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 AttentionDeficit 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 bodyshape') 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.