Forensic and Clinical Cognition Lab
Dr Melanie Takarangi
In my lab we study how people react to, remember, and make decisions about, their negative and potentially traumatic life experiences.
We study:
- How accurately people remember negative and traumatic experiences, for example when witnesses or victims of a crime need to describe what they saw to police.
- Why distressing memories of negative events keep coming to mind when people are not trying to remember them. What happens when these involuntary memories persist? And are we always aware when we are experiencing these memories?
- How people react when exposed to other people’s trauma, e.g., through conversation, or exposure to images or other material as part of their job.
- Whether different emotions associated with trauma (disgust, fear) are remembered differently over time.
- How people imagine future negative experiences—things they are worried about happening, or even things they have been warned about, e.g., using a trigger warning. Do warnings help?
Altogether, our research aims to improve the reliability of people’s court testimony about traumatic experiences and reduce the psychological harm of experiencing trauma.
The Forensic and Clinical Cognition Lab is a part of the College of Education, Psychology, and Social Work at Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia.