Overview: Michael's Research Interests for Postgraduate Supervision

One obvious place to start would be with the interests and topics that I have typically listed on the Psychology Department’s hand-out for postgraduate students:

Extract from the departmental hand-out on supervisor research interests

Areas of Research Interest:

Consciousness; Cognitive Studies & Neuroscience; Free Will & Agency; Philosophy of Mind & Psychology; Philosophical Psycho-pathology; Methodology & Epistemology; Maths Anxiety.

Possible Topics and Topic Areas:
I am especially interested in empirical and experimental investigations of theoretically and philosophically interesting phenomena – for example:

a. Music Imagery (having a tune ‘in your head’), its nature and consequences (cognitive, emotional)

b. Responses to music (e.g. ‘chills’ and emotional responses), their nature, variations and determinants

c.  The effects of background music (on work, studying, etc.)

d. Verbal overshadowing (the disruptive effects of ‘thinking too much’)

e. Attitudes towards mind-body relations amongst professional psychologists (esp. clinicians)

f.   Emotion and cognition

g. Embodied approaches to perception and cognition

h. Change Blindness and/or Inattentional Blindness

i.   The Phenomenology of Agency & Free Will

It would also be of value for trends in research in Psychology, and specifically at Wits or in SA, to be examined and evaluated:

j.   Trends in Postgraduate Research in Psychology: e.g. topics, methods, epistemological frameworks, samples (e.g. use of student samples, ‘vulnerable’ populations)

k.  Trends in Research in South African Psychology: e.g. topics, methods, epistemological frameworks, samples (e.g. use of student samples, ‘vulnerable’ populations), impact of SA research

Overview: Recently Supervised Postgraduate Research Projects

2005                                      Daphne Desouza, BA Honours in Psychology

                                                Research Topic: Stress and Sense of Coherence: experiences of international postgraduate residence students

Julia Halstead-Cleak, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: Transformative grief: exploring psychological well-being in bereaved parents following the death of a child

Hadar Kadosh, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: Change blindness in the South African context: replicating the phenomenon

2006                                      Hadar Kadosh, MA by Dissertation

Dissertation: Effect of isolated facial feature transformations in a change blindness experiment involving a person as the object of change

Faraaz Mahomed, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: Gender differences in the relationship between personality characteristics of the self and expressed preference of personality characteristics of a potential partner

Jarrod Payne, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: SMS text and English text: looking for a difference in processing time

2007                                      Andrea Lawrence, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: Psychological research trends: shifts in the nature of research in relation to democracy in South Africa

Bronwyn Sherriff, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: The phenomenology of agency: adjudicating between Libertarian and Compatibilist accounts

Sasha Wickstrom, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: The relationship between perfectionism, gender and academic achievement in a South African undergraduate population

2008                                      Hayley Donaldson, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: The relationship between the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test and reading achievement in the early school grades

                                               Kerry Gordon, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: Personality and the ‘chill’ effect: the relationship between personality and emotional responses to music

Haylee Waldorf, BEd Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: Traditionally-trained teachers and inclusion: approaches to understanding and dealing with emotional and behavioural difficulties

2009                                       Nahaal Binazir, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: Chill passages: musical characteristics and the responses they invoke

Granville Matheson, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: Investigating the nature of the recruitment of the inferior frontal gyrus in musical syntax processing

Azra Moolla, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: The effect of background music on cognitive performance

2009-2010                         Bronwyn Sherriff, MA in Psychology (CW/RRep)

Research Report: Exploring everyday musical imagery: an experience-sampling study

2010                                     Mary Fraser, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: Experiences of Spontaneous Musical Imagery

Rob Peers, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: Examining the bibliometric impact and legitimation of qualitative research in psychology

Angelika Ronge, BA Honours in Psychology

Research Topic: Familiarity and Emotional Responses to Instrumental Film Music

Possible Readings: Agency and Free Will

Empirical investigations of the phenomenology of agency and free will have enjoyed new popularity over the last few years. A good place to start, for one perspective on the issues, possibilities for future research, and a useful reference list, is:

Nahmias, E., Morris, S., Nadelhoffer, T. and Turner, J. (2004). The phenomenology of free will. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 11, 162-79

For an interesting and sceptical approach to agency and our conscious experience of action, written by a social psychologist, try:

Wegner, D.M. (2002). The Illusion of Conscious Will. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press

A more challenging read – one that serves as a good introduction to Benjamin Libet’s famous studies on the timing of conscious intentions – is the following edited volume :

Libet, B, Freeman, A., and Sutherland, K. (1999). The Volitional Brain: Towards a Neuroscience of Free Will. Thorverton: Imprint Academic.

[The journal is in the Library and accessible via the e-journal portal; the books are available in the Library]

 

Selected Readings: Music Imagery, Responses to Music, Effects of Background Music

All the readings below are either in the Wits Library (books) or available via the Library’s e-journal portal. If you have trouble accessing the journal articles, let me know, and we’ll see if we can make a plan.

General Reading:

Levitin, D. (2007). This is your brain on music. London: Atlantic.

Sacks, O. (2007). Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. London: Picador.

Sacks, O. (2006). The power of music. Brain, 129, 2528-2532

Storr, A. (1992). Music and the mind. London: Harper Collins

You can also browse two journals, (i) Psychology of Music; and (ii) Music Perception

Music Imagery:

Brown, S. (2006). The perpetual music track: the phenomenon of constant musical imagery. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 13, 43-62

Hubbard, T. (2010). Auditory imagery: empirical findings. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 302-329.

Responses to Music:

Bicknell, J. (2007). Explaining strong emotional responses to music. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 14, 5-23.

Chamorro-Premuzic, T. & Furnham, A. (2007). Personality and music: Can traits explain how people use music in everyday life? British Journal of Psychology, 98, 175-185.

Juslin, P.N. & Sloboda, J.A. (2001). Music and Emotion: Theory and research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Panksepp, J. & Bernatzky, G. (2002). Emotional sounds and the brain: the neuro-affective foundations of musical appreciation. Behavioural Processes, 60, 133-165.

Effects of Background Music

Jancke, L. & Sandmann, P. (2010). Music listening while you learn: No influence of background music on verbal learning. Behavioral and Brain Functions, 6 (3), 1-14

Previously Supervised Research - A Sample of Topics

I have supervised postgraduate research in a number of areas, and using a number of different methods. I am especially keen on encouraging experimental and/or laboratory-based studies, as these tend to give students a much more hands-on feel for their research and the resulting data. Below is a representative sample of completed research projects I have supervised, with an indication of level (honours, MA), year, and an indication of method:

Effect of isolated facial feature transformations in a change blindness experiment involving a person as the object of change (MA by Dissertation - 2006) (Experimental)

Change blindness in the South African context: replicating the phenomenon (Honours - 2005) (Experimental)

Personality and the ‘chill’ effect: the relationship between personality and emotional responses to music (Honours – 2008) (Laboratory-based)

SMS text and English text: looking for a difference in processing time (Honours – 2006) (Experimental)

Defending the Freudian Unconscious (MA Research Report – 2003) (Theoretical)

Self-imposed pressure - exploring the construct (Honours – 2000) (Theoretical/ Qualitative)

The phenomenology of agency: adjudicating between Libertarian and Compatibilist accounts (Honours – 2007) (Qualitative)

Transformative grief: exploring psychological well-being in bereaved parents following the death of a child (Honours – 2005) (Qualitative)

Personality characteristics and resilience (Honours – 1999) (Correlational)

The relationship between perfectionism, gender and academic achievement in a South African undergraduate population (Honours – 2007) (Correlational)

The relationship between the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test and reading achievement in the early school grades (Honours – 2008) (Correlational)

[If you would like to look at any of these projects, MA-level research is typically archived in the William Cullen Library, and honours-level research can usually be accessed via the School’s Test Library]

My Research Publications

Below is a list of my research publications in journals. These cover a range of areas, including psychoanalysis, philosophy of mind, philosophical psychopathology, clinical psychology and psychiatry, consciousness studies, cognitive science, and teaching and learning.

With the exception of the article in Alternation, all of the publications should be accessible via the Library’s e-journal portal.

Louw, F. & Pitman, M.M. (2001). Irreducible subjectivity and interactionism: a critique. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 82, 747-766.

Pitman, M.M. (2002). Psychotherapy is Delicate Psychosurgery. South African Journal of Psychology, 32 (4), 1-8.

Pitman, M.M. (2003). Eliminative Materialism and the Integrity of Science. South African Journal of Philosophy, 22 (3), 207-219.

Pitman, M.M. (2003). Consciousness Studies: Research prospects in the ‘Cradle of Human Consciousness.’ Alternation, 10 (1), 271-291.

Israel, N., Pitman, M. & Greyling, M. (2007). Engaging critical thinking: Lessons from the RDA tutorials and projects. South African Journal of Psychology, 37 (2), 375-382.

Laher, S., Israel, N., & Pitman, M. (2007). Teaching research and statistics at undergraduate level: The RDA Tutorial Programme. South African Journal of Psychology, 37, 368-374.

I am currently in the process of completing my PhD in philosophy, titled “Free Agency and its place within Psychology”.