Professor John Dunn

Biography/ Background

I was born in Perth, Western Australia and completed by undergraduate degree and doctorate in Psychology at the University of Western Australia. I have worked at the School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Western Australia and at the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland. I joined the School of Psychology at the University of Adelaide in 2006 and I am currently Professor and Head of the School.

Qualifications

BA, PhD (University of Western Australia)

Awards & Achievements

1.      Visiting Fellowship, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2010.

2.      Australian Psychological Society Division of Scientific Affairs Early Career Award, 1989.

3.      Commonwealth Postgraduate Research Award, 1978-80.

4.      Australian Psychological Society Student Subscribership, 1976.

5.      Fowler Prize in Psychology, 1976.

Research Interests

Summary

Cognitive psychology, human memory, applied decision-making, cognitive modelling, mathematical psychology, methodological issues in cognitive neuroscience and human experimental psychology.

Current

Much of my current research is focused on the development and application of state trace analysis.  It addresses a fundamental aim of psychology, and of cognitive psychology in particular, which is to construct theoretical accounts of mental processes based on observed changes in performance on one or more cognitive tasks. The problem faced by the researcher is that these mental processes are not directly observable but must be inferred from changes in performance between different experimental conditions. This is as true for measures of performance based on traditional cognitive tasks such as free recall in memory, as it is for measures of performance derived from sophisticated electrophysiological or neuroimaging techniques. In neither case are mental processes directly observed – rather, their existence has always to be inferred.

The history of experimental psychology can be thought of as an attempt to grapple with the distinction between observable behaviour and unobservable mental processes. Behaviourism sought to exclude the unobservable but, despite some heroic attempts, discovered either that the resulting theories were inadequate or packed with unobservable or “hypothetical” constructs. The so-called “cognitive revolution” of the 1960’s led to theories that incorporated a wide variety of unobservable entities in order to explain behaviour. These theories generally describe the relevant unobservables in terms of “processes”, “mechanisms”, “components”, “modules”, or “systems”, usually in a specific theory-dependent or domain-dependent manner. Despite the proliferation of these terms, cognitive psychology has yet to develop a single, exact, agreed-upon definition of any one of them.

In the information processing metaphor of cognitive psychology, “processes” and their kind are viewed as mechanisms that represent, manipulate or transform information. In this role, they serve to explain observable behaviour. For example, levels of processing effects in memory were explained in terms of the depth of processing elicited by different instructional demands . For this to be worthwhile, processes cannot stand in one-to-one correspondence with the phenomena they describe, in which case they are consistent with every outcome and explain nothing.

Without some external constraint, it is all too easy to postulate additional mental processes to explain the phenomena at hand thereby running the risk of circularity. Despite this, multiple-process models are ubiquitous in psychology, and can be found across a wide range of fields including recognition memory, long-term memory, working memory, category learning, reasoning, and conditioning. Evidence for these accounts rests on a number of bases, but often involves reference to some kind of functional dissociation.

Reliance on functional dissociations has had a long history in psychology. Following the first reference to the term by Hans-Lukas Teuber in the 1950's, memory researchers were  soon using functional dissociations to argue for a distinction between short term and long term memory storage mechanisms. Since then, dissociations have been sought to provide evidence for multiple mental processes underlying a wide range of cognitive tasks.

Worked I conducted with Kim Kirsner showed that functional dissociations are neither necessary nor sufficient for the inference of multiple mental processes (Dunn & Kirsner 1988). This logic has been superceded by state trace analysis.

More information is available here.

 

 

Research Funding

Dunn, J. C., de Zubicaray, G. I. & Freeman, E. E. (2011-13). Investigation of recognition memory in behavioural, electrophysiological, and functional neuro-imaging domains using state-trace analysis. ARC Discovery Grant (Project ID: DP110100751), $210,000.

Dunn, J. C., Dennis, S .J. & de Zubicaray, G. I. (2008-10). Single and dual process models of recognition memory: Reconciliation of behavioural, electrophysiological, and neuro-imaging data. ARC Discovery Grant (Project ID: DP0878630), $205,000.

Newell, B. R., Dunn, J. C. & Kalish, M. L. (2008-10). Uncovering the processes underlying human category learning. ARC Discovery Grant (Project ID: DP0877510), $165,000.

Dunn, J.C. (2006). Single vs dual process models of categorization: Evidence from state-trace analysis. University of Adelaide Faculty of Health Sciences Establishment Grant, $15,000.

Dunn, J. C. & Heathcote, A. J. (2005-7). Are two processes one too many? An investigation of the viability of the dual-process model of recognition memory. ARC Discovery Grant (Project ID: DP0558407), $167,000.

Kirsner, K., Dunn, J. C., & Hird, K. M. (2004-6). Investigation of the component distributions of pause duration in spontaneous speech: Constraints for models of language production. ARC Discovery Grant (Project ID: DP0452776), $117,000.

Kirsner, K., Dunn, J. C., & Hird, K. M. (2003). Pause distributions in spontaneous speaking: Time for a paradigm shift! ARC Small-Grants Scheme, $20,000.

Lautenschlager, N., Almeida, O. P., & Dunn, J. C. (2002-2003). Latent semantic analysis of prose recall in patients from Non-English speaking background. UWA, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Small Bequest Research Fund, $9,270.

Kirsner, K., Dunn, J. C., & Durkin, K. (2000). Situated memory: Transmission and transformation of knowledge about real events. ARC Large Research Grant (Project ID: A00000893), $30,000.

Publications

Dunn, J. C. & Kirsner, K. (in press). The search for HMAS Sydney II: Analysis and integration of survivor reports. Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology.

de Zubicaray, G., McMahon, K., Dennis, S., & Dunn, J. C. (in press). Memory strength effects in fMRI studies: A matter of confidence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Newell, B., Dunn, J. C. & Kalish, M. (in press). Systems of category learning: Fact or fantasy? In, B. H. Ross (Ed.), The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 54 (pp. 165-213), San Diego: Academic Press.

Freeman, E., Dennis, S., & Dunn, J. (2010). An examination of the ERP correlates of recognition memory using state-trace analysis. In, S. Ohlsson & R. Catrambone (Eds.), Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 97-102). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.

Dunn, J. C. (2010). How to fit models of recognition memory data using maximum likelihood. International Journal of Psychological Research, 3(1), 141-150.

Newell, B., Dunn, J. C. & Kalish, M. (2010). The dimensionality of perceptual category learning: A state-trace analysis. Memory & Cognition, 38(5), 563-581.

Gilliland, V. & Dunn, J. C. (2008). Decision making in civil disputes: The effects of legal role, frame, and perceived chance of winning. Judgment and Decision Making, 3(7), 512-527.

Gilliland, V., Dunn, J. C. & Navarro, D. J. (2008). Who framed Roger Rabbit? The effect of legal role and frame on the outcome of civil disputes. In, V. Sloutsky, B. Love, & K. McRae (Eds.) Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1005-1010). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.

Durkin, K., Kirsner, K., & Dunn, J. C. (2008). One night at sea: Effects of verbal priming on perceptions and recollections of wartime events. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 22 (7), 938-952.

Newell, B. & Dunn, J. C. (2008). Dimensions in data: Testing psychological models using state-trace analysis. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(8), 285-290.

Dunn, J. C. (2008). The dimensionality of the Remember-Know task: A state-trace analysis. Psychological Review, 115(2), 426-446.

Kirsner, K., Bujalka, H., Kapranov, S. & Dunn, J. (2007). How long does it take to learn a second language? Forum on Public Policy, 3(2), 161-170.

Heathcote, A., Raymond, F., & Dunn, J. (2006). Recollection and familiarity in recognition memory: Evidence from ROC curves. Journal of Memory and Language, 55, 495-514.

Lautenschlager, N. T., Dunn, J. C., Bonney, K., Flicker, L., & Almeida, O. P. (2006). Latent Semantic Analysis: An improved method to measure cognitive performance in subjects of non-English-speaking-background. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 28, 1381-1387.

Kirsner, K., Hird, K., & Dunn, J.C. (2005). Communication disorders following stroke: First step toward a new fluency protocol. Brain and Language, 95(1), 165-166.

Dunn, J. C. (2004). Remember-know: A matter of confidence. Psychological Review, 111(2), 524-542.

Dunn, J. C. & Kirsner, K. (2003). What can we infer from double dissociations? Cortex, 39,  1-7.

Dunn, J. C. (2003). The elusive dissociation. Cortex, 39, 177-179.

Dunn, J. C. & James, R. N. (2003). Signed difference analysis: Theory and application. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 47(4), 389-416.

Kirsner, K., Dunn, J. C., Hird, K. & Hennessey, N. (2003). Temporal co-ordination: The lynch-pin of language production. In, S. Palethorpe & M. Tabain (Eds). Proceedings of the Sixth International Seminar on Speech Production Sydney, Australia: Macquarie University CD-ROM, 19-24.

Kirsner, K., Dunn, J. C., & Hird, K. (2003). Fluency: Time for a paradigm shift. In, R. H. Eklund (Ed.), Disfluency in Spontaneous Speech [DiSS'03], (pp. 13-16). ISCA Tutorial and Research Workshop, ISCA Archive, http://www.isca-speech.org/archive/diss_03.

Kirsner, K., Dunn, J., Hird, K., Parkin, T. & Clark, C. (2002). Time for a pause. Proceedings of the 9th Australian International Conference on Speech Science. Australian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc. SST-2002, Melbourne. ISBN 0-9581946-0-2 (CD).

Dunn, J. C., Lewandowsky, S., & Kirsner, K. (2002). Dynamics of communication in emergency management. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 16, 719-737.

Dunn, J. C., Almeida, O. P., Waterreus, A., Barclay, L., & Flicker, L. (2002). Latent Semantic Analysis: A new method to measure prose recall. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 24, 26-35.

Dunn, J. C. (2000). Model complexity: The fit to random data revisited. Psychological Research / Psychologische Forschung, 63, 174-182.

Professional Associations

1.      Association for Psychological Science

2.      Australasian Experimental Psychology Society

3.      Australasian Mathematical Psychology Society

4.      International Association of Applied Psychology

5.      Psychonomic Society

6.      Society for Mathematical Psychology

7.      Society for Philosophy and Psychology

Files

• Full Curriculum Vitae - Dunn_CV.pdf [171.0K] (application/pdf)

Expertise for Media Contact

Categories	Psychology and psychiatry
Expertise	Cognitive psychology; human memory; decision making; thinking; learning; research methodology and statistics; the science of psychology

Entry last updated: Sunday, 5 Feb 2012