Daniel Carragher

Dr Daniel Carragher

Lecturer

School of Psychology

Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.

Generally speaking, my research examines how we perceive human faces. I'm interested in how we recognise faces and emotional expressions, make first impressions from facial appearance, and perform identity matching tasks. My work also examines that factors that help or hinder performance on these types of tasks. Other research interests include the lateralisation of visuospatial attention, and ensemble coding.

My recent research interests centre around how we identify human faces. That is, if we are shown two faces, how are we able to tell whether they show the same person or two different people? This type of face matching task is surprisingly common in the real world, yet the average person is somewhat error prone when making these decisions. Recently, I have been investigating how humans perform these face matching tasks when assisted by facial recognition technology. I have also led a number of projects about how COVID-19 face masks affect identification accuracy of both humans and algorithms. My previous research has also included studying the first impressions we make from facial appearance, how we process complex visual scenes, and asymmetries in visuospatial attention.

Honours Projects 2025

I'll likely be offering several honours projects in 2025 that revolve around human performance on one-to-one face matching tasks when assisted by (simulated) facial recognition technologies. These tasks are common in every day life, such as when you are asked to show photo ID (e.g., a driver's licence) at a store or when travelling through airports. Yet humans often struggle to decide whether photo ID matches the person presenting it for inspection! You can find links to my most recent work in this area through the link to Google Scholar on my profile (below).

Please contact me via email for further information.

  • Journals
    Year Citation
    2024 Carragher, D. J., Sturman, D., & Hancock, P. J. B. (2024). Trust in automation and the accuracy of human–algorithm teams performing one-to-one face matching tasks. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 9(1), 17 pages.
    DOI Scopus1
    2024 Gupta, D., Mao, J., & Guo, Z. (2024). Bifunctional Catalysts for CO2 Reduction and O2 Evolution: A Pivotal for Aqueous Rechargeable Zn-CO2 Batteries. Advanced Materials, 36(35), 2407099-1-2407099-28.
    DOI Scopus2
    2024 Thong, H. P. A., Mardon, A. K., & Evans, S. (2024). Pelvic pain education – A short review on pelvic pain and endometriosis educational programs for adolescents. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 5 pages.
    DOI Scopus1
    2024 Bartlett, M. L., Carragher, D. J., Hancock, P. J. B., & McCarley, J. S. (2024). Benchmarking automation-aided performance in a forensic face matching task. Applied Ergonomics, 121, 104364.
    DOI
    2024 Carragher, D. J., & Hancock, P. J. B. (2024). The Wisdom of the Crowd Can Unmask Faces. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 38(5), 10 pages.
    DOI
    2024 Mueller, M., Hancock, P. J. B., Cunningham, E. K., Watt, R. J., Carragher, D., & Bobak, A. K. (2024). Automated face recognition assists with low-prevalence face identity mismatches but can bias users. British Journal of Psychology, 18 pages.
    DOI
    2024 Ritchie, K. L., Carragher, D. J., Davis, J. P., Read, K., Jenkins, R. E., Noyes, E., . . . Hancock, P. J. B. (2024). Face masks and fake masks: the effect of real and superimposed masks on face matching with super-recognisers, typical observers, and algorithms.. Cogn Res Princ Implic, 9(1), 5.
    DOI Scopus3 Europe PMC1
    2023 Carragher, D. J., & Hancock, P. J. B. (2023). Simulated automated facial recognition systems as decision-aids in forensic face matching tasks.. Journal of experimental psychology. General, 152(5), 1286-1304.
    DOI Scopus12 WoS2 Europe PMC1
    2023 Carragher, D. J., & Hancock, P. (2023). The Wisdom of the Crowd Can Unmask Faces.
    DOI
    2023 Carragher, D. J., Sturman, D., & Hancock, P. (2023). Trust in Automation and the Accuracy of Human-Algorithm Teams Performing One-to-One Face Matching Tasks.
    DOI
    2022 Carragher, D. J., Towler, A., Mileva, V. R., White, D., & Hancock, P. J. B. (2022). Masked face identification is improved by diagnostic feature training. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 7(1), 1-12.
    DOI Scopus14 WoS7 Europe PMC7
    2022 Carragher, D. J. (2022). Examining the cheerleader effect. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1(6), 316.
    DOI Scopus1 WoS1
    2021 Hsieh, J. Y. J., Gwinn, O. S., Brooks, K. R., Stephen, I. D., Carragher, D. J., & Nicholls, M. E. R. (2021). The “cheerleader effect” in facial and bodily attractiveness: A result of memory bias and not perceptual encoding. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 74(5), 972-980.
    DOI Scopus8 WoS6 Europe PMC3
    2021 Ciricugno, A., Bartlett, M. L., Gwinn, O. S., Carragher, D. J., & Nicholls, M. E. R. (2021). The effect of cognitive load on horizontal and vertical spatial asymmetries. Laterality, 26(6), 706-724.
    DOI Scopus7 WoS5 Europe PMC4
    2021 Carragher, D. J., Towler, A., Mileva, V. R., White, D., & Hancock, P. (2021). Masked face identification is improved by diagnostic feature training.
    DOI
    2021 Carragher, D. J., Thomas, N. A., & Nicholls, M. E. R. (2021). The dissociable influence of social context on judgements of facial attractiveness and trustworthiness.. British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953), 112(4), 902-933.
    DOI Scopus14 WoS8 Europe PMC5
    2020 Carragher, D. J., Thomas, N. A., Gwinn, O. S., & Nicholls, M. E. R. (2020). The cheerleader effect is robust to experimental manipulations of presentation time. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 32(5-6), 553-561.
    DOI Scopus9 WoS7
    2020 Carragher, D. J., & Hancock, P. J. B. (2020). Surgical face masks impair human face matching performance for familiar and unfamiliar faces.. Cognitive research: principles and implications, 5(1), 59.
    DOI Scopus115 WoS76 Europe PMC69
    2020 Carragher, D. J., & Hancock, P. (2020). Surgical face masks impair human face matching performance for familiar and unfamiliar faces.
    DOI
    2019 Carragher, D. J., Thomas, N. A., Gwinn, O. S., & Nicholls, M. (2019). The cheerleader effect is robust to experimental manipulations of presentation time.
    DOI
    2019 Carragher, D. J., Thomas, N. A., Gwinn, O. S., & Nicholls, M. E. R. (2019). Limited evidence of hierarchical encoding in the cheerleader effect.. Scientific reports, 9(1), 9329.
    DOI Scopus16 WoS13 Europe PMC6
    2018 Carragher, D. J., Lawrence, B. J., Thomas, N. A., & Nicholls, M. E. R. (2018). Visuospatial asymmetries do not modulate the cheerleader effect. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 2548.
    DOI Scopus19 WoS17 Europe PMC5
    2018 Carragher, D. J., Thomas, N. A., & Nicholls, M. E. R. (2018). Is trustworthiness lateralized in the face? Evidence from a trust game. Laterality, 23(1), 20-38.
    DOI Scopus13 WoS11 Europe PMC6

  • Preprint
    Year Citation
    2024 Hua, A., & Carragher, D. J. (2024). Validating a New Trial Procedure for Assessing Human-Algorithm Teaming in One-to-One Face Matching Tasks.
    DOI
    2023 Bartlett, M. L., Carragher, D. J., Hancock, P., & McCarley, J. (2023). Benchmarking Automation-Aided Performance in a Forensic Face Matching Task.
    DOI

Building Research Leaders (2023) - University of Adelaide, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, School of Psychology.

Lecturer & Course Coordinator

2022-24 (Semester 1) -  Advanced Career & Research Skills in Psychology A (PSYCHOL 3011A)

2022-24 (Semester 2) - Perception & Cognition (PSYCHOL 3023)

 

Course Coordinator

2022 (Semester 2) - Doing Research in Psychology Advanced (PSYCHOL 3020)

  • Position: Lecturer
  • Phone: 83135557
  • Email: daniel.carragher@adelaide.edu.au
  • Campus: North Terrace
  • Building: Hughes, floor Level Seven
  • Room: 725
  • Org Unit: Psychology
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