My PhD research, conducted under the supervision of Dr Romina Palermo at Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, explored the cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in processing emotional expressions and using emotional expressions to guide social judgements. In 2012, I joined the Australian Catholic University as a Lecturer in the School of Psychology.
My primary research interests are in social cognition, emotion processing and cognitive neuropsychology. My research has focused on understanding the cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in processing emotional expressions and making social judgements. My research also aims to uncover the reasons why certain people have difficulties recognising the emotional expressions of others and using emotional expressions to guide their social judgements. My research has primarily employed cognitive neuropsychological, electrophysiological and behavioural techniques.
1. Willis, M.L., Palermo, R., Burke, D., McGrillen, K., & Miller, L (2010). Orbitofrontal cortex lesions result in abnormal social judgements to emotional faces. Neuropsychologia, 48, 2182-2187. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.04.010
2. Willis, M.L., Palermo, R., Burke, D., Atkinson, C.M., & McArthur, G. (2010). Switching associations between facial identity and emotional expression: A behavioural and ERP study. NeuroImage, 50, 329-339. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.11.071
3. Palermo, R., Willis, M.L, Rivolta, D., McKone, E., Wilson, C. E., & Calder, A. J. (2011). Impaired holistic coding of facial expression and facial identity in congenital prosopagnosia. Neuropsychologia, 49, 1226-1235. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.02.021
4. Willis, M.L., Palermo, R., & Burke, D. (2011). Judging approachability on the face of it: The influence of face and body expressions on the perception of approachability. Emotion, 11, 514-523. doi: 10.1037/a0022571
5. Willis, M.L., Palermo, R., & Burke, D. (2011). Social judgements are influenced by both facial expression and direction of eye gaze. Social Cognition, 29, 415-429. doi: 10.1521/soco.2011.29.4.415