Psychology Research

The Discipline of Clinical Psychology at UTS offers the following research degree:

• Doctor of Philosophy (Psychology) (PhD)

If you would like to discuss a potential PhD project not listed here, please see our available Supervisors below, with links to their staff profiles and research interests.

Project title: Using computational cognitive models to improve human-robot collaboration

Project description:

Collaboration between humans and robots is rapidly increasing, creating a need for integrative work between engineering and psychology to improve robots' collaborative skills. One promising approach is to equip robots with cutting-edge cognitive computational models of their human collaborators' decision-making processes. These models would enable robots to account for latent factors guiding human decisions (e.g., beliefs, inferences, preferences, risk, confidence, caution), during collaborative tasks. This could enhance the efficiency of robots' observational learning and allow them to take actions that support and optimise human decision-making, ultimately improving teamwork and productivity.

The project will be supervised by Dr. Milan Andrejevic, a Lecturer in Psychology, and Dikai Liu, a Distinguished Professor in Robotics from the University of Technology Sydney, and entail a collaboration with Prof. Jakob Hohwy, a Professor in Philosophy from Monash University.

Candidate requirements:

• Honours or Masters degree in: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and a good grasp of statistics OR Engineering, Computer Science OR other related and relevant discipline and a strong interest in psychological science;
• Willingness to learn computational cognitive modelling approaches;
• Excellent academic writing skills;
• Experience with, and/or willingness to learn coding and using statistical software (R, Matlab, Python, and/or alike);
• Demonstrated work ethic.

Also desirable:

• A record of contributing to academic publications;
• Experience with mathematical / computational modelling

Scholarship: 

This project includes funding for a living stipend scholarship at the UTS rate of $37,000 per annum (tax-exempt) with fee waivers provided. 

Contacts: Milan Andrejevic and Dikai Liu

Duration: 3.5 years 

School: School of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering and Robotic Institute

Application Closing date: when filled

Domestic and International applications accepted.

Project Title: Taking the next step to understand how walking modulates perception and attention

Project Description:

Our lives are characterised by movement, yet most psychology and neuroscience research has traditionally focused on highly restrained, static experimental settings. Fundamentally, this limits the transfer of knowledge gained in experimental psychology to the real-world and may miss key features of cognitive and neural function linked to action.

This project will address this deficit by investigating how walking modulates our perception of the environment, with a focus on movement in immersive wireless virtual-reality (VR) environments.

Representative publications:

1. Davidson, M. J., Verstraten, F. A., & Alais, D. (2024). Walking modulates visual detection performance according to stride cycle phase. Nature communications (1), 2027. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45780-4
2. Davidson, M. J., Keys, R. T., Szekely, B., MacNeilage, P., Verstraten, F., & Alais, D. (2023). Continuous peripersonal tracking accuracy is limited by the speed and phase of locomotion. Scientific reports, 13(1),14864. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-40655-y

PhD Scholarship

This project is part of an Australian Research Council fellowship awarded to Dr. Matthew Davidson. The project includes funding for a living stipend scholarship valued at 35,000 to 37,000 per annum (depending on experience). The duration of this stipend is for 3 years. Please note that domestic-student tuition fees are waived. However, international applicants are liable for tuition fees. International applicants will only be considered under exceptional circumstances, due to the desired timeline of the project.

Candidate Requirements:

Essential:

• Honours or Masters degree in: Psychology, Cognitive science, Neuroscience, OR Sport and Exercise Science/Physiology OR Engineering or Computer Science OR other related and relevant disciplines with an interest in psychological science<
• Willingness to learn programming/coding skills for experimentation and statistical analysis
• Excellent academic writing skills

Desirable:

• A record of contributing to academic publications
• Experience with electroencephalography (EEG), OR with virtual reality (VR), OR with kinematic analysis (including (3D motion capture and force plate analysis), OR with physiological signals (including eye-movements and cardiorespiratory signals)

Supervision

Primary: Dr Matthew Davidson, Lecturer, Discipline of Psychology, Graduate School of Health, UTS

This project includes collaboration/co-supervision with the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation (UTS), Faculty of Engineering and IT (UTS), School of Psychology (University of Sydney).

Contact and Expression of Interest

Contact Dr Matt Davidson (matthew.davidson@uts.edu.au) to discuss your interest and/or submit your application.

If interested, please forward your CV and cover letter to matthew.davidson@uts.edu.au

In your cover letter, please include:

• Your personal interest in applying
• Your relevant skills and research expertise,
• Contact information for 1-2 academic referees.

Deadline

This position is open until filled.

Our research supervisors are outlined below. 

• Mindfulness Integrated Therapies Research Clinic
• TelePsych Laboratory
• UTS: Family Child Behaviour Clinic
• Body Image and Eating Disorder Academic Network
• Behavioural Sciences and Technology 

Visit the UTS scholarships, prizes and awards page for more details about all scholarships, prizes and awards offered by UTS.

A selection of our current PhD candidate projects are outlined below