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Department of Cognitive Science

Shahd Al-Janabi

BA Psych Macq, BA Psych UWA.

Ms Shahd Al-Janabi

Contact Details

Office : 3.702
Phone : +61 2 9850 6729
Fax : +61 2 9850 6059
email : shahd.al-janabi@mq.edu.au

External Address

Department of Cognitive Science
Australian Hearing Hub
16 University Avenue
Macquarie University NSW 2109

Profile

I obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology - Honours) from the University of Western Australia in 2009. My Honours research was conducted under the supervision of Professor Gill Rhodes, in collaboration with Professor Colin MacLeod, and investigated attentional allocation to own and other race faces. I joined MACCS in 2010 as a PhD candidate supervised by Dr. Matthew Finkbeiner and Jason Friedman.

Thesis Details

Neuronal global workspace theory.

Eye gaze following is vital for smooth social interactions as it can indicate sources of threat, underlying attitudes, points of interest and so on. As such, it’s not so surprising that infants begin to follow another person’s gaze from 4 months of age. Given the early development of this gaze following ability, my research is concerned with investigating whether the capacity to follow eye-gaze information is automatic (innate) or top-down (learnt). To investigate this question, we ask, can gaze following occur when the gaze information is non-conscious? If so, is gaze following under non-conscious conditions driven by similar mechanisms to gaze following under conscious conditions? Further, do the same neural underpinnings govern non-concious and conscious gaze following? We investigate these research questions using both behavioural (response latency) measures and electroencephalography (EEG).

  • Scholarship : Other
  • Workload : full time
  • Supervisors : Dr Matthew Finkbeiner and Dr Jason Friedman

Selected Publications

Periodicals

  • Al-Janabi, S., & Finkbeiner, M. (2012). Effective processing of masked eye gaze requires volitional control. Experimental Brain Research, 216(3), 433-443. doi: 10.1007/s00221-011-2944-0
  • Al-Janabi, S., MacLeod, C., & Rhodes, G. (2012). Non-threatening other-race faces capture visual attention: Evidence from a dot-probe task. PLoS One, 7(10), e46119. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0046119

Conference Presentations, Colloquia, and other presentations

  • Al-Janabi, S., & Finkbeiner, M. (2012, September). Effective processing of masked eye gaze requires volitional control. Paper presented at the 35th European Conference of Visual Perception (ECVP), Alghero, Italy.
  • Al-Janabi, S., & Finkbeiner, M. (2012, April). Effective processing of masked eye gaze requires volitional control. Paper presented at the 39th Australasian Experimental Psychology Conference (EPC), Sydney.
  • Al-Janabi, S., & Finkbeiner, M. (2011, December). Effective processing of masked eye gaze requires volitional control. Poster session presented at the Australasian Cognitive Neurosciences Conference (ACNC), Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
  • Quek, G., Finkbeiner, M., Friedman, J., & Al-Janabi, S. (2011, December). Using reaching trajectories to reveal the dynamics of stimulus categorization. Paper presented at the Australasian Cognitive Neurosciences Conference (ACNC), Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
  • Al-Janabi, S., & Finkbeiner, M. (2011, December). Effective processing of masked eye gaze requires volitional control. Paper presented at the 2012 Higher Degree Research Showcase (HDR Showcase), Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
  • Al-Janabi, S., & Finkbeiner, M. (2011, April). Do eye-gaze cues automatically orient spatial attention? Evidence from a masked-cueing task. Paper presented at the 38th Australasian Experimental Psychology Conference (EPC), Auckland, New Zealand.