Judy Edworthy


Judy Reed Edworthy is Professor of Applied Psychology, in the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth, whose specialty is psychoacoustics and human factors. Her work has centred on auditory alarm implications throughout different areas. Her studies seek to improve auditory alarms. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and has collaborated with the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation.

Career

Edworthy's two main areas of research interest are the applied cognitive psychology of sound and the psychology of music. Her main interest in the field of applied psychology is the design, application and underlying theory surrounding the use of alarms in different environments. She has worked on alarm designs for vehicles such as trains and helicopters, but her main work has been on specific high-workload applications such as medical alarms in operating theatres. Here, she carries out both research and commercial design work. Her second area of research is in the cognitive psychology of music, and her current interest lies in the aesthetics of popular song, particularly the impact of complexity, repetition, and song structure on the enjoyment of popular song. She also has interests and publications in the psychology of visual warnings.
She appeared on BBC's The Code in 2011. Judy illustrated the relationship between sound and mathematics, and demonstrated how our brains decipher different patterns in certain sounds.
In 2018, Dr Edworthy appeared on the 99% Invisible podcast, featuring on the episode . She discussed the phenomenon of alarm fatigue, and how an overabundance of alarms in everyday life has affected peoples' responses to important alarms.
Dr Edworthy has also appeared on the BBC Radio 4 show , presented by Tim Harford. She featured on the episode where she again discussed alarm fatigue and the effects of false alarms on how people respond to legitimate warnings, specifically about voice alarms on public transport.

Work

Most notable works

Edworthy's most cited papers include the following:
In 2017, Dr Edworthy worked on several papers. These include: