Attention to motion stimuli and correct motion perception are vital for road safety. Although can... more Attention to motion stimuli and correct motion perception are vital for road safety. Although cannabis use has been associated with increased road crash risks, there is limited research on attentional processing of moving stimuli in cannabis users. This study investigated the neural correlates of the three-stimulus oddball task in cannabis users (n = 18) and non-users (n = 23) in response to moving stimuli. Stimulus contrast was under 16% against a low luminance background (M luminance < 16 cd/m). The two groups did not differ in accuracy or in N2 peak amplitude; however, N2 latency was longer for target and standard stimuli in the cannabis group than in the control group. The cannabis group also showed a significantly reduced P3b amplitude in response to target stimuli. The AUDIT score was added as a random factor to the anova to rule out the effects of uneven alcohol consumption in the two groups. A significant group effect was found for N2 latency in response to target and sta...
Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Science and Mathematics Education, Sep 4, 2014
Students' knowledge of the nature of science is an important determinant of their success at univ... more Students' knowledge of the nature of science is an important determinant of their success at university and of their satisfaction with their chosen discipline of study. Epistemological beliefs are also likely to determine the approach taken to studying and to inform students' understanding of the nature of science. Students (n=214) studying an introductory unit of psychology at an Australian university completed a survey comprising Hofer's discipline-focussed epistemological beliefs questionnaire, the authors' science knowledge and attitudes questionnaire, and the latest revision of the two-factor study process questionnaire. The factor structure of both the discipline focussed epistemological beliefs questionnaire and the science knowledge and attitudes questionnaire deviated from previous analyses. Despite this, subscales both of these instruments were associated with various measures of academic success. Possible mechanisms for these relations are discussed, along with recommendations for educational development.
Chronic cannabis use is associated with deficits in visual attention and perception, and reduced ... more Chronic cannabis use is associated with deficits in visual attention and perception, and reduced dopamine levels, especially with early-onset use. Motion perception is impaired with altered dopaminergic functioning in people with Schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease and in abstaining drug users. Such deficits in motion perception have been shown to be exacerbated at low contrast and in low luminance conditions. This study tested the hypothesis that early-onset cannabis users will show impaired motion perception under low light conditions compared to controls. Motion coherence thresholds were collected from 19 controls (11 male, mean age 22.4 years) and 14 cannabis users (8 male, mean age 23.6 years). Participants completed two discrimination of direction of motion (radial and translational) tasks at three luminance levels (69, 3.5 and 0.5cd/m2). In each task 50 dots were presented on the screen for 500msec, moving at 5.6 d/sec speed upward or downward in the translational task, and inward or outward in the radial task. The contrast of the dots was at 12 and 24% and varied pseudo-randomly across trials in each task. A two-alternative forced choice paradigm (direction discrimination: upward vs downward; inward vs outward) and a two-down, one-up staircase procedure were employed. The interaction between contrast and group (F1,31=5.6741, p=0.02) was significant. The groups did not differ at 12% contrast however at 24% contrast the coherence threshold was higher for the cannabis group than the controls. This effect was modified by a trend towards a significant interaction between motion type, contrast and group (F1,31=3.8643, p=0.058), which suggested that this effect was confined to the radial direction of motion. This is the first study showing that abstaining cannabis users present a specific deficit in processing of complex motion such as radial motion. These results suggest that cannabis users can be impaired in everyday tasks such as driving.
Children with developmental dyslexia are known to have problems with phonological awareness and, ... more Children with developmental dyslexia are known to have problems with phonological awareness and, in particular, with phonological decoding. This study was aimed at determining the relationship between orthographic and phonological decoding strategies used by a group of children with developmental dyslexia and two groups of children who were average readers (matched on reading age and chronological age, respectively). The three groups of children, 12 in each, were presented with single words, either visually or orally. The children were asked to pronounce these words using either an orthographic (spelling) strategy following mental deletion of one letter, or a phonological (sounding) strategy following mental deletion of one sound. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the reading age control group were more accurate when using phonological strategies than when using orthographic strategies, whereas the chronological age control group generally showed superior orthographic and phonological processing abilities compared with both the developmental dyslexia and reading age control groups. Compared with both chronological and reading age control groups, children in the developmental dyslexia group had more difficulty when using a phonological strategy, particularly when words were presented auditorily. However, compared with their performance on phonological tasks, the developmental dyslexia group performed at a level commensurate with their age when carrying out the orthographic tasks.
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2013
Background: It has been argued that consuming alcohol mixed with energy drinks (AmED) causes a su... more Background: It has been argued that consuming alcohol mixed with energy drinks (AmED) causes a subjective underestimation of intoxication and an increased level of risk-taking behaviour. To date, however, there is mixed support for AmED-induced reductions in perceived intoxication, and no objective assessment of risk-taking following AmED consumption. Consequently, the present study aimed to determine the effect of alcohol and energy drink (ED) consumption on subjective measures of intoxication and objective measures of risk-taking.
The role of the scientist-practitioner model in the teaching of ... Learning Outcomes and Curricu... more The role of the scientist-practitioner model in the teaching of ... Learning Outcomes and Curriculum Development in Psychology ... Greg Hannan, and Frances Martin, Gerry Farrell, University of Tasmania Denise Chalmers, Ottmar Lipp, and Deborah Terry, University of Queensland ...
Contrast sensitivity functions for normal and specifically disabled readers were measured in two ... more Contrast sensitivity functions for normal and specifically disabled readers were measured in two experiments. Each study showed that specifically disabled readers and controls differ in the pattern of relative sensitivity across spatial frequencies. Both studies provide evidence of differences between normal and disabled readers on measures of visual mechanisms fundamental to the reading process.
Abstract The efficacy of prolonged single sessions of live graded exposure (LGE) and computer-aid... more Abstract The efficacy of prolonged single sessions of live graded exposure (LGE) and computer-aided vicarious exposure (CAVE) for spider phobia was examined in a single-blind, controlled trial. Forty participants diagnosed with specific phobia (spiders) received ...
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 2001
The efficacy of computer-aided vicarious exposure (CAVE) for the treatment of spider phobia in ch... more The efficacy of computer-aided vicarious exposure (CAVE) for the treatment of spider phobia in children was evaluated in a single blind, randomised, controlled trial. Twenty-eight participants, aged 10-17 years, received three 45-min sessions of either Live graded exposure (LGE), CAVE or were assigned to a Waitlist. Phobic symptomatology was measured at preand post-treatment, and at one month follow-up on a range of behavioural and subjective assessments. The results showed the superiority of the LGE treatment over the CAVE and Waitlist conditions. Effect sizes support CAVE treatment as being superior to the Waitlist and resulting in reductions of phobic symptomatology. r : S 0 0 0 5 -7 9 1 6 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 1 9 -2
Musical chords are arguably the smallest building blocks of music that retain emotional informati... more Musical chords are arguably the smallest building blocks of music that retain emotional information. Major chords are generally perceived as positive- and minor chords as negative-sounding, but there has been debate concerning how early these emotional connotations may be processed. To investigate this, emotional facial stimuli and musical chord stimuli were simultaneously presented to participants, and facilitation of processing was measured via event-related potential (ERP) amplitudes. Decreased amplitudes of the P1 and N2 ERP components have been found to index the facilitation of early processing. If simultaneously presented musical chords and facial stimuli are perceived at early stages as belonging to the same emotional category, then early processing should be facilitated for these congruent pairs, and ERP amplitudes should therefore be decreased as compared to the incongruent pairs. ERPs were recorded from 30 musically naive participants as they viewed happy, sad, and neutral faces presented simultaneously with a major or minor chord. When faces and chords were presented that contained congruent emotional information (happy-major or sad-minor), processing was facilitated, as indexed by decreased N2 ERP amplitudes. This suggests that musical chords do possess emotional connotations that can be processed as early as 200 ms in naive listeners. The early stages of processing that are involved suggest that major and minor chords have deeply connected emotional meanings, rather than superficially attributed ones, indicating that minor triads possess negative emotional connotations and major triads possess positive emotional connotations.
This investigation provided a collaborative framework for: the development and articulation of gr... more This investigation provided a collaborative framework for: the development and articulation of graduate attributes for psychology research and application of evidence-based teaching in psychology, and the creation of a diverse, future-oriented vision for undergraduate psychology education
This investigation provided a collaborative framework for: the development and articulation of gr... more This investigation provided a collaborative framework for: the development and articulation of graduate attributes for psychology research and application of evidence-based teaching in psychology, and the creation of a diverse, future-oriented vision for undergraduate psychology education
Abstract This paper outlines the background, process and outcomes for a project that delineated a... more Abstract This paper outlines the background, process and outcomes for a project that delineated a set of graduate attributes of the 4-year Australian undergraduate psychology program. The nature of the current undergraduate psychology program and its quality ...
For students to be able to benefit from feedback provided on their writing, it is necessary for t... more For students to be able to benefit from feedback provided on their writing, it is necessary for them to be able to discriminate between examples of writing that differ in their quality. The ability of students enrolled in an introductory psychology unit at the University of Tasmania (N=156) to discriminate good from poor writing was assessed by giving them a number of pairs of expressions that differed in quality and asking them to identify the better example. A brief vocabulary and numeracy test was also conducted. The students then completed a tutorial exercise in which they either received a traditional presentation regarding writing skills, or were provided with a number of further pairs of examples and asked to discriminate between them with feedback being provided. Following this exercise, students completed a brief piece of written work, which was assessed and also analysed using the Six-subscales Quality Scale (SSQS) . Six weeks after the initial exercise this procedure was repeated, but with the alternative tutorial exercise to that which had been experienced in Week 1. A factor analysis of the SSQS revealed two factors, which could be categorised as "surface" and "deep" writing skills. The students' surface writing skills improved across time, but deep skills did not. There was some evidence that the order in which the two teaching experiences occurred influenced performance. Post-test discrimination scores were significant predictors of future written performance, examination performance, and whether students would drop out or fail the examination. A combination of sex, vocabulary, numeracy and post-test discrimination scores accounted for 43% of the variance in examination performance. Discrimination training, in combination with appropriate information regarding writing skills, may help students understand the comments they receive in feedback on written work and thus improve their performance across a range of assessment tasks.
Attention to motion stimuli and correct motion perception are vital for road safety. Although can... more Attention to motion stimuli and correct motion perception are vital for road safety. Although cannabis use has been associated with increased road crash risks, there is limited research on attentional processing of moving stimuli in cannabis users. This study investigated the neural correlates of the three-stimulus oddball task in cannabis users (n = 18) and non-users (n = 23) in response to moving stimuli. Stimulus contrast was under 16% against a low luminance background (M luminance < 16 cd/m). The two groups did not differ in accuracy or in N2 peak amplitude; however, N2 latency was longer for target and standard stimuli in the cannabis group than in the control group. The cannabis group also showed a significantly reduced P3b amplitude in response to target stimuli. The AUDIT score was added as a random factor to the anova to rule out the effects of uneven alcohol consumption in the two groups. A significant group effect was found for N2 latency in response to target and sta...
Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Science and Mathematics Education, Sep 4, 2014
Students' knowledge of the nature of science is an important determinant of their success at univ... more Students' knowledge of the nature of science is an important determinant of their success at university and of their satisfaction with their chosen discipline of study. Epistemological beliefs are also likely to determine the approach taken to studying and to inform students' understanding of the nature of science. Students (n=214) studying an introductory unit of psychology at an Australian university completed a survey comprising Hofer's discipline-focussed epistemological beliefs questionnaire, the authors' science knowledge and attitudes questionnaire, and the latest revision of the two-factor study process questionnaire. The factor structure of both the discipline focussed epistemological beliefs questionnaire and the science knowledge and attitudes questionnaire deviated from previous analyses. Despite this, subscales both of these instruments were associated with various measures of academic success. Possible mechanisms for these relations are discussed, along with recommendations for educational development.
Chronic cannabis use is associated with deficits in visual attention and perception, and reduced ... more Chronic cannabis use is associated with deficits in visual attention and perception, and reduced dopamine levels, especially with early-onset use. Motion perception is impaired with altered dopaminergic functioning in people with Schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease and in abstaining drug users. Such deficits in motion perception have been shown to be exacerbated at low contrast and in low luminance conditions. This study tested the hypothesis that early-onset cannabis users will show impaired motion perception under low light conditions compared to controls. Motion coherence thresholds were collected from 19 controls (11 male, mean age 22.4 years) and 14 cannabis users (8 male, mean age 23.6 years). Participants completed two discrimination of direction of motion (radial and translational) tasks at three luminance levels (69, 3.5 and 0.5cd/m2). In each task 50 dots were presented on the screen for 500msec, moving at 5.6 d/sec speed upward or downward in the translational task, and inward or outward in the radial task. The contrast of the dots was at 12 and 24% and varied pseudo-randomly across trials in each task. A two-alternative forced choice paradigm (direction discrimination: upward vs downward; inward vs outward) and a two-down, one-up staircase procedure were employed. The interaction between contrast and group (F1,31=5.6741, p=0.02) was significant. The groups did not differ at 12% contrast however at 24% contrast the coherence threshold was higher for the cannabis group than the controls. This effect was modified by a trend towards a significant interaction between motion type, contrast and group (F1,31=3.8643, p=0.058), which suggested that this effect was confined to the radial direction of motion. This is the first study showing that abstaining cannabis users present a specific deficit in processing of complex motion such as radial motion. These results suggest that cannabis users can be impaired in everyday tasks such as driving.
Children with developmental dyslexia are known to have problems with phonological awareness and, ... more Children with developmental dyslexia are known to have problems with phonological awareness and, in particular, with phonological decoding. This study was aimed at determining the relationship between orthographic and phonological decoding strategies used by a group of children with developmental dyslexia and two groups of children who were average readers (matched on reading age and chronological age, respectively). The three groups of children, 12 in each, were presented with single words, either visually or orally. The children were asked to pronounce these words using either an orthographic (spelling) strategy following mental deletion of one letter, or a phonological (sounding) strategy following mental deletion of one sound. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the reading age control group were more accurate when using phonological strategies than when using orthographic strategies, whereas the chronological age control group generally showed superior orthographic and phonological processing abilities compared with both the developmental dyslexia and reading age control groups. Compared with both chronological and reading age control groups, children in the developmental dyslexia group had more difficulty when using a phonological strategy, particularly when words were presented auditorily. However, compared with their performance on phonological tasks, the developmental dyslexia group performed at a level commensurate with their age when carrying out the orthographic tasks.
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2013
Background: It has been argued that consuming alcohol mixed with energy drinks (AmED) causes a su... more Background: It has been argued that consuming alcohol mixed with energy drinks (AmED) causes a subjective underestimation of intoxication and an increased level of risk-taking behaviour. To date, however, there is mixed support for AmED-induced reductions in perceived intoxication, and no objective assessment of risk-taking following AmED consumption. Consequently, the present study aimed to determine the effect of alcohol and energy drink (ED) consumption on subjective measures of intoxication and objective measures of risk-taking.
The role of the scientist-practitioner model in the teaching of ... Learning Outcomes and Curricu... more The role of the scientist-practitioner model in the teaching of ... Learning Outcomes and Curriculum Development in Psychology ... Greg Hannan, and Frances Martin, Gerry Farrell, University of Tasmania Denise Chalmers, Ottmar Lipp, and Deborah Terry, University of Queensland ...
Contrast sensitivity functions for normal and specifically disabled readers were measured in two ... more Contrast sensitivity functions for normal and specifically disabled readers were measured in two experiments. Each study showed that specifically disabled readers and controls differ in the pattern of relative sensitivity across spatial frequencies. Both studies provide evidence of differences between normal and disabled readers on measures of visual mechanisms fundamental to the reading process.
Abstract The efficacy of prolonged single sessions of live graded exposure (LGE) and computer-aid... more Abstract The efficacy of prolonged single sessions of live graded exposure (LGE) and computer-aided vicarious exposure (CAVE) for spider phobia was examined in a single-blind, controlled trial. Forty participants diagnosed with specific phobia (spiders) received ...
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 2001
The efficacy of computer-aided vicarious exposure (CAVE) for the treatment of spider phobia in ch... more The efficacy of computer-aided vicarious exposure (CAVE) for the treatment of spider phobia in children was evaluated in a single blind, randomised, controlled trial. Twenty-eight participants, aged 10-17 years, received three 45-min sessions of either Live graded exposure (LGE), CAVE or were assigned to a Waitlist. Phobic symptomatology was measured at preand post-treatment, and at one month follow-up on a range of behavioural and subjective assessments. The results showed the superiority of the LGE treatment over the CAVE and Waitlist conditions. Effect sizes support CAVE treatment as being superior to the Waitlist and resulting in reductions of phobic symptomatology. r : S 0 0 0 5 -7 9 1 6 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 1 9 -2
Musical chords are arguably the smallest building blocks of music that retain emotional informati... more Musical chords are arguably the smallest building blocks of music that retain emotional information. Major chords are generally perceived as positive- and minor chords as negative-sounding, but there has been debate concerning how early these emotional connotations may be processed. To investigate this, emotional facial stimuli and musical chord stimuli were simultaneously presented to participants, and facilitation of processing was measured via event-related potential (ERP) amplitudes. Decreased amplitudes of the P1 and N2 ERP components have been found to index the facilitation of early processing. If simultaneously presented musical chords and facial stimuli are perceived at early stages as belonging to the same emotional category, then early processing should be facilitated for these congruent pairs, and ERP amplitudes should therefore be decreased as compared to the incongruent pairs. ERPs were recorded from 30 musically naive participants as they viewed happy, sad, and neutral faces presented simultaneously with a major or minor chord. When faces and chords were presented that contained congruent emotional information (happy-major or sad-minor), processing was facilitated, as indexed by decreased N2 ERP amplitudes. This suggests that musical chords do possess emotional connotations that can be processed as early as 200 ms in naive listeners. The early stages of processing that are involved suggest that major and minor chords have deeply connected emotional meanings, rather than superficially attributed ones, indicating that minor triads possess negative emotional connotations and major triads possess positive emotional connotations.
This investigation provided a collaborative framework for: the development and articulation of gr... more This investigation provided a collaborative framework for: the development and articulation of graduate attributes for psychology research and application of evidence-based teaching in psychology, and the creation of a diverse, future-oriented vision for undergraduate psychology education
This investigation provided a collaborative framework for: the development and articulation of gr... more This investigation provided a collaborative framework for: the development and articulation of graduate attributes for psychology research and application of evidence-based teaching in psychology, and the creation of a diverse, future-oriented vision for undergraduate psychology education
Abstract This paper outlines the background, process and outcomes for a project that delineated a... more Abstract This paper outlines the background, process and outcomes for a project that delineated a set of graduate attributes of the 4-year Australian undergraduate psychology program. The nature of the current undergraduate psychology program and its quality ...
For students to be able to benefit from feedback provided on their writing, it is necessary for t... more For students to be able to benefit from feedback provided on their writing, it is necessary for them to be able to discriminate between examples of writing that differ in their quality. The ability of students enrolled in an introductory psychology unit at the University of Tasmania (N=156) to discriminate good from poor writing was assessed by giving them a number of pairs of expressions that differed in quality and asking them to identify the better example. A brief vocabulary and numeracy test was also conducted. The students then completed a tutorial exercise in which they either received a traditional presentation regarding writing skills, or were provided with a number of further pairs of examples and asked to discriminate between them with feedback being provided. Following this exercise, students completed a brief piece of written work, which was assessed and also analysed using the Six-subscales Quality Scale (SSQS) . Six weeks after the initial exercise this procedure was repeated, but with the alternative tutorial exercise to that which had been experienced in Week 1. A factor analysis of the SSQS revealed two factors, which could be categorised as "surface" and "deep" writing skills. The students' surface writing skills improved across time, but deep skills did not. There was some evidence that the order in which the two teaching experiences occurred influenced performance. Post-test discrimination scores were significant predictors of future written performance, examination performance, and whether students would drop out or fail the examination. A combination of sex, vocabulary, numeracy and post-test discrimination scores accounted for 43% of the variance in examination performance. Discrimination training, in combination with appropriate information regarding writing skills, may help students understand the comments they receive in feedback on written work and thus improve their performance across a range of assessment tasks.
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