Complex Stimuli
Associate Professor Michael Kiernan
Assoc. Prof. Michael Kiernan is the Head of School in the School of Psychology at Charles Sturt University. His primary research examines processes of associative learning and, in particular, he has examined the contribution of associative learning to the way in which complex stimuli (such as flavours) are represented in memory.
This flavour research has been supported by two Australian Research Council (ARC) large grants (one in collaboration with psychologists at Sydney University and Macquarie University, the other a collaborative project between CSU's Grape and Wine Research Centre at Wagga, and psychologists at Bathurst). He has also examined the neural systems which mediate this associative and perceptual learning, and recently has extended this analysis to examine neurochemical and anatomical mechanisms of the attention deficit in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children.
Other research projects in which he is involved examine the motivated behaviours of alcohol consumption, smoking and dieting. These projects have also received ARC support. An ARC large grant, completed in 1997, was a collaborative project with psychologists at the University of NSW, examining the neural mechanisms of perceptual learning, and the ADHD project is funded by an ARC small grant. In addition, Dr. Kiernan has recently contributed to a successful bid for ARC research infrastructure funds to establish an inter-institutional (UNSW, Sydney University, CSU and Macquarie University) neuroscience laboratory for the study of brain electrophysiological activity in vivo. Specifically, he has examined drinking, smoking and dieting (restricting food intake) from the context of socially prescribed goals (e.g., 'ideal body-shape') and the individual's beliefs concerning self-worth and control in the face of these social messages. The most extensive studies have explored dieting and have used Australian university students, university students from Korea, Japan and China, as well as school-age adolescents to examine dietary practices, beliefs concerning self-worth, locus of control, body perceptions, and beliefs about culturally valued body shape.
Results of these studies have shown that highly-restrained eating is strongly associated with the adoption of Western cultural values, particularly as these relate to a culturally prescribed ideal body-shape and weight, and that this is more likely to be the case where the individual's beliefs concerning their own self worth are strongly linked to beliefs about the way they are evaluated by others on the basis of physical attractiveness. As would be expected, these factors are most influential during late adolescence, which correlates with the average age of onset of eating disorders as reported by epidemiological studies.