Psychological Sciences Research Groups

The Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences is Australia’s largest biomedical research faculty. We employ more than 1500 researchers undertaking world class research across a wide range of health and social issues in a diverse range of research settings.

Affective Development and Psychopathology Team

Laboratory Director: Dr Julian Simmons

The Affective Development and Psychopathology Team (ADAPT) is a network of researchers investigating the environmental, interpersonal and biological processes that influence emotional reactivity and emotion regulation across the lifespan.

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Affective Neuroscience and Development Lab

Laboratory Director: Dr Sarah Tashjian

The AND Lab focuses on how neurobiological changes from pre-puberty through early adulthood influence affect and behaviour.

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Attention Dynamics Lab

Laboratory Director: Professor Katherine Johnson

We are interested in the ways infants, children, and adolescents think and act. We investigate how children focus on one task amidst a sea of choices and how they receive and respond to information.

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Behavioural Ethics, Affect and Meaning Lab

Laboratory Director: Prof Brock Bastian

The BEAM lab is focused on examining motivational and affective processes involved in ethical decision-making and behavior, how people regulate and respond to negative experiences, and determinants and consequences of living a meaningful life.

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Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Professor Stephen C Bowden

The Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology Laboratory is part of the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, located in the Redmond Barry Building at the University of Melbourne.

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Clinical and Health Psychology

Laboratory Director: Associate Professor Carol Hulbert

Our Laboratory brings together a number of staff members who are interested in the phenomenology, classification, etiology, maintenance and outcomes of mental disorders across the entire lifespan.

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Clinical and Music Neuroscience Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Professor Sarah Wilson

Our Laboratory investigates the brain mechanisms that underpin human hearing.

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Cognitive and Neuropsychological Development Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Associate Professor Robert Reeve

Among other issues, we are interested in the neurological and cognitive causes of developmental dyscalculia; diagnosis and treatment of dyscalculia.

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Cognitive Interventions Technologies and Evaluation Research Group (CITE)

Laboratory Directors: Dr Amit Lamput & Dr Alex Bahar-Fuchs

CITE is a research group within the Academic Unit for Psychiatry of Old Age in the Department of Psychiatry, co-led by Dr Amit Lampit and Dr Alex Bahar-Fuchs. We develop, evaluate, implement and study the mechanisms of cognition-oriented treatments across the lifespan and brain disorders.

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Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Professor Rob Hester

The implementation of cognitive control by the human brain is critical to a range of everyday activities, and the failure of this mechanism is believed to contribute to the symptom profile of a number of clinical conditions.

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Cognitive Neuroscience and Computational Psychiatry Lab

Laboratory Director: Associate Professor Marta Garrido

We use a combination of brain imaging techniques and computational modelling to understand the neural underpinnings of learning and decision making both in typical individuals as well as in people with psychiatric disorders.

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Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Dr Jason Forte

Behavioural and physiological responses to visual stimuli.Effects of electrophysiological stimulation on behavioural and physiological responses to visual stimuli.Modelling the relationship between visual input, and behavioural and physiological responses.

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Computational Memory Lab

Laboratory Director: Dr Adam Osth

The Computational Memory Lab aims to develop and test computational models of memory processes. The lab focuses on understanding the processes behind encoding, representation, retrieval, and decision-making in memory.

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Decision Neuroscience Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Associate Professor Stefan Bode

Our research group focuses on the investigation of the neural mechanisms underlying perceptual, health-related, financial and voluntary decision-making, as well as decision errors and preference formation.

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Evolution Lab

Lab Director: Dr Khandis Blake

Research from the Evolution Lab addresses big issues that profoundly influence people's mental, social and economic wellbeing.


Functions of Emotions in Everyday Life (FEEL) Research Lab

Head of Lab: Dr Katie Greenaway , Dr Peter Koval & Dr Elise Kalokerinos

The FEEL Lab aims to discover how emotions function in the rich and complex environments we encounter in our daily lives.

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Genes, Brain and Behaviour Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Dr Patrick Goodbourn

In our lab, we investigate how normal and disordered behaviours and brain functions are affected by our genes.

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Health Promotion Unit

Laboratory Director: Associate Professor Michelle Jongenelis

The Health Promotion Unit engages in research, education, and advocacy to drive evidence-based policy and practice initiatives.

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Human Experience Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Dr Olivia Carter

The majority of the research in the lab focuses on two questions
- How does the brain's natural chemicals control complex behaviours, thoughts and perceptions?
- What are the factors that determine the contents of an individual's conscious experience?

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John Trinder Sleep Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Prof Amy Jordan & Dr Christian Nicholas

The Sleep Laboratory conducts a variety of sleep related research including the effects of poor sleep on mental health and cognition, as well as research to better understand the causes for sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea.

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Knowledge, Information & Learning Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Associate Professor Daniel R Little

Our work focuses on understanding how we develop knowledge through experience and learning, how knowledge representations influence how we perceive and interpret new information, how our interpretations and perceptions influence our behaviour, and what our behaviour tells us about our knowledge.

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Memory and Language Lab

Laboratory Director: Prof Simon Dennis

Our research utilises large scale real world data, experimental paradigms and computational modelling techniques to investigate the cognitive architecture underlying memory and language. Much of our research uses experience sampling technologies (smartphone apps, social media, and internet-of-things devices) to capture a person’s experience and behaviour in their real world environment.

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Mechanisms of Mental Health

Laboratory Director: Dr Caitlin Hitchcock

The Mechanisms in Mental Health research group harnesses translational cognitive science to improve mental health.

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Melbourne Psychology and Ageing

Directors: A/Prof Christina Bryant & A/Prof Kathryn Ellis

Our research draws on a biopsychosocial framework and considers mental health and wellbeing in the context of age-related physical, medical and cognitive conditions.

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Mood and Anxiety Disorders Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Dr Litza Kiropoulos

Our laboratory investigates the biological, psychological, social and cognitive mechanisms and processes involved in the development of affective and anxiety disorders.

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Moral Psychology Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Dr Simon Laham

The Moral Psychology Laboratory is dedicated to understanding the psychological bases of moral and ethical judgement, decision-making and behaviour.

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Negotiation and Interactive Behaviour Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Professor Philip L Smith

We investigate the factors that shape negotiation processes and outcomes.

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Neurocognitive Disorders Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Professor Sarah Wilson

This Laboratory investigates a range of neurocognitive disorders, including epilepsy, dementia and traumatic brain injury.

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Pain and Cognition Neuroimaging Lab

Director: A/Prof Natalia Brumley

Our lab seeks to understand the relationship between pain and cognition in healthy and clinical populations, using multi-modal neuroimaging.

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Personality Processes Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Professor Luke D Smillie

The Personality Processes Laboratory seeks to expand our knowledge of the structure of personality, along with its underlying causes and downstream consequences for various aspects of our lives.

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Physical Appearance Research Team (PART)

Directors: Dr Scott Griffith, Dr Khandis Blake & Dr Isabel Krug

Led by Drs Scott Griffiths and Isabel Krug, PART unites a team of academics, postdocs, research assistants and postgraduate and undergraduate students with a shared interest in the phenomena of human physical appearance.

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Prediction and Decision-Making Laboratory

Welcome to the Prediction and Decision-Making Laboratory at the University of Melbourne

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Psychology for Environmental and Social Transformation (PEST) lab

The Psychology for Environmental and Social Transformation (PEST) lab examines how insights from psychology can best be utilised to promote shifts towards a more sustainable and equitable society.


Social Action Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Professor Yoshihisa Kashima

The Social Action Laboratory is primarily concerned with the antecedents and consequences of meaningful human social action.

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Social Networks Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Dr Johan Koskinen

Research and training in the theory, methods and applications of social networks.

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Social/Personality Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Professor Nick Haslam

Our Laboratory investigates topics that bridge social and personality psychology.

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Subcortical Cognitive Dysfunction Laboratory

Laboratory Director: Dr Jacqueline Anderson

We seek to better understand how the middle part of the brain (subcortex) contributes to cognitive functions, particularly higher-level functions such as processing complex information

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Time in Brain and Behaviour Laboratory

Principle Investigator: Dr Hinze Hogendoorn

The group is interested in researching Our brain needs time to process what our senses tell us. As a result, we are always living in the past: we act and choose on the basis of outdated information. So how is it possible that we can return a tennis serve or drive through fast-moving traffic?

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Trauma Anxiety and Stress (TAS) Lab

Laboratory Director: Professor Kim Felmingham

Our research examines the mechanisms underlying the development and treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Anxiety Disorders, predictors of response to exposure therapy for anxiety disorders, and the impact of stress and trauma on brain and emotional functioning.

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Vision, Cognition and Behaviour Lab

Laboratory Director: Associate Professor Piers Douglas Howe

Our Laboratory has a general interest in cognition, with a particular focus in visual perception.

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