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Biography
Mary O’Malley is a Psychology PhD student looking at ways to reduce spatial disorientation for older adults with memory difficulties (supervised by Dr Jan Wiener, Prof. Anthea Innes and Dr Mariela Gaete Reyes).
Using a mixed method approach, Mary is currently running a series of qualitative and quantitative studies to further understand which aspects (e.g. landmarks, floor layout, signage) of communal living environments (e.g. retirement settings, care-homes) are most important in facilitating successful orientation, and how these can be appropriately positioned within the environment. The findings from these studies could help the development and maintenance of communal living environments as well as feed into dementia friendly design principles.
Journal Articles
- O'Malley, M., Innes, A., Muir, S., Wiener, J.M., 2018. 'All the corridors are the same': A qualitative study of the orientation experiences and design preferences of UK older adults living in a communal retirement development. Ageing and Society, 38 (9), 1791-1816.
- O’Malley, M., Innes, A., Wiener, J.M., 2018. How do we get there? Effects of cognitive aging on route memory. Memory and Cognition, 46 (2), 274-284.
- O’Malley, M., Innes, A., Wiener, J.M., 2017. Decreasing spatial disorientation in care-home settings: How psychology can guide the development of dementia friendly design guidelines. Dementia, 16 (3), 315-328.
- Strickrodt, M., O'Malley, M., Wiener, J.M., 2015. This place looks familiar-how navigators distinguish places with ambiguous landmark objects when learning novel routes. Frontiers in Psychology, 6 (DEC).
Conferences
- O'Malley, M., Innes, A., Wiener, J., 2015. Reducing spatial disorientation for older adults with memory difficulties: Towards dementia-friendly architecture. COGNITIVE PROCESSING, 16, S40.
- O'Malley, M., Innes, A., Wiener, J., 2015. Do you still know how to get there? Effects of cognitive ageing on route memory. COGNITIVE PROCESSING, 16, S34.
- Heward, M., 2014. Dementia Friendly Environments. In: South Health Care Expo 24/04/2014 Cardiff.
Theses
- O'Malley, M., 2017. How did we get there? Supporting older adults’ spatial orientation within the built environment. Bournemouth University, Faculty of Science and Technology.
Posters
- O'Malley, M., Innes, Muir, S., Wiener, J., 2016. The Orientation Experiences and Design Preferences of Residents Living in a Retirement Development. In: Alzheimer’s Disease International.
- O'Malley, Innes, Wiener, 2016. How do we get there? The effects of cognitive ageing on map reading abilities. In: iNAV 2016.
Profile of Teaching PG
- Applied Dementia Studies (MSc): Introductory Lecture to the Psychology of Dementia
Profile of Teaching UG
- Psychology (BSc) - delivering seminars and marking of year 1 and 2 units.
Invited Lectures
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Using virtual reality to learn environments, Bournemouth, UK, 18 Mar 2015 more
BUDI Masterclass: Technology and Dementia
Conference Presentations
- 1st Interdisciplinary Navigation Symposium (iNAV), How do we get there? The effects of cognitive ageing on map reading abilities., 26 Jun 2016, Bad Gastein, Austria
- Alzheimer's Disease International, The Orientation Experiences and Design Preferences of Residents Living in a Retirement Development, 21 Apr 2016, Budapest Hungary
- International Conference on Spatial Cognition: Space and Situated Cognition (ICSC), Reducing spatial disorientation for older adults with memory difficulties: Towards dementia friendly architecture, 07 Sep 2015, Rome, Italy
- Conference of Experimental Psychologists (TeaP), Do you still know how to get there? The effects of cognitive ageing on route memory., 08 Mar 2015, Hildesheim, Germany
- Conference of Experimental Psychologists (TeaP), How to find a shortcut within a city? Mental Walk vs. Mental Model, 30 Mar 2014, Giessen, Germany
Attended Training
- Spatial Cognition Research Internship (with Dr. Tobias Meilinger) at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 01 Oct 2011
Qualifications
- BSc (Hons) in Psychology with a Professional Placement (Cardiff University, 2013)
The data on this page was last updated at 22:00 on February 18, 2026.