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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The relationship between social reinforcement and performance for individuals with depressive symptoms
Depression is associated with a reduced sensitivity to positive reinforcement. Research suggests this is due to an impaired response to historically rewarding stimuli. However, little experimental research has looked at ... -
Shared factors in autobiographical memory and theory of mind development
When humans use the mental states (e.g., beliefs, intentions) and the emotional states of others to predict or explain another person's behaviour, they have demonstrated their theory of mind understanding. Theory of mind ... -
He Taoka Kōrerorero The Role of Kāi Tahu Grandparent-Grandchild Communication in Positive Identity Development: A Qualitative Inquiry
Over the last three decades, research into the effects of mother-child reminiscing conversations on children's development has provided a significant insight into how the conversations we have as children impact our ... -
Lifestyle Factors as Keys to Wellness? Unlocking the Individual, Additive, and Synergistic Associations of Sleep, Diet, and Exercise with Mental Health and Well-Being
Various strategies have been proposed as entry points to promote better mental health and well-being. Among these entry points may be modifiable lifestyle behaviours such as sleep, diet, and exercise. These healthy lifestyle ... -
Hippocampal sharp wave ripple events and place cell activity in a ketamine model of schizophrenia
This experiment aimed to explore the role of hippocampal activity in a pharmacological model of schizophrenia, focusing on hippocampal place cell firing and associated sharp wave ripple events. In a within-subjects design, ... -
Functional circuitry of basal forebrain underlying enhanced attention by reward anticipation in rats
This thesis focused on the role of the basal forebrain (BF) in the interaction of motivation and attention in Long-Evans rats. The interaction between motivation and attention is critically impacted in psychiatric conditions ... -
The Role of the Pigeon Nidopallium Caudolaterale in Working Memory and Serial-Order Behaviour
The avian nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) is considered homologous to the primate prefrontal cortex (PFC). Although the role of the PFC in executive functions is well established, the role of the NCL remains relatively ... -
The role of possessions in the quest for immortality: Literal and symbolic mechanisms
The connection between death and personal possessions is well documented. Archaeological excavations have found that humans have historically buried their dead with the things they owned, often for the purpose of using ... -
The imagined enactment effect: An ERP analysis of motor imagery and complex everyday movements
The memory benefits linked to learning actions by self-performing them, termed the ‘enactment effect’, is well established in empirical literature. Whilst there is limited research examining imagery-related processes in ... -
Schizotypy and Suicidality: Exploring the Causal Influence of Schizophrenia Liability on Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempts
Suicide, suicide attempts, and suicide ideation account for a significant proportion of deaths, disability, and suffering worldwide. There is currently little knowledge about what factors causally influence risk for suicide. ... -
Temporal coding of conspecific position in the hippocampus
The aim of this experiment was to determine whether the hippocampus formed a representation of the location of another animal. It was hypothesized that place cells in the hippocampus would encode spatial information regarding ... -
Challenges of Religious Scepticism: Do those who reject the afterlife fear a visit from the dead?
Previous research suggests that some individuals hold intuitive or implicit religious beliefs despite explicit statements to the contrary. An experimental study tested whether those who do not endorse afterlife beliefs ... -
Delay activity in the Wulst of pigeons (Columba livia) displays neural correlates for both memory and reward.
The avian brain has two main visual pathways: the tectofugal pathway, that terminates in the Entopallium, and the thalamofugal pathway, that terminates in the avian Wulst. The Wulst is a parasagittal bulge located on the ... -
Does Age-Related Stereotype Threat Affect Older Adults' Recognition of Emotion?
Emotion recognition is a cognitive ability that has been demonstrated to decline with age. Older adults (aged over 60) are consistently poorer than young adults (aged 18-30) at recognising anger, fear, sadness, and happiness. ... -
Effect of Question Type and Exposure to Prior Information on Question Generation in a Simulated Interview Task
Given the key role that eyewitness evidence plays in criminal investigations, it is crucial that police investigators do not unduly constrain or contaminate witnesses’ reports. For this reason, best practice is to ask ... -
Culture and Well-being: The Associations of Self-Construals with Life Satisfaction, Mental Health, and Distress
Self-construals (SC) are overarching schemas that define the way individuals construct themselves in relation to others (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). SCs are strongly influenced by cultural milieu. They can affect well-being ... -
The effects of adult reading style on preschooler's emergent literacy skills
Recently, dialogic reading, a highly interactive adult reading style, has been advocated as the best way to read to young children (Whitehurst et al., 1988; 1994). As children's skill level interacts with adult style, ... -
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 ...