The Abstracts of the 30th Conference of the Australasian Experimental Psychology Society

Abstract

The 30th Annual Australasian Experimental Psychology Conference (EPC) was hosted by MARCS Auditory Laboratories and the School of Psychology at the Bankstown campus of the University of Western Sydney. The scientific program comprised 131 papers including five specialist symposia (summarised below) and a keynote address by Dr John Hogben from the University of Western Australia. Topics covered all aspects of experimental psychology including basic perceptual and learning processes, attention, individual differences, memory and language. Papers were authored by people from 26 Schools of Psychology in Australia and New Zealand, as well as by visiting colleagues from Canada, Germany and the US. Of the total, around 40% of the papers were presented by graduate students, and Joanna Kidd from the University of Western Australia and Bradley Wolfgang from the University of Melbourne each received a 30th Experimental Psychology Conference Young Scholar Award. The first EPC was held at Monash University during June 28–30, 1974. It succeeded the Canberra Symposium in Perception held over the previous 12 years. At the opening of the 2003 conference, the first 30 years of EPC were celebrated in word and song by Boris Crassini in a fine tenor. Whereas the tune bore some resemblance to a popular song of yesteryear the words were entirely original. Additionally, during the 2003 conference opening, a supervisory genealogy of more than 120 experimental psychologists in Australia was presented. The forbears of current EPC members included B. F. Skinner, Karl Lashley, Sir Frederic Bartlett, Charles Osgood and Dalbir Bindra among many others. We welcome additions and corrections to this growing archive (see: http:sites.uws.edu.auresearchmarcsepcphotos.htm).