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School of Psychology: Academic Staff

DR. DENIS O'HORA

Office Rm. 3024, New Engineering Building
Telephone 353-91-495126
E-mail Denis O Hora

Denis O’Hora BA, PhD, 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 Chartered Scientist (Science Council, UK) and a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society (BPS).

Research Interests

My research is my attempt to answer two questions, "Why do we do what we do?" and "How do we do what we do?" The "Why" question is one of motivation. I am particularly interested in what motivates our behaviour and how that changes depending on the circumstances we are in. The "How" question is one of behaviour dynamics, or how behaviour changes over time. By paying attention to how behaviour changes, we can make important distinctions between behaviors, e.g., we can see the difference between expert and novice performance in how smoothly a person behaves. This 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. 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). Here in NUI Galway, I am a member of the Perception, Cognition and Action research cluster in the School of Psychology and the COmplex Systems REsearch Centre (CORE).

In addition to my laboratory research, I collaborate with other scientists to apply my research in organizational and special educational settings. I also regularly speak to general audiences on organizational issues (check out the BMT leadership conferences here). In my experience, a little behavioural psychology can make a big difference.

Professional Contribution

Member of the Advisory Committee of the COmplex Systems REsearch centre (CORE) at NUI Galway

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

Chair of the Second year Undergraduate Coordination team

Organiser of the School Seminar Series

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

Journal Articles

Hyland, J., O'Hora, D., Smyth, S. & Leslie, J. C. (in press). Sequential responding in accordance with temporal relational cues: A comparison of ’Before’ and ’After’. The Psychological Record. (ISSN: 0033-2933).
Tammemagi, T., O'Hora, D. & Maglieri, K. A. (in press). The effects of a goal setting intervention on productivity and persistence in an analogue work task. Journal of Organizational Behaviour Management. (ISSN: 0160-8061).
Slattery, B., Stewart, I. & O'Hora, D. (2011). Testing for transitive class containment as a feature of hierarchical classification. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 96(2), 242-260. (ISSN: 0022-5002).
Gould, E., Tarbox, J., O'Hora, D., Noone, A., & Bergstrom, R. (2011). Teaching children with autism a basic component skill of perspective-taking. Behavioral Interventions, 26(1), 50-66. (ISSN: 1072-0847)
Tarbox, J., Zuckerman, C. K., Bishop, M. R., Olive, M. L., and O’Hora, D. P. (2011). Rule-Governed Behavior: Teaching a Preliminary Repertoire of Rule-Following to Children With Autism. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (ISSN: 0889-9401)
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

O’Hora, D., Gravina, N., Faulkner, B. & Edwards, R. (2011). Developing behaviour-based solutions that last: Examples from industry. Proceedings of the Irish Ergonomics Society Annual Conference 2011.
McGuire, B., Sarma, K., O Hora, D. (Eds.). (2011, in press). Psychology in Action. Special issue of the Irish Journal of Psychology.
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.
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This page was last updated Tuesday, October 04, 2011