Associate Professor William (Deak) Helton 
Earthquakes in Mind: The Psychological Impacts of Earthquakes (UoC public lecture)
Human Cognitive Performance Suffers Following Natural Disasters - Science Daily and
Earthquakes: Some Major Aftershocks May be in the Brain ABC News
Position
Associate Professor
Qualifications
BA - Evergreen State College
MA - University of Cincinnati
PhD - University of Cincinnati
Contact Details
Room: 506
Phone: +64 3 364 2998, ext. 7999
Internal Phone:7999
Email: deak.helton@canterbury.ac.nz
Postal address:
Department of Psychology
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch
New Zealand
Undergraduate Courses
PSYC 341 S1 Special Topic: Environmental Psychology - Course Coordinator
Graduate Courses
PSYC451: Human Factors - Ergonomics - Course Coordinator
APSY611: Training and Learning at Work - Course Coordinator
Publications
Helton, W.S., Kern, R.P., & Walker, D. (in press). Conscious thought and the sustained attention to response task. Consciousness and Cognition.
Helton, W.S. (2010). Does perceived trainability of dog (Canis lupus familiaris) breeds reflect differences in learning or differences in physical ability? Behavioural Processes, 83, 315-323.
Helton, W.S. (2009). Canines as perceptual works. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 53rd Annual Meeting.
Helton, W.S. (2009). Exceptional running skill in dogs requires extensive experience. Journal of General Psychology, 136, 323-336.
Helton, W.S. (2009). Cephalic index and perceived dog trainability. Behavioural Processes, 82, 355-358
Helton, W.S. (Ed.) (2009). Canine ergonomics: The science of working dogs. Taylor and Francis.
Helton, W.S. (2009) Impulsive responding and the sustained attention to response task. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 31, 39-47.
Helton, W.S., Hayrynen, L., & Schaeffer, D. (2009). Sustained attention to local and global target features is different: Performance and tympanic membrane temperature. Brain & Cognition, 71, 9-13.
Helton, W.S., Kern, R.P., & Walker, D.R. (2009). Tympanic membrane temperature, exposure to emotional stimuli, and the sustained attention to response task. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 31,611-616.
Helton, W.S., Kern, R.P., & Walker, D.R. (2009). Speed-accuracy tradeoffs and the role of emotional stimuli on the sustained attention to response task (SART). Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 53rd Annual Meeting.
Helton, W.S., Matthews, G., & Warm, J.S. (2009). Stress state mediation between environmental variables and performance: The case of noise and vigilance. Acta Psychologica, 130, 204-213.
Helton, W.S. (2008). Expertise acquisition as sustained learning in humans and other animals: commonalities across species. Animal Cognition, 11, 99-107.
Helton, W.S. & Ellis, K. (2008). Human judgments of stress state in performance settings. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 52, 907-911.
Helton, N.D. & Helton, W.S. (2008). A response to M. Marangudakis. Journal of Moral Education, 37, 249-250.
Helton, W.S. & Holmstrom, R. (2008). Relationships between caffeine consumption, cognitive slips-failures, daily stress, and sleep. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 52, 955-959.
Helton, W.S., Lopez, N. & Tamminga, S. (2008). Performance on a sustained attention to response task. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 52, 1214-1218.
Helton, W.S., Shaw, T., Warm, J.S., Matthews, G., & Hancock, P.A. (2008). Effects of warned and unwarned demand transitions on vigilance performance and stress. Anxiety, Stress and Coping, 21, 173-184.
Helton, W.S. & Warm, J.S. (2008). Signal salience and the mindlessness theory of vigilance. Acta Psychologica, 129, 18-25.
Levin, E., Helton, W.S., Lumakka, R., & Gienko, G. (2008). Eye movement analysis in the visual inspection of geospatial data. Proceedings of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
Helton, W.S. (2007). Skill in expert dogs. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 13, 171-178.
Helton, W.S. (2007). Deliberate practice in dogs: a canine model of expertise. Journal of General Psychology, 134, 247-257.
Helton, W.S., Begoske, S., Pastel, R., & Tan, J. (2007). A case study in canine-human factors: a remote scent sampler for landmine detection. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 51, 582-586.
Helton, W.S. & Helton, N.D. (2007). The intrinsic value of nature and moral education. Journal of Moral Education, 36, 139-150.
Helton, W.S., Hollander, T.D., Tripp, L.D., Parsons, K., Warm, J.S., Matthews, G., & Dember, W.N. (2007). The abbreviated vigilance task and cerebral hemodynamics. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 29, 545-552.
Helton, W.S., Miller, M., & Pastel, R. (2007). Human factors education: bridges, barriers and the trolls under the bridges. Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Education North Midwest Section, 5.
Pastel, R., Champlin, J., Harper, M., Paul, N., Helton, W.S. et al. (2007). The difficulty of remotely navigating corners. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 51, 489-493.
Pastel, R., Himes, P., Harper, M., & Helton, W.S. (2007). Gravity mouse design and evaluation: effects of distracters and target size. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 51, 444-448.
Helton, W.S. (2006). Canine models of expertise. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 50, 875-879.
Helton, W.S. (2006). Expertise in trained dogs. Proceedings of the Cognitive Science Society, 28, 1488-1493.
Helton, W.S. & Garland, G. (2006). Short Stress State Questionnaire: relationships with reading comprehension and land navigation. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 50, 1731-1735.
Helton, W.S. & Holmstrom, R. (2006). Cognitive slips-failures and daily stress: further investigations with the Short Stress State Questionnaire - Daily (SSSQ-D). Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 50, 1240-1244.
Helton, W.S. (2005). Animal expertise, conscious or not. Animal Cognition, 8, 67-74.
Helton, W.S. (2005). Canine factors: Bridging the gap between human factors and comparative psychology. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 49, 876-880.
Helton, W.S., Fields, D., & Thoreson, J.A. (2005). Assessing daily stress with the Short Stress State Questionnaire (SSSQ): relationships with cognitive slips-failures. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 49, 886-890.
Helton, W.S., & Helton, N.D. (2005). Changing animal and environmental attitudes with evidence of animal minds. Applied Environmental Education and Communication, 4, 317-323.
Helton, W.S., Hollander, T.D., Warm, J.S., Matthews, G., Dember, W.N., Wallart, M., Beauchamp, G., Parasuraman, R., & Hancock, P.A. (2005). Signal regularity and the mindlessness model of vigilance. British Journal of Psychology, 96, 249-261.
Helton, W.S., Matthews, G., Warm, J.S., & Dember, W.N. (2005). Being optimistic may not always be advantageous: the relationship between dispositional optimism, coping, and performance. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 49, 1224-1228.
Helton, W.S. (2004). Utilizing genetic algorithms and neural nets in expert systems: what animals teach us. Recent Advances in Soft Computing, 5, 177-182.
Helton, W.S. (2004). The development of expertise: animal models? Journal of General Psychology.131, 86-96. Helton, W.S. (2004). Validation of a short stress state questionnaire. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 48, 1238-1242.
Helton, W.S., Neu, J.M., Shell, T.A., Ramsey, A.J., & Myers, D.M. (2004). Assessing and improving user satisfaction in higher education: a role for human factors. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 48, 1054-1058.
Helton, W.S., Shaw, T.H., Warm, J.S., Matthews, G., Dember, W.N., & Hancock, P.A. (2004). Workload transitions: effects on vigilance performance, and stress. In D.A. Vincenzi, M. Mouloua, & P.A. Hancock (Eds.) Human performance, situation awareness and automation: current research and trends (pp. 258-262). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Helton, W.S. & Duerrschnabel, N.B. (2003) Animal minds: changing environmental attitudes with psychology. Proceedings of the North American Association of Environmental Education, 32, 40-46.
Helton, W.S., Hollander, T.D., Warm, J.S., Matthews, G., Dember, W.N., & Parasuraman, R. (2003) Challenges to the mindlessness model of vigilance through signal regularity. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 47, 1663-1667.
Hollander, T.D., Helton, W.S., Tripp, L.D., Parsons, K., Warm, J.S., Matthews, G., & Dember, W.N. (2003) Cerebral vascularity and performance on an abbreviated vigilance task. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 47, 1673-1677.
Helton, W.S. (2002) Religion: deep ecology and/or social justice? Proceedings of the North American Association of Environmental Education, 31.
Helton, W.S., Warm, J.S., Mathews, G., Corcoran, K., & Dember, W.N. (2002) Further tests of the abbreviated vigil: effects of signal salience and noise on performance and stress. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 46, 1546-1550.
Helton, W.S., Dember, W.N., Warm, J.S., & Matthews, G. (2000) Optimism-pessimism and false failure feedback: effects on vigilance performance. Current Psychology, 18, 311-325.
Schwimmer, J.B., Evans, D., Helton, W.S., Bean, J., Ryckman, F.C., Alonso, M.H., Balistreri, W.F., & Bucuvalas, J.C. (2000). Linear growth after liver transplantation for biliary atresia varies by the child's age at transplantation. Gastroentrology, 118, 1105.