Dr Evan Livesey

Position: ARC Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Office: GT528
Ph: +61 2 9351 2845
Fax: +61 2 9036 5223
Email:

Postal Address:
School of Psychology
The University of Sydney
NSW 2006
Australia





Research Interests

My research focuses on the mechanisms responsible for learning and attention. Within this broad area, I have specific interests in associative learning mechanisms in humans and other animals, the relationship between learning and visual attention in humans, and how learning is influenced by conscious knowledge, reasoning, and executive control.

Key areas of interest:

Associative Learning Mechanisms

  • how are stimuli represented during associative learning? (e.g. elemental vs configural processing)
  • what role do associative processes play in discrimination and generalisation?
Learning and Attention
  • how do discrimination learning and Pavlovian conditioning affect attention?
  • attentional processing of stimuli during rapid serial visual presentation.
Learning and Reasoning
  • how does instance-based learning interact with rule abstraction?
  • does learning require awareness?

Publications

2008 Livesey, E. J., Harris, I. M., & Harris, J. A. (in press).  Attentional changes during implicit learning: Signal Validity Protects a Target Stimulus from the Attentional Blink.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition.

Harris, J. A., Livesey, E. J., Ghareai, S., & Westbrook, R. F. (in press).  Negative patterning is easier than a biconditional discrimination.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes.

Harris, J. A. & Livesey, E. J. (2008).  Comparing Patterning and Biconditional Discriminations in Humans.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 34, 144-154.

Livesey, E. J. & Harris, J. A. (2008).  What are Flexible Representations?: Commentary on Melchers, Shanks and Lachnit.  Behavioural Processes, 77, 437-439.

2007
 Livesey, E. J. & McLaren, I. P. L. (2007).  Elemental Associability Changes in Human Discrimination Learning.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 33, 148-159.

Mitchell, C. J., Livesey, E. J., & Lovibond, P. (2007). A dissociation between causal judgement and the ease with which a cause is categorised with its effect. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60, 400-417.
2006 Livesey, E. J., Mansi, C., & McLaren, I. P. L. (2006).  Dual Processes Mediate Discrimination and Generalization in Humans. Proceedings of the XXVIIIth Annual Convention of the Cognitive Science Society. (pp. 1699-1704)  Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

2005 Livesey, E. J., Broadhurst, P. J. C., & McLaren, I. P. L. (2005).  Discrimination and generalization in pattern categorization:  A case for elemental associative learning.  Proceedings of the XXVIIth Annual Convention of the Cognitive Science Society.  (pp. 1296-1301)  Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Livesey, E. J., Pearson, L. S., & McLaren, I. P. L. (2005).  Spatial variability and peak shift: A challenge for elemental associative learning?  Proceedings of the XXVIIth Annual Convention of the Cognitive Science Society.  (pp. 1302-1307)  Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
2004 Livesey, E. J. & Boakes, R. A. (2004).  Outcome additivity, elemental processing and blocking in human causality judgements.  Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 57B, 361-379.