Memory on the beach: an Australian memory (and hypnosis) laboratory

The memory (and hypnosis) lab at the University of New South Wales investigates a broad range of memory topics. We try to find innovative methods from cognitive and clinical psychology to address theoretical and empirical questions about memory. We aso use hypnosis as one major methodological tool in our investigations of memory (as well as other cognitive processes). In this paper, we review the projects currently underway in our memory (and hypnosis) lab.     

Categorical perception of familiar objects

We report three experiments where the categorical perception of familiar, three-dimensional objects was investigated. A continuum of shape change between 15 pairs of objects was created and the images along the continuum were used as stimuli. In Experiment 1 participants were first required to discriminate pairs of images of objects that lay along the shape continuum. Then participants were asked to classify each morph-image into one of two pre-specified classes. We found evidence for categorical perception in some but not all of our object pairs. In Experiment 2 we varied the viewpoint of the objects in the discrimination task and found that effects of categorical perception generalized across changes in view. In Experiment 3 similarity ratings for each object pair were collected. These similarity scores correlated with the degree of perceptual categorization found for the object pairs. Our findings suggest that some familiar objects are perceived categorically and that categorical perception is closely tied to inter-object perceptual similarity.     

The subjects as a simple random effect fallacy: subject variability and morphological family effects in the mental lexicon

This is a methodological study addressing the appropriateness of standard by-subject and by-item averaging procedures for the analysis of repeated-measures designs. By means of a reanalysis of published data (Schreuder & Baayen, 1997), using random regression models, we present a proof of existence of systematic variability between participants that is ignored in the standard psycholinguistic analytical procedures. By applying linear mixed effects modeling (Pinheiro & Bates, 2000), we call attention to the potential lack of power of the by-subject and by-item analyses, which in this case study fail to reveal the coexistence of a facilitatory family size effect and an inhibitory family frequency effect in visual and auditory lexical processing.     

Friendship Work on Facebook: Young Adults' Understandings and Practices of Friendship

Young adults use social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook to engage as friends, yet there has been little systematic research that has investigated their sense‐making of friendship in relation to their uses of Facebook, as well as how Facebook as a socio‐technical system interacts with their friendship practices. Twelve friendship discussion groups were conducted in urban and non‐urban New Zealand, with 26 women and 25 men aged 18–25 years, in same and mixed‐gender groups. Our social constructionist thematic analysis showed the young adults made sense of friendship through themes of ‘fun times together’, an ‘investment’, ‘protection’ and ‘self‐authenticity’, and these meanings were enacted in particular ways within Facebook. This SNS was used primarily for enjoying friendship and ‘investing in’ friendships, and friendship protection was required to maintain friends' online privacy. Facebook provided a way to demonstrate self‐authenticity within friendship relationships through censored ‘show off’ self‐displays and favoured friendship activities. Facebook supported, disrupted and modified these particular friendship understandings by broadening the audience for friendship actions and intensifying friends' responses through 24/7 accessibility and instantaneous activity notifications. These interactions between friendship understandings and Facebook as a socio‐technical system demonstrate how friendship was reinforced, negotiated and re‐worked through this online context. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The execution of planned detours by spider‐eating predators

Many spiders from the salticid subfamily Spartaeinae specialize at preying on other spiders and they adopt complex strategies when targeting these dangerous prey. We tested 15 of these spider‐eating spartaeine species for the capacity to plan detours ahead of time. Each trial began with the test subject on top of a tower from which it could view two boxes: one containing prey and the other not containing prey. The distance between the tower and the boxes was too far to reach by leaping and the tower sat on a platform surrounded by water. As the species studied are known to avoid water, the only way they could reach the prey without getting wet was by taking one of two circuitous walkways from the platform: one leading to the prey (‘correct’) and one not leading to the prey (‘incorrect’). After leaving the tower, the test subject could not see the prey and sometimes it had to walk past the incorrect walkway before reaching the correct walkway. Yet all 15 species chose the correct walkway significantly more often than the incorrect walkway. We propose that these findings exemplify genuine cognition based on representation.     

The Interconnection Between Islamic Religiosity and Deviancy Among Australian Muslim Youth: A Partial Mediation Role of Life Satisfaction

The aim of the present study was to examine the extent to which life satisfaction mediates the relationship between Islamic religiosity and deviancy amongst Muslim youth. A sample of 200 Australian Muslims aged between 18 and 25 years (M_age = 21.18; SD = 1.89) participated in this study. An existing attitude toward Islam measure and Islamic religious practice measure developed for the current study purposes were used. Controlling for demographic variables and social desirability, the study findings revealed a negative association between Islamic religious practice and deviancy, and a positive association with life satisfaction. Participants’ life satisfaction was negatively associated with deviancy and partially mediated the association between participants’ Islamic religious practice and deviancy. Attitudes toward Islam scores were not associated with either deviancy or life satisfaction. Our findings suggest that strategies to encourage and support young Muslim’s life satisfaction hold the potential to protect them against deviancy.     

Dissociable effects of basolateral amygdala lesions on decision making biases in rats when loss or gain is emphasized

Individuals switch from risk seeking to risk aversion when mathematically identical options are described in terms of loss versus gains, as exemplified in the reflection and framing effects. Determining the neurobiology underlying such cognitive biases could inform our understanding of decision making in health and disease. Although reports vary, data using human subjects have implicated the amygdala in such biases. Animal models enable more detailed investigation of neurobiological mechanisms. We therefore tested whether basolateral amygdala (BLA) lesions would affect risk preference for gains or losses in rats. Choices in both paradigms were always between options of equal expected value—a guaranteed outcome, or the 50:50 chance of double or nothing. In the loss-chasing task, most rats exhibited strong risk seeking preferences, gambling at the risk of incurring double the penalty, regardless of the size of the guaranteed loss. In the betting task, the majority of animals were equivocal in their choice, irrespective of bet size; however, a wager-sensitive subgroup progressively shifted away from the uncertain option as the bet size increased, which is reminiscent of risk aversion. BLA lesions increased preference for the smaller guaranteed loss in the loss-chasing task, without affecting choice on the betting task, which is indicative of reduced risk seeking for losses, but intact risk aversion for gains. These data support the hypothesis that the amygdala plays a more prominent role in choice biases related to losses. Given the importance of the amygdala in representing negative affect, the aversive emotional reaction to loss, rather than aberrant estimations of probability or loss magnitude, may underlie risk seeking for losses.     

Resisting temptation: alcohol specific self-efficacy mediates the impacts of compensatory health beliefs and behaviours on alcohol consumption

Awareness of health risks linked with excessive alcohol consumption appears to have little influence on how much some people drink. Compensatory health beliefs (CHBs), in which the consequences of unhealthy behaviour are considered to be neutralised by additional healthy behaviours, are one way of justifying poor health choices. Currently, the role of CHBs within the context of drinking behaviour is not well understood. This research examined associations between alcohol specific compensatory health beliefs (ACH-Beliefs) and behaviours (ACH-Behaviours), alcohol consumption and alcohol specific self-efficacy (ASE), via an online survey completed by 249 participants, aged 18 + years (63.1% female; M age = 41.62 years; SD = 14.80). Higher ACH-Beliefs were associated with increases in ACH-Behaviours. While both predicted alcohol consumption, a greater proportion of variance was explained by ACH-Behaviours. ASE was a significant mediator of those relationships, suggesting that those with higher ASE may be better equipped to regulate drinking behaviour. Recommendations for future research include measuring both CHBs and behaviours within an experimental design, and further investigation of related cognitions such as compensatory behaviour intentions. Alcohol misuse interventions may wish to consider the potential roles of CHBs and behaviours in facilitating maladaptive coping strategies, and how addressing these may reduce harms.     

MELD-SCH: A megastudy of lexical decision in simplified Chinese

Here we report on MELD-SCH (MEgastudy of Lexical Decision in Simplified CHinese), a dataset that contains the lexical decision data of 1,020 one-character, 10,022 two-character, 949 three-character, and 587 four-character simplified Chinese words obtained from 504 native Chinese users. It also includes a number of word-level and character-level variables. Analyses showed that the reliability of the dataset is satisfactory, as indicated by split-half correlations and comparisons with other datasets. Item-based regression showed that both word-level and character-level variables contributed significantly to the reaction times and error rates of lexical decision. Moreover, we discovered a U-shape relationship between word-length and reaction times, which has not been reported in Chinese before. MELD-SCH can facilitate research in Chinese word recognition by providing high quality normative data and information of different linguistic variables. It also encourages researchers to extend their empirical findings, which are mostly based on one-character and two-character words, to words of different lengths.     

The microgeographies of learning bodies and emotions in the ‘classroom-salon’

The role of the body and emotions in the workplace has become a fruitful area for sociological and, increasingly, geographical research over the past decade. This has been given particular emphasis and credence due to the growth of the service sector and its perceived ‘feminisation’, and the proliferation of work that focuses on the ‘improvement’ of bodies, most especially female bodies. This literature, though, has focused, as it suggests, on the processes of working and the geographies of the workplace, with those of training largely overlooked. Yet, given the emphasis on training for work and up-skilling in neoliberal economies, the sites and spaces of training warrant further attention. Here we focus on mothers engaged in training for massage and reflexology in the West London area, and draw together notions of body work and emotional labour to examine how bodies and emotions are learned and experienced through the microgeographies of the ‘classroom-salon’. In particular, the paper explores how the transformative space of the ‘classroom-salon’ is used to teach skills perceived simultaneously as natural and technical and how these link to perceived gender and maternal identities that extend beyond the classroom.