxiety
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Research on Phonological Memory and Rule Learning
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Research on Human Memory and Speech Time
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Research on Memory and the Word-length Effect
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Research on Memory and Serial Order
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PhD Thesis on Short Term Human Memory
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Research on Computational Modelling of Human Memory
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Royal Ballet Upper School: London
Diploma in Dance Teaching
Dr Lovatt was invited to write and deliver a series of five Dance Psychology lectures to adult students on the Royal Ballet School’s Diploma in Dance Teaching course. This lecture series is designed to engage trainee dance teachers with a range of ideas in dance psychology which are relevant to the teaching of dance, at both elite and recreational levels. For example, the course includes Personality, Cognitive and Behaviour Differences, Techniques for Optimising Performance, Motivation and Goals, Human Memory, Thinking and Balance. Each lecture is based on published research in the field and is focused on ways in which teachers of dance can apply this work in a teaching environment. The aim of this course is to equip dancer teachers with knowledge of dance psychology which can be used to support their professional work.
Photograph: Peter Lovatt (centre) with the Diploma in Dance Teaching students at the Royal Ballet School. June 2018.
Royal Ballet Upper School: London
Healthy Dancer 2 – Performance (Dance) Psychology lectures
Dr Lovatt was invited to write and deliver a series of ten Dance Psychology lectures to second year students at the Royal Ballet School (Upper School). This lecture series is designed to optimise the training and performance of elite ballet dancers, by focusing on the essential mental skills which are relevant to dance. For example, the course includes Motivation and Goals, Perfectionism, Self-esteem, Stress and Resilience, Eating Behaviours, Visualisation and Imagery, Pain Perception and Injury, Performance Anxiety and Optimism. Each lecture is based on published research in the field and is focused on the practical application of this work in the dance training and performance environment. The aim of this course is to equip dancers with a set of advanced mental skills which will support their physical training.