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School of Psychology: Academic Staff

DR. DENIS O'HORA

Office Rm. 225, Cois Abhann
Telephone 353-91-495126
E-mail Denis O Hora

Denis O’Hora BA, PhD, BCBA, CSci, CPsychol (BPS)

Denis O’Hora graduated from University College Cork in 1998. He began his postgraduate work at UCC before moving to the National University of Ireland Maynooth in 1999 to complete his studies with the support of a Government of Ireland Scholarship. In 2002, he took up a lecturing post in London Metropolitan University where he worked for a year before being appointed as a lecturer in behaviour analysis at the University of Ulster. During his time at UU, he was part of the course team that developed the first Masters in Applied Behaviour Analysis on the island of Ireland, which was supported by an International Development grant from the Society for the Advancement of Behaviour Analysis (SABA). He was also awarded a Crucible fellowship by NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, for his work promoting psychology. He has given invited presentations on his research at a number of international institutions including Cornell University. He was appointed to his post in the National University of Ireland, Galway in January, 2007. He is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), a Chartered Scientist (Science Council, UK), a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society (BPS) and a member of the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI).

Research Interests

My research is influenced by a number of philosophies or approaches. These include Skinner's experimental analysis of behaviour or operant psychology, Hayes, Barnes-Holmes and Roche's relational frame theory, Kelso's coordination dynamics and Spivey's (and Dale and Richardson's) continuity of mind. The common feature of these approaches is that they consider the person to be an ever-changing collection of responses to an ever-changing world. That is, we are continually learning from the world around us and changing through that learning. The constant world that we see around us (including the constant person that we think we are) is both the result of relatively stable attractor states in the responding of our perceptual equipment, and consistencies established in language. Current specific research lines include the effects of goal statements on behavior over time (with Tammemagi and Maglieri), how we interpret the passing of time using the concepts of Before and After (with Hyland, Smyth and Leslie), brain changes that correlate with category formation (with Sigurjonsson, Stewart and Leader). I am a member of the Perception, Cognition and Action research group and the Clinical, Biological and Behavioural Psychology research cluster.

In addition to my laboratory reseach work, I am committed to the enhancement of our working lives through the application of basic psychological principles. I spoke recently on Extinguishing Fear at the BMT federation's annual Leadership Conference.

Professional Contribution

Member of the organising committee for AICS 2010: The 21st National Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science - Responsible for the Cognitive Science section

Member of the Editorial Board of the European Journal of Behaviour Analysis

School Responsibilities

Co-Director of the Structured Phd in Perception, Cognition and Action

Co-Director of the Structured PhD in the Learning Sciences

Director of Year 1 of the Higher Diploma in Psychology (Full)

Chair of the Second year Undergraduate Coordination team

Organiser of the School Seminar Series 2009-2010

Contact person for the ERASMUS agreement with Maastricht University

Contact person for the Psychology Students of Ireland Congress - read about Rachel Carey's award for best UG presentation here

Chair of the Equipment and Laboratories Committee

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Gould, E., Tarbox, J., O'Hora, D., Noone, A., Hughes, C. & Bergstrom, R. (in press). Teaching children with autism a basic component skill of perspective-taking. Behavioral Interventions (ISSN: 10720847)
Cassidy, S. Roche, B. T. & O’Hora, D. (2010). Relational frame theory and intelligence. European Journal of Behaviour Analysis, 11, 37-52 . (ISSN- 1502-1149)
O’Hora, D., Pelaez, M., Barnes-Holmes, D., Rae, G., Robinson, K. & Chaudhary, T. (2008). Temporal relations and intelligence: Correlating relational performance with performance on the WAIS-III. The Psychological Record, 58, 569-584. (ISSN: 0033-2933).
O’Hora, D. & Maglieri, K. (2006). Goal statements and goal-directed behaviour: A relational frame account of goal setting in organizations. Journal of Organizational Behaviour Management, 26, 131-170. (ISSN: 0160-8061).
Dymond, S., O’Hora, D., Whelan, R. & O’Donovan, A. (2006). Citation analysis of Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour: 1984-2004. The Behaviour Analyst, 29, 75-88. (ISSN: 0738–6729).
O’Hora, D., Pelaez, M., & Barnes-Holmes, D. (2005). Derived relational responding and performance on verbal sub-tests of the WAIS-III. The Psychological Record, 55, 155-175. (ISSN: 0033-2933).
O'Hora, D., Barnes-Holmes, D., Roche, B. & Smeets, P. (2004). Derived relational networks as novel instructions: A possible model of generative verbal control. The Psychological Record, 54, 437-460. (ISSN: 0033-2933).
O'Hora, D., Barnes-Holmes, D., & Roche, B. (2004). A relational frame approach to instructional control. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 4(2), 262-284 (ISSN: 1577-7057).
Mc Hugh, L., Barnes-Holmes, Y., O’Hora, D. & Barnes-Holmes, D. (2004). Perspective-taking: A relational frame analysis. Experimental Analysis of Human Behaviour Bulletin, 22, 4-10.
O’Hora, D., Roche, B., Barnes-Holmes, D., & Smeets, P. M. (2002). Response latencies to multiple derived stimulus relations: Testing two predictions of Relational Frame Theory. The Psychological Record, 52, 51-75. (ISSN: 0033-2933).
Roche, B., Barnes-Holmes, Y., Barnes-Holmes, D., Stewart, I., & O’Hora, D. (2002). Relational Frame Theory: A new paradigm for the analysis of social behaviour. The Behaviour Analyst, 25 (1), 75-91. (ISSN: 0738–6729).
Cabello, F. & O'Hora, D. (2002). Addressing the limitations of protocol analysis in the study of complex human behaviour. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 2(2), 115-130. (ISSN: 1577-7057).
Cabello, F., Barnes-Holmes, D., O'Hora, D. & Stewart, I. (2002). Using Visual Basic in the experimental analysis of behaviour: A brief introduction. Experimental Analysis of Human Behaviour Bulletin, 20, 18-21.
O’Hora, D. & Barnes-Holmes, D. (2001). The referential nature of rules and instructions: A response to instructions, rules, and abstraction: A misconstrued relation by Emilio Ribes-Inesta. Behaviour and Philosophy, 29, 21-25. (ISSN: 1053–8348).
O’Hora, D., Barnes-Holmes, D. (2001). Stepping up to the challenge of complex human behaviour: A response to Ribes-Inesta’s response. Behaviour and Philosophy, 29, 59-60. (ISSN: 1053–8348).
O’Hora, D., Barnes-Holmes, D., & Roche, B. (2001). Developing a procedure to model the establishment of rule governance. Experimental Analysis of Human Behaviour Bulletin, 19, 11-13.

Book Chapters and Other Publications

Griffith, J., Hayes, C., Madden, M., O'Hora, D. & O'Riordan, C. (2010). AICS 2010: Proceedings of the 21st National Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science.
Tarbox, J., Tarbox, R. & O’Hora, D. (2009). Non-relational and relational instructional control. In R. A. Rehfeldt & Y. Barnes-Holmes (Eds.) Derived relational responding: Applications for children with autism and other developmental disorders. CA: New Harbinger. (ISBN: 1572245360).
O’Hora, D. (2002). Behavioural Psychology and the “Problem of Verbal Control”. In T. Kelly (Ed.) National University of Ireland Maynooth Research Yearbook 2002. National University of Ireland, Maynooth.
Barnes-Holmes, D., O’Hora, D., Roche, B., Hayes, S. C., Bisset, R. T., & Lyddy, F. (2001) Understanding and Verbal Regulation. In S.C. Hayes, D. Barnes-Holmes, & B. T. Roche (Eds.) Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition (pp. 103-118). New York: Plenum. (ISBN: 0306466007)
Barnes-Holmes, D., Hayes, S. C., Dymond, S., & O’Hora, D. (2001). Multiple Stimulus Relations and the Transformation of Stimulus Functions. In S.C. Hayes, D. Barnes-Holmes, & B. T. Roche (Eds.) Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition (pp. 51-72). New York: Plenum. (ISBN: 0306466007)

Professional Memberships

Editorial Boards

European Journal of Behaviour Analysis

Reviewing

Department of Psychology
National University of Ireland, Galway, University Road, Galway, Ireland.
Phone: +353 (0)91 493101 | Fax: +353 (0)91 521355 | E-mail: Psychology or Webmaster
This page was last updated Thursday, August 19, 2010