Supervisors and areas of supervision

In our lab, we focus on a broad range of topics in cognitive neuroscience, both applied and theoretical. In online studies, our focus is on collecting behavioural data using modern experimental platforms such as Inquisit. For in-person data collection (where possible), we have capacity for collecting EEG and postural sway data as well as visual psychophysics, and extensive experience in these areas. Some possible topics include:

• Potential long-term effects of COVID-19 on cognitive functioning
• Links between motor control and cognition
• Relationships between brain function and postural sway
• Face perception
• Relationships between sleep and executive function/memory

Behavioural tasks that can be carried out online include those testing short-term memory (Corsi block-tapping task, n-Back task), attention (Mackworth Clock task, PVT), reaction time (simple and choice reaction time), cognitive capacity (University of California Matrix Reasoning Task, Tower of London task, Trail-Making Task), motor control (Finger Tapping Task),  and many more. 

In our lab we also have a very collaborative approach, and multi-student projects are encouraged where possible. We have fortnightly group meetings and a Slack channel for informal communication, and we also have several projects across disciplines and institutions (such as ANU and the University of Adelaide).

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

Dr William Coventry william.coventry@une.edu.au
02 6773 2846

My research is in educational psychology: encompassing numerous questions that pertain to student trajectories throughout schooling. It uses large pre-existing databases that collectively span many school years, so there is rarely a need to collect data.  The databases are all longitudinal – the students are measured on 4 occasions – and they are either of twins and their parents or are population-level (about 80,000 students). The analyses typically employ structural equation models - given they afford insights into questions around nature-nurture and longitudinal causation (with caveats).  That said, analysis options are not limited to these structural models.  Beyond my interest in education, I have research ongoing into ways of presenting the probabilities commonly used in statistics (e.g. p-values and confidence intervals).

Cognitive Neuroscience:

• Electroencephalograph (EEG)
• Meditation
• Hypnosis
• Cognitive, affective and social neuroscience
• Neuro-feedback
• States of consciousness

Organisational Psychology:

• Workplace incivility/bullying
• Interpersonal mistreatment in the workplace
• Occupational stress and burnout
• Organisational and management trust and personality
• Organisational culture
• Psychological detachment from work

Positive Psychology:

• Emotional intelligence
• Self-compassion
• Self-efficacy

Health and Wellbeing:

• Social support
• Quality of life
• Coping
• Depression/anxiety/stress
• Health-related behaviours

Environmental Psychology:

• Connectedness to nature
• Behaviour change related to psychological issues

Environmental Psychology:

• Mental health effects of natural disasters and climate change
• Decision-making regarding climate change
• Human-animal interactions (factory farming, animal-assisted therapies)
• Pro-environmental behaviours (e.g., diet, food, farming)

Health Psychology:

• Smoking
• Marijuana use.

Positive Psychology:

• Sustainable positive affect
• Emotional intelligence
• Self-efficacy
• the application of positive psychology constructs such as optimism, social support, self-compassion, hope and proactive coping to adult development and ageing

Psychopathology and Behaviour Change:

• Drug and alcohol problems
• Romantic relationships

For 2023, I would like each of my students to complete one of these three studies or something similar in potential scientific value:

• Meta-analysis on the effects of self-monitoring on number of cigarettes smoked
• Meta-analysis on the association between alcohol use disorder and telomere length
• Efficacy of online training intended to increase social confidence (a between-groups experiment)

Addiction:

• Poker machine problem gambling
• Video game addiction

Clinical Psychology:

• Aviation phobia (i.e., people who experience a fear of flying in aeroplanes)
• The link between adult attachment (e.g., avoidant, anxious) and anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive symptomology, etc.

Transpersonal Psychology:

• Spiritual emergency (i.e., when spiritual development becomes a psychological crisis)

Cognitive Psychology:

• Mindfulness
• Phenomenology
• Altered states of consciousness

Positive Psychology:

• Sustainable positive affect
• Emotional intelligence
• Self-efficacy
• Self-determination theory
• Optimism
• Character strengths

Biopsychology:

• Behavioural and brain mechanisms of learning and memory
• Human and animal models of memory disorders
• Human and animal models of addiction
• Neurobiology of motivation

• Biopsychosocial wellbeing and distress (e.g., hope, optimism, mindfulness, self-determination, anxiety, depression, trauma, moral injury, stress, burnout, sleep disturbance, attachment, self-concept)
• Personality (e.g., Big 5 traits, antisocial personality traits)
• Substance use and addiction (e.g., alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, prescription medicines)
• Time psychology (e.g., time perspectives/attitudes, time pressure, time perception)

Environmental Psychology:

• Behaviour change related to environmental issues

Health Psychology:

• Alcohol/drug use
• Health related behaviours
• Social support, depression, anxiety, well-being
• Sleep
• Minority groups and health
• Adolescence and copying

Positive Psychology:

• Emotional intelligence
• Well-being

Social Psychology and Personality:

• Prejudice and associated concepts such as nationalism, category representation, and discrimination
• Immigration (especially forced migration), multiculturalism, acculturation
• Attitudes and attitude change

More detailed information about Sue Watt's research interests and supervision areas can be found in her Staff Profile.

Disordered Eating

• Orthorexia nervosa in relation to Eating Disorders and Obsessive Compulsive Disorders
• Help seeking for orthorexia symptoms

Climate change and mental health

• Mental health following natural disasters

Health psychology

• Mental health and cardiometabolic diseases
• Psychological interventions and pleiotropic benefits to cardiovascular health
• Treatment moderators of psychological interventions in chronic diseases
• Childhood maltreatment and chronic diseases

Neuropsychology

• Cardiovascular drug-gene interactions and dementia risk
• Neuropsychological impacts of cerebral small vessel diseases

Clinical psychology

• OCD, contamination fears, parcopresis and toileting behaviours

Behavioural Medicine

• Collaborative depression care in persons with cardiometabolic diseases
• Motivational interviewing for health outcomes

Ethics

• Attitudes to biohacking, vulnerabilities and cyber-biocrime
• Benefits and harms of mental, physical, and genetic screening

Social Psychology

• Prejudice
• Intergroup dynamics
• Social cohesion
• Group protection
• Fundamental social motives
• Nationalism
• Populism