UWA Logo What's On at UWA
   UWA HomeProspective Students  | Current Students  | Staff  | Alumni  | Visitors  | About  |     Search UWA    for      
 

What's On at UWA

* Login to add events... *
Today's date is Friday, March 29, 2024
Graduate Research School
 April 2014
Sunday 13
15:30 - EVENT - 'Modern Moods' Concert : Isabel Hede from the Australian Academy of Music plays a program of MOODY Music. Website | More Information
Isabel Hede, a guest of the UWA and a visiting artist from the Australian National Academy of Music puts her best forward in a program of MOODY modern music! She will showcase works for violin and piano from composers such as Prokofiev and Messiaen, and finish with the universally adored Dvorak's American string quartet. Seats are limited! Be sure to book now!
Tuesday 15
13:00 - Colloquium - How is Attention Deployed During Goal Directed Movements? More Information
People make goal directed movements to interact with their environment. We examined how attention is deployed during goal directed movements and how shifts in attention impact these movements. In the first study, we used a dual task paradigm to investigate how attention can be divided between a search task and a pointing task. Results suggest that shared attentional resources between two tasks degrades performance on both tasks. Movement latency, but not movement time, was also affected by dual task conditions. In a second study, we mapped the spatiotemporal profile of attention relative to a reach. Results showed a consistent pattern of facilitation in the planning stages of the reach, with attention increasing and then reaching a plateau during the completion of the movement before dropping off. Altogether, the results suggest that attention can be deployed dynamically during a goal directed movement and affect the outcome of the movement.

Anna was awarded a BA (Hons) from the University of Sydney and a PhD from Macquarie University. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow at UWA with Prof John Ross and Prof David Badcock. Following this Anna won a Rachel C Atkinson Fellowship to work with Dr Suzanne McKee at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco. She returned to Australia to take up a lectureship at the University of Adelaide and is currently an Assoc Prof in the School of Psychology
Tuesday 29
13:00 - Colloquium - On the other side of the fence: The effects of social categorisation and spatial arrangement on memory for own-race and other-race faces. More Information
1. ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, School of Psychology, The University of Western Australia 2. DFG Research Unit Person Perception, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany

Two presentations from the Australasian Experimental Psychology Conference.

Abstract Humans typically have better memory for own-race than other-race faces (“own-race bias”). Recently, Hehman et al. (2010) reported improved recognition for other-race faces categorised as belonging to participants’ social in-group (i.e., same university). Faces were studied in groups, containing both own-race and other-race faces, half of each labelled as in-group and out-group, respectively. When study faces were spatially grouped by race, participants showed a clear own-race bias. When faces were grouped by university affiliation, in-group other-race face recognition was indistinguishable from own-race face recognition. Our study aimed at extending this unique finding to other races of faces and participants. Forty Asian and 40 Caucasian participants studied Asian and Caucasian faces. Faces were presented in groups, containing equal numbers of own-university and other-university Asian and European faces. Between participants, faces were grouped either according to race or university affiliation. Eye-tracking was used to study the distribution of spatial attention to individual faces in the display. Participants demonstrated a clear own-race bias, but their memory was unaffected by the faces’ university affiliation and the criterion for their spatial grouping. Eye-tracking revealed looking biases towards both own-race and own-university faces. Results are discussed in light of theoretical accounts of the own-race bias.

Presenter: Dr. Troy Visser, Matthew Tang, David Badcock & James Enns1,

1. School of Psychology, The University of Western Australia 2. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Title: Temporal cues and the attentional blink: A further examination of the role of expectancy.

Abstract Although perception is typically constrained by limits in available processing resources, these constraints can be overcome if information about environmental properties, such as the spatial location or expected onset time of an object, can be used to direct processing resources to particular sensory inputs. Our work examines these temporal expectancy effects in greater detail in the context of the attentional blink (AB), in which identification of the second of two targets is impaired when targets are separated by less than about half-a-second. We replicate previous results showing that presenting information about the expected onset time of the second target can overcome the AB. Uniquely, we also show that knowledge about expected onset: a) reduces susceptibility to distraction; and, b) can be derived from temporal consistencies in inter-target interval across exposures as long as these consistencies are salient. These results imply that temporal expectancy can benefit object processing at perceptual and post-perceptual stages, and that participants are capable of flexibly encoding consistent timing information about environmental events to aid perception.

 May 2014
Thursday 01
17:00 - LECTURE - Public Lecture by Dr Khalid Zaheer: Interfaith Dialogue in the Contemporary World : This CMSS lecture explores the merits and promotion of interfaith dialogue today. Website | More Information
Dr Khalid Zaheer is the Scholar at Understanding Islam UK (UIUK) since May 2012. UIUK is a non-political organization established in UK as a registered charity since 2001 for spreading a non-sectarian, peace-promoting, and moderate message of Islam based on the two authentic sources of Qur'an and Sunnah. Prior to joining UIUK, he was the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of University of Central Punjab from July, 2009 to May 2012. Prior to joining UCP, he was the Director Education, Al-Mawrid, which is an NGO established to promote research and education on Islam. Prior to joining Al-Mawrid in September 2006, he was an Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Ethics at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). He has a teaching experience of more than 20 years. Before joining LUMS, he taught at IBA, University of the Punjab for 12 years as a permanent faculty member. He has also taught at various other educational institutions in Lahore. Dr Zaheer's PhD dissertation was a critique on Interest-Free Banking. His areas of interest are Islamic Banking, in particular its departures from true Islamic principles, and application of Islamic teachings in the contemporary business and social environment. He regularly contributes articles to the monthly Renaissance, a leading religious English journal of the country. Dr. Zaheer has appeared in many television programs and has also given sermons at mosques, both in Pakistan as well as in the UK. His understanding of Islamic teachings and his experiences have convinced him that our present-day world is confronted with scourges of two extremisms: religious extremism and liberal extremism. He has joined UIUK to realize his dream to promote the cause of the true Islamic message, which is neither extremist nor liberal.
Friday 02
14:00 - EVENT - Once, twice or thrice upon a time: Audio-visual temporal recalibration is driven by decisional processes More Information
Derek Arnold’s research focuses on issues that arise due to the functional architecture of human sensory processing. Sensory analyses are often initially independent, can take place in different brain regions and be completed at different rates. How then do they combine across space and time in the brain to create subjectively uniform experiences? How do we discern when one event happened relative to another?

Dr. Derek Arnold completed his PhD at Macquarie University in 2003. He then took up an Anglo-Australian Research Fellowship, funded by the Royal Society. In 2006 he took up a continuing position at the University of Queensland, initially as an ARC funded Australian Postdoctoral Fellow, then as an ARC funded Australian Research Fellow, and in 2014 he began an ARC funded Future Research Fellowship.

Title: Once, twice or thrice upon a time: Audio-visual temporal recalibration is driven by decisional processes

“Time is an illusion. Lunch time doubly so” (Adams, 1979). A malleable sense of time is not unique to the bacchanal, but commonplace, resulting in some striking, and some subtle, illusions. For instance, after exposure to an audio-visual asynchrony, a subsequent similar audio-visual test can seem more synchronous than it would without the pre-exposure – an audio-visual temporal recalibration (TR). The underlying cause(s) is unclear. One suggestion is that TR reflects changes in processing speed. This seems unlikely as collaborators and I have shown that one can induce simultaneous opposite TRs simultaneously, and that these tend to be tied to actor identity rather than to spatial location. Another suggestion is that TR results from multiple channels tuned to different temporal offsets, with exposure to asynchrony causing systematic changes in channel responsiveness and encoded timing. A third explanation is that TR primarily reflects changes in decisional criteria. Consistent with this last suggestion, we have found that TR is strongly influenced by task demands. TR is approximately halved by asking people if sounds preceded or lagged visual events, or if timing was indeterminable, as opposed to simply asking if signals were synchronous or asynchronous. We believe the former task encourages participants to adopt more rigorous and stable criteria, highlighting the importance of these processes over changes in the responsiveness of hypothetical channels, for which no firm evidence exists.
Sunday 04
19:00 - CONCERT - 'Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto' : The festival coincides with Chinese Youth Day and is a celebration of Chinese music. Website | More Information
The festival coincides with Chinese Youth Day and is a celebration of Chinese music and Chinese influenced music including works for chamber orchestra, string quartet, piano trio, solo violin and cello. The concert will feature conductor Raymond Yong and soloists Alexandra Isted (violin) and Jeremy Huynh (cello) performing a variety of works including the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto with chamber orchestra in the beautiful setting of the St George's College Dining Hall. Guests are invited to join the cultural festival before the concert. From 5.45 pm please come to enjoy the various cultural offerings available from kung fu and calligraphy demonstrations, fan dancing and much more. Refreshments that includes Chinese food will be served throughout the festival. The concert will commence at 7.00 pm and is free. Bookings are essential as there is limited space.
Tuesday 13
13:00 - Colloquium - Visual processing in Migraineurs: what happens between the headaches? More Information
Migraines are experienced by a substantial proportion of the population and, appropriately, the focus of discussion is usually on the headache phase. There are often visual sequelae associated with the headache but our research has been directed at visual performance in the period between headaches. The talk will describe a number of quite long-lasting changes in visual performance. I will outline the details of those changes, outline our investigation of what other migraine and cognitive characteristics they are associated with, examine and describe our effort to ascertain what aspects of the visual pathways and visual performance are affected, how long the effects last, and describe a re-assuring study examining potential impact on driving behaviour.

Winthrop Professor David Badcock is an ARC Australian Professorial Fellow at The University of Western Australia in the School of Psychology. He received his D.Phil. in Experimental Psychology at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and then held post-doctoral appointments at UC: Berkeley and Durham University before returning to Australia to Melbourne University. In 1996 he was appointed Professor at The University of Western Australia and served a period as Head of School and is currently an Honorary Professor of Vision Science at The University of Nottingham and President of the Psychology Foundation of Australia. The focus of his research is on behavioural measurement of human visual performance in both normal and abnormal groups of observers. Currently the laboratory group is running long-term projects examining 1) how humans integrate signals across space and time to perceive both the speed and direction of object and self-motion, 2) the processes that allow us to determine the location of objects within the environment and 3) the processes that help us to integrate local signals to determine object shape. This work is also being applied to determine the nature of the long-lasting changes in visual performance that arise as a consequence of migraine headaches, to early detection and functional understanding of the losses associated with Glaucoma and to an investigation of the unusual pattern of strengths and weaknesses of the visual processing in Autism.
Wednesday 14
14:00 - VISITING SPEAKER - Fulbright Scholarship Information Session : The Australian-American Fulbright Commisssion provides scholarships to Australian students and professionals to study in the United States of America Website | More Information
Established in Australia in 1949, the Fulbright Commission has given scholars from every walk of life the opportunity to build knowledge, connect with the best international minds,and make a difference to the lives of millions.

With a diverse range of substantial stipend-based scholarships and a robust international network spanning 55 countries, our 2,200 American and 2,700 Australian alumni are creating changes which will impact future generations across every field. Internationally, Fulbright’s 325,000 alumni are recipients of 45 Nobel Prizes and 85 Pulitzer Prizes, and employed as leaders across a diverse range of fields.

17:30 - EVENT - Stress Management Treatment Programme More Information
If you can't escape from the reality of your life, and are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, The Robin Winkler Clinic is here to help! This clinic is linked to the School of Psychology at UWA. Post-graduate Clinical Psychology trainees at the clinic will soon be starting a stress management treatment programme for adults. The treatment is evidenced based and supervised by experienced Clinical Psychologists.

The programme will run over six weeks with a two hour session each week, plus a follow-up four weeks after completion. There will also be an initial individual assessment at a mutually agreed time.

If you would like to reserve a place or need more information, please call the Clinic on 6488 2644 or email [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>

Fees: $30 per session, 25% discount on sessions if paid up front. Initial assessment $35. Free for full-time students and pensioners.

The confidential sessions will be held at the Robin Winkler Clinic on the 1st floor of the Third General Purpose Building, UWA.

Thursday 15
9:00 - EXPO - Careers, Education and Employment Expo : Come and see UWA at the Careers Expo : Come and check out the UWA stand at the Careers, Education and Employment Expo and discover how we can help you achieve your study and career goals. Website | More Information
Come and check out the UWA stand at the Careers, Education and Employment Expo and discover how we can help you achieve your study and career goals.

DATES: Thursday 15 - Sunday 18 May 2014

TIMES: Thursday 9:00am - 3:00pm; Friday 9:00am - 3:00pm; Saturday 10:00am - 4:00pm; Sunday 10:00am - 4:00pm

VENUE: Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre

Free admission.

Please note: this event is not organised by UWA.
Tuesday 20
13:00 - PUBLIC LECTURE - India-Pakistan Relations: An Overview : CMSS Presents: A Public Lecture by Dr. Sanu Kainikara Website | More Information
Ever since the birth of Pakistan and India as independent nations after the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947, Indo-Pak relations have been vexed to say the least. The nations have fought three accepted wars; two unacknowledged wars; and is still in the throes ofinsurgency and counter-insurgency operations. The divergent socio-politicaldirection that the nations have taken in the post-independence age have vitiated their bilateral relationship.

This presentation provides a brief background to the relationship between the two nations; examines the fundamental reasons for the animosity that prevails most of the time in theofficial relationship of the two nations; and analyses the current situation. It will also pay particular attention to the ‘Kashmir Issue’ and consider the impact of the result of the on-going Indian elections.

Dr Sanu Kainikara is the Air Power Strategist at the Air Power Development Centre of the Royal Australian Air Force and also a Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales. He is the author of 11 books: Papers on Air Power, Pathways to Victory, Red Air: Politics in Russian Air Power, Australian Security in the Asian Century, A Fresh Look at Air Power Doctrine, Seven Perennial Challenges to Air Forces, The Art of Air Power: Sun Tzu Revisited,At the Critical Juncture, Essays on Air Power, The Bolt From the Blue, and From Indus to Independence Volume I. He has presented extensively in international forums and published numerous papers on national security, strategy and air power. He is the recipient of the RAAF Chief of Air Force’s Commendation.

Dr Kainikara is a former fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force who retired as a Group Captain after 21 years of commissioned service. During his service career, he has flown over4,000 hours on a number of modern fighter aircraft, commanded an operational fighter squadron and held various other command and staff appointments. He is a Qualified Flying Instructor, and a graduate and instructor of the IAF Fighter Weapons School, the National Defence Academy, the Defence Services Staff College, and the College of Air Warfare. He is a recipient of the IAF Chief of Air Staff Commendation and the Air Force Cross.

After retirement from active service, he worked for four years as the senior analyst, specialising in air power strategy for a US Training Team in the Middle East. Prior to his current appointment he was the Director Wargaming and Strategic Doctrine in the Strategy Group of the Department of Defence. He has also taught Aerospace Engineering at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Melbourne. He has two Bachelors degrees, a Masters degree in Defence and Strategic Studies from the University of Madras and his PhD in International Politics was awarded by the University of Adelaide.

13:00 - EVENT - The objectified self(ie) � young women�s use of Facebook and The orientation dependence of a motion streak aftereffect reveals reciprocal gain interactions between orientation and motion neurons More Information
Two talks will be presented that have recently been given at the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists and the Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology conferences respectively.

Abstract 1: Recent years have seen the ‘selfie’ become ubiquitous. The act of taking a photo of oneself and uploading to a social media platform, such as Facebook, is an act that can now be considered commonplace. This research examines the selfie phenomenon amongst young women through the lens of objectification theory. Objectification theory posits that social and cultural influences are internalised by the individual and then reproduced within one’s self-identity via self-objectification. The production of a Facebook profile, and the composition of a selfie, could be suggested to represent the process of reproducing social and cultural influences. Hypotheses include that the posting of selfies on Facebook will be associated with self-esteem, body esteem, the internalisation of socio-cultural ideals, drive for thinness, and the acceptance of sex role stereotypes. The results from this research confirm these hypotheses. Possible conclusions and future directions for research are discussed.

Abstract 2: The extended integration time of neurons leads to fast-moving objects leaving neural cues to pattern orientation along the axis of motion. The current model argues these ‘motion streak’ orientation cues are multiplicatively combined in V1 with directionally ambiguous motion signals, to increase the precision of the motion direction. We used a combination of psychophysical aftereffects and computational modelling to estimate the tuning of the motion streak mechanism. We surprisingly found that tuning was more than double that for static orientation, suggesting motion streaks are not treated exactly like orientation information. Furthermore, the direction that motion is altered by adaptation is spatial frequency dependent, unlike static orientation, which is selective for spatial frequency. We provide a new model showing motion streaks are detected by orientation-selective neurons in V1 that exert gain onto motion-selective neurons in V5. The involvement of V5 results in the observed broad tuning and dependence on spatial frequency.
Tuesday 27
9:00 - SEMINAR - RDI Intellectual Property for UWA Researchers : A seminar to be held on Tuesday 27 May 2014 Website | More Information
Come along and learn more about IP and what it can do for you:

. types of IP, why and how to protect it

. managing IP to protect future research opportunities

. accessing funding from various sources including Pathfinder, industry contracts, Enterprise Connect and Commercialisation Australia

. agreements (CDA’s, MTA’s and external research contracts), why they are important and how RDI can help

. translating your research through effective knowledge and technology transfer

RSVP by Monday 19 May to [email protected]

16:00 - SEMINAR - Measuring Environmental Exposures: Applications to Health Research Website | More Information
Dr Amanda Wheeler joined the School of Natural Sciences, Faculty of Health, Engineering and Science at Edith Cowan University as a Senior Research Fellow in August 2013. Prior to this, Dr Wheeler was a Research Scientist with Health Canada where her research included personal exposures to air pollution from residential and ambient sources, as well as understanding the intra-urban variability of air pollutants. This research builds on studies Dr Wheeler undertook while a Research Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health where she focussed on susceptible populations’ personal exposure to air pollution and cardiovascular health effects. She obtained her PhD investigating children’s personal exposure to airborne particulate matter at Middlesex University in London, UK. Exposure Science measure exposures to environmental contaminants to understand their contact with humans and their potential to impact upon health. Tools that are utilised include sensor systems, analytic methods, computational tools, and bioinformatics. Having improved methods for the collection of exposure data ensures that it is possible to understand and reduce the impacts of environmental pollutants on human health.

 June 2014
Tuesday 24
9:00 - COURSE - Introductory Statistics : A Short Course using SPSS Website | More Information
The aim of this course is to introduce you to basic statistics. It will cover descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations); data exploration; basic categorical data analysis; simple linear regression and basic analysis of variance (ANOVA). The statistical package SPSS will be used to illustrate the ideas demonstrated. The course will be held in a computer laboratory allowing participants to immediately apply the material covered through a series of practical examples.

13:00 - Colloquium - Are individual health emergency risk perceptions, experiences with previous disaster events, and anxiety level associated with household based health emergency preparedness in Hong Kong? : Colloquium More Information
Professor Chan is the Director of Centre of Global health at SPHPC and the Director of the Collaborating Centre for Oxford University and CUHK for Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response (CCOUC), which was established in 2011 and aims to conduct research, teaching and engage in knowledge transfer projects in public health and medical disaster and climate change response in Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific region. Prof Chan’s research interests and expertise include evidence based public health medicine, disasters and humanitarian need assessments, relief evaluation, environment/climate change and health, migration, clinical trials of social interventions, Asia rural and remote community based research and programs. Professor Chan is qualified both as a biomedical engineer and a physician. She has undergone academic training at Johns Hopkins University, Harvard School of Public Health, Hong Kong University and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and is now a fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine. She served as a frontline emergency relief practitioner in mid-1990s, and later as the president for a Nobel peace prize winning medical humanitarian organization that provides emergency medical relief to victims of wars, epidemics and natural disasters (Medecins Sans Frontieres Hong Kong). She has published more than 120 peer-reviewed academic articles in international journals.

Hong Kong, an urban Chinese community, is facing increasingly large scale emergency crises related to the adverse health impacts of climate change, air pollution and infectious diseases. This study investigated whether individual health emergency risk perception, experiences with previous disaster events and anxiety level was associated with household based health preparedness for community emergencies in Hong Kong. A cross-sectional, population-based survey study was conducted among non-institutionalized Cantonese-speaking population aged over 15 years in Hong Kong in 2013 and 2014. The presentation will provide an overview of what we learnt from these studies regarding urban community household based disaster preparedness and their associated sociodemographic predictors.

 July 2014
Tuesday 01
9:00 - COURSE - R Basics : A Statistics Short Course Website | More Information
R is a free and extremely powerful language and software environment for statistical computing, data analysis, and graphics. The course is designed for those who have no experience with R, but have a basic understanding of statistics. The course will include: Introduction to R: How to install R on your computer; basic R commands, how to use and understand the R help pages. Data: Reading in data and data manipulation; summarising data; basic statistical analysis and fitting linear models. Graphics and output: Basic plotting commands and how to customise your plots; how to export your plots and output in a user-friendly format. Functions: Writing simple functions and flow control structures.
Monday 07
7:45 - EVENT - St George's College July School Holiday Program : St George's College will again be holding its popular School Holiday Program in July. The year's entry will be grades 3 - 7. Website | More Information
Dates are 7 - 11 and 14 - 18 July 2014, 7.45 am - 5.00 pm. The holiday program provides for exciting educational days in and around the College's historic buildings and beautiful gardens. This year's entry will be expanded to cover school years 3 - 7.

The schedule starts at 7.45 each morning with breakfast in the College's Dining Hall then the day begins with a variety of activities that include the Amazing Race and Team Games, African Drumming, Cooking Lessons, Chemistry Madness, Zumba, Crime Scene at St George's and much more.

The cost is $80 per child per day casual visit or $75 per child per day for more than one child or if three or more days are booked in one week. For a booking of one week the cost is $60 per child per day. The daily price includes a high ratio of mentors to children, breakfast, lunch and tea breaks.
Monday 14
9:00 - COURSE - Applied Structural Equation Models : A Short Course using Mplus Website | More Information
The course is designed as an applied course in Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using the Mplus software package. SEM is used widely by researchers to test complex relationships among observed (measured) and latent (unobserved) variables and subsumes other analytical techniques such as regression, path analysis, factor analysis, and canonical correlation. Mplus is rapidly becoming the program of choice for the analysis of SEMs. Mplus offers a general modelling framework that allows both the modelling of cross-sectional and longitudinal data using observed variables that are a combination of continuous and categorical variables. In addition, Mplus analyses multilevel modelling structures.

The first three days of the course will be an introduction to SEM and the Mplus program. The focus of the last two days of the course is on the analysis of more advanced SEM models.

If you are familiar with the Mplus program and have an understanding of material typically covered in an introduction to SEM course, you may choose to attend only the last two days of the course.

If you have completed an introductory course in SEM using another program (e.g., Amos, Lisrel, EQS) but have not previously used the Mplus program, you may choose to attend the first day and then the last two days of the course.
Tuesday 15
9:00 - COURSE - ANOVA, Linear Regression and Logistic Regression : A Short Course using SPSS Website | More Information
The course is designed for people with knowledge of basic statistics who want to learn more about regression and analysis of variance (ANOVA).

This course covers techniques that can be used to analyse data with continuous and categorical variables. The course will begin with simple linear regression and then proceed with approaches that can be used with more than two variables such as multiple regression. ANOVA with interactions and blocking will also be covered. The course will end with techniques that address the analysis of binary or ordinal variables.

Alternative formats: Default | XML


Top of Page
© 2001-2010  The University of Western Australia
Questions? Mail [email protected]