Changing the lives of young Australians with emotional disorders using a simple three-step treatment based on cognitive-neuroscience insights. Anxiety and depression are emotional disorders that affect many Australian children and place them at risk of lifelong impairment. The latest evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience shows that these children have maladaptive thinking strategies that lead to avoidance and withdrawal. Capitalising on these basic science insights, this project exami ....Changing the lives of young Australians with emotional disorders using a simple three-step treatment based on cognitive-neuroscience insights. Anxiety and depression are emotional disorders that affect many Australian children and place them at risk of lifelong impairment. The latest evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience shows that these children have maladaptive thinking strategies that lead to avoidance and withdrawal. Capitalising on these basic science insights, this project examines a new treatment, referred to as the 'Emotional Flexibility Program', that targets childhood distress in three simple steps over just four weeks of treatment. This treatment could change the way childhood emotional disorders are treated and prevented, improve the quality of life for thousands of young Australians, and offset the associated economic burden of disease.Read moreRead less
Celebrate. Remember. Fight Back. Episodic Volunteering for Non-Profits. This project seeks to improve the policy and practice of volunteer involvement in the non-profit sector. Non-profit organisations rely on volunteers, and their capacity to deliver vital community services is threatened by the decrease in long-term, continuous volunteering and increase in episodic (short-term, flexible) volunteering. The interdisciplinary project aims to use mixed methods (qualitative interviews and quantitat ....Celebrate. Remember. Fight Back. Episodic Volunteering for Non-Profits. This project seeks to improve the policy and practice of volunteer involvement in the non-profit sector. Non-profit organisations rely on volunteers, and their capacity to deliver vital community services is threatened by the decrease in long-term, continuous volunteering and increase in episodic (short-term, flexible) volunteering. The interdisciplinary project aims to use mixed methods (qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys) and multiple perspectives (volunteers and staff who manage them) to develop an episodic volunteering definition; to explore the economic and social impact of episodic volunteering, and to develop a theoretical model of volunteer retention. The findings are intended to provide an evidence base and recommendations for non-profit sector policy and practice.Read moreRead less
Social cognitive change in late adulthood. This project aims to develop and test a model of how normal adult ageing affects the ability to perceive and interpret social cues, a critical predictor of social competency and well-being, and identify the most important determinants of any age-related changes. This project predicts that older adults who have the greatest difficulties perceiving and interpreting social cues will also have the poorest social function and well-being, so better understand ....Social cognitive change in late adulthood. This project aims to develop and test a model of how normal adult ageing affects the ability to perceive and interpret social cues, a critical predictor of social competency and well-being, and identify the most important determinants of any age-related changes. This project predicts that older adults who have the greatest difficulties perceiving and interpreting social cues will also have the poorest social function and well-being, so better understanding the mechanistic factors that drive resilience and risk for these difficulties is expected to have direct and important implications for Australia’s growing older adult community.Read moreRead less
A multidimensional model of social cognitive ageing. This project aims to develop and test a model of how normal adult ageing affects the critical ability to perceive, interpret and process social information. By using an innovative approach that integrates laboratory-based assessments with measures of real-life social behaviour, this project expects to generate novel insights into how ageing affects a range of important social cognitive skills, as well as when and why any age-related difficulti ....A multidimensional model of social cognitive ageing. This project aims to develop and test a model of how normal adult ageing affects the critical ability to perceive, interpret and process social information. By using an innovative approach that integrates laboratory-based assessments with measures of real-life social behaviour, this project expects to generate novel insights into how ageing affects a range of important social cognitive skills, as well as when and why any age-related difficulties emerge. Expected outcomes include a better understanding of the factors that drive resilience and risk for social cognitive difficulties in late adulthood, with direct implications for promoting social engagement and preventing social detachment in Australia’s growing older adult community.Read moreRead less
Advancing occupational stress research: a comprehensive trial of the Healthy Workplaces program. The project will provide a comprehensive controlled trial of an innovative stress management intervention focusing on leadership development, in one police service. Pilot results indicated significant improvements in both leader and subordinate’s health and job performance and produced economic savings.
ARC Research Network for Enabling Human Communication. The Human Communication Network promotes interdisciplinary research in speech, language, and sound by and between humans and machines. The network connects leading and emerging researchers across disciplines, exploits previously unrecognised intersections, supports interdisciplinary graduate training and exchanges, provides database storage infrastructure, and consults with industry and government to set, not follow, research agendas. By ge ....ARC Research Network for Enabling Human Communication. The Human Communication Network promotes interdisciplinary research in speech, language, and sound by and between humans and machines. The network connects leading and emerging researchers across disciplines, exploits previously unrecognised intersections, supports interdisciplinary graduate training and exchanges, provides database storage infrastructure, and consults with industry and government to set, not follow, research agendas. By generating an explosion of new approaches and knowledge, the network will build Australia's reputation as a leader in communication science and technology via advances in automatic speech recognition, distress call monitoring, hearing prostheses, web interfaces, and data retrieval and data mining systems.Read moreRead less
How economic prosperity hardens attitudes towards minorities. Most explanations for the current rise in popularity of anti-immigrant parties focus on economic hardship following the Global Financial Crisis, thereby being unable to account for the finding that support for such parties also increases in times of economic prosperity. For the first time, this project will provide a complete account of these relationships.
Consequences of inequality on social behaviour and political attitudes. This project aims to reveal how economic inequality shapes dynamics between groups within societies. Income inequality has effects beyond health but its effects on social behaviour and political attitudes are poorly understood. This project will move beyond a focus on the health and well-being costs of income inequality and study its effect on social behaviour and political attitudes. By uncovering these consequences of ineq ....Consequences of inequality on social behaviour and political attitudes. This project aims to reveal how economic inequality shapes dynamics between groups within societies. Income inequality has effects beyond health but its effects on social behaviour and political attitudes are poorly understood. This project will move beyond a focus on the health and well-being costs of income inequality and study its effect on social behaviour and political attitudes. By uncovering these consequences of inequality, the findings are expected to broaden the understanding of growing economic inequality, showing its consequences for the social health of a society and its citizens.Read moreRead less
The nature of self-recognition: novel approaches to vexing questions. Mirror self-recognition has often been interpreted as evidence for the presence of some form of self-concept/awareness. Children from age 2 onwards investigate their own bodies after seeing a novel mark on their heads in the mirror (surreptitiously placed in their hair by the experimenter). Younger children and most animals do not respond to their images in such a way (instead, for example, treating it as another individual). ....The nature of self-recognition: novel approaches to vexing questions. Mirror self-recognition has often been interpreted as evidence for the presence of some form of self-concept/awareness. Children from age 2 onwards investigate their own bodies after seeing a novel mark on their heads in the mirror (surreptitiously placed in their hair by the experimenter). Younger children and most animals do not respond to their images in such a way (instead, for example, treating it as another individual). The present experiments probe the nature of self-recognition using novel digital video technology rather than mirrors. This technology allows us to manipulate the contingency and appearance of the image. Five studies investigate the performance of 2 to 4-year-old children, autistic children, chimpanzees and dolphins to determine whether they recognize themselves and what underwrites their performance on the tasks. The innovative use of modern technology is expected to answer some of the most persistent questions in psychology.
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Probing cross modal interactions in the perception of object motion and self-motion. How the brain integrates information from the different senses is not yet understood. This project aims first, to uncover how the brain integrates sound and visual information when perceiving moving objects and second, to probe more complex sensory interactions between sound, vision, and our vestibular senses when perceiving self-motion. This project will expand Australia's knowledge base, strengthen collabora ....Probing cross modal interactions in the perception of object motion and self-motion. How the brain integrates information from the different senses is not yet understood. This project aims first, to uncover how the brain integrates sound and visual information when perceiving moving objects and second, to probe more complex sensory interactions between sound, vision, and our vestibular senses when perceiving self-motion. This project will expand Australia's knowledge base, strengthen collaborative ties between Australia and Japan, and provide unique training opportunities for Australian and Japanese students. Publication of research in top-ranking journals will further promote Australian science abroad. Results will lead to improvements in the design of human-machine interfaces in both industry and entertainment.Read moreRead less