Robyn Langdon

Biography

My first degree was in pure mathematics and statistics at the University of Queensland. I began studying cognitive psychology and cognitive neuropsychology as an undergraduate of Macquarie University in 1988. I stayed on at Macquarie University to complete my Honours degree and then my PhD thesis entitled "Theory of mind, mental simulation and schizophrenia". Theory of mind refers to the capacity to impute others' mental states and my PhD work examined whether an impairment of the normal capacity to appreciate other minds might contribute to the symptoms that are characteristic of schizophrenia. After completing my PhD in 2000, I joined MACCS. Later that year, I commenced an ARC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (2000-2004). I was then awarded an ARC Australian Research Fellowship (2004-2009) to investigate delusions in a number of clinical conditions and later an ARC Future Fellowship to investigate poor social functioning in schizophrenia (2012-2016).

Research Interest

My main research interests lie within the field of cognitive neuropsychiatry. Cognitive neuropsychiatry aims to apply the logic of cognitive neuropsychology in order to further our understanding of psychiatric symptoms. The psychiatric symptoms that are of primary interest to me are delusions, hallucinations, lack of insight and the poor social functioning that characterises schizophrenia. A number of theories have been proposed to explain delusions. One of these is the idea that some delusions, especially persecutory delusions in people with schizophrenia, reflect impairment of the normal capacity to appreciate other people's mental perspectives. I continue to investigate this "theory of mind" model of delusions and other cognitive factors implicated in delusions in order to inform the ongoing development of the ‘two-factor’ theory of delusions that I and my colleagues have been developing for a number of years. My other research interests include: visual cognition, in particular, the detection and orienting of attention in the direction of another person's gaze; various psychopathologies including autism and psychopathy; personality traits in the healthy population, in particular, schizotypy; and the broader disciplines of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuropsychology.