Project

The role of attention in the relationship between emotion and performance in sport.

My PhD research broadly is exploring the effect of emotions on attention, and the consequences of this for concentration and sports performance. My initial research has found that positive emotions are more likely than negative emotions to affect attention in ways that enhance concentration and performance. Some strong relationships were found between positive emotions, performance relevant focus and automaticity. I am currently running a series of experiments using a dual-task methodology to further explore these relationships.

Other Experience

I am currently lecturing in the topic PSYC 3231 Skills for Behavioural Scientists and have guest lectured in the topic PSYC 3227 Motivation, Cognition
and Emotion. I am also currently tutoring in the topics PSYC 2005 Industrial and Organisational Psychology and PSYC 3233 Psychology of Work and Organisations.

Selected Publications

Butavicius, M. A., Mount, C., Bastian, V., Vast, R., Graves, I., & Sunde, J. (2005). An experiment on human face recognition performance for access control. Systems Sciences Laboratory, Land Operations Division, DSTO Edinburgh.

Butavicius, M. A., Mount, C., Bastian, V., Vast, R., Graves, I., & Sunde, J. (2005). An experiment on human face recognition performance for access control. Poster presented at the Biometrics Institute Conference, 10th June 2005, Sydney, Australia.

Delfabbro, P., Borgas, M., & Vast, R. (2007). Evaluation of the South Australian Foster Care Recruitment Service. Report prepared for the South Australian Department of Families and Communities.

Lee, M. D., Vast, R. L., & Butavicius, M. A. (2006). Face matching under time pressure and task demands. Conference Proceeding at the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 26-29th July 2006, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Vast, R. L. (2006). Speech intelligibility over a Tactical Data Net Emulator (TDNE) under varying degrees of packet loss. Systems Sciences Laboratory, Land Operations Division, DSTO Edinburgh.

Vast, R. L., & Butavicius, M. A. (2005). A literature review of face recognition for access control: Human versus machine solutions. Systems Sciences Laboratory, Land Operations Division, DSTO Edinburgh.

Vast, R. L., Lee, M. D., & Butavicius, M. A. (2004). Fatigue, time pressure and distractions when doing face recognition tasks. Poster presented at the Biometrics Institute Conference, 3rd June 2004, Sydney, Australia.

Conference Presentations

Butavicius, M. A., Lee, M. D., Spadavecchia, J. C., & Vast, R. L. (2003). An empirical evaluation of four data visualisation techniques for displaying document corpora. Paper presented at the Defence Human Factors Special Interest Group Conference, 12-14th November 2003, DSTO Canberra, Australia.

Lee, M. D., Vast, R. L., & Butavicius, M. A. (2004). Face matching under time pressure and task demands. Paper presented at the Adelaide Mental Life Conference, 2nd December 2004, DSTO Edinburgh, Australia.

Vast, R. L., Fraser, G., & Williamson, P. (2006). The effect of emotional awareness and the emotional content of a decision on confidence and response time when decision-making. Paper presented at the Joint Conference of the APS & NZPsS 26th-30th September 2006, Auckland, New Zealand.

Contact Details

School of Psychology
Flinders University of South Australia
GPO Box 2100
Adelaide, South Australia 5001

Office: 370 Social Sciences North
Phone: (+61 8) 8201 2996
Fax: (+61 8) 8201 3877
Email: robyn.vast@flinders.edu.au