Professor Duncan Guest’s Inaugural Lecture

In this inaugural lecture Professor Duncan Guest will overview the various themes of research he has been involved in during his career, from the theoretical to the more applied. Much of his theoretical work stems from a fascination with capacity limitations (limitations in the amount of information we can process) and how we process information in memory and attention-based tasks.

Professor Duncan Guest’s work has modelled how different processes impact performance in tasks such as categorisation, identification and visual search, measured capacity limitations in memory and imagery and explored how we process and make sense of visual information. He will also discuss how his interests in memory and attention have extended to more applied areas, from work in consumer psychology (Is Urban Decay a good brand name? Would you buy a Starbucks sofa?) to more recent work on mobility scooter safety. As he discusses his research journey Duncan will reflect on what he has learned about the research process, the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches, the pitfalls of theoretical and applied research, what has excited him and disillusioned him, and what, if anything, this means for psychology as a discipline.

Biography

Duncan is Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Associate Dean for Psychology at NTU. Externally he has had roles as Chair of the BPS Cognitive Psychology Section, Deputy Chair of the BPS Research Board and he is currently Chair of the Association of Heads of Psychology Departments. Prior to joining NTU Duncan had postdoc positions in Psychology departments at the University of Warwick (where he completed his PhD) and Oxford Brookes University and in Marketing departments at Universita Bocconi (Italy) and Università della Svizzera Italiana (Switzerland). Duncan joined NTU as a Lecturer in 2011 and subsequently held positions as Principal Lecturer, Associate Professor, Deputy Head and Head of Department before becoming Associate Dean and Professor in 2024.

Duncan’s research focuses mainly on (visual) cognition and its applications. At the heart of his theoretical research is a fascination with capacity limitations (limitations in the amount of information we can process) and how we process information in memory and attention tasks. His work has explored where these limitations come from and how attention influences how we process information in these tasks. He has also applied his interests in memory and attention to more applied areas, ranging from consumer psychology to more recently a focus on mobility scooter safety.