Coltheart was born in Frankston, Victoria and grew up in Brisbane, Canberra and Bega.
[1] Coltheart was appointed scientific director of the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science in 2000, and maintained this position until 2009.
He was awarded an ARC Federation Fellowship in 2002 and in 2010 was appointed Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Science at Macquarie University.
[2] He is currently a chief investigator in the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Cognition and its Disorders at Macquarie University.
[3] He is noted for developing the "dual-route" theory of reading[4]) in the late 1970s[5] and the two-factor theory of delusional belief in the 2000s [6] as well as contributions to the debate about what can be learned about cognition from functional neuroimaging work [7] Coltheart received a Centenary Medal on 1 January 2001 "For service to Australian society and science in cognitive neuropsychology'.