
Dr Rachel Searston
Lecturer in Psychology
School of Psychology
Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences
Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.
Rachel is a Lecturer in the School of Psychology at The University of Adelaide. Her research group studies expert decision-making and communication in forensic science, policing, defence, and health contexts. Rachel was formerly a McKenzie Fellow at the University of Melbourne and completed her PhD in Cognitive Science at The University of Queensland.
We rely on the clarity and credibility of expert advice in every sector of society to guide our actions and decisions. We turn to experts to better understand and weigh up the risks and benefits of different treatments in the doctor's office. We consider expert opinion when deliberating on the guilt or innocence of persons accused of serious crimes in the courtroom. We count on expert advice to guide our responses to natural disasters, public health crises, and other arising global challenges. In the Expert Cognition Lab, we focus on questions about the nature and communication of expert decisions as they apply to practical problems arising within organisations and across industries. For example, we are interested in understanding what makes an expert an expert, how to optimise expert decision-making, and how best to communicate expert advice for optimal decision-making in policing, defence, and online information environments.
Our research model involves close collaboration with practitioners and partners in industry to develop solutions to human-in-the-loop problems with tangible operational benefits. Our research in the forensic science context, for example, is helping to identify evidence-based methods for training and selecting new forensic examiners. The outcomes of this research assist forensic examiners, in policing, intelligence and security systems, to make accurate and timely decisions, reduce the risk of error, and reduce the time and resources taken from frontline policing to train experts.
Honours Projects 2022
Honours projects will investigate basic and applied problems related to expert decision-making: What makes an expert credible? What factors affect public trust in experts? How do people interpret and integrate information provided by multiple experts? What is the best way to present expert opinion on scientific evidence in a legal context or in a social media context? How do approaches to news reporting affect comprehension and trust in expert advice? How can we best support human/expert reasoning in novel environments (e.g., in space)? These projects will involve quantitative and experimental methods, but may also use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods.
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Appointments
Date Position Institution name 2018 - ongoing Lecturer The University of Adelaide 2017 - 2018 McKenzie Research Fellow University of Melbourne 2016 - 2017 Research Fellow The University of Queensland -
Education
Date Institution name Country Title 2013 - 2016 The University of Queensland Australia PhD 2012 - 2012 The University of Queensland Australia Bachelor of Arts (Hons Class I) -
Research Interests
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Journals
Year Citation 2022 van Antwerpen, N., Turnbull, D., & Searston, R. A. (2022). Perspectives from Journalism Professionals on the Application and Benefits of Constructive Reporting for Addressing Misinformation. International Journal of Press/Politics, 22 pages.
2022 van Antwerpen, N., Turnbull, D., & Searston, R. A. (2022). What’s Positive in a Pandemic? Journalism Professionals’ Perspectives on Constructive Approaches to COVID-19 News Reporting. Journalism Studies, 23(4), 506-524.
2021 Van Antwerpen, N., Turnbull, D., & Searston, R. A. (2021). The role of anxiety in mediating the relationship between information consumption and COVID-19 protective behaviours: Psychology, Health & Medicine. Psychology, Health and Medicine, 1-14.
2021 Robson, S. G., Baum, M. A., Beaudry, J. L., Beitner, J., Brohmer, H., Chin, J. M., . . . Thomas, A. (2021). Promoting open science: a holistic approach to changing behaviour. Collabra: Psychology, 7(1), 1-20.
Scopus3 WoS32021 Wang, K., Goldenberg, A., Dorison, C. A., Miller, J. K., Uusberg, A., Lerner, J. S., . . . Searston, R. (2021). A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(8), 1089-1110.
Scopus12 WoS14 Europe PMC92021 Robson, S. G., Tangen, J. M., & Searston, R. A. (2021). The effect of expertise, target usefulness and image structure on visual search. Cognitive research: principles and implications, 6(1), 1-19.
Scopus1 WoS12021 Robson, S., Baum, M., Beaudry, J., Beitner, J., Brohmer, H., Chin, J., . . . Tangen, J. (2021). Nudging Open Science. PsyArXiv. 2021 Robson, S. G., Tangen, J. M., & Searston, R. A. (2021). The effect of expertise, target usefulness and domain-specificity on visual search. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications / Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications - a SpringerOpen journal, 1-39.
2020 Robson, S. G., Searston, R. A., Edmond, G., McCarthy, D., & Tangen, J. M. (2020). An expert-novice comparison of feature choice. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 34(5), 984-995.
Scopus2 WoS22020 Palada, H., Searston, R. A., Persson, A., Ballard, T., & Thompson, M. B. (2020). An evidence accumulation model of perceptual discrimination with naturalistic stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 26(4), 671-691.
2020 Tangen, J. M., Kent, K. M., & Searston, R. A. (2020). Collective intelligence in fingerprint analysis. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 5(1), 23-1-23-7.
Scopus5 WoS4 Europe PMC22020 Robson, S. G., Searston, R., Edmond, G., McCarthy, D., & Tangen, J. M. (2020). An expert-novice comparison of feature choice.
2019 Searston, R. A., Thompson, M. B., Robson, S. G., Corbett, B. J., Ribeiro, G., Edmond, G., & Tangen, J. (2019). Truth and transparency in expertise research. Journal of Expertise, 2(4), 199-209.
2019 Searston, R. A., & Chin, J. M. (2019). The legal and scientific challenge of black box expertise. The University of Queensland Law Journal, 38(2), 237-260.
2019 Tangen, J. M., Kent, K., & Searston, R. A. (2019). Collective Intelligence in Fingerprint Analysis.
2019 Searston, R. A., Thompson, M. B., Vokey, J. R., French, L., & Tangen, J. M. (2019). How low can you go? detecting style in extremely low resolution images. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 45(5), 573-584.
2018 Towler, A., White, D., Ballantyne, K., Searston, R. A., Martire, K. A., & Kemp, R. I. (2018). Are forensic scientists experts?. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 7(2), 199-208.
Scopus18 WoS162018 Vokey, J. R., Jamieson, R. K., Tangen, J. M., Searston, R. A., & Allen, S. W. (2018). A visual familiarity account of evidence for orthographic processing in pigeons (Columbia livia): a reply to Scarf, Corballis, Güntürkün, and Colombo (2017). Animal Cognition, 21(3), 425-431.
Scopus2 WoS22018 Palada, H., Searston, R. A., Persson, A., Ballard, T., & Thompson, M. B. (2018). An evidence accumulation model of perceptual discrimination with naturalistic stimuli.
2017 Searston, R., & Tangen, J. (2017). The emergence of perceptual expertise with fingerprints over time. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(4), 442-451.
Scopus12 WoS132017 Searston, R., & Tangen, J. (2017). Expertise with unfamiliar objects is flexible to changes in task but not changes in class. PLoS ONE, 12(6), e0178403-1-e0178403-14.
Scopus12 WoS11 Europe PMC22017 Searston, R., & Tangen, J. (2017). Training perceptual experts: Feedback, labels, and contrasts. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71(1), 32-39.
Scopus1 WoS12017 Edmond, G., Towler, A., Growns, B., Ribeiro, G., Found, B., White, D., . . . Martire, K. (2017). Thinking forensics: Cognitive science for forensic practitioners. Science and Justice, 57(2), 144-154.
Scopus33 WoS28 Europe PMC72017 Searston, R., & Tangen, J. (2017). The style of a stranger: identification expertise generalizes to coarser level categories. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 24(4), 1324-1329.
Scopus11 WoS9 Europe PMC32016 Searston, R., Tangen, J., & Eva, K. (2016). Putting bias into context: The role of familiarity in identification. Law and Human Behavior, 40(1), 50-64.
Scopus14 WoS14 Europe PMC32016 Edmond, G., Found, B., Martire, K., Ballantyne, K., Hamer, D., Searston, R., . . . Roberts, A. (2016). Model forensic science. Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences, 48(5), 496-537.
Scopus23 WoS172015 Edmond, G., Tangen, J., Searston, R., & Dror, I. (2015). Contextual bias and cross-contamination in the forensic sciences: the corrosive implications for investigations, plea bargains, trials and appeals. Law, Probability and Risk, 14(1), 1-25.
Scopus31 WoS572014 Edmond, G., Matire, K., Kemp, R., Hamer, D., Hibbert, B., Ligertwood, A., . . . White, D. (2014). How to cross-examine forensic scientists: A guide for lawyers. Australian Bar Review, 39, 174-197. 2014 Thompson, M. B., Tangen, J. M., & Searston, R. A. (2014). Understanding expertise and non-analytic cognition in fingerprint discriminations made by humans. FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY, 5, 3 pages.
WoS5 Europe PMC2Searston, R. A., Thompson, M. B., Vokey, J. R., French, L., & Tangen, J. M. (n.d.). How low can you go? Detecting style in extremely low resolution images.
van Antwerpen, N., Searston, R. A., & Turnbull, D. (n.d.). The role of anxiety in mediating the relationship between information consumption and COVID-19 protective behaviours.
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Conference Papers
Year Citation 2019 Palada, H., Searston, R. A., Persson, A., Ballard, T., & Thomspon, M. B. (2019). Accumulating evidence about evidence accumulation models in applied contexts. In Australasian Mathematical Psychology Conference 2019. Melbourne. 2019 Thompson, M., Palada, H., Searston, R., Persson, A., & Ballard, T. (2019). Modelling the dynamics of perceptual discrimination with complex naturalistic stimuli. In EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY CONFERENCE. online: Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology. 2019 Robson, S., Corbett, B., Searston, R., Thompson, M., & Tangen, J. (2019). Adapting visual search tasks to investigate the analytic components of perceptual expertise. In EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY CONFERENCE. online: Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology. 2019 Searston, R., Corbett, B., Robson, S., Thompson, M., & Tangen, J. (2019). Perceptual experts can rely on stylistic gist information to discriminate naturalistic visual stimuli. In EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY CONFERENCE. online: Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology. 2018 Thompson, M., Searston, R., Ribeiro, G., & Tangen, J. (2018). Alternative statistical frameworks for communicating the strength of forensic evidence in court. In Australasian Mathematical Psychology Conference. Perth. 2018 Alhadad, S., Searston, R., & Lodge, J. (2018). Interdisciplinary open science: What are the implications for educational technology research?. In ASCILITE 2018 35th International Conference Proceedings (pp. 303-308). online: Deakin University.
Scopus12018 Thompson, M. B., Tangen, J. M., Searston, R. A., Edmond, G., Eva, K. W., Osborn, S., . . . Raymond, J. (2018). Creating the next generation of perceptual experts in Australia’s Policing and Security Agencies. In Australian & New Zealand Forensic Science Society (ANZFSS) 24th International Symposium. Perth. 2018 Lodge, J., Alhadad, S., & Searston, R. (2018). Open science in applied and use-inspired basic research. In UQ Open Science Conference 2018. Brisbane, Australia. 2017 Lodge, J. M., Searston, R. A., & Tangen, J. M. (2017). What is psychological science contributing to higher education?. In Australian Psychology Learning and Teaching Conference. Ipswich, Australia. 2017 Tangen, J. M., Corbett, B., Matthews, B., Searston, R., & Thompson, M. B. (2017). Progressive challenge in the discrimination of visual categories. In Psychonomic Society 58th Annual Meeting. Vancouver, British Columbia. 2017 Searston, R. A., Tangen, J. M., & Thompson, M. B. (2017). Collapsing across categories, contexts, and cognitive tasks as an alternative to replication. In 44th Experimental Psychology Conference. Newcastle, Australia. 2017 Tangen, J. M., Searston, R. A., & Thompson, M. B. (2017). Turning novices into experts with style. In 12th Biennial Meeting of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. Sydney, Australia. 2016 Searston, R. A., & Tangen, J. M. (2016). Perceptual expertise is flexible to changes in task but not changes in class. In 43rd Experimental Psychology Conference. Melbourne, Australia. 2015 Searston, R. A., & Tangen, J. M. (2015). Should forensic experts justify their decisions in court?. In 5th International Conference on Evidence Law and Forensic Science. Adelaide, Australia. 2015 Searston, R. A., & Tangen, J. M. (2015). Turning novice identifiers into experts. In 11th Biennial Meeting of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. Victoria, BC, Canada. 2015 Searston, R. A., & Tangen, J. M. (2015). Identification expertise and family resemblance categorisation. In Talk presented at the 42nd Experimental Psychology Conference. Sydney, Australia. 2015 Searston, R. A., & Tangen, J. M. (2015). Training visual expertise. In 3rd Annual Unfamiliar Face Matching Research Meeting. Sydney, Australia. 2014 Tangen, J. M., Searston, R. A., & Thompson, M. B. (2014). Visual expertise and identification. In Psychonomic Society 55th Annual Meeting. Long Beach. 2014 Searston, R. A., & Tangen, J. M. (2014). Mapping the development of identification expertise: A prospective longitudinal approach. In 41st Experimental Psychology Conference. Brisbane, Australia. 2014 Edmond, G., Found, B., Kemp, R. I., Martire, K., Searston, R. A., Tangen, J. M., . . . White, D. (2014). Psychological factors in the interpretation, delivery and assessment of forensic science evidence. In 22nd International Symposium on the Forensic Sciences of the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society. Adelaide, Australia. 2014 Searston, R. A., & Tangen, J. M. (2014). Developing expertise in the identification of fingerprints and faces. In 2nd Annual Unfamiliar Face Matching Research Meeting. Sydney, Australia. 2013 Searston, R. A., & Tangen, J. M. (2013). Training and recruitment in forensic reasoning. In 2013 Fingerprint Experts’ Conference. HMAS Penguin, Sydney, Australia. -
Conference Items
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Report for External Bodies
Year Citation 2018 Kent, K. M., Tangen, J. M., & Searston, R. A. (2018). Wisdom of the Expert Crowd: Aggregating Fingerprint experts’ blind judgments for improved accuracy. 2016 Searston, R. A., Tangen, J. M., & Thompson, M. B. (2016). Turning novices into fingerprint experts. 2016 Tangen, J. M., Searston, R. A., & Thompson, M. B. (2016). Error, the demand for hypervigilance, and the abrupt limits of expertise. -
Theses
Year Citation SEARSTON, R. (n.d.). The emergence of expertise with novel objects. -
Datasets
Year Citation 2014 Tangen, J., Searston, R., & Thompson, M. (2014). Visual Expertise and Identification.
2014 Searston, R., & Tangen, J. (2014). "Match" or "No Match"? Learning to Identify Unfamiliar People.
Tangen, J. M., Searston, R. A., & Thompson, M. B (2022-2024). Australian Federal Police, National Institute of Forensic Science, and Victoria Police ($AU160,000 combined funding) on 'Telling Prints Apart vs Telling Prints Together :Inter- vs Intra-print variability in Fingerprint Analysis'.
Szpak, Z., Stephens, R., Ransom, K., & Searston, R. A. (2022-2023). Defence Innovation Partnership AI for Decision-Making Project ($AU 100,000) on 'A tool for human-in-the-loop contextual anomaly detection'.
Searston, R. A. (2020-2021). Defence Innovation Partnership AI for Decision-Making Project ($AU 20,000) on 'Improving the visual communication of uncertainty in artificial intelligence'.
Tangen, J. M., Searston, R. A., Thompson, M. B., Edmond, G., Eva, K. W., Osborn, S, McCarthy, D., Hayes, R. (2018-2022). Australian Research Council Linkage Project (LP170100086, $AU 534,188) on 'Creating perceptual experts in Australia's policing and security agencies'.
Lodge, J. M., Searston, R. A., Fidler, F., Bailey, J., Little, D., Nolan, D. (2018). Melbourne Networked Society Institute Seed Funding grant ($AU 37,368) on 'Combating fake news and misinformation online: Evaluating and updating conceptual understanding in the networked society'.
Searston, R. A. (2017-2020). University of Melbourne McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellowship ($AU 282,245 + $AU 20,000 project costs).
Searston, R. A. (2013-2016). Australian Government Australian Postgraduate Award ($AU 73,959).
I coordinate and teach the capstone course on statistics and research methodology in psychology: Doing Research in Psychology: Advanced. I also teach a fourth year elective course called Mind, Brain & Behaviour.
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Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name 2022 Co-Supervisor Sharing Misinformation: The Socio-Psychological Mechanisms of Spread Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Emily Brooke Mullins 2020 Co-Supervisor Biometrics for child protection: exploring ways to improve human performance in identifying children from images Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Eden Skye Clothier 2019 Co-Supervisor Misinformation and 'Post-Truth' Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Natasha Renee Van Antwerpen -
Other Supervision Activities
Date Role Research Topic Location Program Supervision Type Student Load Student Name 2022 - ongoing Principal Supervisor Does immersive virtual reality improve situational awareness? The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Hong Juanta 2022 - ongoing Principal Supervisor Do cues to expertise and disinterestness affect belief in scientific claims? The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Estelle Green 2022 - ongoing Co-Supervisor Do cues to expertise affect belief in health claims? The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Nusrat Asad 2021 - 2021 Principal Supervisor Perceptions of collective expert judgements The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Emma Tiggerman 2021 - 2021 Principal Supervisor Expert reasoning in clinical psychology The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Cheyenne Gronthos 2021 - 2021 Principal Supervisor Recalling autobiographical memories of nature The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Sue Conaghty 2020 - 2020 Principal Supervisor Interleaved practice for developing fingerprint expertise The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Claire Walker 2020 - 2020 Principal Supervisor Contrast practice for developing fingerprint expertise The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Full Time Jade Cascun 2020 - 2020 Principal Supervisor Perceptions of forensic expert performance The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Jonica Koodrin 2020 - 2020 Principal Supervisor Evaluating forensic expert performance The University of Adelaide Bachelor of Health and Medical Sciences - Research Placement Other Zoe Chandler 2020 - 2020 Principal Supervisor Evaluating forensic expert performance The University of Adelaide Bachelor of Health and Medical Sciences - Research Placement Other Shannon Campbell 2019 - 2019 Principal Supervisor Detecting changes in paintings and scenes The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Full Time Athina Kakkos 2019 - 2019 Principal Supervisor What is the optimal rate of image presentation for recognising people? The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Full Time Carlos Ibaviosa 2019 - 2019 Principal Supervisor Discriminating artistic and naturalistic style in visual crowding The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Full Time Carly Sullivan 2018 - ongoing Co-Supervisor The relationship between visual expertise and learned attention The University of Queensland Doctor Philosophy Higher Doctorate Full Time Samuel Robson 2018 - 2019 Principal Supervisor Perceptual expertise with classifying fingerprints The University of Adelaide Psychology Honours Full Time Anneliese Cavallaro
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