Tom Beesley

Dr. Tom Beesley is a Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales in the School of Psychology. His academic work focuses on understanding human learning processes, particularly how individuals process and learn about environmental relationships and how this learning shapes behavior.

His primary research interests include associative learning mechanisms, computational modeling of human learning, and comparisons between effortful reflective processing versus rapid stimulus processing. He investigates the role of intentionality in learning and whether conscious awareness is necessary for learning to occur. His work frequently employs eye-tracking methodology to examine cognitive processes during learning tasks.

Analysis of his recent publications reveals a strong focus on contextual cuing in visual search tasks, attentional processes during associative learning, and the role of uncertainty in exploration and decision-making. His work bridges cognitive psychology with computational modeling approaches, examining how predictive relationships shape attention and behavior. A significant portion of his research investigates how contextual information guides visual search and how attentional biases develop through learning.

Dr. Beesley's research employs a combination of experimental psychology methods, computational modeling, and eye-tracking technology to investigate fundamental learning processes. His work contributes to our understanding of how humans extract regularities from their environment and how these regularities guide attention and behavior, with implications for both theoretical models of learning and potential applications in educational and clinical settings.