From fluid intelligence to crystallised expertise: an integrative Bayesian approach. Intelligence is correlated with learning but uncorrelated with most aspects of expertise. Why is this so? Why does the role of intelligence diminish as one becomes more expert at a task? This project examines a broad range of cognitive tasks to provide a concise mathematical description of how intelligence relates to expertise.
Predicting health, well-being, and educational success in emerging adults: An 8 year longitudinal study. This project will inform the community about factors that affect the psychological, physical, academic, and employment outcomes of emerging adults. It will improve our knowledge of why some young people do not reach their full potential. The project will provide a comprehensive assessment of factors associated with well-being across several domains. It will better equip and assist professiona ....Predicting health, well-being, and educational success in emerging adults: An 8 year longitudinal study. This project will inform the community about factors that affect the psychological, physical, academic, and employment outcomes of emerging adults. It will improve our knowledge of why some young people do not reach their full potential. The project will provide a comprehensive assessment of factors associated with well-being across several domains. It will better equip and assist professionals to identify early those youth at risk of having poor psychological, health, and employment prospects post-school. The project will inform the development of intervention programs for young people and maximise their overall adjustment and well-being several years later.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200101570
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$409,038.00
Summary
The cognitive basis of anxiety-linked heightened negative expectancies. Problems with anxiety tear at the social and economic fabric of our nation. Individuals with an elevated vulnerability to experience high levels of anxiety display a heightened tendency to expect that the future will be emotionally negative. The current project will test compelling new hypotheses concerning the cognitive mechanisms that causally underpin such negative expectancies, using cutting-edge cognitive methodologies ....The cognitive basis of anxiety-linked heightened negative expectancies. Problems with anxiety tear at the social and economic fabric of our nation. Individuals with an elevated vulnerability to experience high levels of anxiety display a heightened tendency to expect that the future will be emotionally negative. The current project will test compelling new hypotheses concerning the cognitive mechanisms that causally underpin such negative expectancies, using cutting-edge cognitive methodologies that permit not only the sensitive assessment, but also the direct manipulation, of these mechanisms. The findings generated will exert major scientific impact, and will directly contribute to our national strategic efforts to improve the mental well-being of our citizens, and to build healthy and resilient communities.Read moreRead less
The cognitive basis of resilience. This project aims to test whether resilience to bad events can be influenced by modifying information processing factors. High resilience reflects the ability to sustain adaptive psychological functioning in the wake of bad events, and affects physical, emotional, social, and economic wellbeing. The project will test the hypothesis that biases in attention and implicational inferencing at differing stages of event processing affect wellbeing. It will use cognit ....The cognitive basis of resilience. This project aims to test whether resilience to bad events can be influenced by modifying information processing factors. High resilience reflects the ability to sustain adaptive psychological functioning in the wake of bad events, and affects physical, emotional, social, and economic wellbeing. The project will test the hypothesis that biases in attention and implicational inferencing at differing stages of event processing affect wellbeing. It will use cognitive methodologies that sensitively assess and manipulate biases, thereby revealing their causal role in the determination of resilience. The findings are expected to directly contribute to national efforts to build healthy and resilient communities.Read moreRead less
Australian Laureate Fellowships - Grant ID: FL170100167
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,295,215.00
Summary
Differentiating the cognitive basis of unproductive versus productive worry. This project aims to delineate the individual differences in cognitive functioning that distinguish between the tendency to experience unproductive versus productive worry. For some people, worry severely compromises well-being, while for others worry yields significant benefits by fostering preparatory behaviours that protect against misfortune. Using innovative and compelling hypotheses, as well as laboratory and fiel ....Differentiating the cognitive basis of unproductive versus productive worry. This project aims to delineate the individual differences in cognitive functioning that distinguish between the tendency to experience unproductive versus productive worry. For some people, worry severely compromises well-being, while for others worry yields significant benefits by fostering preparatory behaviours that protect against misfortune. Using innovative and compelling hypotheses, as well as laboratory and fieldwork approaches, this project will deliver the capacity to assess, predict, and explain the individual differences in unproductive and productive worrying that underpin variability in resilient responding to situations in which adaptive action can mitigate real-world risk. This project will have major scientific impact, generating influential publications concerning the cognitive distinctions between productive and unproductive worry that will position Australia as a global leader in this field.Read moreRead less
Attentional bias, attentional control, and anxiety vulnerability: A test of alternative hypotheses concerning their functional relationship. Elevated anxiety vulnerability (AV) is characterised by two attentional anomalies; an attentional bias to threat (ABT), and impaired attentional control (IAC). These have been the foci of separate lines of investigation. The proposed research will synthesise these disparate lines of inquiry, to significantly progress both in important ways. Innovative parad ....Attentional bias, attentional control, and anxiety vulnerability: A test of alternative hypotheses concerning their functional relationship. Elevated anxiety vulnerability (AV) is characterised by two attentional anomalies; an attentional bias to threat (ABT), and impaired attentional control (IAC). These have been the foci of separate lines of investigation. The proposed research will synthesise these disparate lines of inquiry, to significantly progress both in important ways. Innovative paradigms will be developed to determine the functional relationship between ABT and IAC, and illuminate the nature of their associations with AV. In addition to advancing theoretical understanding of the attentional underpinnings of AV, this research will evaluate the capacity of new cognitive technologies to ameliorate anxiety vulnerability through modification of its attentional substrate. Read moreRead less
Cognitive mechanisms underlying readiness to acquire elevated anxious temperament. This research project seeks to identify the cognitive mechanisms that are causally implicated in individual differences in the tendency to elevate anxious temperament in response to stressful environments. It will also seek to establish the extent to which these cognitive mechanisms represent the phenotypic expression of genes associated with greater susceptibility to elevate anxious temperament. Research outcomes ....Cognitive mechanisms underlying readiness to acquire elevated anxious temperament. This research project seeks to identify the cognitive mechanisms that are causally implicated in individual differences in the tendency to elevate anxious temperament in response to stressful environments. It will also seek to establish the extent to which these cognitive mechanisms represent the phenotypic expression of genes associated with greater susceptibility to elevate anxious temperament. Research outcomes will serve to inform the question as to why the same types of environmental stressors can serve to produce vastly different effects on emotional vulnerability for different individuals. The procedures developed during this research will also have the potential to reduce the negative emotional consequences of sustained stress.Read moreRead less
Reading facial expressions from real and virtual humans. This project aims to advance understanding of human emotional communication and improve human rapport with the virtual humans and avatars that are rapidly infiltrating our social world. Using two unique stimulus sets - naturalistic human expressions and highly realistic virtual faces - together with powerful genetic, experimental, and individual differences designs, the project expects to answer previously intractable questions in emotion ....Reading facial expressions from real and virtual humans. This project aims to advance understanding of human emotional communication and improve human rapport with the virtual humans and avatars that are rapidly infiltrating our social world. Using two unique stimulus sets - naturalistic human expressions and highly realistic virtual faces - together with powerful genetic, experimental, and individual differences designs, the project expects to answer previously intractable questions in emotion science, as well as deliver tangible outcomes, such as new psychological tests to better understand human social connection. This should provide significant benefits, by improving emotion communication and offering a new perspective on how artificial intelligence can best serve human social needs.
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Attentional and interpretive bias in anxiety: Concurrent expressions of a common selective mechanism, or independent mediators of anxiety vulnerability? The proposed research aims to determine whether two key cognitive biases recently shown to causally influence anxiety vulnerability, one involving selective attention to threat and the other involving the selective imposition of threatening interpretations on ambiguity, arise as concurrent manifestations of a common underlying causal mechanism, ....Attentional and interpretive bias in anxiety: Concurrent expressions of a common selective mechanism, or independent mediators of anxiety vulnerability? The proposed research aims to determine whether two key cognitive biases recently shown to causally influence anxiety vulnerability, one involving selective attention to threat and the other involving the selective imposition of threatening interpretations on ambiguity, arise as concurrent manifestations of a common underlying causal mechanism, or instead represent alternative causal pathways in the mediation of this emotional disposition. Resolution of this issue will significantly advance our theoretical understanding of the mechanisms that govern anxiety vulnerability, while also contributing directly to the development of new cognitive technologies designed to therapeutically modify such vulnerability.Read moreRead less
Multidimensional unfolding: the latitude of acceptance and the structure of the single peaked response process in a multidimensional space. The latitude of acceptance and the operational function that structures the single peaked response process have only recently been understood as central to unidimensional models for the measurement of attitude, preference and choice. They have been neglected in multidimensional models. This project will formalise these two central components in a multidimens ....Multidimensional unfolding: the latitude of acceptance and the structure of the single peaked response process in a multidimensional space. The latitude of acceptance and the operational function that structures the single peaked response process have only recently been understood as central to unidimensional models for the measurement of attitude, preference and choice. They have been neglected in multidimensional models. This project will formalise these two central components in a multidimensional space. The operational function governs the relationship between any item-person distance and the latitude of acceptance defines a multidimensional hyper-sphere within which the more positive response is more likely. The project will articulate and operationalise these models for a range of typical response formats from ranking to pairwise preferences.Read moreRead less