Memory researcher. Race Equality Charter Chair. Author of 'Colonised Minds: Narratives that Shape Psychology', published April 2024.

Londoner in Scotland, via Leeds and St Louis.

• akiraoc.bsky.social
• scholar
• ORCID

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Ig Nobel Prize

• 2023 Literature prize winner

• Jamais vu: the science behind eerie opposite of déjà vu - [The Conversation]

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Publications

• Aitken, CBA Jentzsch I, O’Connor AR (in press). Towards a conflict account of déjà vu: The role of memory errors and memory expectation conflict in the experience of déjà vu. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews [doi] [pdf]

• Lamers James RG & O'Connor AR (2023). Impact of focus of attention on aiming performance in the first-person shooter videogame Aim Lab. PLoS ONE, 18(7). [e0288937] [pdf]

• Harris CB & O'Connor AR (2023). On the same wavelength: The impact of other-generated cues on the reported retrieval processes and qualities of autobiographical memories. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 12(1), 82-93. [doi] [pdf]

• Persson BM, Ambrozova V, Duncan S, Wood ER, O'Connor AR & Ainge, JA (2022). Lateral entorhinal cortex lesions impair odor-context associative memory in male rats. Journal of Neuroscience Research, 100(4), 1030-1046. [doi] [pdf]

• O'Connor AR & Moulin CJA (Eds) (2022). Déjà vu and Other Dissociative States in Memory. Routledge [doi]

• Ameen-Ali KE, Sivakumaran M, Eacott MJ, O’Connor AR, Ainge JA, & Easton A (2021). Perirhinal cortex and the recognition of relative familiarity. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 182, 107439 [doi] [pdf]

• Wells CE, O’Connor AR & Moulin CJA (2021). Déjà vu experiences in anxiety. Memory, 29(7), 895-903 [doi] [pdf]

• Urquhart JA, Sivakumaran MH, Macfarlane JA & O’Connor AR (2021). fMRI evidence supporting the role of memory conflict in the déjà vu experience. Memory, 29(7), 921-932. [doi] [pdf]

• Moulin CJA, Bell N, Turunen M, Baharin A & O’Connor AR (2021). The the the the induction of jamais vu in the laboratory: Word alienation and semantic satiation. Memory, 29(7), 933-942. [doi] [pdf]

• Kuruvilla M, O’Connor AR & Ainge JA (2020) Distance rather than location-based temporal judgements are more accurate during episodic recall in a real world task. Memory, 28(6)*, 783-794. [doi] [pdf]

• Aitken CB & O’Connor AR (2020). Converging on an understanding of the déjà vu experience. In A Cleary & B Schwartz (Eds) Memory Quirks: The Study of Odd Phenomena in Memory. New York: Routledge. [doi]

• Sweetman R, Hadfield A, O’Connor AR. (2020) Material culture, museums and memory: Experiments in visitor recall and memory. Visitor Studies, 23(1), 18-45. [doi] [pdf]

• Liverakos K, McIntosh K, Moulin CJA & O’Connor AR (2018). How accurate are runners’ prospective predictions of their race times? PLoS ONE. [doi] [pdf]

• Sivakumaran MH, Mackenzie AK, Callan IR, Ainge JA & O’Connor AR (2018). The discrimination ratio derived from novel object recognition tasks as a measure of recognition memory sensitivity, not bias. Scientific Reports. [doi] [pdf]

• Urquhart JA & O’Connor AR (2018). Constructing and model-fitting receiver operator characteristics using continuous data. PsyArXiv. [doi] [pdf]

• Jersakova R, Allen RJ, Booth J, Souchay C & O’Connor AR (2017). Understanding metacognitive confidence: Insights from judgment-of-learning justifications. Journal of Memory and Language, 97, 187-207. [doi] [pdf]

• Kempnich M, Urquhart, JA, O’Connor AR & Moulin CJA (2017). Evidence for the contribution of a threshold retrieval process to semantic memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70(10), 2026-2047. [doi] [pdf with supplementary information]

• Rathbone CJ, O’Connor AR & Moulin CJA (2017) The tracks of my years: Personal significance contributes to the reminiscence bump. Memory and Cognition, 45(1), 137-150. [doi] [pdf]

• Mill RD, O’Connor AR & Dobbins IG (2016). Pupil dilation during recognition memory: Isolating unexpected recognition from judgment uncertainty. Cognition, 154, 81-94. [doi] [pdf]

• Persson BM, Ainge JA & O’Connor AR (2016). Disambiguating past events: Accurate source memory for time and context depends on different retrieval processes. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 132, 40-48. [doi] [pdf]

• Jersakova R, Moulin CJA & O’Connor AR (2016). Investigating the role of assessment method on reports of déjà vu and tip-of-the-tongue states during standard recognition tests. PLoS ONE, 11(4), e0154334. [doi] [pdf]

• Noreen S, O’Connor AR & MacLeod MD (2016). Neural Correlates of Direct and Indirect Suppression of Autobiographical Memories. Frontiers in Psychology, 7:379. [doi] [pdf]

• Mill RD, Cavin I & O’Connor AR (2015). Differentiating the functional contributions of resting connectivity networks to memory decision-making: fMRI support for multi-stage control processes. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 27, 1617-1632. [doi] [pdf with supplementary information]

• Teale J & O’Connor AR (2015). What is déjà vu? Frontiers for Young Minds. 3:1. [doi] [pdf]

• Harris CB, O’Connor AR & Sutton J (2015). Cue generation or memory construction in direct and generative autobiographical memory. Consciousness and Cognition, 33, 204-216. [doi] [pdf]

• Jersakova R, O’Connor AR & Moulin CJA (2015). What’s new in déjà vu? In S Haque & E Sheppard (Eds) Culture and Cognition: A collection of critical essays. Peter Lang International Academic Publishers. [doi] [pdf]

• Urquhart JA & O’Connor AR (2014). The awareness of novelty for strangely familiar words: A laboratory analogue of the déjà vu experience. PeerJ. [doi] [pdf]

• Mill RD & O’Connor AR (2014). Question format shifts bias away from the emphasised response in tests of recognition memory. Consciousness & Cognition, 30, 91-104. [doi] [pdf]

• O’Connor AR & Moulin CJA (2013). Déjà vu experiences in healthy subjects are unrelated to laboratory tests of recollection and familiarity for word stimuli. Frontiers in Psychology, 4:881. [doi] [pdf]

• Gradin V, Waiter G, O’Connor AR, Romaniuk L, Stickle C, Matthews K, Hall J, Steele D (2013). Salience network-midbrain dysconnectivity and blunted reward signals in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 211(2), 104-111. [doi] [pdf]

• Jaeger A, Selmeczy D, O’Connor AR, Diaz M & Dobbins IG (2012). Prefrontal cortex contributions to controlled memory judgment: fMRI evidence from adolescents and young adults. Neuropsychologia, 50, 3745-3756. [doi] [pdf]

• O’Connor AR (2012) Book Review – Delete: The virtue of forgetting in the digital age. Memory Studies, 4, 504-506 [doi] [pdf]

• Illman NA, Moulin CJA, O’Connor AR, Chauvel P (2012). Déjà experiences in Epilepsy: Contributions from memory research. In A. Zeman et al. (Eds) Epilepsy and Memory The State of the Art*. Oxford University Press. [doi] [pdf]

• Han S, O’Connor AR, Eslick A & Dobbins IG (2012). The role of left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex during episodic decisions: Semantic elaboration or resolution of episodic interference? Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24(1), 223-234. [doi] [pdf]

• O’Connor AR, Guhl EN, Cox JC & Dobbins IG (2011). Some memories are odder than others: Judgments of episodic oddity violate known decision rules. Journal of Memory and Language, 64(4), 299-315. [doi] [pdf]

• O’Connor AR, Han S & Dobbins IG (2010). The inferior parietal lobule and recognition memory: Expectancy violation or successful retrieval? The Journal of Neuroscience, 30(8), 2924-2934. [doi] [pdf]

• O’Connor AR & Moulin CJA (2010). Recognition without identification, erroneous familiarity, and déjà vu. Current Psychiatry Reports, 12(3), 165-173. [doi] [pdf]

• O’Connor AR, Lever C & Moulin CJA (2010). Novel insights into false recollection: A model of déjà vécu. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 15, 118-144. [doi] [pdf]

• O’Connor AR & Moulin CJA (2008). The persistence of erroneous familiarity in an epileptic male: Challenging perceptual theories of déjà vu activation. Brain and Cognition, 68, 144-147. [doi] [pdf]

• Barnier AJ, Cox RE, O’Connor AR, Coltheart M, Langdon R, Breen N, & Turner M (2008). Developing hypnotic analogues of clinical delusions: Mirrored-self misidentification. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 13, 406-430. [doi] [pdf]

• O’Connor AR, Barnier AJ & Cox RE (2008). Déjà vu in the laboratory: A behavioral and experiential comparison of posthypnotic amnesia and posthypnotic familiarity. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 56(4), 425-450. [doi] [pdf]

• O’Connor AR, Moulin CJA & Cohen G (2008). Memory and consciousness. In G. Cohen, & M.A. Conway (Eds.), Memory in the Real World (3rd Edition). Hove: Psychology Press. [doi] [pdf]

• O’Connor AR (2008) Politics and peer review. The Psychologist, 21(9), 752. [pdf]

• O’Connor AR, & Moulin CJA (2006). Normal patterns of déjà experience in a healthy, blind male: Challenging optical pathway delay theory. Brain and Cognition 62(3), 246-249. [doi] [pdf]

• Moulin CJA, Turunen M, Salter AJA, O’Connor AR, Conway MA, & Jones RW (2006). Recollective confabulation: Persistent déjà vecu in dementia. Helix Review Series, 2, 10-15.