Dr Dave Trudinger & Mr James Bates (NSW Department of Customer Service)Sludge: are there measurable psychological costs from administrative burden? A NSW and global perspective Abstract You’ve heard of nudges, but have you heard of sludge? The NSW Behavioural Insights Unit is leading the world on tackling sludge – the unnecessary and unjustified frictions that […]

Prof Michael Bowen (USYD)Title: KNX100 and other small molecules that could: Developing prosocial compounds for disorders of the brain and mind Abstract: Challenges with social motivation, interactions, and communication are central to many disorders of the brain and mind, and are major barriers to improved functioning in others. For example, in substance use disorders, impairments […]

Prof Ben Newell (UNSW)Title: The many uncertainties of climate change: A psychological perspective Abstract: The one thing that is certain about climate change is that it is happening. The extent of its impacts, our ability to adapt, to mitigate and to plan are, however, all inherently uncertain. This is unfortunate because uncertainty can often cloud perception […]

Prof Andrew Lawrence (Florey)Title: Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptors as a Novel Treatment Target for Alcohol Use Disorder Abstract: Despite the large socioeconomic burden of alcohol use disorders (AUD), therapeutic treatment options are limited. There is a need to characterise the underlying neurochemistry driving alcohol seeking to identify and evaluate novel treatment targets. To this end we conducted […]

Dr Jelena Brcic (University of the Fraser Valley)Title: Reported Psychological Growth Following Work in Extreme and Unusual Environments: Role of Perceived Stress and Coping Abstract: There are psychological, biological, and sociological constructs that emerge within extreme and unusual environments (EUE) that cannot be studied elsewhere. Post-Experience Change (PEC), which is significantly modelled after Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG), […]

Prof Paul Rhodes (USYD)Title: Eco-psychology: a critical paradigm in the climate emergency Abstract: This presentation makes the argument that mainstream psychological practice is not equipped to respond to distress associated with the climate emergency. This is because the field focusses on individual pathology, rather than ecological context. It remains reticent about activism and politics and […]

H. Tasman Lovell Memorial Medallion for the Best PhD Thesis in the School of Psychology for 2023Awarded to Dr Roslyn Wong for Anticipatory prediction during online language processing. Faculty of Science Prize for Outstanding PhD Thesis for 2023 Awarded to Dr Anastaia Suraev for From Prohibition to Prescription: The Role of Cannabinoids in Sleep. 2024 […]

Dr Will Harrison (University of the Sunshine Coast)Title: Seeing More with Less: Efficient sensory coding with and without eye movements Abstract: It is often difficult to understand perceptual and cognitive processes from a scientific point of view. Unfortunately, I think we often mistake our difficulty in understanding a problem with the complexity of the problem itself. […]

Dr Will Ngiam (University of Adelaide)Title: Multivariate decoding of visual attention and memory – is what we see, what we remember? Abstract: The ability to select relevant information and maintain it in mind – our attention and working memory respectively in broad strokes – is central to perception and cognition. In hopes of better understanding of […]

Prof Virginia Slaughter (UQ)Title: Do humans imitate from birth? Abstract: Imitation in human newborns is widely cited as evidence of an inborn Mirror Neuron System that underpins human social behaviour, even though its existence has been debated for decades. The possibility that newborns do not imitate was reinvigorated in recent years by research from our lab at […]