ANU Language Lab focus on understanding the causes and consequences of individual differences in language acquisition and processing across the lifespan. Their research focuses on language processing and language acquisition. We conduct a range of projects investigating a range of populations (e.g., infants, children, adults) and languages (e.g., European languages like English, Italian, and German; Chinese languages like Cantonese and Mandarin; and indigenous languages of Australia and the Pacific). The lab is part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL), and is funded by the Australian Research Council and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (The Netherlands).

A big focus of the lab is on understanding the causes and consequences of individual differences in language acquisition and processing across the lifespan. As part of this focus we are running the CoEDL-funded Canberra Longitudinal Child Language Project (CLCL Project). The project follows 100+ typically-developing children from the age of 9 months to 5 years, and aims to document and explain how early language processing skills in infancy influence language development up until children reach primary school. Alongside the CLCL Project, several other studies are ongoing, including an ARC Discovery Project investigating the role of statistical learning in later language and literacy acquisition, studies of grammatical development, work on symbolic play and language development, work on Australian English, and work with CoEDL members on language processing and production of Australian indigenous languages. The lab has strong links with CoEDL partners at The University of Manchester, the University of Liverpool, Cornell University, and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.

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Australia

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The Asylum Seeker and Refugee Mental Health Research Group is collaboration in the area of forced migrant mental health, investigation the social determinants of mental health, and the prevalence and types of mental disorders in refugees and asylum seekers. They have also produced a mental health screening tool - the STAR-MH - for use by non mental health trained professionals to screen for posttraumatic stress disorder and depression to enable onward referral to appropriate health care providers. Their current work focuses on understanding the prevalence and nature of psychiatric disorder in young people with asylum seeking experiences and the development of a similar screening tool.

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Australia

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The program is not encumbered by political/government outcomes and provides a high standard of integrity and ethics in research of Australian military families. It acknowledges people's contributions and intellectual property and promotes trust and confidence within the Military and Veterans as well as the general community regarding research. The program aims to:

• Encourage and promote research, education and the advancement of health and well-being of partners and families of Australian Military personnel;
• Encourage and develop the work of researchers and scientists in the fields of positive psychology, stress, appraisal and coping, resilience and emotional intelligence, together with any variable that affects the health and well-being of partners and families of Australian Military personnel,
• Support and encourage the research aspirations of University post graduate students and members by assisting them with access to families of the Australian Military population;
• Promote the importance of high quality and innovative clinical and scientific research in the field of the health and well-being of partners and families of the Australian Military within Australia;
• Promote and raise awareness of research into the health and wellbeing of families of Australian Military personnel with a view to improving outcomes in the areas of care and prevention of mental health and psychosocial problems;

The group has developed a measure to assess distress in partners of Australian combat veterans (POVS-DSR). This scale is available for researchers, please contact Dr Gail V. MacDonell see details below.

• MacDonell, G. V., Bhullar, N., & Thorsteinsson, E. B. (2016). Depression, anxiety, and stress in partners of Australian combat veterans and military personnel: A comparison with Australian population norms. PeerJ, 4, e2373. doi:10.7717/peerj.2373
• MacDonell, G. V., Thorsteinsson, E. B., Bhullar, N., & Hine, D. W. (2014). Psychological functioning of partners of Australian combat veterans: Contribution of veterans’ PTSD symptoms and partners’ caregiving distress. Australian Psychologist, 49, 305-312. doi:10.1111/ap.12069
• MacDonell, G. V., Bhullar, N., & Thorsteinsson, E. B. (2013, November 20-22). Mental health outcomes of partners of Australian combat veterans: A comparative study with Australian population norms. 2013 Narratives of War Symposium – Traces of War, the University of South Australia, Magill Campus.
• MacDonell, G. V., Marsh, N. V., Hine, D. W., & Bhullar, N. (2010). Development and psychometric evaluation of a measure to assess distress in partners of Australian combat veterans. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 44, 839-845. http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/00048674.2010.488214

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Australia

Contact Person / Email
A/ Prof Einar B. Thorsteinsson

Call +61 (2) 6773 2587

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Researchers in behavioural neuroscience in the School of Psychology have interests in the behavioural and brain mechanisms of learning, memory, and motivation. This research is conducted from behavioural, developmental, neurobiological, and computational perspectives. Current projects include:

• Behavioural and neural mechanisms of fear learning and extinction learning,

• Error-correction learning,

• Infantile amnesia, and

• Relapse to drug-seeking

• The Influence of Environmental Cues on Choice Between Actions

• Learning to Inhibit Acquired Fears

• Interactions Between Cues that Predict Positive and Negative Events

• Early Life Experiences

• Adolescence

• Individual Differences in Fear Expression and Inhibition

• False Memories In Laboratory Rodents

• Effects of Western Diet on Cognition in Rodents
• Learning to Inhibit Fear
• The Neural Substrates of Higher-Order Conditioned Fear
• Danger Changes the Way the Brain Processes Innocuous Information
• Oxytocin Impairs Fear Acquisition and Fear Inhibition: Mechanisms of Action in the Basolateral Complex of the Amygdal
• Bbrain mechanisms underlying learning and cognition
• The neural substrates underlying executive function

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Australia

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The Body Image and Ingestive Behaviour Research Group is a multidisciplinary research group will address these related issues through collaboration between experts in psychophysics, social psychology, person perception, ingestive behaviour, clinical practice, psychiatry, epidemiology, health psychology, and virtual reality.

Contact Person / Email
Dr. Ian Stephen

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Child Wellbeing Research Group disseminates research driven by scientific advancements and emerging community needs, leading to improved quality of life for children and their families. The Child Wellbeing Research Group directed by Dr Dave Pasalich focuses on several core research objectives:

• Developing new understanding into how parenting and the quality of the parent-child relationship relates to risk and resilience in childhood and adolescence;

• Translating this knowledge into practical strategies to cultivate safe and healthy family relationships;

• Evaluating the implementation and effectiveness of family-based interventions to promote child mental health and wellbeing.

We seek to disseminate research that is driven by scientific advancements and emerging community needs, and that can lead to improved quality of life for children and their families. Projects include:

• A systematic review of the effectiveness of attachment-based and emotion-focused parenting interventions for reducing externalising and internalising behaviours
• Affective quality of the kinship parent-child relationship and child behavioural and emotional adjustment
• Assessing adolescents’ perspectives of the quality of the parent-teen relationship
• Connecting Kin Research Project: Evaluation of a Trauma- and Attachment-Based Support Program for Kinship Parents

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Australia

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Academic staff in clinical psychology and psychopathology at UNSW conduct internationally-recognised research that focuses on a range of psychological disorders and the basic processes that underlie those disorders. Research topics include:

• Behavioural medicine

• Traumatic brain injury

• Childhood emotional and conduct disorders

• Post-traumatic stress disorder, 

• Assessment of anxiety and depression, 

• Eating disorders,  

• Dissociative processes,

• Refugee mental health, and

• Schizophrenia

• online treatments for depression and anxiety

• anxiety disorders.

Much of the clinical research is conducted in collaboration with the Psychology Clinic located within the School. The Clinic provides assessment and intervention for clients with a wide range of clinical problems including:

• Childhood and adult anxiety disorders
• Mood disorders
• Learning disabilities
• Brain injury
• Conduct disorders
• Eating disorders
• Relational problems and
• Many other problems. 

Research in clinical psychology and psychopathology at UNSW represents cutting edge advances in many fields of clinical psychology, and is widely acclaimed internationally. The work conducted by this research group has resulted in over $3 million in research funding in recent years, publication of over 200 journal articles, and receipt of numerous academic awards. Projects include:

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

• Hoarding Disorder

• Development, Assessment and Treatment of Callous-Unemotional Traits  

• Finding New Treatments for Socio-Emotional Disorders after Traumatic Brain Injury

• The Sociopath Amongst Us: The Neural Basis of Empathy Disorders

• Rumination in Depression

• Repetitive Thinking: A Transdiagnostic Process

• What is Illness Anxiety Disorder?

• Online Treatment for Depression and Anxiety

• Refugee Adjustment Study

• Tell Your Story: A Digital Intervention for Reducing Stigma in Traumatized Refugees

• Investigating Psychological Mechanisms Underpinning Refugee Mental Health

• Schizophrenia and Self-Suppression to Motor Actions and Inner Speech

• Post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety: assessment, cognitive processes, and treatment.

• Experimental and clinical investigation of dissociative processes: memory, trauma, and dissociation.

• Clinical and experimental hypnosis.

• Autobiographical memory in clinical disorders.

• Post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, visual hallucinations, the cognitive neuroscience of mental imagery, translational cognitive neuroscience, new methods to control traumatic imagery.

• Psychology of eating and weight, including body image, self-regulation, social influences, and weight bias and discrimination.

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Australia

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Cognition & Perception conduct research, research supervision, and teaching in a range of core areas within human cognition and perception. Their research includes a strong emphasis on visual cognition (attention and visual neglect, face and object processing, reading and dyslexia), as well as early visual processing (motion and depth perception), memory (implicit memory, false memory and metamemory), hemipsheric lateralisation and interaction, and motor control. Research methods include a mix of behavioural experiments and neuroimaging studies in neurologically normal participants, and neuropsychological studies of people with various cognitive and perceptual disorders.

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Australia

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The cognition research research is comprised of many members of the academic staff is informed by cognitive principles, be it in the clinical, social, or even forensic and organisational domains. After all, Cognition is about how we analyse, integrate, and interpret information, which is relevant to most aspects of human behaviour. In addition to those whose research has a cognitive foundation, though, there are academics in the school whose research focuses directly on an understanding of cognitive processes themselves. This research includes analyses of:

• Memory
• Thought
• Language and
• Decision making.

They are widely published and have been very successful in attracting research funding from a number of different sources. It is probably fair to say the School of Psychology has one of the strongest groups of cognitive researchers in Australia. Current projects include:

• Understanding Working Memory
• Decision Making: Big and Small
• Computational Models of Cognition
• Neuroscience and Genetics of Resilience
• In Two Minds or Just One? Comparing Intuitive and Analytical Thinking
• How Do People Learn and Reason From Experience? Understanding Inductive Reasoning
• Considering Alternatives in Judgement and Decision-Making
• Inductive Reasoning in Generalization of Conditioned Fear
• Capture and Control: Overcoming Distraction by Reward-Related Stimuli
• Prediction Error Processing in Schizophrenia
• The Sociopath Amongst Us: The Neural Basis of Empathy Disorders
• Understanding the Dynamics of Conversation
• Motivated Attention & Perception
• How Do People Learn and Reason About the World?
• Decision Making in an Uncertain World
• Statistical and Computational Models in Psychological Science
• Irrational, Biased or Predictable? How Do We Make Decisions?
• The Psychology of Climate Change Communication
• Saving for Retirement? If Not, Why Not?
• Processing the Internal Structure of English Words
• Reading in Languages Other Than English
• Bilingual Processes
• The Relationship Between Lexical and Episodic Memory

Country
Australia

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Cognitive Basis of Atypical Behaviour are a group of multidisciplinary researchers with strengths in these two domains of psychology. We combine expertise in cognitive psychology with applied research to:

• Breakdown and operationalise the cognitive components contributing to effective psychosocial functioning
• Identify healthy volunteer models and devise objective tools to test these models;
• Investigate the individual differences in cognitive and affective styles related to psychosocial functioning; and,
• Investigate how cognitive language processes, such as semantic processing, link through to their application in social settings.

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Australia

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The School of Psychology has two internationally recognised research groups in Developmental Psychology.

• Cognition and Development

• Developmental Psychopathology

• Early Learning Project

Country
Australia

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UNE’s environmental psychology group comprises academic staff and students who are interested in how psychological principles can be applied to understand and help solve problems related to environmental sustainability. They are actively researching in these areas and are recruiting enthusiastic Honours, Masters, and PhD students to undertake research in all areas of environmental psychology. Students working with us learn about theories of human motivation and behaviour change, and receive hands-on training in research design, statistics, and report writing.

The research projects cover a broad range of environmental issues including climate change communication, air pollution, coal seam gas, and management of invasive animals.

1. Climate Change

• Phillips, K., Hine, D.W., & Phillips, W.J. (2019). How projected energy price and personal values influence support for a 50% renewable energy target in Australia. Energy Policy, 129853-860. DOI: 10.106/j.enpol.2019.02.064.
• Hine, D.W., Phillips, W.J., Driver, A.B. & Morrison, M. (2018).   Audience segmentation and climate change communication. Oxford Encyclopedia of Climate Change Communication. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.001.0001.

2. Air Quality

• Bhullar, N., Hine, D.W., Marks, A., Davies, C., Scott, J.G., & Phillips, W. (2014). The affect heuristic and public support for three types of wood smoke mitigation policies. Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health, 7, 347-356.
• Reeve, I., Scott, J.G, Hine, D.W., & Bhullar, N. (2013). "This is not a burning issue for me": How citizens justify their use of wood heaters in a city with severe air pollution problem. Energy Policy, 57, 204-211.

3. Risk Perception

• Xue, W., Hine, D.W., Loi, N., Thorsteinsson, E.B. & Phillips, W.J. (2014).  Cultural worldviews and environmental risk perceptions:  A meta-analysis.  Journal of Environmental Psychology, 40, 249-258.
• Gifford, R., Scannell, L., Kormos, C., Smolova, L., Beil, A., Boncu, S. Corral V., Gunther, H. Hanyu, K., Hine, D.W. et al. (2009) Pessimism and optimism in environmental assessments of laypersons in 18 countries. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29, 1-12.

4. Invasive Species and Natural Resource Management

• Hine, D.W., Sharp, T. & Driver, A.B. (2019).   Using audience segmentation and targeted social marketing to improve landholder management of invasive animals.  In P. Martin, T. Alter, D.W. Hine, T. Howard (Eds.), Community-based control of invasive species.  CSIRO. ISBN: 9781486308873
• Hine, D.W., McLeod, L.J. & Driver, A. (2018).  Designing behaviour change interventions for invasive animal control:  A practical guide.  Canberra: Centre for Invasive Species Solutions. ISBN: 978-1-925727-06-07.

5. Coal Seam Gas

• Hine, D.W., Clarke, K., Marks, A.D.G., & Morgan, M.I. (2018).  Feelings about fracking:  Using the affect heuristic to understand public opposition to coal seam gas production.  Risk Analysis, 39, 586-598.  DOI: 10.1111/risa.13168
• Morgan, M. I., Hine, D.W., Bhullar, N., Dunstan, D.A. & Bartik W. (2016).  Fracked:  Coal seam gas extraction and farmer’s mental health.  Journal of Environmental Psychology,47, 22-32.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2016.04.012

6. Statistics and Methodology

• Hine, D.W., Corral-Verdugo, V., Bhullar, N., & Frias-Armenta, M. (2015).  Advanced statistics for environmental research:  Multi-level and structural equation modelling.  In R. Gifford (Ed), Research Methods for Environmental Psychology. Hoboken, NJ:  John Wiley.  ISBN: 978-1-118-79533-0
• Hine, D.W., Kormos, C., & Marks, A.D.G.  (2015).  Agreeing to disagree:  A practical guide to survey research in environmental psychology. In R. Gifford (Ed), Research Methods for Environmental Psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.   ISBN: 978-1-118-79533-0

Country
Australia

Contact Person / Email
Dr Amy Lykins

Call +61 2 6773 5014

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The UNE Psychology's eye-tracking laboratory. eye-tracking is a cognitive methodology that records and analyses visual attention and processing to different types of stimuli presented on a computer. These data can tell us what attracts people's attention and what doesn't, what people want to avoid looking at, and how people problem-solve tasks (including decision-making and declarative memory). Our state-of-the-art Applied Science Laboratories D6 eye-tracker, complete with Gazetracker 9.0 presentation and analysis software, is easy to use.  The Gazetracker software also allows for the presentation and analysis of static images, video, and Internet websites. Completed projects in the lab include:

• How visual attention to different sizes of models relates to body image,

• How psychopathology is associated with visual attention to emotion-inducing images,

• How sexual orientation influences attention to nude male and female models,

• How sexual inhibition and sexual excitation directs attention to explicit vs. non-explicit erotic images, and

• How cognitive dissonance related to the “meat paradox” is associated with attention to different types animals.

• Sexual orientation

• Sexual decision-making

• Meat paradox

• Environmental psychology, climate change, and natural hazards

Country
Australia

Contact Person / Email
A/Prof Amy D. Lykins

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The FLINT (Family, Learning and Interaction) research theme at Early Start brings together researchers with expertise in infancy, attachment, parent-child conversation, parental mental health, the home learning environment, early literacy, and the role of fathers, to address important questions about interactive processes in development. We ask how infants make sense of the busy world around them, and how parents and carers support their child’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. Projects include:

• It all counts: Talking about numeracy at home: by the time children begin formal schooling, there are already considerable individual differences in early literacy and numeracy skills. A child who is behind when school begins struggles to catch up. We are studying the ways in which parents and carers talk about numeracy in the home with very young children. The aim of this research is to better understand the range of ways parents/carers and children can or might talk about concepts like counting, size and shape comparisons, distance, time, and patterns, during play, book-reading, and everyday activities in the home. This research will inform the development of an intervention for families who need support and guidance as their children develop numeracy knowledge and confidence. 

• Parent-child Interactions: Parent-child interactions provide the primary social learning context for children. Our research brings together clinical and developmental staff and research methods to better understand the ways in which parental mental health and wellbeing is associated with the way parents play and talk with their children. Our research aims to understand and adapt existing evidence-based interventions, such as Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, to better meet the needs of high-risk families, and to foster parent-child attachment bonds.

The quality of parent-child interaction has long been recognised as critical in children’s development during the early years. Through observational research in Wollongong Infant Learning Lab (WILL) at Early Start, we ask questions about parent-child interactions in the home environment that contribute to the emergence of early learning, literacy and numeracy and socio-emotional well-being. Through our alignment with the establishment of Northfields Clinic at Early Start, we ask questions about the ways in which families experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage interact. We believe that intervening in early interactive processes provides a unique opportunity for prevention.

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Australia

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Food and Movement Research is a research group that brings together a cross-disciplinary team from Health and Society and Education. The overall aim of this group is to consolidate excellence in childhood nutrition and physical activity research (in the birth to 10 years age group). Our research focuses on wellness, early intervention, and population-level approaches to healthy eating and movement behaviours. The objectives of this group are to:

• Make a significant contribution to the Early Start ‘engagement frontier’ of Play-Based Research by undertaking novel research in the Discovery Space on nutrition and physical activity promotion

• Contribute to the creation of engaging Discovery Space exhibits/programs, which embed healthy eating and movement behaviours in play-based experiences

• Support the group’s ECRs/HDRs, through mentoring from senior members

• Boost the research output of the group

• Develop impact statements for our research theme

• Increase the international reputation of Early Start as a place to undertake public health nutrition and physical activity research

• Contribute to UOW teaching curricula by communicating our research back to Faculty staff and offering student placements

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Australia

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Foodways research is the critical analysis of what, how, and why we eat. We strive to understand the intersection of food, environment and society, from local through to global perspectives, through aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to promote inclusion and connection through food. 

Our research brings novel and diverse approaches to complex issues around food, including community and key stakeholders’ perspectives to provide a new lens to disrupt and reform current food systems policies and processes. Our aim is to increase food autonomy, food system sustainability, and overall health and well-being. Foodways research fosters systematic evidence-based approaches to:

• Enhance approaches to food education;
• Integrate foodways considerations within sustainable urban designs;
• Improve food communications (media/ social media networks); and
• Explore the health and social impacts of integrating community services with foodways and citizen driven alternative food networks

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Australia

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Forensic psychologists at UNSW provide postgraduate training to develop the field through the Master of Psychology (Forensic) program and offer practical clinical experience through the Wentworth Forensic Clinic. Our academics are widely published and have been very successful in securing grant funding and developing productive industry partnerships. The forensic psychology research group at the School of Psychology is expanding rapidly in both size and reputation.

• Eyewitness Testimony
• Eyewitness Identification
• Facial Composites
• Development, Assessment and Treatment of Callous-Unemotional Traits 
• Understanding Uncertainty in Forensic Science and the Law
• Examining and Strengthening Forensic Sciences
• Irrational, Biased or Predictable? How Do We Make Decisions?
• Refugee Adjustment Study
• Tell Your Story: A Digital Intervention for Reducing Stigma in Traumatized Refugees
• Investigating Psychological Mechanisms Underpinning Refugee Mental Health

Country
Australia

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Health and Behaviour Intervention Technologies (HABITS) Research Group has a number of research interests that encompass a breadth and depth across diverse areas with behavioural medicine including:

• Coping and adjustment in illness
• Cognitive and affective responses to physical illness
• Stress, resiliency and growth
• Positive psychology and physical illness
• Chronic disease management
• Managing comorbid mental health conditions in individuals with acute and chronic medical conditions
• Physical activity/exercise

Contact Person / Email
Professor Kerry Sherman

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Our research group aims are to understand, and fundamentally improve, our community’s engagement in positive health behaviours. As a group we have particular expertise in the areas of experimental health research, behaviour change theory, individual differences and health, translation of evidence into practice and randomised controlled trials of health behaviour change interventions. Our research contributes to the development of theory, but also has significant impact on policy and clinical practice.

All of our members are actively involved in conducting nationally and internationally focused work in the areas of applied health behaviour change research. We have secured over $18 million in external competitive funding in the last 5-years and have very high publication rates. Reserch Programs include:

• Improving the health of people living with mental illness (Kelly, Deane, Robinson, Caputi, Magee): an integrated program of behaviour research focused on improving the health of people accessing mental health and substance use treatment programs. Their research in this area has received over $3.5 million dollars in external competitive funding (NHMRC, Cancer Institute, NSW Ministry of Health, Heart Foundation) and over $1.5 million in research consultancies. It has also resulted in a range of UOW, State and National awards for research excellence.
• Sport-based interventions for physical and mental health (Vella, Deane, Allen, Swann, Magee): the use of organised sports as a pathway to behaviour change and improved health. By leveraging our significant partnerships with the governing bodies of the most popular sports in Australia (as well as the Australian Sports Commission, Black Dog Institute and the Australian Drug Foundation) we have sought to use sport as an engaging and innovative intervention vehicle for positive health behaviour. Our work in this area has received over $2million in Category 1 funding, postdoctoral fellowships and internal funding from the UOW Global Challenges program.
• Mobile communication-related health (Croft, Loughran, Verrender): the unprecedented update of mobile telecommunications has led to extensive concern relating to potential health effects on the community. These range from direct impacts of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) to indirect impacts such as self-reported hypersensitivity to EMFs (EHS) and effects of usage patterns on well-being. Croft and Loughran have been awarded two consecutive NHMRC Centres of Research Excellence (CRE) in this area ($5M), the only NHRMC CREs led by UOW. This research involves close collaboration with community, government and industry within Australia, and internationally and the World Health Organisation. It has also resulted in several international awards for research excellence.

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Australia

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The Inclusive Community Based Research Group (ICBRG) is a network of researchers with a shared passion for collaborative and inclusive research that benefits the community. The group supports staff and postgraduate research students from the Faculty of Social Sciences to work with community partners to conduct research that is accessible, inclusive, empowering and works to return research results in an accessible form. Projects include:

• Talking Mats: An inclusive research tool for people with Dementia: Dr Lyn Phillipson is an NHMRC-ARC Dementia Fellow investigating the outcomes and experiences of people with dementia who are recipients of Home Care Packages. She is also an accredited Talking Mats trainer and has received an IRT Research Foundation grant to explore the use of Talking Mats to aid care planning and assess social care-related outcomes for home care package recipients. 

• Social science researcher perspectives of research engagement and impact: researchers in the social sciences who are engaged in research with marginalised, vulnerable or hard to reach communities offer a unique perspective of research engagement and impact. In the current climate of increasing accountability for research impact, understanding these perspectives is critical for engaging and supporting researchers to undertake and document their research in such a way that meets these requirements. This study utilises a qualitative design to explore the perspectives of social science researchers at the University of Wollongong. The results of this study are helping to inform the UOWs approach to supporting staff as they respond to these new research impact requirements.

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Australia

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Interdisciplinary Discourse Analysis in Education, the Arts and Social Sciences build an active and vibrant research culture around language, linguistics and semiotics. Projects our group are working on include:

• School literacy transitions

• Southern Spanish accents

• Discourse analysis of argument texts

• Analysis of policy documents

• Blended learning environments

• Discourses about animals and food.

The Interdisciplinary Discourse Analysis in Education, the Arts and Social Sciences (IDEAS) research group is building an active and vibrant research culture around language, linguistics and semiotics, bringing together productive researchers from across different faculties and units. We foster collaborative team-based research, tapping into and developing emerging synergies which investigate leading edge issues in contexts relevant to the fields of Education, and the Humanities/Arts and Social Sciences more broadly. Their IDEAS activities include: 

• Big IDEAS – research seminars

• Developing your IDEAS – ‘how to’ workshops to mentor and incubate projects

• Nutting out IDEAS – methodology workshops

• Presenting big IDEAS – conferences and colloquia

• Student IDEAS – fortnightly HDR presentations and workshops

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Australia

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Multimodal Imaging of Brain Function are a group of researches that focus on a variety of research questions within the scope of Biological Psychology and Neuroscience, addressing the following clinical and behavioural areas:

• ADHD (Barry, Clarke, Johnstone)
• Cannabis use and Schizophrenia (Solowij, Schira, Greenwood)
• Arousal and Inhibition (Barry, Johnstone) and Visual Perception and Action (Palmisano, Schira, Barry, Miellet).

The core activity of this group is exploring and establishing advanced methods that integrate several, often complementary, imaging modalities, such as EEG, fMRI and blood biochemistry.

In a world where research techniques develop at great speed, the aim of this group is to advance the use of such techniques at UOW so that our research remains cutting edge, competitive and relevant. Projects include:

• MRI guides EEG source localisation: while EEG provides great temporal resolution (ms) but poor spatial resolution (ca. 6 cm), fMRI allows great spatial resolution (sub mm) but poor temporal resolution (ca. 1 s). By combining these two techniques some of these disadvantages can be overcome. Further, head models, guided by high quality MRI anatomy scans of individual subjects helps to significantly improve the precision of EEG source modelling.

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Australia

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The Music, Sound, and Performance Research Group  examines the implications of musical behaviour and skill across a wide range of issues including:

• Expertise
• Creativity
• Ageing and memory
• Health and rehabilitation
• Media violence
• Musical disorders and
• Neural markers of human imagination.  

Contact Person / Email
Dr. Kirk Olsen

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The neuropsychology groups investigate how different cognitive abilities (such as perception, language, memory) and emotional capacities are organised in the human brain. The traditional approach to this is to study people who have clinical disorders that damage specific brain regions. At UNSW we:

• Work with people who have suffered brain injury from trauma.
• Work with people who have suffered a stroke affecting a particular brain region and people with dementia.
• Learn about brain processes by examining people with developmental conditions that affect the way they learn and interact with the world such as people with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Attention Deficit Disorders.

Using specialised techniques such as functional neuroimaging and electroencephalograpy (EEG) we are also able to examine how the healthy, normal brain activates in response to particular tasks, giving us a new window into understanding brain function by working with healthy adults. A major area of neuropsychology that we are currently examining falls under the umbrella of social cognition. Social cognition refers to the ability we have to understand the minds and intentions of others by interpreting the social cues that they use, such as their emotional expression. We also have researchers interested in perception, attention, memory and language. Work at UNSW is focused on three levels - theoretical understanding of brain processes underpinning human thought and behaviour; clinical understanding of how neuropsychological disorders affect the lives of people; and discovering new approaches to assessment and remediation of neuropsychological disorders

• Neuroscience and Genetics of Resilience
• Finding New Treatments for Socio-Emotional Disorders after Traumatic Brain Injury
• The Sociopath Amongst Us: The Neural Basis of Empathy Disorders

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Australia

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Researchers in perception in the School of Psychology have interests in a range of topics in vision including face perception, stereopsis, motion, lightness, colour, attention and binocular rivalry. The group has a large set of overlapping interests in a broad range of topics in vision, and employs a range of computational, behavioural, and neuroimaging approaches in studying visual processes. The group is extremely successful in securing external funding, and has a strong publication record in the top journals in vision, psychology, and general science  Projects include:

•  Perception of Gaze, Head and Body Direction
• Who Are You Expecting? Uncertainty and Bias in High-Level Vision
• Perceiving the Loudness of Sound Sources in the Environment
• Lightness, Shape and Illumination
• The Pleasure of Seeing: Perceptual Foundations of Aesthetic Experience
• Seeing the Forest and the Trees: Integration of Local and Global Scene Properties
• Objects of Our Attention

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Australia

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Tge group provides opportunities for its researchers to be immersed in qualitative methodology and theory as they: consider how different approaches and theories may apply to their research, learn from expert researchers, and network with experienced and novice researchers. Through an ongoing program of qualitative research, we examine critical perspectives of the relationships between and among play, pedagogy and curriculum. As a group we ask:

• How are pedagogies evolving in the context of global changes in technology?
• How do these pedagogies impact on children’s opportunities to play? Use learning spaces?
• What literacy practices are necessary for participation?

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Australia

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Population Wellbeing and Environment Research Lab is part of the School of Health and Society in the Faculty of Social Sciences. The goal of the PowerLab is to enhance understandings of how people and equity orientated changes in urban environments can enable population wellbeing and human flourishing across the life course. They do this by working with policymakers, practitioners and the public to coproduce, collaborate and communicate evidence for positive change. Their research includes:

• Environments for healthy equitable ageing
• Green space and child health
• Diabetes prevention and management
• Obesity and chronic disease in China

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Australia

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Research Methods publish original contributions and software resources in quantitative research methods, as well as undergraduate textbooks and advanced researcher handbooks. Prof Mike Smithson heads a group that introduces new statistical techniques to psychology and reforms to statistical practices in the discipline. Recent highlights include a handbook on statistical techniques for modelling variables for which conventional techniques are not applicable, and contributing a new statistical package (by Dr Yiyun Shou and Prof Smithson) to the open-source R computing environment. Dr Dirk Van Rooy’s research focuses on theoretical analyses of social psychological processes via quantitative analysis and computational simulation, including connectionist and agent-based modelling, and statistical modelling of (social) learning.

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Australia

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Within the Self-Regulation and Cognitive Development (SRCD) theme, experts from Education and Psychology conduct interdisciplinary research to understand processes underlying early self-regulation and cognitive development, with the practical goal of informing practices to support children's development, learning and well-being. 

The specific objectives of this group are:

• To generate insights into early self-regulation development, including the diverse factors that influence its development, and the outcomes that are influenced by self-regulation
• To create positive and productive changes in early childhood education and care practices that underpin children's learning and development
• To contribute to Early Start’s program of community engagement through our focus on translational research
• To make a significant contribution to the Early Start Engagement Frontier of monitoring and observation for development and early learning
• To support the next generation of researchers (early career researchers, PhD students) in this area
• To increase international awareness of our researchers, and promote understanding of Early Start as a place of innovation for the benefit of children and those who care for them

For established researchers, future or current research students, organisations, centres or groups interested in collaborating with any member(s) of the team, you can contact the Theme Leader, Associate Professor Steven Howard, or any of the theme members (below) directly. Projects include

• An Early Start to Self-Regulation: A Longitudinal Study: a major area of collective research for our group involves the longitudinal follow-up of 300+ children from their final year of preschool into the early years of primary school. This will help generate understandings of how early self-regulation (and related abilities) develop, ideal ways to understand a child’s self-regulatory development, and the outcomes associated with a child’s self-regulation development.
• Monitoring to Optimise Development and Early Learning (MODEL): drawing from the expertise of a number of theme members, the Early Years MODEL seeks to develop, validate and disseminate tools to support early years practice, including monitoring children’s learning, development and wellbeing. The research and development priorities for the Early Years MODEL are the creation of valid and reliable tools for monitoring and intentional developmental assessment of children from 3 to 6 years of age in the foundational domains of (1) self-regulation, (2) language & communication, (3) social & emotional development, (4) numeracy & early STEM, and (5) physical development (initially fine motor skills). The tools are being developed in close consultation with educators and are designed to be playful, brief, valid and reliable in educators’ hands, and provide actionable information about children’s development, while at the same time being freely and easily available.

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Australia

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Social & Organisational is a group conducts research and teaching in a range of core areas within social psychology. They are recognised as one of the leading centres in the world in the study of social identity and self-categorisation, particularly in relation to stereotypes and stereotyping, prejudice and ethnocentrism, leadership and social influence, fairness and trust, group processes and learning, the self-concept and intergroup behaviour.In addition, our group has published extensively on topics ranging from ignorance and uncertainty and computational social psychology to education psychology. Some recent highlights

• Together with 52 colleagues from across the world, Dr Boris Bizumic participated in the World Views project for which data were collected online from 8,883 individuals in 33 countries. Results showed important cross-cultural differences in the way individuals experience religion, regularity-norm behaviours, family roles and living arrangements and ethnonationalism.

•  In work funded by the Army Research Scheme, Dr Dirk Van Rooy is exploring how insights from social psychology and cognitive modelling can be used to improve individual and collective learning and training in real and synthetic environments.

• Prof Michael Platow & Dr Dirk Van Rooy, together with colleagues from Europe and Israel, are exploring how an understanding of lay-beliefs around prejudice affects attempts to combat it in work funded by an ARC discovery grant.

• Prof Kate Reynolds,  Dr Eunro Lee and Dr Kathleen Klik are conducting research on school (group) processes in ACT high schools and key factors that contribute to better performing schools including outcomes such as prosocial behaviour, attendance, well-being and learning.  This research has received funding from the ARC, and is of great interest to a range of policy makers and educator.

• Prof Mike Smithson is examining the impact of ambiguity and conflict on judgements and decisions, with the aim of advancing understanding of the influence of uncertainty on individuals, in work funded by an ARC Discovery grant.

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Australia

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Academic staff in social and health psychology at UNSW conduct internationally-recognised research that focuses on a range of topics:

• Anger and aggression in humans,
• Cognitive dissonance,
• Positive emotional experience and wellbeing,
• Prosocial behaviour,
• Body dissatisfaction, weight stigma and eating behaviour,
• Mind-body interactions and health scares,
• Social cognition and behaviour, and
• Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in psychology.
• University Student Self-management, Success and Wellbeing
• The Psychology of Health
• Affective Inflences on Social Cognition and Behaviour
• Neuroscience and Genetics of Resilience
• Anger
• Cognitive Dissonance
• Motivating Functions of Emotions
• The Emotional Psychology of Blood Donors: Understanding and Using the Effective Key to Donor Return
• Positive Emotions and Wellbeing
• The causes and consequences of anger and aggression in humans
• Aggressive personality
• Biological correlates of anger and angry rumination
• Intergroup aggression
• Prejudice.
• Psychology of eating and weight, including body image, self-regulation, social influences, and weight bias and discrimination.

Country
Australia

Call +61 2 9385 3041

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The Ageing Research Group is a collaborative group of multidisciplinary researchers with interest in the normal and abnormal aspects of ageing. This includes research related to understanding and improving wellbeing related to neurodegenerative diseases, mental disorders, and health-related conditions in the community and residential aged care. In addition, thy are interested in understanding the normal impacts of ageing on cognition, reading, emotion regulation, social connections and workforce participation (retirement). They have close connections with researchers across Macquarie University and collaborate broadly with cognitive science, medicine, audiology, physiotherapy and business, to name a few.

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This project is the first longitudinal study of the genetic and environmental influences on variability in the Australia-wide NAPLAN scores (National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy, assessed at grades 3, 5, 7 and 9.  These NAPLAN tests are designed by educational authorities, are objective, and have been administered Australia-wide since 2008, and are unquestionably the most valuable national database on school achievement available.  Our ongoing twin analyses of these data are providing a more solid base for public policy debates on educational policy and practice.

Country
Australia

Contact Person / Email
Dr William Coventry

Call +61 2 6773 2846

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The behavioural neuroscience laboratory are working to find better treatments for severe psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder. Psychiatric disorders are thought to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental disturbances or ‘risk-factors’. Their laboratory models these risk factors in mice to understand at the molecular, physiological and behavioural level how these disturbances contribute to mental health. They use a number of different techniques including:

• Genetic manipulation
• Mouse behavioural testing
• In vivo electrophysiology
• Molecular biology
• Histology and
• Cell culture.

The goal is to dissect the functional role of genetic and environmental risk factors that are strongly associated with schizophrenia. Through this preclinical work, novel therapeutic targets may be identified. In collaboration with division head and clinician Prof. Sundram, our novel therapeutic targets may then be trialled in patients. Indeed, we are currently initiating two phase 1B clinical trials of novel compounds identified through rigorous preclinical screening. Their team of talented and enthusiastic neuroscientists including post-doctoral fellows, PhD students and Honours students work as a collaborative unit with clinical psychiatrists to achieve our aim of finding effective treatments for psychiatric disorders. Projects include:

• Using single-nuclei RNA-Sequencing to uncover novel candidate genes and/or signalling pathways that are altered in people with schizophrenia.
• Using genetically manipulated drosophila to understand the function of novel genes associated with schizophrenia
• Characterizing the behavioural phenotype of betacellulin knockout mice – a promising new candidate gene associated with schizophrenia
• Using genetic models to understand how estradiol improves cognitive function
• Investigating preventative maternal dietary supplements to combat the deleterious effects of prenatal exposure to infection on brain development and behaviour

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Australia

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The Clinical and Health Psychology area focuses on a range of issues related to understanding and managing psychological disorders and distress, models of psychological adjustment, and the interface between health and psychology. The Clinical and Health Psychology area focuses on a range of issues related to understanding and managing psychological disorders and distress, models of psychological adjustment, and the interface between health and psychology. We are committed to the scientist-practitioner model, which is founded on the principles of integrating theory and research with clinical practice. 

Members of this research area contribute to the undergraduate psychology curriculum (i.e., classes on abnormal, clinical, and health psychology), and are responsible for the postgraduate Clinical Training Program, which includes the Master of Clinical Psychology and PhD (Clinical Psychology) degrees. The Clinical Training Program prepares students for practice as clinical psychologists through the integration of theory, clinical practice and research. Coursework covers topics such as psychopathology, health psychology, assessment, treatment, and ethics. Students undertake professional training by way of clinical placements, both at the ANU Psychology Clinic and external agencies in the region and across Australia. They also complete in-depth clinical research projects under the close supervision of expert academic staff. Research in the Clinical and Health Psychology area spans a broad range of topics, in both child and adult clinical psychology. Examples include:

• Child Psychopathology: including parent-child relationships; emotional and behavioural disturbances (e.g., youth antisocial behaviour); family-based treatment and prevention; child maltreatment; and how the development of language and communication abilities relate to childhood psychological disorders
• Psychological Disorders: including anxiety disorders, depression, psychotic disorders, obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders (obsessive-compulsive disorder, hoarding, body dysmorphic disorder and trichotillomania), post-traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, and behavioural addictions (compulsive buying and problem gambling)
• Experimental Psychopathology: various studies investigating the cognitive, neurobiological, motivational, self-psychological, interpersonal, and social mechanisms of mental illness
• Psychological Treatment: the evaluation of evidence-based psychological treatments such as cognitive-behavioural therapy, motivational interviewing, and e-therapies.
• Health Psychology: psychological aspects and management of medical illnesses and symptoms (such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, fatigue, and sleep disorders), as well as work-related stress among doctors and healthcare providers

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Australia

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The Cognition and Development Group is headed by Professor Brett Hayes and focuses on developmental change in complex cognitive processes such as concept formation, categorization, reasoning and memory. We are also interested in the implications of fundamental research on human cognitive development for pre-school and primary education. Current projects include examining the development of inductive reasoning in young children and identifying factors that promote change in children’s scientific concepts. The group has an outstanding track record of success in securing research funding and has state-of-the are facilities for measuring perceptual and cognitive responses in young children. We also have a mobile testing laboratory for field research.

• The Early Development of Reasoning.
• How Does Children’s Recognition Memory Develop?

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Australia

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The Cognitive Neuroscience Unit (CNU) is a research group that uses cutting-edge technologies to explore the relationship between the brain, behaviour and cognition.  Based in the School of Psychology, and affiliated with the Centre for Social and Early Emotional Development (SEED), the CNU has a strong neurodevelopmental focus. The CNU research examines both typically developing and atypically developing populations, such as autism spectrum disorder, language impairment and developmental coordination disorder. Through various clinical trials, the CNU also aims to develop novel interventions that use current neuroscience approaches and understandings. Research programs include:

• CNU Social and Affective Neuroscience Lab: explores how the human brain allows us to interpret our interpersonal world and manage our emotional lives. Taking a developmental perspective with a focus on childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, the lab investigates topics such as empathy, motor resonance, theory of mind, and emotion regulation. From a clinical perspective, the Social and Affective Neuroscience Lab also conducts research into  autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here the lab harnesses cutting-edge neuroimaging and neurophysiological approaches, seeking to better understand the brain basis of ASD. There is also a focus on the translation of this work by developing novel brain stimulation protocols designed to target specific processes. Current clinical trials employ non-invasive brain stimulation techniques, including transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), to improve outcomes for people diagnosed with ASD.

• CNU Brain and Cognitive Development Lab: uses advanced neuroimaging techniques to enhance our understanding of neurodevelopment and how brain maturation relates to the development of cognitive functions. Using a range of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) techniques including structural, diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) functional (fMRI) and resting state (rs-fMRI), the Brain and Cognition Lab investigates brain development in typical childhood, as well as when neurodevelopment goes awry such as neurodevelopment disorders (ADHD, autism etc). By applying these neuroimaging techniques, the lab aims to reveal how subtle individual neuroanatomical variation lead to diversity in human cognition, and ultimately to distinguish or predict differential cognitive and neurodevelopmental outcomes.

• CNU Language and Memory Lab: investigates memory and language functioning across the lifespan. The lab’s work with infants and children uses eye-tracking, pupillometry and EEG. With adults, the lab studies interrelationships between the brain, memory and language using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). The goal of the Language and Memory Lab is to advance knowledge about the role of memory in language. The lab also aims to contribute to the development of support programs for individuals with language difficulties, as well as methods that will facilitate language learning from infancy to adulthood.

• CNU Motor Cognition Lab: is conducting a series of world-first studies investigating the causal mechanisms that subserve individual differences in skill acquisition in childhood and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and ADHD. The lab combines highly novel experimental measures of action and cognition with a variety of neuro structural (diffusion MRI), functional (fMRI) and physiological (TMS, tDCS pupillometry) measures to gain new insight into the factors that contribute to motor development and its disorder. The goal of these studies is to inform the development of targeted interventions and circumvent the presentation of commonly observed psychosocial difficulties associated with reduced motor competence. These projects build on a body of work from the lab leader, Dr. Christian Hyde, but also bring together expertise of a number of members within the Cognitive Neuroscience Unit. Together, this environment is ideal for producing high-impact, novel research.

• CNU Health Neuroscience Lab: aims to build a body of research in Australia on the neural mechanisms of executive functioning in health behaviour change, with the primary focus being on weight and smoking. The focus of the lab’s research is to explore the underlying mechanisms of health behaviour, particularly around impulsivity and inhibitory control. Using the latest approaches, the lab is exploring inhibitory control deficits and the potential impact of inhibitory control training on behaviour change.

Country
Australia

Contact Person / Email
Prof. Peter Enticott

Call +61 3 9244 5504

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The Cognitive Science Research Group research a diverse range of topics including decision making, human memory, cognitive development, skill acquisition, attention, multitasking, spatial cognition, animal cognition and evolutionary psychology. They have particular strength in mathematical modeling and pursue research that integrates behavioural and neuroscience measures, and which makes use of cutting-edge statistical and computational methods.

Country
Australia

Call +61 2 4921 6778

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The Developmental Psychopathology research group is headed by Associate Professor Eva Kimonis and broadly focuses on the development of antisocial and aggressive behaviour. Within this broad area there is a specialised focus on atypical development of moral emotions, which at it extremes manifests as callous-unemotional traits (i.e., lack of empathy, lack of guilt, uncaring attitudes, lack of concern about school/work performance). 

Children and adolescents with callous-unemotional traits are at heightened risk for antisocial, aggressive, and criminal behaviour across the lifespan, and these traits are thought to precede adult psychopathy and to be preceded by a fearless temperament in early childhood. Current projects include:

• Examining emotional deficits in individuals with callous-unemotional traits across the lifespan
• Refining the measurement of callous-unemotional traits; and
• Testing whether early intervention improves emotional deficits and the antisocial and aggressive outcomes they are thought to mediate.

Within its state-of-the-art facilities, the research group is conducting cutting-edge innovative research to better understand the development of severe and persistent antisocial behaviour across the lifespan. Through its community partnerships with organisations including Karitane, this research has a translational focus in applying new knowledge gained to the development of targeted prevention and intervention programmes for young children with antisocial behaviour.

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Australia

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The Early Learning Project at UNSW is directed by Dr Jenny Richmond.  Our research focuses on the development of learning, memory and emotion understanding during infancy and early childhood. We are particularly interested in how brain development drives the changes we see in encoding, retention, and retrieval and how infants and children come to share and understand emotion in others. Our studies combine eye-tracking, behavioural methods, and psychophysiology to understand the mechanisms that underlie developmental change.

• What Goes With What and Where - The Development of Relational Learning
• Catching Emotion From Others - Affective Empathy During Infancy and Early Childhood
• Back To The Future - How Do Children Learn To Use The Past To Think About The Future?

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Australia

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The Ethics & Well-being Hub seeks to develop and integrate expertise across social, personality, clinical, and developmental psychology—along with research in emotion, neuroscience, and decision making—to better understand how people make ethical decisions, how these decisions are shaped by processes within and around them, and how these factors influence their quality of life and mental health.

The Hub is innovative in its goal of linking the psychological study of morality and emotion processes. In doing so, it examines how benefiting others can also benefit the self and contribute to human flourishing. Hub researchers seek to develop an understanding of how acting ethically and experiencing well-being and personal meaning are intertwined. Taking seriously the interaction of the individual and their social context, it will generate new knowledge on how individual health and welfare interacts with the social and cultural environment, and on the central importance of ethical behaviour to the ‘good life’.

The Ethics & Well-being Hub is a unique initiative with a critical mass of researchers that will enable strong intellectual and social innovation. The lab pages for further information on students, collaborators, and research projects include:

• Functions of Everyday Emotions Lab
• Behavioural Ethics, Affect and Meaning Lab
• Social / Personality Laboratory
• Evolution, Conflict, and Equality Lab
• Moral Psychology Lab
• Personality Processes Lab
• Physical Appearance Research Team
• Social Action Laboratory

Country
Australia

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The Health and Clinical Psychology Research Group conducts fundamental and applied research into factors associated with psychological well-being and physical health across the lifespan. Research programs within the group are focused on understanding the psychology underlying the causes of mental and physical ill-health, developing interventions for prevention and treatment, and exploring strategies to enhance and promote positive physical and mental wellbeing. A variety of research methodologies are employed including both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Examples of current research include but are not restricted to:

• Post-traumatic stress disorder and posttraumatic growth
• Childhood anxiety
• Reducing smoking and other health risk behaviours (for disadvantaged sub-groups such as people with mental illness)
• Promoting resilience among adolescents, and the possible impact on psychological well-being and health risk behaviours
• Interpersonal relationships and psychological health
• Perinatal psychological health and postnatal depression
• Promoting healthy diets
• Genetic disorders and development
• Mindfulness-based interventions

The Health and Clinical Psychology Research Group holds regular seminars and workshops throughout the year. 

Call +61 2 4921 6947

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The Neuropsychiatry research group aims is to further knowledge of these brain disorders which have psychiatric or behavioural manifestations and to determine the best management of the psychosocial aspects of these diseases. The field of neuropsychiatry focusses on the interrelation between psychiatric and neurological disorders. Some disorders such as Frontotemporal Dementia, Huntington’s disease, Motor Neurone Disease overlap with those seen by behavioural neurologists and geriatricians. Research proejcts include:

• A longitudinal neuro imaging study of MND Phenotype
• The impact of progressive neurological diseases (PND) on family life
• Smell Perception in Motor Neurone Disease (MND)

Country
Australia

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The Pedagogical Laboratory for Education is an Australian first research group that is a central hub for the collection, analysis and dissemination of best practices research in the area of teaching and learning. The innovation of Pedagogical Laboratory for Education is that it is a truly interdisciplinary group that focuses on teaching and learning and professional practice, conducted within a variety of setting. With a strengths/synergy model, the research group will be able to adapt to the changing needs and issues housed under teaching and learning.

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Australia

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The PsychNeuro Research Group is a collection of academics in the Department of Psychology who share an interest in brain function and how this, and brain dysfunction, impact on perception, cognition and/or behaviour. The aims of this group are to enhance the presence of neuro research in our department, increase collaboration between members for innovative research ideas and to seek external engagement with funding bodies and partners.

Contact Person / Email
Jen Cornish

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The Sensory, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Research Group embraces contemporary questions in sensory, cognitive and affective function in human and animal models of brain and behaviour. With a focus on early identification, problem prevention, functional restoration and maintenance across the lifespan, this research group address issues at multiple levels of analysis and using various methodologies including neuropsychological testing, psychophysics and behavioural tasks, measures of brain structure and function using electrophysiology and magnetic resonance imaging, and molecular biology and immunology. They collaborate extensively with other members of the school and clinical researchers with this cross disciplinary approach already leading to pivotal insights in:

• Vision
• Central auditory processing
• Pain
• Executive functioning in both typical (development, ageing) and atypical (e.g., schizophrenia, stroke) groups.

Country
Australia

Call +61 2 4921 5977

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The Social and Organisational Psychology research group is a multidisciplinary research group that employ a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods in the field and in the laboratory to investigate complex psychological relationships between individuals, groups, and cultures (e.g., family and group members, organisational units and broader organisations, social and cultural contexts). The group includes researchers who specialise in: 

• Social and cross-cultural psychology: identity, prejudice, discrimination, and intergroup emotions)
• Organisational psychology: leadership, safety culture, organisational change, and selection and 
• Personality psychology: psychometrics, morality, resilience, and stress).  

The Social and Organizational Psychology research group has a 'basic psychology' arm with a solid track record of highly cited research publications and competitive research grants and an 'applied psychology' arm with an established profile of research consultancies and industry engagement. The group collaborates extensively with other members of the School, enjoys a large number of international research collaborations, and offers research supervision to students from a variety of areas.

Country
Australia

Call +61 2 4921 5938

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The University of Newcastle's Social Psychology Laboratory focuses on the social psychological processes that influence how people relate and respond to social groups and their members. Key research topics in our lab include stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination.

The Lab is based in the School of Psychology at the University of Newcastle, Australia. The 2015 Excellence in Research for Australia assessment rated the School’s research as “above world standard” in the area of “psychology and cognitive science” and “well above world standard” in the specific area of “cognitive science.” The University is ranked among the top 150 universities in the world and in the top 10 in Australia (QS World University Rankings, 2017; Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2016-17; Higher Education Research Data Collection 2014).

Our staff are located at the Callaghan campus near Newcastle, about two hours drive north of Sydney, and at the Ourimbah campus, about one hour north of Sydney. We have our own fully equipped suite of four research rooms at Callaghan and two rooms at Ourimbah. We carry out dyadic and small group studies as well as computer-based and psychophysiological recordings. They also conduct studies in the field and using web-based survey software. We have access to over 500 research participants via the School of Psychology's Psychology Research Participant Pool and Participant Volunteer Register. They run weekly research lab group meetings and also host visits from overseas and domestic researchers and offer hands-on research experience to several research volunteers.

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The NSW Child Development Study is a longitudinal intergenerational record linkage study that aims to identify early and middle childhood vulnerability and resilience markers for a variety of health, educational and occupational, social, and wellbeing outcomes in adolescence and young adulthood using a NSW population cohort. Improved knowledge of these factors is envisaged to inform policy changes, and the development of effective early intervention and prevention programs for vulnerable youth. Their projects include:

• NSW Child Development Study Record Linkage
• Identifying new targets for primary school mental health interventions using population data
• Targeting early contact with the criminal justice system in young people
• Achieving better mental health for maltreated children: translating population data into policy

1. Developmental schizotypy in the general population: Early risk factors and predictive utility

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Australia

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The Developmental: Child, Youth, Aging group conduct research that investigates early development (from birth to 8 years) focuses on language and cognitive development, with the latter focusing on face and body perception and visual deficits in children with dyslexia.  Child, youth, and developmental psychology at the ANU spans many sub-disciplines of psychology. Research that investigates early development (from birth to 8 years) focuses on language and cognitive development, with the latter focusing on face and body perception and visual deficits in children with dyslexia.

Research with older children investigates how the social climates of schools affect student outcomes. Other research focuses on psychopathology across childhood and adolescence, investigating topics such as the link between language development and psychopathology, conduct problems, schizophrenia, and eating disorders and obesity.

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Australia

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The Health and Identity Lab examines the ways our mental and physical health are shaped by our social relationships and social connectedness. Our research examines the ways our mental and physical health is fundamentally shaped by our social relationships and social connectedness. A particular focus of our work is on the vital role of the social groups in determining health outcomes. Social identities are those groups to which we subjectively belong, and consider an important part of who we are.

In our research, we use a diverse array of research designs including lab and field-based experiments, intensive longitudinal studies, qualitative investigations with vulnerable communities, and randomised controlled trials. Through this varied and flexible approach, we contribute to efforts to find solutions to problems of national and global significance. For instance, we investigate the role of discrimination, poverty, and loneliness in contributing to mental illness and health inequality. We investigate the factors that drive peoples’ engagement in behaviours that enhance health (e.g., physical activity and healthy eating), as well as behaviours that can harm health (e.g., risky behaviours such as binge drinking and drug taking). Our research also focuses on designing, implementing, and testing theory-driven health interventions.

We work with diverse populations and in a wide array of contexts. These include young people at mass gatherings, members of sports teams and exercise groups, retirees, people experiencing depression, trauma or chronic illness. Our lab has also worked in partnership with 20 different community organisations, and over 150 researchers across 14 countries. We have particularly strong links with the University of Queensland, University of Exeter, University of Otago, Bournemouth University, and University of Edinburgh.Projects include:

• Adjustment to retirement through social identity change
• Connecting adolescents to reduce relapse
• Neighbour Day
• The Psychology of Schoolies
• Unlocking the social cure: Innovations in basic and translational science of the social determinants of mental health

Country
Australia

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The Translational Molecular Psychiatriy provide research to ultimately develop disease modifying novel treatments for psychotic disorders, in particular, schizophrenia using a broad translational approach. Starting from clinically derived insights and samples, they probe the cellular and molecular characteristics of post-mortem human and animal brain relevant to psychotic disorders. From these laboratory studies we investigate animal behaviour using transgenic models of psychosis, identifying relevant neuronal signalling pathways. These laboratory based findings can then be re-applied to investigate new biomarkers in clinical samples using genetic, protein, and electrophysiological measures.

They are also establishing a clinical trials research group evaluating new treatments for these disorders in the hope to build a unique translational research program in psychotic disorders that utilise clinical and biomarker data to understand the molecular bases of psychotic disorders, and in turn generate novel treatments and diagnostics for these patient groups. Their projects include:

1. Evidence for biomarker development in schizophrenia sub-groups
2. Using single-nuclei RNA-Sequencing to uncover novel candidate genes and/or signalling pathways that are altered in people with schizophrenia.
3. Using genetically manipulated drosophila to understand the function of novel genes associated with schizophrenia
4. Characterizing the behavioural phenotype of betacellulin knockout mice – a promising new candidate gene associated with schizophrenia
5. Exploring the signalling convergence between the epidermal growth factor and immune systems in schizophrenia
6. Regularity learning in Psychosis
7. The mental health consequences of seeking asylum in Australia

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Australia

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Vision Cognition is a group are interested in the factors that influence the regulation of human attentional resources, and the perceptual consequences of applying attention in different ways. In the Visual Cognition lab, we are interested in the factors that influence the regulation of human attentional resources, and the perceptual consequences of applying attention in different ways. The practical implications of our work include understanding the attentional mechanisms of clinical conditions, such as anxiety, as well as improving our understanding of how to select and train individuals for attention-demanding roles (e.g., emergency vehicle drivers).

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Australia

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