Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy (University of New South Wales), 1983
• Bachelor of Arts (1st Class Honours) (University of New South Wales), 1975

Academic Appointments

• Tutor, School of Psychology, University of New South Wales (February 1978 - June 1979: part-time; January 1981 - June 1983: full-time)
• Research Psychologist, Quality Assurance Project, School of Psychiatry, Prince Henry Hospital (June 1983 - January 1984)
• Lecturer, School of Psychology, University of New South Wales (February 1984 - July 1990)
• Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology, University of New South Wales (July 1990 - Jan.1996)
• Associate Professor, School of Psychology, University of New South Wales (January 1996 - Dec, 2001)
• Head of School, School of Psychology, University of New South Wales (August 1999-2001)
• Professor of Cognitive Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Sydney (Jan 2002-present)
• Head of School, School of Psychology, University of Sydney (2005-2011)

Awards and Distinctions

• Australian Psychological Society Prize for Best Honours performance, 1975
• Post-graduate Research Scholarship, 1976, 1978-80
• Visiting Fellow, Cognitive Science Centre, University of Arizona, Jan. - March, 1989
• Visiting Fellow, Department of Psychology, McGill University, April-June, 1989
• Visiting Fellow, Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge UK, Jan. - June, 1993
• Visiting Fellow, Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University,Jan 1995
• Award for Best Contribution to Cognitive Science, Australian Society for Cognitive Science, April, 1995
• Elected Fellow of Academy of Social Sciences of Australia, 1998
• Australian Research Council College of Experts (Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences) 2003-2005
• Appointed to Research Quality Framework Expert Panel 2007
• Invited membership NSW Health Department Mental Health Priority Taskforce 2008-2010
• Invited membership NSW Health Ministerial Advisory Committee on Mental Health 2011

Research Interests

My research is based in cognitive psychology but integrates theories and methods from the domains of computer science, philosophy and neuroscience – the fields that define the discipline of cognitive science. As an individual researcher, and in collaboration with students and researchers from a range of disciplines, I have used a variety of methodologies to investigate how both healthy individuals and people suffering from psychiatric disorders attend to and analyse words and sentences.

The central focus of my research has been on lexical processing and its relationship to reading skill: how do skilled language users represent and retrieve their knowledge about the words; how do these cognitive capabilities develop; and how does lexical processing contribute to reading skill. My research has focused primarily on English, but I have also collaborated in research projects comparing speakers of different languages to determine how the characteristics of different writing systems, and their relationship to phonology and semantics, influences language processing.

External Research Funding

Australian Research Council

• The effects of similarity between words on lexical access: Implications for models of visual word recognition. 1990-2: $98,535
• Models of visual word recognition: Distinguishing between localised and distributed representations. 1993-5: $100,600
• The role of attention in visual word recognition. 1996-8: $102,000
• Defining the perceptual unit for reading: The role of subsyllabic segmentation in visual word identification. 1999-2001: $107,500
• Testing detailed models of word identification: Decision and response contributions to performance. (Andrews & Heathcote) 2000-2002: $103,500
• Lexical retrieval and reading comprehension : Binding perceptual, lexical and conceptual information in on-line reading. 2003-2005: $165,000
• Training for adaptability: The role of errors, exceptions and rules of thumb (Hesketh, B. Neal, A. Andrews, S et al.) ARC Linkage grant, 2004-2007: $673,500
• Enabling Human Communication (Dale, R. ,Burnham, D. Andrews, S. et al.) ARC Network Grant 2004-2008: $2,000,000
• Lexical expertise and reading skill: An experimental analysis of individual differences in written language proficiency. 2006-2008: $202,500
• The ingredients of conscious identification. (Harris, I. Andrews, S. & Hayward, W). 2008-2010 $302,000
• Cracking the code for skilled reading: the role of lexical quality in word and sentence reading. (Andrews, S & Davis, C). 2012-2014: $205,000

National Health and Medical Research Council

• Brain potential indices of pre-attentive processes in schizophrenia. (McConaghy, Catts, Andrews & Ward) 1990-1992: $196,668
• Thought disorder in normal and psychotic populations. (McConaghy, Catts, Andrews & Ward) 1991: $40,000
• Neuroanatomical correlates of ERP abnormalities in schizophrenia. (Ward, Catts, Andrews & Michie) 1992-4: $235,612
• Development of a Psychosis Observational Rating Scale (Catts, McConaghy, Andrews & Bird). 1995-7: $223,255

Current Funded Projects

Cracking the code for skilled reading: The role of lexical quality in word and sentence reading

This project tests the hypothesis that highly skilled reading depends on precisely specified stored knowledge about written words. Building upon an approach I have successfully applied in a series of papers, we will investigate how individual differences in reading, spelling and vocabulary among expert readers influence the timecourse of early orthographic and semantic processes in word identification and the pattern of lexical and contextual influences on eye movements during sentence reading. We will also extend a new computational model of visual word identification developed by Colin Davis to explain the basis of individual differences in early word processing.

Publications

• Andrews, S. and Reynolds, G. (2013) Why it is easier to wreak havoc than unleash havoc: The role of lexical co-occurrence, predictability, and reading proficiency in sentence reading. In A. Britt, S.R. Goldman & J-F. Rouet (Eds.), Reading - from words to multiple texts (pp. 72 - 91). New York: Routledge.
• Andrews, S. and Lo, S. (2013) Is morphological priming stronger for transparent than opaque words? It depends on individual differences in spelling and vocabulary. Journal of Memory and Language, 68, 279–296.
• Andrews, S. (2012) Individual differences in skilled visual word recognition and reading: The role of lexical quality. In J. Adelman (Ed.) Visual word recognition (pp 151-172). Hove, UK: Psychology Press
• Loh, V., Andrews, S., Hesketh, B. and Griffin, B. (2012). The moderating effect of individual differences in error-management training: Who learns from mistakes? Human Factors, DOI:10.1177/0018720812451856
• Hersch, J. & Andrews, S. (2012). Lexical quality and reading skill: Bottom-up and top-down contributions to sentence processing. Scientific Studies of Reading, 16:3, 240-262
• Andrews. S. & Lo, S. (2012) Not all skilled readers have cracked the code: Individual differences in masked form priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 38, 152-163.
• Andrews, S. and Hersch, J. (2010). Lexical precision in skilled readers: Individual differences in masked neighbor priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139(2), 299-318
• Donkin, C., Brown, S.D., Heathcote, A. & Andrews, S. (2009). Non-Decision Time Effects in the Lexical Decision Task. In N. A. Taatgen & H. van Rijn (Eds.), Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
• Andrews, S. & Bond, R. (2009) Lexical expertise and reading skill: Bottom-up and top-down processing of lexical ambiguity. Reading & Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 22, 687-711.
• Andrews, S. (2008) Lexical expertise and reading skill. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 49, 249-281.
• Newell, B.R., Cavenett, T. & Andrews, S. (2008) On the immunity of perceptual implicit memory to manipulations of attention. Memory & Cognition, 36, 725-734.
• Bond, R. & Andrews, S. (2008) Repetition blindness in sentence contexts: Not just an attribution? Memory & Cognition, 36, 295-313.
• Andrews, S. (Ed.) (2006) From inkmarks to ideas: Current issues in lexical processing. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
• Anstey, K., Butterworth, P., Borzycki, M. & Andrews, S. (2006) Between and within-individual effects of visual contrast sensitivity on perceptual matching, processing speed and associative memory in older adults. Gerontology, 52, 124-140.
• Andrews, S., Woollams, A. & Bond, R. (2005) Spelling-sound typicality only affects words with digraphs: Further qualifications to the regularity effect on word naming. Journal of Memory and Language, 53, 567-593.
• Drobny, J.V., Anstey, K.J. & Andrews, S. (2005) Visual memory testing in older adults with age-related visual decline: A measure of memory performance of visual functioning? Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 27, 425-435.
• Newell, B.R. & Andrews, S. (2004) Levels of processing effects on implicit and explicit memory tasks: Using question position to investigate the lexical-processing hypothesis. Experimental Psychology, 51, 1-13.
• Andrews, S., Miller, B. & Rayner, K. (2004) Eye fixation measures of morphological segmentation of compound words: There is a mouse in the mousetrap. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 16(2), 285-311.
• Andrews, S. (2003) E-Z Readers assumptions about lexical processing: Not so easy to define the two stage of lexical access? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 26, 477-478.
• Shoolman, N. & Andrews, S. (2003) Racehorses, reindeers and sparrows: Using masked priming to investigate morphological influences on word identification. In S. Kinoshita & S. Lupker (Eds.), Masked priming: The state of the art. Psychology Press.
• Anstey, K., Dain, S., Andrews, S. & Drobney, J. (2002) Visual abilities in older adults explain age-differences in Stroop and fluid intelligence but not face recognition: Implications for the vision-cognition connection. Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition, 9, 253-265.
• Andrews, S. & Heathcote, A. (2001) Distinguishing common and task-specific processes in lexical retrieval: A matter of some moment? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 27, 514-544.
• Andrews, S. & Davis, C. (1999) Interactive activation accounts of morphological decomposition: Finding the trap in mousetrap. Brain and Language, 68, 355-361.
• Krascum, R.M. & Andrews, S. (1998) The effects of theories on children’s acquisition of family resemblance categories. Child Development, 69, 333-346.
• Andrews, S. & Scarratt, D. R. (1998) Rule and analogy mechanisms in reading nonwords: Hough dou peapel rede gnew wirds? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 1052-1086.
• Andrews, S. (1997) The role of orthographic similarity in lexical retrieval: resolving neighborhood conflicts. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 4, 439-461.
• Shelley, A-M., Catts, S.V., Ward, P.B., Andrews, S., Mitchell, P., Michie, P.M. & McConaghy, N. (1997) The effect of decreased catacholamine transmission on ERP indices of selective attention. Neuropsychopharmacology, 16, 202-210.
• Andrews, S. & Scarratt, D. R. (1996) What comes after phonological awareness? Using lexical experts to investigate orthographic processing in reading. Australian Journal of Psychology, 48, 141-148.
• Andrews, S. (1996) Lexical retrieval and selection processes: Effects of transposed-letter confusability. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 775-800.
• Neal, A., Hesketh, B. & Andrews, S. (1995) Instance-based categorization: Automatic versus intentional forms of retrieval. Memory and Cognition, 23, 227-242.
• Karayanidis, F., Andrews, S., Ward, P. & Michie, P. (1995) ERP indices of auditory selective attention in aging and Parkinson's disease. Psychophysiology, 32, 335-350.
• Catts, S., Shelley, A-M, Ward, P., Liebert, B., McConaghy, N., Andrews, S. & Michie, P. (1995) Brain potential evidence for an auditory sensory memory deficit in schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 152, 213-219.
• Karayanidis, F., Andrews, S., Ward, P.B. & McConaghy, N. (1993) Event-related potentials and repetition priming in young, middle-aged and elderly normal subjects. Cognitive Brain Research, 1, 123-134.
• Mitchell, P., Andrews, S. & Ward, P. (1993) An event-related potential study of semantic congruity and repetition in a sentence-reading task: Effects of context change. Psychophysiology, 30, 496-509.
• Krascum, R.M. & Andrews, S. (1993) Feature-based versus exemplar-based strategies in preschoolers' category learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 56, 1-48.
• Andrews, S., Shelley, A.M., Fox, A.M., Catts, S.V., Ward, P.B. & McConaghy, N. (1993) Event-related potential indices of semantic processing in schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry, 34, 443-458.
• Andrews, S. (1992) Neighbourhood effects on lexical access: Lexical similarity or orthographic redundancy? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 18, 234-254.
• Andrews, S. (1992) A skills approach: Optimising initial reading instruction. A. Watson & A. Badenhop (Eds.) The Prevention of Reading Failure, Ashton Scholastic.
• Andrews, S., Ward, P.B., Catts, S.V. (1992) Schizophrenia: Understanding the processes underlying differences in symptoms & outcome. In S. Schwartz (Ed.) Australian Cases in Clinical Psychology. Sydney: Jacaranda Wiley.
• Andrews, S. (1992) Ideology & methods of reading instruction: why is phonics an F-word? In Literacy Round Table Monographs, Sydney: Board of Studies, Department of Education.
• Andrews, S. (1991) Cognitive processes in skill acquisition: Implications for training. In B. Hesketh & A. Adams (Eds.), Psychological Perspectives on Occupational Health and Rehabilitation. Sydney: Psychcorp/ Harcourt Brace.
• Andrews, S. (1991) Applying cognitive principles to the design of rehabilitation training programs. In B. Hesketh & A. Adams (Eds.), Psychological Perspectives on Occupational Health and Rehabilitation. Sydney: Psychcorp/ Harcourt Brace.
• Karayanidis, F., Andrews, S., Ward, P.B. & McConaghy, N. (1991) Effects of inter-item lag on word repetition: An event related potential study. Psychophysiology, 28, 307-318.
• Mitchell, P., Andrews, S., Fox, A., Catts, S., Ward, P. & McConaghy, N. (1991) Active and passive attention in schizophrenia: An ERP study of information processing in a linguistic task. Biological Psychology, 32, 101-124.
• Shelley, A.M., Ward, P., Michie, P., Andrews, S., Mitchell, P., Catts, S. & McConaghy, N. (1991) The effects of repeated testing on ERP components during auditory selective attention. Psychophysiology, 28, 496-510.
• Shelley, A.M., Ward, P.B., Catts, S.V., Michie, P.T., Andrews, S. & McConaghy, N. (1991) Mismatch negativity: An index of a preattentive processing deficit in schizophrenia, Biological Psychiatry, 30, 1059-1062.
• Andrews, S., Mitchell, P., Fox, A., Catts, S., Ward, P. & McConaghy, N. (1990) ERP indices of semantic processing in schizophrenia. In C. Brunia, A. Gaillard & A. Kok (Eds.) Psychophysiological Brain Research. Tilburg University Press.
• Shelley, A-M., Catts, S., Ward, P., Michie, P., Andrews, S., Mitchell, P. & McConaghy, N. (1990) The effects of morphine and naloxone on auditory ERPs. In C. Brunia, A. Gaillard & A. Kok (Eds.) Psychophysiological Brain Research. Tilburg University Press.
• Hesketh, B., Andrews, S. & Chandler, P. (1989) Training for transferable skills: The role of examples and schema. Educational Technology and Training International, 26, 156-165.
• Andrews, S. (1989) Frequency and neighborhood effects on lexical access: Activation or search? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 15, 802-814.
• Andrews, S. (1989) Psycholinguistics and reading acquisition: The argument for decoding. NSW Journal of Special Education, 10, 15-20.
• Hesketh, B., Chandler, P. & Andrews, S. (1988) Training for transfer: Developing learning skills. The Australian TAFE Teacher, August.
• Andrews, S., Vaughn, K., Harvey, R. & Andrews, J.G. (1986) Psychiatrists' views on the treatment of schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 149, 357-364.
• Andrews, S. (1986) Morphological influences on lexical access: Lexical or nonlexical effects. Journal of Memory and Language, 25, 726-740.
• Andrews, S. (1986) Models of information-processing: Implications for diagnostic assessment. Test Advisory Committee Conference Papers, NSW Department of Education.
• Adams, R.D. & Andrews, S. (1984) Brain injury and movement recall: Preselection, active-passive and interference effects. Human Movement Science, 3, 285-299.
• Quality Assurance Project (1984) Treatment guidelines for the management of schizophrenia. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 18, 19-39.
• Andrews, S. (1982) Phonological recoding: Is the regularity effect consistent? Memory and Cognition, 10, 565-575.

Selected Professional Contributions

• Member, Professional Development Approval and Accreditation Group, Australian Psychological Society, 2000-2003
• Member, National Committee for Psychology, 2002-3
• Member, NSW Board of studies Curriculum Committee, Cognitive science, 2002-3
• Member, Working Party to select examples of psychology research for Federal Minister of Education, 2003
• Member, Advisory Committee, Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, 2006-9
• Member, HODSPA Working Party to lobby Federal Government about the funding of Psychology, 2006-7
• Australian Research Council College of Experts (Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences) 2003-2005
• Member, Psychology Review Panel, Australian National University, 2007
• Member, National Health and Medical Research Council, Psychology/Psychiatry Grant Review Panel , 2008
• Chair, Psychology Review Panel, University of Queensland, 2008
• Member, NSW Health Department Mental Health Priority Taskforce 2008-2010
• Member, Psychology Review Panel, University of Western Australia, 2009
• Co-chair, Australian Research Council Future Fellowship Selection Advisory Committee, 2009 Member, Psychology Accreditation Review Team, Imam University, Saudi Arabia, 2010

Editorial Responsibilities

Associate Editor

• Australian Journal of Psychology, 1995-7
• Memory & Cognition, 2006-2008
• Journal of Memory and Language, 2009-11, 2012-2014

Editorial Boards

• Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 1996, 1997-2000, 2001-present
• Journal of Memory and Language, 1997-2000, 2001-2003, 2004-2008
• Memory and Cognition, 2001-2003, 2004-2006
• Psychological Review, 2004-2010

Professional Memberships

• Member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS)
• Member of the Psychonomic Society