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Elinor McKONE

Dr Elinor McKONE
PhD

QEII Discovery Fellow

Email : Elinor.McKone@anu.edu.au
Phone : (02) 612 52822
Fax : (02) 612 50499

Office Location

Room 126, Department of Psychology (Building 39)

Mailing Address

Department of Psychology (Building 39)
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200
Australia
On this page...

Research and Supervision Interests
Research Students
Selected Publications
Current Grants

Research and Supervision Interests

My primary research interests are in face and object recognition. One question has concerned the theoretical origin of special cognitive and neural processing for faces; we have investigated this via developmental studies of face recognition in children, and studies of experts in other object domains (e.g., dog show judges). I am also interested defining the properties of 'holistic' or 'configural' processing for faces more closely than has been done so far; my work here is using various techniques that isolate holistic/configural processing from part-based processing, and studies of adpatation aftereffects to distorted faces, to explore properties such as the size tuning or depth rotation tuning of holistic/configural processing.

My other area of expertise is memory. I have a longstanding interest in implicit memory, and some interest in false memories and working memory. I have supervised a number of Clinical Masters & PhD students examining memory function in various target populations (e.g., children with ADHD; drug users).

I have some knowledge of word recognition, reading and dyslexia; I am available as a PhD panel member on these topics, although not as primary supervisor.

Research Assistants

For copies of papers etc, please email me or my research assistant Stefan (stefan.horarik@anu.edu.au)

Research Students

  • Kate Crookes (PhD) - Thesis : Development of face recognition in children and infants.
  • Svetlana Korukina (PhD) - Thesis : Enhancing memory by reinstating odour context.
  • Bagus Tirta Susilo (PhD) - Thesis : Adaptation aftereffects in face recognition
  • Devin Bowles (Honours student) - Thesis : Aging effects on neuropsychological tests of face processing
  • Hannah Turner (Honours student) - Thesis : Development of face recognition in children.
  • Tushara Wickramariyaratne (Honours student) - Thesis : The other-race effect in face recognition.

Graduated PhD Students

  • Kristina Murphy (nee Trynes) - Thesis : Implicit and explicit memory development in children.
  • Rachel Robbins - Thesis : Face and object processing: What changes with experience?
  • John Brown (joint supervision with Dr Jeff Ward) - Thesis : The pattern of memory and perceptual dysfunctions in recreational ecstasy users.
Selected Publications

(Most of these, including submitted pre-prints, can be emailed as a PDF on request.)

Book Chapters

McKone, E. & Kanwisher, N. (2005). Does the human brain process objects of expertise like faces? A review of the evidence. In: Dehaene S., Duhamel J.-R. , Hauser M. D., and Rizzolatti, G. (Eds.): From Monkey Brain to Human Brain: A Fyssen Foundation Symposium. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. pp. 339-356.

Rhodes, G., Robbins, R., McKone, E., Jacquet, E., Jeffry, L., & Clifford, C. (2005). Adaptation and face perception: How aftereffects implicate norm-based coding of faces. In: Clifford, W. G. & Rhodes, G. Fitting the Mind to the World: Adaptation and Aftereffects in High-Level Vision. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 213-240.

McKone, E., Martini, P. & Nakayama, K. (2003). Isolating holistic processing in faces (and perhaps objects). Peterson, M. & Rhodes, G. (Eds.). Perception of Faces, Objects, and Scenes: Analytic and Holistic Processes. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 92-119

Journal Articles

McKone, E. & Robbins, R. (in press). The evidence rejects the expertise hypothesis: Reply to Gauthier & Bukach. Cognition. Available online 13.7.06

Robbins, R., McKone, E., & Edwards, M. (in press). Aftereffects for face attributes with different natural variability: adaptor position effects and neural models. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance.

Robbins R. & McKone, E. (in press). No face-like processing for objects-of- expertise in three behavioural tasks. Cognition. Available online 17 April 2006 www.sciencedirect.com

McKone, E., Brewer, J. L., MacPherson, S., Rhodes, G. & Hayward, W.G. (in press). Familiar other-race faces show normal holistic processing and are robust to perceptual stress. Perception.

McKone, E. & Boyer, B. (2006). Four-year olds are sensitive to featural and second-order relational changes in face distinctiveness. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 94, 134-162.

McKone, E. & Peh, Y. X. (2006). Memory conjunction errors for realistic faces are consistent with configural processing, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13

Murphy, K., McKone, E. & Slee, J. (2006). Absolute versus Relative Difference measures of priming: Which is appropriate when baseline scores change with age? British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 24, 293-204.

Martini, P., McKone, E. & Nakayama, K. (2006). Orientation tuning of human face processing estimated by contrast matching in transparency displays. Vision Research, 46, 2102-2109.

McKone, E., Aitkin, A., & Edwards, M. (2005). Categorical and coordinate relations in faces, or Fechner's law and face-space instead? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31, 1181-1198.

McKone, E. (2004). Isolating the special component of face recognition: Peripheral identification, and a Mooney face. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 30, 181-197.

Buchholz, J. & McKone, E. (2004). Adults with dyslexia show deficits on spatial frequency doubling and visual attention tasks. Dyslexia, 10, 24-43.

McKone, E. (2004). Distinguishing true from false memories via lexical decision as a perceptual implicit test. Australian Journal of Psychology, 56, 42-49.

Aloisi, B., McKone, E. & Heubeck, B. (2004). Implicit and explicit memory performance in children with Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 22, 275-292.

Gilchrist, A. & McKone, E. (2003). Early maturity of face processing in children: Local and relational distinctiveness effects in 7-yr-olds. Visual Cognition, 10, 769-793.

Murphy, K., McKone, E. & Slee, J. (2003). Dissociations between implicit and explicit memory in children: The role of strategic processing and the knowledge base. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 84, 124-165.

Robbins, R. & McKone, E. (2003). Can holistic processing be learned for inverted faces? Cognition, 88, 79-107.

McKone, E. (2001). Capacity limits in continuous old-new recognition, and in short- term implicit memory. (Commentary on Cowan, 2001, "The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity"). Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 24, 130-131.

McKone, E., Martini, P., and Nakayama, K. (2001). Categorical perception of face identity in noise isolates configural processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27, 573-599.

McKone, E. & French, B. (2001). In what sense is implicit memory "episodic"? The effect of reinstating environmental context. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8, 806-811.

McKone, E. & Dennis, C. (2000). Short-term implicit memory: Visual, auditory and cross-modality priming. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 7, 341-346.

McKone, E. & Murphy, B. (2000). Implicit false memory: Effects of modality and multiple study presentations on long-lived semantic priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 43, 89-109.

McKone, E. & Trynes, K. (1999). Acquisition of novel traces in short-term implicit memory: Priming for illegal nonwords and new associations. Memory and Cognition, 27, 619-632.

McKone, E. & Grenfell, T. (1999). Orientation invariance in naming rotated objects: Individual differences and repetition priming. Perception and Psychophysics, 61, 1590-1603.

McKone, E. (1998). The decay of short-term implicit memory: Unpacking lag. Memory and Cognition, 26, 1173-1186.

Haslam, C., Cook, M. L., & McKone, E. (1998). Memory for generalities: Access to higher-level categorical relationships in amnesia. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 15, 401-437.

McKone, E. & Slee, J. (1997). Explicit contamination in "implicit" memory for new associations. Memory and Cognition, 25, 352-366.

McKone, E. (1995). Short term implicit memory for words and nonwords. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 21, 1108-1126.

Current Grants

2007-2010 ARC Discovery Scheme - $374,004

Investigators : Linda Jeffery (UWA), Gillian Rhodes (UWA), Elinor McKone (ANU), Daphne Maurer (McMaster) & Elizabeth Pellicano (Oxford).

Title : The role of adaptive coding mechanisms in the development of face perception.

2004-2008 ARC Discovery Scheme - $540,000

Investigators : Elinor McKone, Mark Edwards (ANU), Nancy Kanwisher (MIT)

Title : Special cognitive processing for faces: Expertise effects, and links to neural mechanisms.