Rate My Professor Evan Livesey

Evan Livesey is Professor of Psychology and Interim Head of the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney, part of the Faculty of Science. He earned his BSc (Hons) from the University of Sydney and PhD from the University of Cambridge. Livesey's primary research interests lie in cognitive psychology, particularly the mechanisms of learning, attention, memory, and cognitive control. His investigations explore how these processes shape human behavior, using experimental approaches including electroencephalography and computational modeling within the Brain and Behaviour Lab.

Livesey has made substantial contributions to the field through numerous peer-reviewed publications. Key works include 'Choice and the Placebo Effect: A Meta-analysis' (Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 2022), 'Choice Enhances Placebo Hypoalgesia More in Weaker Placebo Contexts: A Partial Reinforcement Study' (The Journal of Pain, 2023), 'The time-course of action control: measuring conditioned action suppression' (Cerebral Cortex, 2025), 'Instrumental control increases conditioned nocebo hyperalgesia' (British Journal of Pharmacology, 2024), 'Attention and prediction error as mechanisms for theory protection?' (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2025), and 'Outcome unpredictability affects outcome-specific motivation to learn' (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 2021). His research has accumulated over 2,225 citations on Google Scholar, reflecting significant impact. He leads funded projects such as 'Brain & Behaviour Lab: Learning to Stop' (2020) and supervises honours students on topics including learning biases in beliefs and judgments, implicit learning, and impulsivity and cognitive control. As Head of School, Livesey oversees research and education in psychology, fostering advancements in cognition and decision sciences.