Dr Bernadine (Bernie) Cocks

Biography

Dr Bernadine (Bernie) Cocks is a UNE alumna who completed her studies in Psychology as an external student, with a specific focus on the neural bases of language perception/comprehension. She now holds the position of Course Coordinator for the Bachelor of Psychological Science as well as being Unit Coordinator for Cognitive Psychology (PSYC206). Bernie’s research interests primarily lie within the areas of language and cognition, although she is also very interested in addiction and childhood development. Prior to securing her current role at the UNE, she worked as a Senior Research Fellow for the Cognitive Neuro-engineering Laboratory at the University of South Australia, where she won Best Paper Award at the 9th International Conference on Cognitive Science (Kuching) for her work involving global cognitive load measurement.

Qualifications

PhD, B.Psyc.(Hons), Adv.Dip.Arts

Teaching Areas

PSYC206: Cognitive Psychology

PSYC399: Special Topics in Psychology

Research Interests

Language/literacy development and dysfunction across the lifespan; cognitive augmentation/enhancement; addiction; heart rate variability and EEG; persuasion and propaganda.

Research Supervision Experience

Cognitive/affective neuroscience of anxiety and stress; psychological health and wellbeing of emergency services personnel (professional and volunteer); voice and language, including literacy development; mindfulness; the influence of group processes on decision making; vicarious trauma exposure and consequences.

Publications

Book Chapters

Md. Hedayetul Islam Shovon,  Nandagopal, N. (D)., Cocks, B., & Vijayalakshmi, R. (2016). Capturing Cognition via EEG Based Functional Brain Networks, in Emerging Trends in NeuroEngineering and Neural Computation, (Eds: Bhatti, A., Lee, K.H., Garmestani, H., Lim, C.P.), Springer: Singapore

Nandagopal, D., Vijayalakshmi, R., Cocks, B., Dahal, N., Dasari, N., and Thilaga, M. (2015). Computational Neuroengineering Approaches to Characterising Cognitive Activity in EEG Data, in Knowledge Based Information Systems in Practice, (Eds: Tweedale, J. W., Jain, L. C., Watada, J., & Howlett, R. J.). Springer International Publishing Switzerland , DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-13545-8_8

Journal Publications

Md. Hedayetul Islam Shovon, Nandagopal, D., Vijayalakshmi, R., Du, T. & Cocks, B. (2017). Directed Connectivity Analysis of Functional Brain Networks during Cognitive Activity using Transfer Entropy, Neural Processing Letters, 45 (3), 807-824.

Dasari, N., Nandagopal, D., Vijayalakshmi, R., Cocks, B., Thomas, B.H., Dahal, N., & Gaertner, P. (2015). Moment to moment functional brain network variability during cognitive activity in EEG, Journal of Integrative Neuroscience, 14(3), 383-402.

Vijayalakshmi, R., Nandagopal, D., Dasari, N., Cocks, B., Dahal, N., & Thilaga, M. (2015). Minimum connected component–A novel approach to detection of cognitive load induced changes in functional brain networks. Neurocomputing, 170, 15-31.

Thilaga, M., Vijayalakshmi, R., Nadarajan, R., Nandagopal, D., Cocks, B., Archana, C., & Dahal, N. (2015). A heuristic branch-and-bound based thresholding algorithm for unveiling cognitive activity from EEG data. Neurocomputing, 170, 32-46.

Dahal, N., Nandagopal, D. N., Cocks, B., Vijayalakshmi, R., Dasari, N., & Gaertner, P. (2014). TVAR modeling of EEG to detect audio distraction during simulated driving. Journal of Neural Engineering, 11 (3), 036012.

Cocks, B. Nandagopal, D. Vijayalakshmi, R. Dasari, N. Dahal, N & Thilaga, M. (2014). Brain Strain: How much is too much?, Journal of Educational Sciences & Psychology, 4(1)/ 2014

Cocks, B., Nandagopal, D., Vijayalakshmi, R., Thilaga, M., Dasari, N., & Dahal, N. (2013). Breaking the Camel's Back: Can Cognitive Overload be Quantified in the Human Brain?. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 97, 21-29..

Cocks, B., Smith, J. & Jamieson, G. (2013). What should be the place of the normative database in speech perception research?, Journal of Cognitive Science, 14 (4), 399-417

Conference Publications

Nandagopal, D., Cocks, B., Crone, D. & Thie, J. (2015). Backlighting the Brain: A closed loop selective EEG

reinforcement system to induce deep relaxation, The 5th Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference (ACNS 2015), Auckland, NZ.

Nandagopal, D., Cocks, B., Dasari, N., & Md. Hedayetul Islam Shovon. (2015). Unveiling the Complex Cognitive Brain through Functional Brain Networks, NeuroEng 2015, Queenstown, NZ.

Cocks, B., Jamieson, G. Nandagopal, D., & Evans, I. (2014).  To mu is to move to tau is to understand, International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON), Brisbane, Australia.

Md. Hedayetul Islam, Nandagopal, D., Vijayalakshmi, R., Du, T. & Cocks, B. (2014). Towards a Cognitive Metric Using Normalised Transfer Entropy, Proceedings of the International Conference on Biomedical Computing (BioMed 2014), Harvard University, USA.

Md. Hedayetul Islam, Nandagopal, D., Vijayalakshmi, R., Du, T., & Cocks, B. (2014). Transfer Entropy and Information Flow Patterns in Functional Brain Networks during Cognitive activity. Proceedings of the International Conference on Neural Information Processing (ICONIP 2014), Part I, Neural Information Processing- Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 8834, pp 1-10, Springer International Publishing, Switzerland.

Dahal, N., Nandagopal, D., Cocks, B., Dasari, N., Vijalakshimi, R., & Gaertner, P. (2013). Event Related

Synchronization and Desynchronization of EEG Data during Distracted Virtual Driving, IEEE Asia International Conference on Mathematical Modeling and Computer Simulation, Hong Kong.

Cocks, B., Nandagopal, D., Vijayalakshmi, R., Thilaga, M., Dasari, N., & Dahal, N. (2013). Breaking the Camel’s Back: Can Cognitive Overload Be Quantified In The Human Brain?,  Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Cognitive Science, Sarawak, Malaysia.

Nandagopal, D., Vijayalakshmi, R., Cocks, B., Dahal, N., Dasari, D., Thilaga, M., & Shamshu Dharwez, S.(2013).  Computational Techniques for Characterizing Cognition using EEG - New Approaches, Invited paper in the Proceedings of the 17th International Conference in Knowledge Based and Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (KES2013), Japan.

Dasari, N.M., Nandagopal, D., Thomas, B.H., Cocks, B., Dahal, N., Vijayalakshmi, R., & Gaertner, P. (2013). A Signal Processing System for Visualizing Complex Functional Brain Networks during Cognitive Load, Proceedings of IEEE ICCSII 2013 Conference, Indonesia.

Vijayalakshmi, R., Dahal, N., Dasari, N., Cocks, B., Nandagopal, D. (2012). Identification and Analysis of Functional Brain Networks. International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR), Japan.

Dahal, N., Nandagopal, D., Cocks, B., Vijayalakshimi, R., Dasari, N. (2012).  Modeling of Cognitive Functions In Driving Environments Using EEG, The 3rd Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference (ACNS 2012), Brisbane, Australia

Dasari, N., Nandagopal, D., Vijayalakshimi, R., Thomas, B.H., Dahal, N., & Cocks, B. (2012).  Visualizationof Complex Neural connections during Cognitive load using EEG data, The 3rd Australiasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference (ACNS 2012), Brisbane, Australia

Commercial-In-Confidence Defence (DSTO) Reports

Cocks, B. & Nandagopal, D. (2015). Performance of the Emotiv Wireless EEG System for Providing Neurofeedback.

Cocks, B. & Nandagopal, D. (2015).  Cognitive Augmentation Pilot Studies using Human Participants.

Cocks, B. & Nandagopal, D. (2013).  Suitability of the whole brain cognitive activity sites and a comprehensive analysis of the impact of cognitive load on EEG.

Cocks, B. & Nandagopal, D. (2013).  An Investigation of Cognitive Enhancement (augmentation and neuroscience) and any Impacts and/or Abilities for Modifying Human Performance.  

Cocks, B. & Nandagopal, D. (2012). Cognitive Modelling, Processing, Experimentation and Measurement with Recent Developments on Cognitive Augmentation and their Impact on Defence Force Capabilities.

Cocks, B. & Nandagopal, D. (2012). Systems and Technology Drivers, Requirements and Challenges that Characterise Cognition.

Conference Presentations

2015: 5th Annual Conference of the Australian Cognitive Neuroscience Society – Auckland, NZ

2015: 8th Annual NeuroEng Conference – Queenstown, NZ.

2015: 2nd DSTO/UniSA Symposium on Cognitive Neuro-Engineering and Computational Neuroscience – Adelaide, SA

2013: Defence Effects - DSTO – Melbourne, Vic.

2013: 9th International Conference on Cognitive Science – Kuching, Malaysia

2013: DSTO/UniSA Symposium on Cognitive Neuro-Engineering and Computational Neuroscience – Adelaide, SA

2013: 40th Australasian Experimental Psychology Conference – Adelaide, SA

2012: 3rd Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference – Brisbane, QLD

External Profiles

• ResearchGate Profile
• ORCid Profile

Further Information

Awards

Best Paper: 9th International Conference on Cognitive Science (2013)