Enhancing Human Decision Making for Defence, Forensics, and Fire

Part of Future of Work Institute’s Thursday Seminar Series

The cognitive feats of genuine experts are impressive, even miraculous. People with genuine perceptual expertise can perform quickly and with little information. Fire commanders, medical diagnosticians, and fingerprint examiners, for example, are all capable of extraordinary feats of visual categorisation. Yet we know little about the nature of this expertise or its development.

In the spirit of the Future of Work Institute’s mission to improve people’s experience and performance at work, Dr Matthew Thompson, Senior Lecturer in Cognition at Murdoch University will present three current projects from the Perceptual Expertise Advanced Research Lab (The PEARL):

1. Enhancing Human Decision Making in the Australian Defence Force;
2. Creating the Next Generation of Perceptual Experts in Australia’s Policing and Security Agencies; and
3. Accelerating Expertise for WA’s Fire and Emergency Management.

Dr Thompson will conclude by considering opportunities for research collaboration and end-user impact.

About the speaker

Dr Matthew Thompson

Matthew investigates human perceptual expertise. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at Murdoch University following research fellowships at The University of California, The University of Queensland, and Harvard Medical School. He is working to reduce error in safety-critical decision making in defence, forensics, and fire, and to better understand the nature and development of perceptual expertise. He has received over $1.5 million in research funding, and currently holds an ARC Linkage and defence grants. He provides training to the WA Department of Fire and Emergency Services, WA Police Force, and WA Department of Health, and serves on the early-career Brain Science panel at the National Academy of Science.

Venue

Update 21/02: Online ONLY via Microsoft Teams

RSVP to Diane Garnham is essential (diane.garnham@curtin.edu.au)

Health and Safety

Requirements for in-person attendance can be found here.