Adjunct Professor
Renata Meuter
Faculty of Health,
School of Psychology & Counselling
Biography
My research incorporates basic and applied research with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) populations. My work in health communication focuses on understanding how the growing CALD population in Australia and elsewhere can be best supported when communicating with health practitioners and healthcare providers by understanding, and striving towards overcoming, the linguistic and cultural barriers to accessing services and to receiving equitable care/treatment. I use experimental (laboratory-based and quantitative) as well as qualitative approaches and mixed-method designs to understand how multilingual/cultural individuals and communities communicate with each other. The aim is to support optimal outcomes for these communities, also by informing best communication practice for professionals. I am actively engaged in promoting a shift of focus in research from one that assumes the (often English-speaking) monolingual as the canonical speaker to one that recognises that to understand how we process language and how we communicate bilingual and multilingual individuals must be preferenced.Research interests
Bilingual and multilingual language processing
Health communication
Psycholinguistics
Vigilance and attentional control
Cognitive psychology
Personal details
Positions
- Adjunct Professor
Faculty of Health,
School of Psychology & Counselling
Keywords
Bilingual and multilingual language processing, Health communication, Vigilance and attentional control, Psycholinguistics, Experimental psychology
Research field
Psychology
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- PhD (University of Oxford)
Professional memberships and associations
Chair - Heads of Departments and Schools of Psychology Association (HODSPA)
Teaching
Awards
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
Australian Teaching and Learning Council Citation 2009
Vice-Chancellor’s Award of Excellence 2008
Publications
- Vaid, J. & Meuter, R. (2017). Languages without borders: Reframing the study of the bilingual mental lexicon. In M. Goral, M. Libben & G. Libben (Eds.), Bilingualism: A framework for understanding the mental lexicon (Bilingual Processing and Acquisition, 6) (pp. 7–26). John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/117365
- Ferndale, D., Meuter, R., Watson, B. & Gallois, C. (2017). 'You don't know what's going on in there': a discursive analysis of midwifery hospital consultations. Health, Risk and Society, 19(7 - 8), 411–431. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/117364
- Segalowitz, N., Doucerain, M., Meuter, R., Zhao, Y., Hocking, J. & Ryder, A. (2016). Comprehending adverbs of doubt and certainty in health communication: A multidimensional scaling approach. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1–13. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/95373
- Meuter, R. & Lacherez, P. (2016). When and why threats go undetected: Impacts of event rate and shift length on threat detection accuracy during airport baggage screening. Human Factors, 58(2), 218–228. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/94790
- Meuter, R., Gallois, C., Segalowitz, N., Ryder, A. & Hocking, J. (2015). Overcoming language barriers in healthcare: A protocol for investigating safe and effective communication when patients or clinicians use a second language. BMC Health Services Research, 15, 1–5. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/87448
- Meuter, R. & Ehrich, J. (2012). The acquisition of an artificial logographic script and bilingual working memory: Evidence for L1-specific orthographic processing skills transfer in Chinese-English bilinguals. Writing Systems Research, 4(1), 8–29. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/52947
- Meuter, R., (2009). Neurolinguistic contributions to understanding the bilingual mental lexicon. In A. Pavlenko (Ed.), The Bilingual Mental Lexicon: Interdisciplinary Approaches (pp. 1–25). Multilingual Matters. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/26673
- Ehrich, J. & Meuter, R. (2009). Acquiring an artificial logographic orthography: The beneficial effects of a logographic L1 background and bilinguality. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40(5), 711–745. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/32092
- Meuter, R., (2005). Language Selection in Bilinguals: Mechanisms and Processes. In J. Kroll & A. De Groot (Eds.), Handbook of Bilingualism: Psycholinguistic Approaches (pp. 349–370). Oxford University Press. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/21368
- Meuter, R., Humphreys, G. & Rumiati, R. (2002). Bilingual Language Switching and The Frontal Lobes: Modulatory Control in Language Selection. International Journal of Bilingualism, 6(2), 109–124. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/19450
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Renata, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Selected research projects
- Title
- Overcoming language barriers in healthcare: towards safe and effective communication when patients or clinicians use a second language
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- DP130104164
- Start year
- 2013
- Keywords
- Health communication; Cross-cultural psychology; Health psychology
Projects listed above are funded by Australian Competitive Grants. Projects funded from other sources are not listed due to confidentiality agreements.
Supervision
Current supervisions
- My Digital 'Friend': Design Considerations When Deploying Chatbots in Trusted Companionship Roles
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Daniel Angus
Completed supervisions (Doctorate)
- The Psychopath Next Door: How Similar Are They to Those Behind Bars? Criminality, Executive Functioning, and Emotion Processing in 'Noncriminal' Psychopathy (2017)
- The Role of Prosodic Skills in Reading Comprehension (2017)
- The Physical Work Environment and Employee Perceived Health and Wellbeing (2016)
- Navigating emotion research during a paradigm shift in psychology (2015)
- An examination of monotony and hypovigilance, independent of fatigue: Relevance to road safety (2011)
- The effects of L1 Orthography on Processing an Artificial Logographic Script (2008)