Psychology collection
The Department of Psychology offers some of the most popular and highly-rated undergraduate courses at Otago. It provides excellent preparation of students for careers in research and the profession of Psychology. Students from the postgraduate programme have achieved national and international recognition and awards and a number have gone on to positions in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, UK and the USA.
For further information go to the Department of Psychology.
Recent Deposits
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Cognitive Load Theory and Flight Simulator-Based Instructional Design for Novices
As flight simulators have become more commonplace in aviation training, empirical research for the optimum instructional design to be used to train novices has been left behind. The most common accident during instructional ... -
The Effect of Anxiety on Religious Cognition
Religion is a ubiquitous cultural phenomenon that ordinarily involves shared belief in supernatural beings. Psychological perspectives on religion have tended to include either motivational biases (e.g., beliefs mitigate ... -
Interaction between limbic circuits and basal ganglia in behaviour inhibition
Changing behaviour in response to changing internal and external situations is crucial for survival. In particular, we need to inhibit ongoing, unwanted or inappropriate behaviour. Behavioural inhibition includes inhibition ... -
An alternative intervention for Bulimia
People with bulimia present with a variety of abnormal beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours. With few exceptions, studies to date have focused exclusively on the specific psychopathology of bulimia. This controlled study ... -
Put Your Smartphone Down: Preliminary Evidence that Reducing Smartphone Use Improves Psychological Well-being in People with Poor Mental Health
Smartphones have become an integral part of our daily lives. Although there is evidence that there are positive aspects to smartphone use, overuse has also been shown to lead to poorer mental health. Surprisingly, there ... -
Increasing the level of detail in adult witnesses’ event accounts: Can an example of required detail help?
Because eyewitness accounts are a critical source of evidence in many police investigations, it is important for this evidence to be both detailed and accurate. Eliciting evidence that fulfills both of these criteria, ... -
Reconceptualizing the Periaqueductal Grey: Fear, Anxiety and Motivational Systems in an Ancient Structure
The periaqueductal grey (PAG) is classically seen as a region responsible for the control of defensive reactions. This thesis provides a detailed review of anatomical and functional data on the different parts of the PAG ... -
Memory distortion and misperception in the criminal justice system
The legal system relies on witnesses to recall and recount their experiences accurately. Allegations of historic sexual abuse, for example, tend to involve little or no corroborating evidence, meaning that cases are often ... -
From Goal- to Emotion-based Helping: The Interactive Roles of Toddlers’ Social Understanding and Connectedness of Parental Mental State Talk
This longitudinal study examined the development of instrumental and empathic helping behaviours as they emerged in toddlerhood, and assessed how child self-concept and the connectedness of parental mental state discourse ... -
The Effects of Task Probability on Processing Mode in Dual-task Contexts
One of the major concerns about multitasking performance is whether dual-tasks are performed in parallel or in a strict serial sequence. The Response Selection Bottleneck (RSB) model assumes a structural bottleneck which ... -
Exploring human error and related factors of aviation flight safety events using post-incident classification systems
Within aviation, a human error classification system theoretically allows researchers to analyse post-accident data in an objective yet consistent manner. The primary objective of the present study was to explore human ... -
Stereotypes of Maori : influence of speaker accent and appearance
Research has consistently shown that there are a number of negative stereotypes held by Pakeha towards Maori. However, some of these studies have been flawed by low participant identification rates of Maori. Furthermore, ... -
The rabbit hole before Wonderland: The nature of university students’ alcohol use during the transition to university.
For new students, university is a wonderland of opportunity. But the first few weeks of the university experience are typified by change, stress, and uncertainty. From a health promotion perspective, the first few weeks ... -
Drawing from the past to learn tomorrow
Humans are unique in their ability to use tools to produce works which communicate information about 3D objects through 2D drawings. Drawings give us insight into the origins of our species, our uniqueness amongst animals, ... -
Retroactive Interference of an Operant Discrimination induced by exposure to a Pavlovian-Conditioning Task: Task specific and neuronal factors
Retroactive interference (RI) is a phenomenon where a new learning experience interferes with the recollection of a previous one. This phenomenon has been mainly studied in rodents using behaviourally conflicting contextual ... -
Using TDCS to improve working memory: can metaplasticity protocols boost benefits?
Introduction: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive electrical brain stimulation technique that has been used extensively over prefrontal cortex in an effort to enhance verbal working memory (WM). ... -
Innocent until proven guilty: The effect of truncated testimony and deliberation on jury decision-making
Many countries, including New Zealand, now allow for children’s evidence to be provided by alternative means, rather than requiring them to be physically present in the courtroom. The opportunity for children to provide ... -
Effect of Exercise on the ACC-OFC Network and Implications for Cost-Benefit Decision Making
Increasing evidence demonstrates that physical exercise (PE) improves cognitive functioning. Improvements are particularly noted in executive functioning – a subset of cognition including functions such as cost-benefit ... -
Cognitive functioning of patients who develop delirium after cardiac surgery
In the present study the cognitive outcomes of cardiac surgery were examined in patients who did or did not develop delirium early post-operatively. The study expanded on previous research by investigating: (1) the ... -
In Plane Sight: Distraction and Object Detection in Simulated Flights
Human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) research continues to demonstrate that humans are not infallible, in particular increased attentional demands can impair an individual’s ability to react to incoming information. ...