Dr Nicole Nelson
Senior Lecturer
School of Psychology
College of Education, Behavioural and Social Sciences
Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.
Current studies available for child participants can be found here: https://linktr.ee/developwelllab
My Research
Dr Nicole Nelson examines how children and adults learn about and understand emotional expressions and other non-verbal information. Her research examines how we integrate facial, postural, and vocal expression cues, how children attend to and learn about new emotions and non-verbal information, and what our emotional expressions look like during daily interactions. Dr Nelson received her PhD from Boston College, was an NSF-funded Postdoctoral Fellow at Brock University in Canada, and after several years at the University of Queensland, in 2021 she joined the School of Psychology at the University of Adelaide.
| Date | Position | Institution name |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 - ongoing | Senior Lecturer | University of Adelaide |
| 2021 - 2022 | Lecturer | University of Adelaide |
| 2021 - ongoing | Honorary Research Senior Fellow | University of Queensland |
| 2014 - 2020 | Lecturer | University of Queensland |
| 2012 - 2014 | Postdoctoral Follow | Brock University |
| Date | Institution name | Country | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Boston College | United States | PhD |
| 2003 | University of Washington | United States | Bachelor of Science |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Vidas, D., Nelson, N. L., & Dingle, G. A. (2025). Efficacy of the Tuned In music emotion regulation program in international university students. Psychology and Health, 40(1), 105-125. Scopus8 WoS6 Europe PMC5 |
| 2025 | Fong, F. T. K., Thong, C., & Nelson, N. L. (2025). Children use process of elimination to associate a novel expression with a novel cause. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 253, 106205. |
| 2025 | Jones, A. K., Nelson, N. L., Gautam, S., & Redshaw, J. (2025). Children infer counterfactual information from others’ facial expressions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 259, 106306. |
| 2025 | Vidas, D., Nelson, N. L., & Dingle, G. A. (2025). From Mozart to Fleetwood Mac: music listening is not detrimental to reading comprehension in university students.. Cogn Emot, 1-10. |
| 2025 | Karakale, Ö., Nelson, N., Gredelj, A., Ryan, K. J., & Bayindir, A. (2025). Prior contextual information and autistic traits influence eye gaze behaviour and emotional valence ratings for facial expressions.. Sci Rep, 15(1), 27574. |
| 2024 | Moses, E., Nelson, N., Taubert, J., & Pegna, A. J. (2024). Oxytocin differentially modulates the early neural responses to faces and non-social stimuli.. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci, 19(1), 10 pages. Scopus3 WoS3 Europe PMC3 |
| 2024 | Dixson, B. J. W., Nelson, N. L., Moses, E., Lee, A. J., & Pegna, A. J. (2024). Perceptions of facial trustworthiness and dominance modulate early neural responses to male facial sexual dimorphism. Evolution and Human Behavior, 45(6), 11 pages. Scopus5 WoS5 |
| 2023 | Pegna, A. J., Framorando, D., Yu, Z., Buhmann, Z., Nelson, N., & Dixson, B. J. W. (2023). Hierarchical status is rapidly assessed from behaviourally dominant faces.. Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience, 23(5), 1267-1280. Scopus6 WoS4 Europe PMC2 |
| 2023 | Van Der Zant, T., Vanman, E., & Nelson, N. (2023). Familiarity with individuals' genuine dynamic expressive behaviour increases accuracy of emotional arousal judgements. AFFECTIVE SCIENCE, 4(1), 1 page. |
| 2022 | Dixson, B. J. W., Spiers, T., Miller, P. A., Sidari, M. J., Nelson, N. L., & Craig, B. M. (2022). Facial hair may slow detection of happy facial expressions in the face in the crowd paradigm. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 13 pages. Scopus13 WoS9 Europe PMC6 |
| 2022 | Vidas, D., Nelson, N. L., & Dingle, G. A. (2022). Music listening as a coping resource in domestic and international university students. Psychology of Music, 50(6), 030573562110669. Scopus10 WoS10 |
| 2022 | West, M. J., Angwin, A. J., Copland, D. A., Arnott, W. L., & Nelson, N. L. (2022). Effects of emotional cues on novel word learning in typically developing children in relation to broader autism traits. Journal of Child Language, 49(3), 503-521. Scopus3 WoS3 Europe PMC1 |
| 2021 | Vidas, D., Larwood, J. L., Nelson, N. L., & Dingle, G. A. (2021). Music Listening as a Strategy for Managing COVID-19 Stress in First-Year University Students. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 9 pages. Scopus64 WoS51 Europe PMC21 |
| 2021 | Nguyen, T. T., & Nelson, N. L. (2021). Winners and losers: Recognition of spontaneous emotional expressions increases across childhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 209, 1-11. Scopus4 WoS4 Europe PMC2 |
| 2021 | Van Der Zant, T., Reid, J., Mondloch, C. J., & Nelson, N. L. (2021). The influence of postural emotion cues on implicit trait judgements. Motivation and Emotion, 45(5), 641-648. Scopus2 WoS2 |
| 2021 | Van Der Zant, T., & Nelson, N. L. (2021). Motion Increases Recognition of Naturalistic Postures but not Facial Expressions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 45(4), 587-600. Scopus8 WoS8 |
| 2021 | Butler, J. R., & Nelson, N. L. (2021). Children overclaim more knowledge than adults do, but for different reasons. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 201, 104969. Scopus7 WoS8 Europe PMC1 |
| 2020 | Kapitány, R., Nelson, N., Burdett, E. R. R., & Goldstein, T. R. (2020). The child’s pantheon: Children’s hierarchical belief structure in real and non-real figures. PLoS ONE, 15(6), e0234142. Scopus10 WoS9 Europe PMC2 |
| 2020 | Fong, F. T. K., Mondloch, C. J., & Nelson, N. L. (2020). Interactive situations reveal more about children's emotional knowledge. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 198, 104879. Scopus9 WoS8 Europe PMC3 |
| 2020 | Barker, M. S., Nelson, N. L., & Robinson, G. A. (2020). Idea formulation for spoken language production: the interface of cognition and language. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 26(2), 226-240. Scopus29 WoS29 Europe PMC24 |
| 2020 | Vidas, D., Calligeros, R., Nelson, N. L., & Dingle, G. A. (2020). Development of emotion recognition in popular music and vocal bursts. Cognition and Emotion, 34(5), 906-919. Scopus6 WoS6 Europe PMC5 |
| 2020 | West, M. J., Angwin, A. J., Copland, D. A., Arnott, W. L., & Nelson, N. L. (2020). Cross-modal emotion recognition and autism-like traits in typically developing children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 191, 104737-1-104737-13. Scopus7 WoS7 Europe PMC2 |
| 2020 | Barker, M. S., Bidstrup, E. M., Robinson, G. A., & Nelson, N. L. (2020). “Grumpy” or “furious”? arousal of emotion labels influences judgments of facial expressions. PLOS ONE, 15(7), e0235390. Scopus10 WoS11 Europe PMC5 |
| 2019 | Nelson, N. L., & Mondloch, C. J. (2019). Children's perception of emotions in the context of live interactions: Eye movements and emotion judgements. Behavioural Processes, 164, 193-200. Scopus13 WoS11 Europe PMC5 |
| 2019 | Dixson, B. J. W., Kennedy-Costantini, S., Lee, A. J., & Nelson, N. L. (2019). Mothers are sensitive to men's beards as a potential cue of paternal investment. Hormones and Behavior, 113, 55-66. Scopus34 WoS31 Europe PMC13 |
| 2019 | Craig, B. M., Nelson, N. L., & Dixson, B. J. W. (2019). Sexual Selection, Agonistic Signaling, and the Effect of Beards on Recognition of Men’s Anger Displays. Psychological Science, 30(5), 728-738. Scopus47 WoS44 Europe PMC16 |
| 2019 | Mondloch, C. J., Gerada, A., Proietti, V., & Nelson, N. L. (2019). The influence of subtle facial expressions on children's first impressions of trustworthiness and dominance is not adult-like. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 180, 19-38. Scopus20 WoS19 Europe PMC10 |
| 2019 | Coy, A. L., Nelson, N. L., & Mondloch, C. J. (2019). No experimental evidence for emotion-specific gaze cueing in a threat context. Cognition and Emotion, 33(6), 1144-1154. Scopus7 Europe PMC3 |
| 2019 | Nelson, N. L., Kennedy-Costantini, S., Lee, A. J., & Dixson, B. J. W. (2019). Children's judgements of facial hair are influenced by biological development and experience. Evolution and Human Behavior, 40(6), 551-556. Scopus8 WoS14 |
| 2018 | Nelson, N. L., Nowicki, E., Diemer, M. C., Sangster, K., Cheng, C., & Russell, J. A. (2018). Children can create a new emotion category through a process of elimination. Cognitive Development, 47, 117-123. Scopus13 WoS11 |
| 2018 | Vidas, D., Dingle, G. A., & Nelson, N. L. (2018). Children’s recognition of emotion in music and speech. Music and Science, 1, 205920431876265. Scopus28 |
| 2018 | West, M. J., Copland, D. A., Arnott, W. L., Nelson, N. L., & Angwin, A. J. (2018). Effects of prosodic and semantic cues on facial emotion recognition in relation to autism-like traits. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 48(8), 2611-2618. Scopus15 WoS13 Europe PMC9 |
| 2018 | Barker, M. S., Nelson, N. L., O'Sullivan, J. D., Adam, R., & Robinson, G. A. (2018). Energization and spoken language production: evidence from progressive supranuclear palsy. Neuropsychologia, 119, 349-362. Scopus24 WoS24 Europe PMC18 |
| 2018 | Nelson, N. L., & Mondloch, C. J. (2018). Children’s visual attention to emotional expressions varies with stimulus movement. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 172, 13-24. Scopus11 WoS11 Europe PMC5 |
| 2017 | Nelson, N. L., & Mondloch, C. J. (2017). Adults’ and children’s perception of facial expressions is influenced by body postures even for dynamic stimuli. Visual Cognition, 25(4-6), 563-574. Scopus34 WoS32 |
| 2017 | West, M. J., Copland, D. A., Arnott, W. L., Nelson, N. L., & Angwin, A. J. (2017). Effects of emotional prosody on novel word learning in relation to autism-like traits. Motivation and Emotion, 41(6), 749-759. Scopus7 WoS7 |
| 2016 | Nelson, N. L., & Russell, J. A. (2016). Building emotion categories: Children use a process of elimination when they encounter novel expressions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 151, 120-130. Scopus29 WoS25 Europe PMC16 |
| 2016 | Nelson, N. L., & Russell, J. A. (2016). A facial expression of pax: Assessing children’s “recognition” of emotion from faces. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 141, 49-64. Scopus37 WoS33 Europe PMC15 |
| 2015 | Nelson, N. L., & Russell, J. A. (2015). Children distinguish between positive pride and hubris.. Developmental Psychology, 51(11), 1609-1614. Scopus7 WoS5 Europe PMC3 |
| 2014 | Nelson, N. L., & Russell, J. A. (2014). Dynamic facial expressions allow differentiation of displays intended to convey positive and hubristic pride.. Emotion, 14(5), 857-864. Scopus27 WoS23 Europe PMC8 |
| 2013 | Mondloch, C. J., Nelson, N. L., & Horner, M. (2013). Asymmetries of Influence: Differential Effects of Body Postures on Perceptions of Emotional Facial Expressions. Plos One, 8(9), 16 pages. Scopus35 WoS35 Europe PMC16 |
| 2013 | Nelson, N. L., Hudspeth, K., & Russell, J. A. (2013). A story superiority effect for disgust, fear, embarrassment, and pride. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 31(3), 334-348. Scopus17 WoS13 Europe PMC5 |
| 2013 | Nelson, N. L., & Russell, J. A. (2013). Universality revisited. Emotion Review, 5(1), 8-15. Scopus202 WoS177 |
| 2012 | Nelson, N. L., & Russell, J. A. (2012). Children's understanding of nonverbal expressions of pride. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 111(3), 379-385. Scopus21 WoS20 Europe PMC4 |
| 2011 | Nelson, N. L., & Russell, J. A. (2011). Preschoolers' use of dynamic facial, bodily, and vocal cues to emotion. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 110(1), 52-61. Scopus114 WoS102 Europe PMC55 |
| 2011 | Nelson, N. L., & Russell, J. A. (2011). Putting motion in emotion: Do dynamic presentations increase preschooler's recognition of emotion?. Cognitive Development, 26(3), 248-259. Scopus27 WoS24 |
| 2011 | Nelson, N. L., & Russell, J. A. (2011). When Dynamic, the Head and Face Alone Can Express Pride. Emotion, 11(4), 990-993. Scopus16 WoS16 Europe PMC5 |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2022 | Nelson, N., & Widen, S. (2022). Differentiation and Language Acquisition in Children’s Understanding of Emotion. In D. Dukes, A. Samson, & E. Walle (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Emotional Development (pp. 174-187). Oxford University Press. DOI Scopus3 |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Mondloch, C. J., & Nelson, N. L. (2014). Looking for Emotion Cues: Allocation of Attention Varies With Age, Emotion, and Whether Stimuli Are Static or Dynamic. In CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-REVUE CANADIENNE DE PSYCHOLOGIE EXPERIMENTALE Vol. 68 (pp. 305). CANADIAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC. |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2024 | Holdsworth, I., Palmer, K., Rayner, C., Tuza, A., Van Der Zant, T., & Nelson, N. (2024). Characteristics of Adults' Facial Expressions As Seen By Infants. Poster session presented at the meeting of Experimental Psychology Conference 2024. Adelaide, South Australia. |
| 2022 | Van Der Zant, T., Holdsworth, I., Palmer, K., Rayner, C., Tuza, A., & Nelson, N. (2022). Emotional Expressions in Infant's Environment. Poster session presented at the meeting of Oral Presentations, Society of Australasian Social Psychologists Conference 2022. Adelaide, South Australia. |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2024 | Nelson, N., Mondloch, C., & Dixson, B. (2024). Facial hair is increasingly associated with dominance, but not trustworthiness in childhood. DOI |
Funding
Career funding total = $287,319 AUD
| Year | Grant | Amount | |
| 2019 | Nelson, N.L., Pegna, A., & Dixson, B.J.W. Title: Neural and Visual Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Faces and Bodies. Strategic Funds Seeding Grant, University of Queensland. | $8000 AUD | |
| 2017 | Robinson, G.A., Matthews, N., & Nelson, N.L. Title: Mapping Parallels in Language and Emotional Communication Deficits in Healthy and Pathological Ageing. Strategic Funds Seeding Grant, University of Queensland. | $9200 AUD | |
| 2016 | Robinson, G.A., ...Nelson, N.L., & Vanman, E. Title: A brain physiology laboratory for neuropsychological research in the new Queensland Neuropsychology Research Centre. Major Equipment Initiative Grant, University of Queensland. | $109,606 AUD | |
| 2015 |
Nelson, N.L. …et al Title: Integrating Measures of Emotion: Facial Expressions, EEG, and EMG using iMotions software Research Equipment Initiative, University of Queensland |
$28,400 AUD | |
| 2012 - 2014 | Nelson, N.L. Title: Children's Understanding of Cues to Emotion: Attentional Mechanisms and Social Interactions. International Research Fellowship Program Award, National Science Foundation. | $88,984 USD |
Teaching
| Course Title and Role | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Foundations of Health and Lifespan Psychology (PSYCHOL 1006) Lecturer & Course Coordinator |
Sem. 2, 2022 - | |||
|
Health and Lifespan Developmental Psychology (PSYCHOL 3021) Lecturer & Course Coordinator |
Sem. 2, 2021 - | |||
|
Skills and Applications (PSYCHOL 1006) Lecturer & Course Coordinator |
Sem. 2, 2021 |
| Date | Role | Research Topic | Program | Degree Type | Student Load | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Co-Supervisor | Individual Differences in Face Identification Strategies | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Miss Alysha Jay Hua |
| 2024 | Co-Supervisor | The effectiveness of virtual reality on cognitive load and schema acquisition of STEM students | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Ms Jaclyn Crystal Steffan |
| 2024 | Co-Supervisor | Individual Differences in Face Identification Strategies | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Miss Alysha Jay Hua |
| 2024 | Co-Supervisor | The effectiveness of virtual reality on cognitive load and schema acquisition of STEM students | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Ms Jackie Steffan |
| 2023 | Principal Supervisor | Naturalistic emotion reasoning in childhood: the role of parents on children’s ability to understand and use emotions to interact with others | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Mr Kye Jayden Palmer |
| 2023 | Principal Supervisor | Naturalistic emotion reasoning in childhood: the role of parents on childrens ability to understand and use emotions to interact with others | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Mr Kye Jayden Palmer |
| 2021 | Co-Supervisor | Trait and Situational Predictors of Interpersonal Objectification in Male and Female Perpetrators | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Miss Danielle Grace Tetley |
| 2021 | Co-Supervisor | Trait and Situational Predictors of Interpersonal Objectification in Male and Female Perpetrators | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Miss Danielle Grace Tetley |
| Date | Role | Committee | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 - ongoing | Member | HM&S Ethics Committee Low Risk Review | University of Adelaide | Australia |
| 2018 - 2020 | Member | Higher Degree Research Committee | University of Queensland, School of Psychology | Australia |
| 2017 - 2018 | Member | Ethics Committee (Low and Negligible Risk) | University of Queensland, Faculty of Health and Behavioral Sciences | Australia |
| Date | Title | Type | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 - 2022 | Action Editor | Journal Review | Australian Journal of Psychology | Australia |
Connect With Me
External Profiles
