RESEARCH LINES 2020-2021 - Master's Program in Behavior and Cognition Faculty of Psychology University of Barcelona - Universitat de Barcelona
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
RESEARCH LINES 2020-2021
Master’s Program in Behavior and Cognition
Faculty of Psychology
University of Barcelona
1Stimuli Representations in Perceptual Learning Process
Antonio A. Artigas
Summary
Mere exposure to more than one stimulus is known to trigger learning processes that modify their
discriminability. In particular, intermixed exposure to two similar stimuli sharing common elements,
AX and BX, where A and B refer to the unique elements of each stimulus and X to their common
features, has been shown to result in improved discrimination—comparison made to a group in
which AX and BX are exposed in separate blocks of trials (e.g., Symonds & Hall, 1995). This
intermixed/blocked effect, an instance of perceptual learning, has been intensively researched and
several mechanisms have been shown to contribute to the enhanced discriminability between AX
and BX after intermixed pre-exposure (for a review, see Mitchell & Hall, 2014). Recently our
research has produced an alternative approach to explain this Perceptual Learning phenomenon:
the “differential representation hypothesis” (see Artigas & Prados, 2014; 2017). Right now our
interest is to develop this approach systematically using a range of laboratory techniques both with
non-humans animals (rats) and human participants.
Keywords: perceptual learning; stimulus representation; salience modulation.
Selected publications:
Artigas, A. A., & Prados, J. (2014) Percpetual learning tranfer: salience of the common element as
factor contributing to the intermixed/blocked effect. Journal experimental of psychology: Animal
learning and cognition, 40(4), 419-424.
Mitchell, C., & Hall, G. (2014). Can theories of animal discrimination explain perceptual learning
in humans? Psychological Bulletin, 140, 283–307.
2Violence Risk Assessment and Prediction
Antonio Andrés-Pueyo (GEAV)
Summary
The recent advances in the psychological assessment techniques applied to the practice of
criminology and criminal psychology have developed new and succeful techniques for violence risk
assessment. First developed in the context of forensic psychiatry have become essential to the
professional task in numerous people who work in legal and criminal law enforcement services or
social and health services to prevent violence. Our research group, between criminology and
psychology, the GEAV (www.ub.edu/geav) has specialized in the development and adaptation of
risk assessment protocols to the spanish countries leading to violence. The GEAV has been adapted
the HCR-20, SVR-20 and SARA RSVP and has also created new protocols, as the RVD-BCN and
ETAPA (among others) for application in professional contexts. At present we are working with new
protocols to assess the risk of harassment of women and violence against parents. These protocols
allow assessing the risk of sexual violence, against women, against parents and that violence caused
by people with serious criminal records or mental disorders. Our work is done in collaboration with
various community services (correctional services, NGOs, police, penal, psychiatric hospitals, etc ..)
that allow our research is conducted to address real problems of the first order. We also have a
laboratory for the development of the experimental and quantitative studies (simulation) related to
the technical problem of violence risk assessment.
Keywords: Violence risk assessment. Criminal recidivism. Actuarial vs. Clinical prediction.
Selected publications:
Andrés-Pueyo, A., Arbach-Lucioni, K., & Redondo, S. (2018). The RisCanvi: a new tool for assessing risk for
violence in prison and recidivism. Recidivism Risk Assessment: A Handbook for Practitioners, 255-268.
Arbach-Lucioni, Karin, Marian Martinez-García, and Antonio Andrés-Pueyo. "Risk Factors for Violent Behavior
in Prison Inmates A Cross-Cultural Contribution." Criminal Justice and Behavior 39.9 (2012): 1219-1239.
Gallardo-Pujol, D., Andrés-Pueyo, A., & Maydeu-Olivares, A. (2013). MAOA genotype, social exclusion and
aggression: an experimental test of a gene--environment interaction. Genes, Brain and Behavior, 12(1), 140–145.
Gallardo-Pujol, D., Penelo, E., Sit, C., Jornet-Gibert, M., Suso, C., Buades-Rotger, M., ... & Bryant, F. B. (2019).
The meaning of aggression varies across culture: testing the measurement invariance of the refined aggression
questionnaire in samples from Spain, the United States, and Hong Kong. Journal of personality assessment, 1-6.
López-Ossorio, J. J., González-Álvarez, J. L., Vicente, J. M. M., Cortés, C. U., & Andrés-Pueyo, A. (2019).
Validation and Calibration of the Spanish Police Intimate Partner Violence Risk Assessment System (VioGén).
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 1-11.
Martínez, V. C., & Andrés-Pueyo, A. (2015). The Spanish version of the Criminal Sentiment Scale Modified (CSS-
M): Factor structure, reliability, and validity. The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context,
7(2), 67-72.
3Cognitive basis of unwarranted beliefs
Itxaso Barberia
Javier Rodríguez-Ferreiro
Summary
The term “epistemologically unwarranted beliefs” refers to beliefs that remain in the absence of
empirical evidence to support them, such as paranormal or pseudoscientific beliefs. These
phenomena negatively impact in areas of great importance for our society such as health, education
or political debate. Previous studies have linked the presence of epistemologically unwarranted
beliefs to certain cognitive aspects. Knowing the cognitive basis of this type of belief is the basis for
the design of effective intervention strategies specifically aimed at its reduction. Our current work,
developed in the context of the project PID2019-106102GB-I00 (Ministerio de Ciencia e
Innovación), focuses on different research lines:
[1] The development of tools specifically designed to assess different types of unwarranted beliefs,
as well as the study of their relationship with other related constructs, such as analytical thinking
ability or probabilistic reasoning, among others.
[2] The study of the possible relationship between the tendency to generate false memories and the
presence of pseudoscientific beliefs.
[3] The analysis of the relationship between causal illusion and the presence of pseudoscientific
beliefs.
[4] The assessment of the possible influence of lexical complexity on credulity, in relation to
unwarranted beliefs.
We conduct both offline and online behavioral experiments that include contingency learning tasks,
psycholinguistic paradigms, false memory studies, and reasoning problems, as well as questionnaires
measuring endorsement to pseudoscience and other unwarranted beliefs.
Keywords: cognitive bias, pseudoscience, epistemologically unwarranted beliefs, pseudoscientific
beliefs, causal illusion, false memory, contingency learning, causal learning
Selected publications:
Barberia, I., Vadillo, M. A., & Rodríguez-Ferreiro, J. (2019). Persistence of Causal Illusions After Extensive
Training. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 24. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00024
Blanco, F., Barberia, I., & Matute, H. (2015). Individuals who believe in the paranormal expose themselves to
biased information and develop more causal illusions than nonbelievers in the laboratory. PLoS ONE, 10(7),
e0131378. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131378
Rodríguez-Ferreiro, J., Aguilera, M., & Davies, R. (2020). Positive schizotypy increases the acceptance of
unpresented materials in false memory tasks in non-clinical individuals. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 262.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00262
Torres, M. N., Barberia, I., & Rodríguez‐Ferreiro, J. (2020). Causal illusion as a cognitive basis of
pseudoscientific beliefs. British Journal of Psychology, bjop.12441. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12441
4A.P.A.L. Group (Attention, Perception and Acquisition of Language)
Laura Bosch
Ferran Pons
Summary
Our research is focused on speech perception abilities, word learning, attention development and
early language acquisition processes, both in normally developing infants (monolingual and
bilingual) and in infants at risk for language and neurocognitive disorders. We are also interested in
Second Language Acquisition (SLA), both in children and adults. Our methodological approach is
mainly behavioral, with procedures that rely on attention, visual fixation and orientation latency or
reaction time measures. Classical habituation and familiarization-preference paradigms in infancy
research are used, with settings that rely on video (offline coding) and eye-tracking recordings.
Measures from standardized infant developmental scales and parental reports on expressive and
receptive language and social behavior are also used as tools in our research. Collaborative research
with A. Rodriguez-Fornells group has extended our approach to include EEG/ERP methodologies
applied to infants and young children. Language differentiation processes, audiovisual speech
perception, phonetic categorization of native and non-native speech sounds, the beginning of word
segmentation, phonological encoding, word recognition and word learning skills are ongoing areas
of research in our infant Lab (UB - Hospital Sant Joan de Déu). Research involving children and
adult populations can be undertaken at schools and at the UB Lab in Psychology.
Keywords: infant speech, perception, attention, word learning, SLA
Selected publications:
Birulés, J., Bosch, L., Brieke, R., Pons, F., & Lewkowicz, D. J. (2019). Inside bilingualism: Language
background modulates selective attention to a talker's mouth. Developmental science, 22(3),
e12755.
François, C., Teixidó, M., Takerkart, S., Agut, T., Bosch, L. & Rodríguez-Fornells, A. (2017).
Enhanced neonatal brain responses to sung streams predict vocabulary outcomes by age 18
months. Scientific Reports, 7:12451. DOI.10.1038/s41598-017-12798-2
Martinez-Alvarez, A., Pons, F., & de Diego-Balaguer, R. (2017). Endogenous temporal attention in
the absence of stimulus-driven cues emerges in the second year of life. PloS one, 12(9),
e0184698.
Pons, F., Bosch, L., & Lewkowicz, D. J. (2015). Bilingualism modulates infants’ selective attention
to the mouth of a talking face. Psychological science, 0956797614568320.
Bosch, L., & Ramon-Casas, M. (2014). First translation equivalents in bilingual toddlers’ expressive
vocabulary. Does form similarity matter? International Journal of Behavioral Development,
38(4), 317-322.
Bosch, L. (2011). Precursors to language in preterm infants: speech perception abilities in the first
year of life. Progress in brain research, 189, 239-257.
5Delineating fronto-striatal circuits in Huntington’s disease: a
multimodal neuroimaging approach
Estela Cámara
Summary
Converging data support the idea that the striatum forms a hub and integrates motor, cognitive
control, and motivational circuits, which partially overlap and interact one with each other. There
are individual differences in the degree of damage of these circuits in Huntington’s disease (HD), a
genetic neurodegenerative disorder that manifests in mid-adulthood. The neurodegeneration in HD
begins subcortically in the striatum and gradually extends to the cortex, leading to a progression of
characteristic motor, cognitive and psychiatric symptoms. There is a high degree of phenotypic
heterogeneity regarding the prominence of each type of symptom. To investigate the relationship
between the different degree of neurodegeneration in each circuit and the clinical symptoms we used
a combination of different magnetic resonance imaging modalities (functional and microstrucural),
as well as a battery of questionnaires and neurological, neuropsychological and psychiatric
assessments. Specifically, we are interested in investigating sources of individual differences in each
symptom prominence by the delineation of the functional specialization of the striatum and their
relation with specific cortico-striatal pathways in HD patients and controls.
Keywords: Huntigton’s disease, individual differences, basal ganglia, neuroimaging, fMRI, DTI
Selected publications:
García-Gorro, C., de Diego-Balaguer, R., Martínez-Horta, S., Pérez-Pérez, J., Kulisevsky, J.,
Rodríguez-Dechichá, N., Vaquer, I., Subira, S., Calopa, M., Muñoz, E., Santacruz, P., Ruiz-Idiago,
J., Mareca, C., Caballol, N., Càmara, E. (2018). Reduced striato-cortical and inhibitory
transcallosal connectivity in the motor circuit of Huntington’s disease patients. Human Brain
Mapping. 39(1):54-71
Hinzen, W., Rosselló, J., Morey, C., Càmara, E., García-Gorro, C., Salvador, R., de Diego-Balaguer,
R. (2018). A systematic linguistic profile of spontaneous narrative speech in pre-symptomatic and
early stage Huntington’s disease. Cortex. 100:71-83
García-Gorro, C., Càmara, E., de Diego-Balaguer, R. (2017). Neuroimaging as a tool to study the
sources of phenotypic heterogeneity in Huntington’s disease. Current Opinion in Neurology.
30(4):398-404
Garcia-Gorro, C., Garau-Rolandi, M., Escrichs, A., Rodriguez-Dechicha, N., Vaquer, I., Subira, S.,
... & Càmara, E. (2019). An active cognitive lifestyle as a potential neuroprotective factor in
Huntington's disease. Neuropsychologia, 122, 116-124.
6Cognition, Welfare and Conservation
Montse Colell(UB)
Mercedes Mayo(UB)
Álvaro López Caicoya(UB)
Jordi Galbany (UB)
Maria Teresa Abelló (Zoo Barcelona)
Summary
We are interested in studying social behavior and physical/social cognition in different species,
from primates (great apes, cercopithecines) to other mammals (ungulates, ex. giraffes, buffalo…),
birds (ex. parrots and ravens) and reptiles (ex. Komodo Dragon). We keep an ethological
perspective of study, so we always take into account the adaptive and evolutionary value of the
behaviors that we study and we tried to apply the knowledge gathered in our researches to improve
animal welfare and favor the development of conservation strategies in situ and ex situ.
At this moment we have three projects in progress: “Cognition in ungulates”; “Play therapy applied
to great apes welfare”; “Conservation in situ and ex situ of Cercocebus atys lunulatus”.
We conduct our studies in collaboration with several institutions and research groups: Zoo of
Barcelona, Psittacus Catalònia, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA,
Germany), WAPCA (Ghana), Zoo of Leipzig (Germany); Zoo of Madrid; Zoo of Accra (Ghana).
Keywords: comparative ethology, primatology, physical cognition, laterality, social cognition, self-
recognition, imitation, tool use, reciprocity, post-conflict behaviour, animal welfare, enrichment,
primate conservation.
Selected publications:
Caicoya, Á. L., Amici, F., Ensenyat, C., & Colell, M. 2019. Object permanence in Giraffa
camelopardalis: First steps in giraffes’ physical cognition. Journal of Comparative Psychology,
133(2), 207.
Marín, H.; Chaves, A.B.; Posada, S.; Colell, M. 2017. Vertical string-pulling in green jays
(Cyanocorax yncas). Behavioural Processes. 140, pp.74-80. Elsevier B.V. ISSN 0376-6357
Chaves, A.B.; Colell, M. 2017. String-pulling in Martin's spot-nosed monkey (Cercopithecus
nictitans martini): evidence of physical continuity understanding. Behaviour. 154, pp. 719-740.
E.J. Brill. ISSN 0005-7959
Amici, F; Colell, M; Von Borrell, C; Bueno-Guerra, N. 2017. Meerkats (Suricata suricatta) fail to
prosocially donate food in an experimental set-up. Animal Cognition. 20(6), pp. 1059-1066.
Springer Verlag. ISSN 1435-9448
Bueno-Guerra, N.; Leiva, D.; Colell, M.; Call, J. 2016. Do sex and age affect strategic behavior
and inequity aversion in children? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 150, pp.285-300.
Elsevier. ISSN 0022-0965
7Executive Functions / Language Learning and Processing
Toni Cunillera
Summary
My main area of interest is cognitive neuroscience. More specifically, I work on two main topics, a)
executive functions and, b) language learning and processing.
A. Executive Functions
1. Inhibitory function: I investigate how and when the cognitive brain is able to inhibit an action or
how it reacts to withhold/withdraw a preponderant response. For this purpose, I use the approach
of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS), a well-known neuromodulatory technique,
together with EEG/ERP methodologies, to see the effects of the engagement of certain brain
networks on behavior. There is an applied part of this research focused on how the inhibitory
function is altered in eating disorders.
B. Language Learning and Processing
2. Statistical Language Learning: I study the neural based and cognitive mechanisms recruited to
success in the initial stages of learning a second language during the adulthood. My research is
focused in the mechanism known as Statistical Learning. I have investigated different but related
learning situations in which statistical learning can explain how we successfully learn the regularities
embedded in the speech signal.
Keywords: Executive Functions. Response inhibition. Statistical learning.
Selected publications:
Cunillera T, Brignani D, Cucurell D, Fuentemilla L, Miniussi C. (2016). The right inferior frontal
cortex in response inhibition: A tDCS-ERP co-registration study. Neuroimage, 140, 66-75.
Cunillera T, Càmara E, Toro JM, Marco-Pallares J, Sebastián-Galles N, Ortiz H, Pujol J, Rodríguez-
Fornells A. (2009). Time course and functional neuroanatomy of speech segmentation in adults.
Neuroimage, 48, 541-553.
8Contextualising Psychosocial Wellbeing and Mental Health within
Sociocultural Dynamics
Francisco Jose Eiroá Orosa
Summary
The lack of contextualization of the science and applications of mental health and psychosocial
interventions is the source of a large part of their criticisms. The fixation on experimental
methodologies (such as clinical trials) to prove its efficacy, and the exportation of working methods
manufactured in Western upper middle class contexts to developing countries and socially excluded
populations, are some of the limitations of the body research in these disciplines.
Both social and cultural decontextualisation of mental health and psychosocial interventions
currently contribute to the gap between research and practice. From the lack of research on how
social dynamics influence the well-being and mental health of citizens, or the lack of clearly defined
public mental health policies at the European level, to the gaps in research and implementation of
coordination among different disciplines, there are many constraints which now surround the
implementation of these interventions.
The objective of this project is to map and offer a bottom-up, source-embedded appreciation of the
need to always seek to contextualise mental health and psychosocial interventions and the
professional and institutional barriers to this process at the European level, using participatory action
research methods with practitioners and users of psychological services as well as civil society groups.
This will allow us to have an ecological approach while ensuring direct dissemination of the results.
The project will be implemented integrating a website and a mobile application with face to face
interviews, focus groups and continuing professional development workshops.
Keywords: Mental health, psychosocial wellbeing, sociocultural dynamics, service users,
participation, citizenship
Selected publications:
Eiroa-Orosa, F. J. (2018). The Sociocultural Context of Psychosocial Interventions. Frontiers in
Psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01795
Eiroa-Orosa, F. J., & Lomascolo, M. (2018). Training mental health activists increases the well-
being of participants with high baseline levels of self-stigma: results of the Obertament training
evaluation. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000376
Montague, A. C., & Eiroa-Orosa, F. J. (2018). In it together: Exploring how belonging to a youth
activist group enhances well-being. Journal of Community Psychology, 46(1), 23–43.
https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.21914
Eiroa-Orosa, F. J., & Rowe, M. (2017). Taking the Concept of Citizenship in Mental Health across
Countries. Reflections on Transferring Principles and Practice to Different Sociocultural
Contexts. Frontiers in Psychology, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01020
Eiroa-Orosa, F. J., Rodriguez-Urrutia, A., Accarino, A., Santamarina-Perez, P., Parramon, G., &
Azpiroz, F. (2016). An exploratory study comparing psychological profiles and its congruence
with clinical performance among patients with functional or motility digestive disorders. Journal
of Health Psychology, 21(11), 2590–2599. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105315581069.
9Brainlab
Carles Escera
Iria SanMiguel
Marc Via
The Brainlab (www.ub.edu/brainlab; @Brainlab_UB) is an Excellence Research Group
(SGR20117-974) that belongs to the Institute of Neurosciences of University of Barcelona and to
the Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute (IRSJD). We offer a multidisciplinary (psychologist,
biologists, engineers) and multicultural atmosphere to carry out a Master’s thesis project in the field
of auditory cognitive neuroscience, with the possibility to use electrophysiological (EEG), behavioral
(eye-tracking, psychophysics), neuroimaging (MRI) and genetic approaches, in adult as well as in
newborn populations.
Brainlab (1/3) – Subcortical encoding of speech sounds in adults and newborns
PI: Carles Escera
In the Subcortical encoding of speech sounds in adults and newborns research line (PI: Carles
Escera), we aim at investigating how the sounds of human language are encoded in the auditory
system and what are the modulating factors that shape this encoding, from experience-dependent
plasticity and environmental to genetics. We employ a fascinating auditory evoked potential called
Frequency-Following Response (FFR), which reflect compound neuronal activity in the ascending
auditory pathway to cortex that is phase-locked to the spectrotemporal components of the acoustic
signal, so that it faithfully mimics the eliciting stimulus. Using the FFR, our lab has shown predictive
coding in the subcortical auditory system, the influence of the serotonin transporter gen in efficient
speech-sound encoding, and that timing predictability enhances repetition suppression at subcortical
level. The master projects will lie within this line, with the possibility to enroll in adult and even
newborn recordings, and the opportunity to join an internationally reputed site for auditory cognitive
neuroscience training and a thriving research environment. Check www.ub.edu/brainlab for ongoing
specific projects and further details.
Keywords: Auditory evoked potentials, Frequency-Following Response (FFR), auditory
perception, speech and language disorders
Selected references:
Slabu, L., Grimm, S., & Escera, C. (2012). Novelty detection in the human auditory brainstem. Journal of
Neuroscience, 34, 1447-1452.
Recasens, M., Grimm, S, Capilla, A., Nowak, R., & Escera, C. (2014). Two sequential processes of change
detection in hierarchically ordered areas of the human auditory cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 24, 143-153.
Selinger, L., Zarnowiek, K., Via, M., Clemente, I.C., Escera, C. (2016). Involvement of the serotonin transporter
gene in accurate subcortical speech encoding. Journal of Neuroscience, 36(42), 10782-10790.
Gorina-Careta, N., Zarnowiec, K., Costa-Faidella, J., & Escera, C. (2016). Timing predictability enhances
regularity encoding in the human subcortical auditory pathway. Scientific Reports, 6:37405.
Parras, G.G., Nieto-Diego, J., Carbajal, G.V., Valdés-Baizabal, C., Escera. C., & Malmierca, M.S. (2017).
Neurons along the auditory pathway exhibit a hierarchical organization of prediction error. Nature
Communications, 8, 2148.
Escera, C. (2017). The role of the auditory brain stem in regularity encoding and deviance detection. In: Kraus,
N., Anderson, S., White-Schwoch, T., Fay, R. R., and Popper, A. N. (Eds.). The Frequency-following Response:
A Window into Human Communication, (pp. 101-121). New York: Springer Nature.
10Brainlab (2/3) – Electrophysiology of predictive processes in action-perception interactions and
the sense of agency
PI: Iria SanMiguel
Active perception and predictive processing. Everyone is familiar with bistable stimuli like the Rubin
vase, which can be perceived either as two faces or a vase. How is it possible that the same sensory
stimulation can give rise to different percepts in different occasions? Such phenomena highlight the
active nature of perception. The world we perceive is an interpretation of the information that arrives
at our senses. A key factor in this interpretative process is prediction. The brain constantly and
automatically formulates predictions regarding the sensory input. Sensory responses, and hence
perception, are influenced by such predictions. We are interested in understanding the neural
mechanisms that support predictive processing, and their effects on perception.
Motor-driven sensory prediction. An important source of sensory predictions is our own motor
behaviour. How is it possible that the visual image remains still, despite we are constantly moving
our body and our eyes? The solution lies in predictive processing: the sensory consequences of the
organisms’ motor actions are predicted by the nervous system, and this prediction is used to
compensate the effects of self-action during sensory processing. In our research, we make use motor-
driven prediction to study predictive processing in audition. In a typical experiment, participants
deliver auditory stimuli to themselves by pressing buttons. Comparing responses to self- and
externally-generated sounds we can study the effects of motor-driven prediction in auditory
processing.
Agency. How do we recognize ourselves as the agents of certain stimuli in the environment, when
there is nothing that can differentiate such stimuli from other stimuli that we did not cause ourselves?
The sensation of agency may arise from the effects of motor-driven sensory predictions on sensory
processing. That is, whenever a sensation is cancelled out by a motor prediction, we may feel that
we were the agent causing the stimulation. We are interested in understanding the precise
relationship between motor-driven sensory predictions and the sensation of agency.
Keywords: Predictive coding, sense of agency, EEG, ERPs, motor control, sensorimotor
processes, perception
Selected publications:
Schröger, Marzecová & SanMiguel (2015) Attention and prediction in human audition: a lesson
from cognitive psychophysiology. European Journal of Neuroscience, 41(5):641-64.
SanMiguel, Widmann, Bendixen, Trujillo-Barreto & Schröger (2013) Hearing Silences: Human
Auditory Processing Relies on Preactivation of Sound-Specific Brain Activity Patterns. Journal of
Neuroscience, 33(20):8633-9.
Bendixen, SanMiguel & Schröger (2012) Early electrophysiological indicators for predictive
processing in audition: A review. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 83(2):120-31.
Timm, Schönwiesner, Schröger & SanMiguel (2016) Sensory suppression of brain responses to
self-generated sounds is observed with and without the perception of agency. Cortex, 80:5-20.
Timm J, SanMiguel I, Keil J, Schröger E, Schönwiesner M. (2014). Motor intention determines
sensory attenuation of brain responses to self-initiated sounds. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience,
26(7):1481-9.
11Brainlab (3/3) – Genetic modulators of brain potentials associated to speech and musical
processing
PI: Marc Via
In the research line "Genetic modulators of brain potentials associated to speech and musical
processing" (PI: Marc Via), we aim at establishing the role of genetic and epigenetic variants in the
auditory processing of acoustic stimuli of different nature (speech vs. non-speech, syllables vs.
running speech) at different levels of the auditory hierarchy (cortical vs. subcortical stages). In
particular, we collect electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings from young healthy participants
while conducting different experiments on sound processing. Additionally, we collect saliva
samples to analyze genetic and epigenetic markers and behavioral data to measure the ability of
participants in pitch discrimination tasks.
Thus, we will identify genetic and epigenetic variants associated to measures of pitch extraction at
the subcortical level, through the analysis of subcortical responses to acoustic stimuli of different
complexity and to cortical responses to different linguistic and non-linguistic acoustic stimuli.
Moreover, we will also assess the role of attentional processes and the ecological validity of the
observed associations. Our new view on the molecular mechanisms involved in the cognitive
neuroscience of audition, incorporating genetic markers and methylation profiling into the brain
mechanisms of auditory cognition, constitute a breakthrough on current views in cognitive
neuroscience. Results arising from the project will be relevant for specialists in very diverse fields
(e.g. neurophysiology, molecular genetics and epigenetics, acoustics, or psycholinguistics) and may
also lead to approaches to understand the pathophysiology of disorders such as dyslexia or
language specific impairment.
Keywords: EEG, FFR, genetics, epigenetics, audition, music, language
Selected references:
Garcia-Garcia, M., Via, M., Zarnowiec, K., SanMiguel, I., Escera, C., Clemente, I.C. (2017).
COMT and DRD2/ANKK-1 gene-gene interaction account for resetting of gamma neural
oscillations to auditory stimulus-driven attention. PLoS One, 12(2), e0172362.
Selinger, L., Zarnowiek, K., Via, M., Clemente, I.C., Escera, C. (2016). Involvement of the
serotonin transporter gene in accurate subcortical speech encoding. Journal of Neuroscience,
36(42), 10782-10790.
12Construing Self and Others: Interventions in Clinical and Health Psychology
Guillem Feixas
Summary
Our research group (SGR2017-642, see www.ub.edu/ipcs) is aimed at advancing the knowledge in
the areas of personality and psychotherapy. We pay particular attention to the study of identity
processes, cognitive conflicts, and their role in a variety of change processes. To this aim, personal
construct and self-regulation theories (both based on constructivist epistemology) have been
important sources of inspiration for both research and practice.
Our work is conducted using methods derived from these approaches, such as textual analysis and
the Repertory Grid Technique, with which we can identify conflicts in the cognitive structure of
interviewees. These conflicts (or dilemmas) often become a hindrance for the progress either in
personal development or in psychotherapy. With these methods we have studied the cognitive
structures of people of different conditions (e.g., depression, eating disorders, fibromyalgia, victims
of partner violence) and compared them to community and student samples. We have also
created some therapy manuals for innovative interventions targeting identity processes and
cognitive conflicts, and tested their efficacy and utility in randomized clinical trials. We have
adapted and validated instruments for the assessment of the outcome of psychological
interventions which can now be used by other researchers and practitioners (e.g.,
www.ub.edu/terdep/core). We have just finished a randomised controlled trial (RCT) comparing
the efficacy of systematic case formulation based in personal construct therapy (PCT) with
formulations based in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for the improvement of depressive
symptoms of patients with fibromyalgia. Currently, we are beginning another RCT comparing the
efficacy of CBT, PCT and PCT enhanced with virtual reality for young adults with mild-to-
moderate depression.
Keywords: Personality psychology, constructivism, psychotherapy, counseling, cognitive therapy,
systemic therapy, cognitive conflict, self, identity, depression, repertory grid technique.
Selected publications:
Feixas, G., et al. (2014). Cognitive conflicts in major depression: Between desired change and personal
coherence. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 53, 369-385. doi: 10.1111/bjc.12050
Montesano, A., López-González, M. A., Saúl, L. A., & Feixas, G. (2015). A review of cognitive conflicts
research: A meta-analytic study of prevalence and relation to symptoms. Neuropsychiatric Disease and
Treatment, 11, 2997-3006.
Trujillo, A., Feixas, G., et al. (2016). Psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the CORE-OM: Clinical
Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 12, 1457–66.
doi: 10.2147/NDT.S103079
Feixas, G.et al. (2016). Dilemma-focused intervention for depression: A multicenter randomized controlled trial
with 3-month follow-up. Depression and Anxiety, 33, 862-869. doi: 10.1002/da.22510.
Feixas, G., & Compañ, V. (2016). Dilemma-focused intervention for unipolar depression: a treatment manual.
BMC Psychiatry, 16: 235. DOI 10.1186/s12888-016-0947-x
Aguilera, M., Paz, C., Compañ, V., Medina, J. C., & Feixas, G. (2019). Cognitive rigidity in patients with
depression and fibromyalgia. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 19(2), 160–164.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijchp.2019.02.002
13Dynamics of Memory Formation
Lluís Fuentemilla
Summary
How do we form lasting memories of our everyday experiences? We want to understand how
experiences are initially encoded, undergo further consolidation and are later retrieved. We use
behavioural (including Eye movements), psychophysiological (Skin Conductance) and neural (fMRI,
EEG, iEEG) measures to help us learn more about the cognitive and neural operations that
contribute to episodic memory. We further extend our investigation to neurological patients, in
special those with lesions in medial temporal lobe regions.
In concrete, current topics of interest, and examples of related projects, include:
1) Brain mechanisms of how discrete episodic memories are formed
2) Brain mechanisms of how prior knowledge influences the formation of new memories
3) How memory reactivation supports memory formation and memory retrieval
4) The study of memory processes for autobiographical events collected individually
through portable cameras
Keywords: memory, hippocampus, EEG, neural oscillations
Selected publications:
Fuentemilla L, Miró J, Falip M, Ripollés P, Juncadella M, Castañer S, Rodríguez-Fornells A (2013).
Hippocampus-dependent strengthening of targeted memories via reactivation during sleep in
humans. Current Biology 23:1769-75.
Fuentemilla L, Penny WD, Bunzeck N, Cashdollar N, Düzel E (2010). Theta coupled periodic
replay in working memory. Current Biology 20:606-612.
Griffiths, B.J., Fuentemilla, Ll. (In Press). Event conjunction: How the hippocampus integrates
episodic memories across event boundaries. PsyArxiv.
Jafarpour, A., Fuentemilla, L., Horner, A., Penny, W.D., Düzel, E. (2014). Replay of very early
encoding representations during recollection. The Journal of Neuroscience. 1:242-8
Packard PA, Rodríguez-Fornells A, Stein LM, Nicolás B, Fuentemilla L (2014).Tracking explicit
and implicit long-lasting traces of fearful memories in humans. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 116:96-
104.
Silva, M., Baldassano, C., Fuentemilla, Ll. (In Press). Rapid memory reactivation at movie event
boundaries promotes episodic encoding. Journal of Neuroscience.
Sols, I., DuBrow, S., Davachi, L., Fuentemilla, Ll. (2017). Event Boundaries Trigger Rapid Memory
Reinstatement of the Prior Events to Promote Their Representation in Long-Term Memory.
Current Biology. 27(22):3499-3504.
14Person-Environment transactions and Individual Differences
David Gallardo-Pujol
Summary
Why we behave in a certain way or another? It is an axiom in behavioral sciences that behavior is a
function of personal characteristics and the environment [B=f(P,E)]. However, little research has
been conducted taking into account both elements of the equation for over hundred years. We aim
to understand how individual differences operate and cause behavior depending on specific
contexts. To this end, we conduct different experiments and collect data at multiple levels (genes,
brain function, individual differences in personality and cognitive abilities, social and cultural). We
combine these data with the latest analytic approaches within the framework of person-environment
transactions. This academic year we are specifically interested in 1) how situational pressures interact
with individual differences on moral decision-making; and 2) how situations are differentially
perceived across cultures.
Keywords: Personality, Individual Differences, Culture, Brain Structure, Geolocation, Structural
Equation Models, Person-Environment Transactions.
Selected publications:
Gallardo-Pujol, D.; Maydeu-Olivares, A.; & Andrés-Pueyo (2013). An experimental test of a gene-environment
interaction: MAOA genotype, social exclusion and aggression. Genes, Brain & Behavior. 12(1);140-145. DOI:
10.1111/j.1601-183X.2012.00868.x
Guillaume, E., Baranski, E., Todd, E., Bastian, B., Bronin, I., Ivanova, C., Cheng, J.T., de Kock, F.S., Denissen,
J.J.A., Gallardo-Pujol, D., Halama, Pl, Han, G.Q., Bae, J., Moon, J., Hong, R.Y., Hřebíčková, M., Graf, S.,
Izdebski, P., Lundmann, L., Penke, L., Perugini, M., Costantini, G., Rauthmann, J., Ziegler, M., Realo, A.,
Elme, L., Sato, T., Kawamoto, S., Szarota, P., Tracy, J.L., van Aken, M.A.G., Yang, Y., & Funder, D.C. (2015,
May 7th). The world at 7: Comparing the experience of situations across 20 countries. Journal of Personality.
DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12176
Pascual, L.; Rodrigues, P.; & Gallardo-Pujol, D. (2013). How does morality work in the brain? A structural
perspective of moral behavior. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 7;65. DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2013.00065
Rauthman, J.F.; Gallardo-Pujol, D.; Guillaume, E.M.; Todd, E.; Nave, C.; Sherman, R.A.; Ziegler, M.; Jones, A.B.
& Funder, D.C. (2014). The Situational Eight DIAMONDS: A taxonomy of major dimensions of situation
characteristics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107(4), 677-718.
15Validation of psychological tests
Georgina Guilera
Summary
Psychological measurement instruments play an important role in research, clinical practice and
educational and health assessment. Measurement involves assigning scores to individuals so that they
represent some characteristic of them. But how do we know that the scores actually represent that
characteristic? In addition, measurement implies drawing conclusions about individuals. But how
do we know that our conclusions are fair for them? To answer these and other questions about the
quality of psychological tests, their psychometric properties in terms of reliability and validity
evidence should be explored.
This research line is focused on the evaluation of psychometric properties of several psychological
tests, using classical test theory and advanced methodology to do so. This academic year we are
especially interested in the: a) validation of the Pure Procrastination Scale (PPS) in the framework
vof Item Response Theory models; b) reliability generalization meta-analysis of the Positive and
Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS); and c) development of normative data of the Screen for
Cognitive Impairment in Psychiatry in elderly people. However, we are open to new ideas and
challenges. Share yours with us!
Keywords: psychometrics; test-retest reliability; internal consistency; validity evidence; factor
analysis; meta-analysis.
Selected publications:
Gómez‐Benito, J., Berrío, Á. I., Guilera, G., Rojo, E., Purdon, S., & Pino, O. (2018). The Screen
for Cognitive Impairment in Psychiatry: Proposal for a polytomous scoring system.
International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, 27(3), e1598.
Guilera, G., Barrios, M., Penelo, E., Morin, C., Steel, P., & Gómez-Benito, J. (2018). Validation of
the Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS). PloS One, 13(1), e0190806.
Guilera, G., Gómez-Benito, J., Pino, Ó., Rojo, E., Vieta, E., Cuesta, M. J., ... & Martínez-Arán, A.
(2015). Disability in bipolar I disorder: the 36-item World Health Organization Disability
Assessment Schedule 2.0. Journal of Affective Disorders, 174, 353-360.
Guilera, G., Pereda, N., Paños, A., & Abad, J. (2015). Assessing resilience in adolescence: The
Spanish adaptation of the Adolescent Resilience Questionnaire. Health and Quality of Life
Outcomes, 13(1), 1.
Pereda, N., Gallardo-Pujol, D., & Guilera, G. (2018). Good practices in the assessment of
victimization: The Spanish adaptation of the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire. Psychology
of Violence, 8(1), 76.
16Neurolinguistics, Multilingualism and Cognition
Mireia Hernández
Summary
1. Bilingualism and decision-making1. Would you kill one person to save five? Even if it were for a
greater good, many people would find the action of killing someone incompatible with their
morality… UNLESS… they face this dilemma in their foreign language. Difficult as it may be to
believe, it has been consistently found that most of us tend to make more utilitarian decisions when
using our foreign language. In addition, this “foreign language effect” seems to go beyond moral
choices. For instance, using a foreign language reduces risk aversion in decision-making contexts:
risks appear smaller. But, how could our choices depend on whether we made them in our native
tongue or foreign language? It has been proposed that a foreign language increases the psychological
distance with certain contents. However, the answer to this question remains, in fact, unclear.
Indeed, this is one of the most controversial and hotly debated current questions in the fields of
cognitive neuroscience of language, neuroeconomics and multilingualism.
2. Mechanisms of “bilingual language control” (bLC)2. Cases of bilingual neurological patients who
lost control of their languages have evidenced how much bilinguals depend on bLC––e.g., patent
AH (reported by Abutalebi et al. (2000). Neurocase) could not help mixing English and Italian: “I
cannot communicare con you; Oggi I cannot say il mio nome to you; I’m a disastro today.” This
type of patients is rather scarce. Hence, bLC has been typically studied with healthy bilinguals, using
the so-called language-switching paradigm. Studies with this paradigm have revealed that the
efficiency of bLC mechanisms may vary on a number of factors related with the individuals’ bilingual
language history as well as non-linguistic mechanisms of cognitive control. Determining what these
factors are and how they interact would represent a major contribution in the field of cognitive
neuroscience of language and multilingualism.
3. The benefits of bilingualism in general cognition3. It seems that bLC mechanisms partially overlap
with general cognition. Many researchers have proposed that the constant need of bilinguals of
applying bLC would result in them being over-trained (compared to monolinguals) in general
cognition––to the point of even delaying the onset of the earliest symptoms of dementia. However,
it remains to be determined what specific aspects of general cognition become benefited by
bilingualism.
1
Hayakawa S., Costa A., Foucart, A., & Keysar, B. (2016). Using a Foreign Language Changes Our Choices.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(11), 791–793.
2
Bobb, S. C., & Wodniecka, Z. (2013). Language switching in picture naming: What asymmetric switch costs (do
not) tell us about inhibition in bilingual speech planning. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25(5), 568–585.
3
Yow, W. Q., & Li, X. (2015). Balanced bilingualism and early age of second language acquisition as the underlying
mechanisms of a bilingual executive control advantage: why variations in bilingual experiences matter. Frontiers
in Psychology, 6:164.
17Primate Behaviour, Ecology and Cognition
Adriana Hernández-Aguilar
Summary
My research focuses on the behaviour and ecology of chimpanzees and other primates in the wild
and in captivity, and the implications these have for understanding human behaviour and
evolution. My research involves several areas of the behavioural sciences: primatology, ethology,
primate archaeology, anthropology and comparative psychology. I work on two main research
lines:
A) Behavioural ecology of savanna chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and other primates
The main goals of this research are 1) to understand how the ecological characteristics of savanna
habitats influence the behaviour of primates, 2) how their behaviour differs from that of
conspecifics living in more forested habitats, and 3) especially in the case of chimpanzees and
baboons (Papio spp.), to help modelling the possible behaviour and adaptations of early hominins
who lived in similar habitats. Opportunities are offered to do fieldwork and/or analyse already
collected data or video footage from camera traps under the Research and Conservation Project
run by the Jane Goodall Institute Spain in Senegal (https://www.janegoodallsenegal.org/research)
or in collaboration with the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
B) Captive primate research
The main goal of this research is to contribute to our understanding of the evolution of human
behaviour through conducting (non-invasive) cognition experiments and behavioural studies with
captive primates. Opportunities are offered to collect data in captive settings or to analyse video
footage in collaboration with the Kristiansand Zoo (Norway) as well as with other zoos. There is
also potential to contribute to studies for the project ManyPrimates https://manyprimates.github.io,
a large scale international collaboration in comparative primate cognition research (including more
than 12 institutions around the world), of which I am a member.
ManyPrimates, including Hernandez-Aguilar R. A. (2019) Establishing an infrastructure for collaboration in
primate cognition research. Plos One DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0223675.
Motes-Rodrigo, A., Majlesi, P., Pickering, T. R., Laska, M., Axelsen, H., Minchin, T. C., Tennie, C. &
Hernandez-Aguilar R. A. (2019) Chimpanzee extractive foraging with excavating tools: Experimental modeling of
the origins of human technology. Plos One DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0215644
Haslam, M., Hernandez-Aguilar R. A., Ling, V., Carvalho, S., de la Torre, I., DeStefano, A., Du, A.,
Hardy, B., Harris, J., Marchant, L. F., Matsuzawa, T., McGrew, W., Mercader, J., Mora, R., Petraglia, M.,
Roche, H., Visalberghi, E., Warren, R. (2009) Primate Archaeology. Nature 460:339-334.
Hernandez-Aguilar R. A., Moore, J. & Pickering, T. R. (2007) Savanna chimpanzees use tools to harvest
the underground storage organs of plants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 104:19210-
19213.
18Computational Neuroscience, Machine Learning and Computer Vision
Matthias S. Keil
Summary
My principal research interest is to understand how the visual system of the human brain and insects
process and interpret real-world stimuli. For example, stimuli could comprise gray level images for
brightness perception, or video sequences for motion perception. My methods are mathematical
modeling and computer simulations. A typical of my models complies with two goals: (1) ability to
process real-world stimuli, and (2) predict psychophysical and/or neurophysiological results. In this
way, is my research connected to computer vision and biologically-inspired image processing
algorithms, respectively. My models use adaptive mechanisms and innovative learning methods, and
in this way connect to deep learning. A new research line aims at reducing the time and number of
learning examples of deep learning methods with new learning paradigms,
Topics that I have been working on include human brightness/lightness perception, information
processing in the retina (dynamic range reduction, predictive coding, luminance encoding),
information processing with syncytia, analog and unconventional computing, face perception, optical
flow, time-to contact perception and collision thread detection.
Keywords: Computational Neuroscience, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Mathematical
Modeling, Dynamic Systems, Computer Simulations, Unconventional Computation, Image
Processing, Predictive Coding.
Selected publications:
Keil M. Dendritic pooling of noisy threshold processes can explain many properties of a collision-
sensitive visual neuron,” PLoS Computational Biology, vol. 11, no. 10, p. e1004479, 2015.
doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004479.
Keil M and López-Moliner J. Unifying time to contact estimation and collision avoidance across
species. PLoS Computational Biology, vol. 8, no. 8, p. e1002625, 2012.
doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002625.
Keil M. ‘I Look in Your Eyes, Honey’: Internal face features induce spatial frequency preference
for human face processing. PLoS Computational Biology, vol. 5, no. 3, p. e10003290, 2009.
doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000329;
Keil M. Gradient representations and the perception of luminosity. Vision Research, vol. 47, pp.
3360–3372, 2007. Also available at http://arxiv.org/abs/0709.3237.
19Dyadic Data Analysis
David Leiva
Summary
Dyads are the most basic configuration or relationship in a group and they represent the unit of
analysis adopted in most interpersonal interaction studies. Many social researchers have focused
on dyadic dependence in explaining social interaction. Thus, dyad is the unit of analysis for the
study of social interaction and, similarly, the research of mutual influence is founded on pairs of
individuals. Interdependence has, beyond all doubt, constituted the main feature of dyadic data
analyses. The study of social interaction is, therefore, the study of nonindependence and any
assessment of this interdependence is concerned with the specific type of dyadic design. Here,
several designs have been proposed to evaluate nonindependence for distinguishable and non-
distinguishable or exchangeable dyads and for several dyadic data structures, including the
standard dyadic and the Social Relations Model (SRM) designs.
This research line is related to the development of new statistical techniques for quantifying and
testing different social aspects using a dyadic approach and under different dyadic designs. The
work to be developed under this line mainly relies on running simulations for assessing statistical
properties of estimators and developing statistical tests useful in applied studies. Furthermore,
developing statistical programs (preferably under an open-source environment as R) to ease the
use of these new procedures by applied researchers in areas as social psychology or ethology,
constitutes an important aim of this research line.
Keywords: Dyadic data, dyadic designs, statistical modeling.
Selected publications:
Sbragaglia, V., Leiva, D., Arias, A., García, J.A., Aguzzi, J., & Breithaupt, T. (2017). Fighting over
burrows: The emergence of dominance hierarchies in the Norway lobster (Nephrops norvergicus).
Journal of Experimental Biology, 220, 4624-4633.
Solanas, A., Leiva, D., Salafranca, Ll. (2010). Bias and standard error for social reciprocity
measurements. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 63(1), 139-161.
Leiva, D., Solanas, A., Salafranca, Ll. (2008). Testing reciprocity in social interactions: A
comparison between the directional consistency and skew-symmetry statistics. Behavior Research
Methods, 40(2), 626-634.
20Decision Making and Eye Movements in Perception & Action
Joan López-Moliner
Summary
An ubiquitous process in human daily-life behaviour is deciding between competing actions within
complex and rich environments. First, optimal decisional processes depend on people
representing different states of the world accurately and reliably. By means of tools rooted in the
Statistical Decision Theory, we analyse how human encode different states and whether this
encoding is optimal, that is, minimizes the uncertainty. Second, the range of sensory stimulation
out there often exceeds by far the operating range of our senses. The nature’s solution to
overcome this limitation is adaptation to the changing conditions of stimulation. This allows people
to operate optimally across many different sensory conditions. We then study the underlying
processes of adaptation in sensory and sensorimotor domains. Third, our actions have
consequences on the states of the world. The brain predicts these consequences (forward models)
and these predictions can be integrated with the actual sensory feedback to improve the precision
with which we perceive the consequences of our actions on the world. We then study how humans
combine these predictions with the incoming feedback in the control of our actions. Finally, these
action consequences have an associated gain (or reward) or cost. We are interested in the
processes that lead to optimal actions or decisions (i.e. maximize expected gain), mainly in
changing environmental conditions. We use different methodologies to tackle these problems
including psychophysics, eye movements, neural modelling, virtual reality, and neuroimage.
Keywords: decision making in complex environments, perception and action; eye movements;
sensory prediction; decision under uncertainty & risk; virtual reality
Selected publications:
Linares, D., Aguilar-Lleyda, D., and López-Moliner, J. (2019). Decoupling sensory from
decisional choice biases in perceptual decision making. eLife, 8:e43994.
López-Moliner, J. and Brenner, E. (2016). Flexible timing of eye movements when catching a ball.
J Vis, 16(5):1–11.
de la Malla, C., and López-Moliner, J. (2015). Predictive plus online visual information optimizes
temporal precision in interception, Journal of Experimental Psychology: HPP. DOI:
10.1037/xhp0000075
Kokkinara, E., Slater, M., and López-Moliner, J. (2015). The Effects of Visuomotor Calibration to
the Perceived Space and Body, through Embodiment in Immersive Virtual Reality. ACM
Transactions on Applied Perception (TAP), 13(1):3.
21Single-case designs data analysis
Rumen Manolov
Summary
The research line is focused on testing, comparing, and proposing analytical techniques for data
obtained through single-case experimental designs. Several aspects define this field of research.
First, due to the longitudinal nature of the data and the usual shortness of the data series classical
statistical procedures cannot be employed. Second, applied researchers using single-case designs
(e.g., behavioral interventions in special education, developmental disabilities) have commonly
relied only on visual analysis, not using statistical tools. Third, the amount of data features that can
be modeled (initial level, change in level, baseline trend, change in trend, autocorrelation, variation
across the cases within a study) has triggered a myriad of proposals, accompanied by a lack of
consensus regarding which proposals are optimal. One of the challenges of the field that we are
trying to tackle are: to bring the statistical proposals closer to applied researchers, by identifying
easily understood, but statistically sound procedures and developing software implementations.
Other challenges include the continuous development and testing of already existing or newly
proposed analytical techniques, as well as summarizing the evidence on their performance. For
that purpose, the research can be formalized in different kinds of papers: proposals, illustrations
with published behavioral data, tests via Monte Carlo simulation, discussions. Furthermore,
software development and description is another relevant task for making the analytical techniques
attractive for applied researchers.
Keywords: single-case designs; effect size, trend, autocorrelation
Selected publications:
Manolov, R., Gast, D. L., Perdices, M., & Evans, J. J. (2014). Single-case experimental designs:
Reflections on conduct and analysis. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 24(3-4), 634–660.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2014.903199
Manolov, R., & Moeyaert, M. (2017). How can single-case data be analyzed? Software resources,
tutorial, and reflections on analysis. Behavior Modification, 41(2), 179–228.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0145445516664307
Manolov, R., & Moeyaert, M. (2017). Recommendations for choosing single-case data analytical
techniques. Behavior Therapy, 48(1), 97–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2016.04.008
Manolov, R., & Onghena, P. (2018). Analyzing data from single-case alternating treatments
designs. Psychological Methods, 23(3), 480–504. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000133
22You can also read
