B Science (Honours), PhD

Lecturer, School of Psychology

Contact details for Dr Karen Murphy

Research expertise

Dr Karen Murphy’s main research interests are:

• Cognitive psychology
• Spatial and temporal attention
• Task switching
• Semantic priming effects
• The impact of video-game playing on aspects of cognition
• The impact of sports participation and cognitive performance
  

Current teaching areas

Dr Karen Murphy is the program convenor for the Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) and Bachelor of Psychological Science (Honours) programs. Responsibilities include:

• Day to day administration associated with these programs
• Intake of new students into the honours programs each year
• Main contact person for students within 4th year psychology programs and students wishing to apply for entry into the Honours programs

Within the undergraduate and psychology honours degrees Dr Karen Murphy teaches into numerous courses. Her main teaching responsibilities include courses in the areas of Biological Psychology, Cognition (at undergraduate and honours levels), and Cognitive Neuropsychology.

• Biological Psychology
• Cognition (at undergraduate and honours levels) and
• Cognitive Neuropsychology
• Dr Murphy also supervises research projects at the honours level. The majority of these projects involve examining various aspects of cognitive psychology

Publications

• Andrews, G. and Murphy, K. (2006) Does video-game playing improve executive function? In M. A. Vanchevsky (Ed.) Frontiers in Cognitive Sciences (pp. 145-161).
• Karayanidis, F., Coltheart, M., Michie, P and Murphy, K. (2003). Electrophysiological evidence for preparatory and stimulus-triggered components of task-switching. Psychophysiology, 40, 329-348.
• Gross, J. B. and Murphy, K. (1990). Youth sport schools for New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Health Physical Education and Recreation, 23, 6-9,12-14.