Development of cognitive functions in adult populations. Cognitive functioning has significant social, health and economic effects in the form of either benefits from improved functioning or costs due to cognitive decline. In the latter regard, an aging population presents major challenges to society. The proposed project will investigate the effects of different training regimes on cognition and a range of related outcomes, including transfer of skills, personality change and social functioning ....Development of cognitive functions in adult populations. Cognitive functioning has significant social, health and economic effects in the form of either benefits from improved functioning or costs due to cognitive decline. In the latter regard, an aging population presents major challenges to society. The proposed project will investigate the effects of different training regimes on cognition and a range of related outcomes, including transfer of skills, personality change and social functioning, on a highly innovative brain training App being developed in collaboration with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Read moreRead less
The Australian naturalistic driving study: innovation in road safety research and policy. A revolutionary new approach, the naturalistic driving study, will investigate what people actually do when they drive, in normal and safety-critical situations. It will provide Australia with answers to some intractable, high priority, road safety problems that cannot be answered using current methods, thereby saving hundreds of lives.
May the Force Be With You: Furthering Fresh Futures for NSW Police Psychological Strengths, Wellbeing and Retention. There is international emphasis on cultivating the well-being of police but there is little research explicating key psychosocial drivers. Fresh solutions are urgently needed to address complex issues underpinning unsustainable rates of New South Wales Police medical leave, retirement and psychological stress that adversely impact on well-being and capacity to safeguard Australian ....May the Force Be With You: Furthering Fresh Futures for NSW Police Psychological Strengths, Wellbeing and Retention. There is international emphasis on cultivating the well-being of police but there is little research explicating key psychosocial drivers. Fresh solutions are urgently needed to address complex issues underpinning unsustainable rates of New South Wales Police medical leave, retirement and psychological stress that adversely impact on well-being and capacity to safeguard Australians. Capitalising on powerful longitudinal design, gold standard statistics and cutting-edge interdisciplinary and multi-method theory/research, the project aims to explicate psychosocial drivers of New South Wales Police well-being, commitment, resilience and retention and critical characteristics of effective police command units to further fresh futures and enrich the international research agenda.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140100499
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$393,087.00
Summary
The body in interaction – the impact of tracking the human body on visual object processing. For efficient and safe interactions with the world, our brain needs to constantly process the location and posture of the body as well as the characteristics of surrounding objects. Central questions in the field of cognitive science consider how tracking the human body influences object perception and which mechanisms support this perception in action. This project will use innovative virtual hand techn ....The body in interaction – the impact of tracking the human body on visual object processing. For efficient and safe interactions with the world, our brain needs to constantly process the location and posture of the body as well as the characteristics of surrounding objects. Central questions in the field of cognitive science consider how tracking the human body influences object perception and which mechanisms support this perception in action. This project will use innovative virtual hand technology to investigate the impact of body actions on concurrent visual perception. A better understanding of the demands that the body, in interaction, poses on our perceptual system will help to improve the design of complex work environments, such as computer interfaces and control panels.Read moreRead less
Towards an integrated model of reasoning and reasoning development. This project aims to identify the core cognitive processes that underlie different forms of reasoning and how they develop. The project intends to use a signal detection framework to derive detailed computational models of reasoning which can then be tested through Bayesian computational modelling as well as the first systematic investigation of developmental change in reasoning processes. Expected outcomes include a more princi ....Towards an integrated model of reasoning and reasoning development. This project aims to identify the core cognitive processes that underlie different forms of reasoning and how they develop. The project intends to use a signal detection framework to derive detailed computational models of reasoning which can then be tested through Bayesian computational modelling as well as the first systematic investigation of developmental change in reasoning processes. Expected outcomes include a more principled and comprehensive computational model of reasoning in both adults and children. The project should provide significant benefits by helping to resolve long-standing debates about how humans reason complex arguments relevant to everyday lives and guide development of more effective methods for teaching reasoning.Read moreRead less
Learning from our mistakes: How and when complex decisions fail. The project aims to develop a novel mathematical framework, augmented by simulations and a set of experiments, to study when and how people commit errors. The modern environment bombards us with signals, such as radio and television advertisements as we sit at home or warning lights and car honks as we cross the road. Despite years of psychological research, it is not entirely clear how efficiently people cope with increasing amoun ....Learning from our mistakes: How and when complex decisions fail. The project aims to develop a novel mathematical framework, augmented by simulations and a set of experiments, to study when and how people commit errors. The modern environment bombards us with signals, such as radio and television advertisements as we sit at home or warning lights and car honks as we cross the road. Despite years of psychological research, it is not entirely clear how efficiently people cope with increasing amounts of information nor is it clear whether they process multiple signals simultaneously (in parallel) or one after the other (serial). The project offers new measures, based on the rate and pattern of error responses, to supplement the commonly used response times. The combination of a theoretical framework, based on mathematical and computational work, with empirical data to test the models, may deliver a better understanding of human performance and its limitations.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE130100050
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$570,000.00
Summary
Integrated facility for recording driver and road user behaviour. The integrated facility will be used to record and analyse data on driver and road user behaviour, in normal and safety-critical situations, for thousands of Australian drivers. The data yielded will be used to develop new and improved countermeasures for reducing road deaths and serious injuries on Australian roads.
Making sense of the world: how does the brain process task-relevant information? Contributing to a global effort to understand the human brain, this project will develop and use innovative brain imaging techniques to ask how our brains make sense of the world. This project establishes collaboration with a world renowned research centre in Cambridge, UK, and will be fundamental for advancing basic science in Australia.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120100898
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
The brain that adapts itself - flexible processing in an ever-changing world. To cope with the changing world around us, our brains must constantly adapt themselves, reconfiguring an incredibly complex system to produce flexible behaviour. This project will develop innovative brain imaging techniques and use them to examine this process in vision, fundamental for understanding the human brain, and advancing neuroscience in Australia.
Everyday autism: bridging the gap between lab and life. Recent research demonstrates that autistic people, their families and professionals often feel that there remains a sharp divide between autism science and key aspects of everyday autistic life, despite significant public investment in that science. This proposed research investigates reasons for this divide and proposes ways in which it might be overcome. Expected outcomes include greater opportunities for autistic people to play active ro ....Everyday autism: bridging the gap between lab and life. Recent research demonstrates that autistic people, their families and professionals often feel that there remains a sharp divide between autism science and key aspects of everyday autistic life, despite significant public investment in that science. This proposed research investigates reasons for this divide and proposes ways in which it might be overcome. Expected outcomes include greater opportunities for autistic people to play active roles in the research process and more scientific experimentation that moves out of the laboratory and into more true-to-life settings. Bridging the gap between lab and life will result in better theory-building on autism, better translation of scientific discoveries and more robust policy recommendations.Read moreRead less