Valentina Canessa-Pollard
Senior Lecturer in Psychology
About
(formerly Valentina Cartei)
Current role: Lecturer in Psychology, Head of BSc Counselling Psychology Programme
Research Fellow – “The Healing Voice”: University of St Etienne/ Lyon, ST ETIENNE, France, 1 Sep 2020 – 6 June 2021 (IDEX Grant)
Research Fellow – “Sex Stereotypes and the Voice: a Developmental Perspective”: University of Sussex, School of Psychology, 1 May 2017 – 31 Aug 2020 (Leverhulme Grant)
PhD in Psychology granted by the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex, and my BSc (Hons) Computer Science was granted by the University of Pisa.
Non-academic roles:
Trainer, Researcher and Volunteer Services Co-ordinator: Survivors’ Network Rape Crisis Centre, Brighton, 1 Jan 2010 – 30 Apr 2017
Trustee for Rape Crisis England & Wales, 2016-2018
Professional
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a Chartered Psychologist with British Psychological Society.
Key Publications
Publications related to human vocal communication
Papers published in major international peer-reviewed multi-disciplinary scientific journals
Canessa-Pollard, V., Reby, D., Banerjee, R., Oakhill, J., & Garnham, A. (2022). The development of explicit occupational gender stereotypes in children: Comparing perceived gender ratios and competence beliefs. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 134, 103703.
Waters, S., Kanber, E., Lavan, N., Belyk, M., Carey, D., Cartei, V., Lally, C., Miquel, M. and McGettigan, C. (2021). Singers show enhanced performance and neural representation of vocal imitation. Philosophical Transactions B.
Cartei, V., Oakhill, J., Garnham, A., Banerjee, R., & Reby, D. (2021). Voice Cues Influence Children’s Assessment of Adults’ Occupational Competence. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 45(2), 281-296.
Cartei, V., Oakhill, J., Garnham, A., Banerjee, R., & Reby, D. (2020). “This is what a mechanic sounds like”: children’s vocal control reveals implicit occupational stereotypes. Psychological Science, 31(8), 957-967.
Cartei, V., Banerjee, R., Garnham, A., Oakhill, J., Roberts, L. & Reby, D. (2020). Physiological and perceptual correlates of masculinity in children’s voices. Horm. Behav.
Cartei, V., Banerjee, R., Garnham, A., Oakhill, J., Roberts, L. & Reby, D. (2019). Children can control the expression of masculinity and femininity through the voice. R. Soc. Open Sci. [citations: 5]
Cartei, V., Banerjee, R., Hardouin, L. & Reby, D (2019) The role of sex-related voice variation in children Br. J. Dev. Psychol. [citations: 1]
Waters, S., Kanber, E., Lavan, N., Carey, D., Cartei, V., Lally, C., … & McGettigan, C. (2019). Neural representations of enhanced speech motor control in trained singers. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 146(4), 2790-2790.
Pisanski, K., Cartei, V., McGettigan, C., Raine, J., & Reby, D. (2016). Voice modulation: a window into the origins of human vocal control?. Trends in cognitive sciences, 20(4), 304-318.
Cartei, V., Bond, R., & Reby, D. (2014). What makes a voice masculine: Physiological and acoustical correlates of women’s ratings of men’s vocal masculinity. Hormones and Behavior, 66(4), 569-576.
Cartei, V., Cowles, W., Banerjee, R., & Reby, D. (2014). Control of voice gender in pre‐pubertal children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 32(1), 100-106.
Cartei, V., & Reby, D. (2013). Effect of formant frequency spacing on perceived gender in pre-pubertal children’s voices. PLoS One, 8(12), e81022.
Cartei, V., Cowles, H. W., & Reby, D. (2012). Spontaneous voice gender imitation abilities in adult speakers. PloS one, 7(2), e31353.
Cartei, V., & Reby, D. (2012). Acting gay: Male actors shift the frequency components of their voices towards female values when playing homosexual characters. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 36, 79-93.
Book Chapters
Cartei, V. & Reby, D. (2019). The evolution of sexual dimorphism in human voice. In F. La (Ed.), Training Female Voices. Compton Publishing.
Publications related to sexual violence recovery and prevention
Love, G., De Michele, G., Giakoumidaki, C., Sánchez, E. H., Lukera, M., & Cartei, V. (2017). Improving access to sexual violence support for marginalised individuals: Findings from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* and the black and minority ethnic communities. Critical and Radical Social Work, 5(2), 163-179.
Rymer, S., & Cartei, V. (2015). Supporting transgender survivors of sexual violence: learning from users’ experiences. Critical and Radical Social Work, 3(1), 155-164.
Books
Rymer, S., & Cartei, V. (2019). Working with Trans Survivors of Sexual Violence: A Guide for Professionals. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Cartei, V. & Grosso, F. (2016). Oltre il Silenzio. Franco Angeli Editore.
Research
My research focuses on two different areas:
1. Human non-verbal communication
I am interested in what (and why) we communicate about ourselves through our voice (rather than our words). Previous work included vocal expression and perception of masculinity, femininity and social stereotyping, from cognitive, evolutionary and developmental perspectives.
More recently, I have focused on the role of vocal communication in health, and I am investigating voice-based approaches to improve well-being.
2. Sexual Violence Prevention and Recovery
My research in this area focuses on investigating the psychosocial factors involved in sexual violence, abuse and trauma prevention and recovery, as well as in developing theory-based interventions within an empowerment ethos to improve well-being outcomes for survivors of sexual violence and abuse, no matter how or when it happened.
PhD Supervision
Areas of supervision interest: any of the above, including vocal cues to social stereotyping, voice-based approaches to well-being, non-verbal approaches to empathic communication, sexual violence, sexual trauma, childhood sexual abuse.
Research Output
Articles
Anikin, A., Canessa-Pollard, V., Pisanski, K., Massanet, M. and Reby, d. (2023) Beyond speech: Exploring diversity in the human voice. iScience, 26 (11). pp. 1-13. ISSN 2589-0042 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108204
Canessa-Pollard, V., Reby, D., Banerjee, R., Oakhill, J. and Garnham, A. (2022) The development of explicit occupational gender stereotypes in children: Comparing perceived gender ratios and competence beliefs. Journal of Vocational Behavior. ISSN 0001-8791 10.1016/j.jvb.2022.103703
