Con Stough is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology at

Swinburne University of Technology Swinburne University of Technology (often simply called Swinburne) is a public research university based in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded in 1908 as the Eastern Suburbs Technical College by George Swinburne to serve those without acce ...

, Australia, director of the Swinburne Centre for Neuropsychology and director of the newly formed National Institute of Complementary Medicine (NICM) Collaborative Centre for the study of herbal and natural medicines for neurocognition. Stough's main interest lies in the area of intelligence, primarily the assessment of intelligence, theories of intelligence, the biological basis of intelligence and how to improve intelligence. He is a member of the editorial board of the ''

Intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as the a ...

'' journal.

Early life

Stough was educated at

Prince Alfred College , motto_translation = Do Brave Deeds and Endure , established = 1869 , type = Independent, single-sex, day & boarding , headmaster = David Roberts , chaplain = Reverend Ma ...

and completed his PhD in the Department of Psychology at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on ...

in 1994 under the supervision of Ted Nettelbeck.

Academic career

This was followed by a post-doctoral position at the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn ...

working on the pharmacological and cognitive effects of the

cholinergic Cholinergic agents are compounds which mimic the action of acetylcholine and/or butyrylcholine. In general, the word "choline" describes the various quaternary ammonium salts containing the ''N'',''N'',''N''-trimethylethanolammonium cation. ...

agonist An agonist is a chemical that activates a receptor to produce a biological response. Receptors are cellular proteins whose activation causes the cell to modify what it is currently doing. In contrast, an antagonist blocks the action of the ago ...

nicotine. At this time he also worked with

Timothy Bates Timothy C. Bates (born 1963) is a professor of differential psychology at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include the genetics of reading and spelling, intelligence, and personality. Biography He is a member of the ...

evoked potential An evoked potential or evoked response is an electrical potential in a specific pattern recorded from a specific part of the nervous system, especially the brain, of a human or other animals following presentation of a stimulus such as a light fla ...

reaction time Mental chronometry is the scientific study of processing speed or reaction time on cognitive tasks to infer the content, duration, and temporal sequencing of mental operations. Reaction time (RT; sometimes referred to as "response time") is meas ...

, and

inspection time Inspection time refers to the exposure duration required for a human subject to reliably identify a simple stimulus. Typically a stimulus made up of two parallel lines differing in length and joined at the tops by a cross bar is presented (similar ...

measures of ability. Following a second post-doctoral position at the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = ...

with Professors Gina Geffen and Nick Martin, working on the heritability of inspection time, he moved to

where he has built up one of Australia's larger groups of individual differences researchers. Over the last decade he has worked on the neurochemical basis of intelligence, (including the distinct roles of

dopamine Dopamine (DA, a contraction of 3,4-dihydroxyphenethylamine) is a neuromodulatory molecule that plays several important roles in cells. It is an organic chemical of the catecholamine and phenethylamine families. Dopamine constitutes about 8 ...

, serotonin and

acetylcholine Acetylcholine (ACh) is an organic chemical that functions in the brain and body of many types of animals (including humans) as a neurotransmitter. Its name is derived from its chemical structure: it is an ester of acetic acid and choline. Par ...

), on cognition and emotion. He has also conducted extensive work on: the mechanisms of herbal treatments that improve intelligence, (such as

Ginkgo Biloba ''Ginkgo biloba'', commonly known as ginkgo or gingko ( ), also known as the maidenhair tree, is a species of tree native to China. It is the last living species in the order Ginkgoales, which first appeared over 290 million years ago. Fossils ...

and the Indian herb

Bacopa monnieri ''Bacopa monnieri'' is a perennial, creeping herb native to the wetlands of southern and Eastern India, Australia, Europe, Africa, Asia, and North and South America. It is known by the common names water hyssop, waterhyssop, brahmi, thyme-leafed ...

); the assessment of

emotional intelligence Emotional intelligence (EI) is most often defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. People with high emotional intelligence can recognize their own emotions and those of others, use emotional information ...

and

evoked potentials An evoked potential or evoked response is an electrical potential in a specific pattern recorded from a specific part of the nervous system, especially the brain, of a human or other animals following presentation of a stimulus such as a light fl ...

; and the

neuropsychological Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology concerned with how a person's cognition and behavior are related to the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Professionals in this branch of psychology often focus on how injuries or illnesses of ...

effects of electromagnetic emissions. In the clinical field, he has worked on the assessment of disorders including depression, OCD,

PTSD Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on a ...

, sexual offending and

dissociative identity disorder Dissociative identity disorder (DID), better known as multiple personality disorder or multiple personality syndrome, is a mental disorder characterized by the presence of at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states. The d ...

. With Ben Palmer, he is the co-developer of the SUEIT (Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test, also referred to as GENOS EI) and helped develop the company GENOS.GENOS
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References and notes

External links

Swinburne University biography pages *https://web.archive.org/web/20070830093202/http://www.swinburne.edu.au/lss/bsi/researchunits/ru_hnm.html *https://archive.today/20121128204227/http://www.swinburne.edu.au/lss/staff/view.php?who=cstough {{DEFAULTSORT:Stough, Con Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Australian neuroscientists Academic staff of Swinburne University of Technology People educated at Prince Alfred College University of Adelaide alumni 21st-century psychologists Australian psychologists