Australian Research Council Grants Awarded.

Congraluations to the following on receiving ARC funding commencing January 2006.

Professor Sally Andrews

Project Title: Lexical expertise and reading skill: An experimental analysis of individual differences in written language proficiency.

Project Summary: The Federal Government's current National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy highlights the importance of an evidence-based approach to teaching and assessing literacy. Considerable research and policy effort has been directed towards early reading programs. Much less attention has been paid to evaluating children's later development of reading comprehension and spelling proficiency, but there is wide diversity in these skills within the adult population that influence educational and vocational opportunity. This investigation of the factors underlying expertise in reading and spelling will provide evidence that can contribute to developing educational policy and curricula for the later stages of schooling.

Funding: $202,500 over three years

Dr Derek Arnold (Collaborator: Prof Alan Johnston, University College London)

Project Title: Motion and Spatial Coding in Vision

Project Summary: The results of this project will have implications for the design and implementation of artificial visual systems. Completion of this project will depend upon international collaboration - forging links between a young Australian investigator and outstanding overseas scientists as well as providing excellent training opportunities. Subsequent publication of the research in top-ranking international journals will further promote Australian science abroad.

Funding: $320, 000 over three years

Professor Ian Curthoys and Dr Hamish MacDougall (Collaborator: Dr ST Moore)

Project Title: Functional Assessment of Head-eye Coordination during Driving

Project Summary: 238 people per 100,000 population were hospitalized and 9 people per 100,000 died as a result of road-transport related injury in Australia in 2002. We will address this issue by assessing the head eye coordination strategies for young drivers, for proficient drivers and for aged drivers to determine those behaviors and strategies that are associated with various levels of performance. This insight could be affectively communicated to others and would provide the basis for educational material and methods that would improve operator skill, safety, and performance. These individual improvements would provide overall benefits such as improved transport efficiency, reduced accident rates, saved lives and a reduction in related social costs.

Funding: $255,000 over three years.

Dr Justin Harris and Dr Colin Clifford

Project Title: Interactions between vision and touch

Project Summary: This project will investigate in detail how sensory information is integrated across different modalities in constructing our perceptual experiences. This has the potential to be incorporated into the development of virtual reality-type computer-based technologies. The project will link the research activities of two successful Australian researchers, further developing their new and promising collaboration. The research programme will attract high quality local and international students for training in basic psychology research in Australia. The publication of this research in top ranking international journals will promote Australian science abroad.

Funding: $340,000 over three years.

Dr Ian Johnston

Project Title: Central nervous system cytokines and morphine analgesia

Project Summary: Morphine remains the drug of choice for the management of moderate-to-severe pain, however its clinical effectiveness is compromised by the fact that morphine's analgesic (pain reducing) efficacy becomes less effective the more it is administered. This project will examine how analgesic tolerance develops from a completely new approach: Namely, how stimulation of the immune system within the central nervous system is a crucial factor in the development of tolerance. Modulation of analgesia by the immune system has not been systematically studied and provides a potentially fertile ground for the development of new techniques in the management of clinical pain. Administering Institution

Funding: $160,000 over three years

Associate Professor Iain McGregor

Project Title: Learning about threats: the neural and behavioural response to predator-related cues in rodents

Project Summary: This project will investigate the anxiety displayed by rats when confronted with the odours of predators such as cats. This anxiety may be very similar to that experienced by humans who suffer from anxiety disorders such as phobias. By investigating the nature of this anxiety, the nature of the stimuli that produce it, and the learning and neural processes that underlie it we may better understand human anxiety. The project also aims to identify novel chemicals in the fur of cats that have rodent repellent properties. Such chemicals may be of great use in domestic and agricultural contexts where rodents are pests.

Funding: $147,000 over three years.

Dr Lisa Zadro (Collaborator: Dr Michelle Moulds (University of New South Wales)

Project Title: Developing strategies to ameliorate the aversive effects of ostracism

Project Summary: By investigating and identifying strategies to ameliorate the aversive effects of ostracism, this research will permit exciting advances that will extend existing conceptual models in the ostracism literature. Further, given the prevalence of ostracism across societal, occupational and community domains, these studies will yield outcomes with significant and far-reaching practical implications. By applying rigorous experimental methodologies to answer theoretically driven questions about the impact of ostracism, these studies represent the interface of empirically sound and clinically and socially-oriented experimental research. Administering Institution

Funding: $200,000 over three years.