University Institute of Neuroscience

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The groups in Area 1 share an interest in the study of cognitive processes and their neurological bases, including motor actions, language, emotion, memory, reasoning, motivation, and social behavior. They use a variety of behavioral techniques and methods (self-reports, reaction times, eye movements, etc.) and neuroscientific techniques (EEG, fMRI, tDCS, TMS), primarily for the study of young, healthy populations.

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Language, comprehension and production

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Memory, reasoning, and decision-making

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Motivation and the brain

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Corporeality in Language

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Social Cognition, Intergroup and Interpersonal Relations

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Motivation and the brain

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The neural basis of the locus of control of health

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Emotions and facial expressions

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Cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics

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Coordinators: Horacio Barber Friend (Professor of Basic Psychology) and Markus Conrad (Ramón y Cajal Research Fellow in the Department of Cognitive Psychology). SR: Enrique Messeguer Felip (Professor of

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Cognition, language, and inhibition processes

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Coordinator: Manuel de Vega Rodríguez (Professor of Basic Psychology) and  David Beltrán Guerrero (Professor  of Basic Psychology). SR: Yurena Morera Cáceres (Professor of Basic Psychology).

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Memory and Cognition

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Coordinator: María de los Ángeles Alonso Rodríguez (Full Professor of Basic Psychology).

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Group members:

Dr. María Ángeles Alonso Rodríguez

Dr. Emiliano Díaz (USAL)

Dr. Angel Fernández (USAL)

Interests: 

Ongoing lines of research:

Techniques/Methods: 

Relevant publications:

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Reasoning and decision making

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Coordinator: Orlando Espino Morales (Full Professor of Basic Psychology). SR: Carlos Santamaría Moreno (Professor of Basic Psychology).

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Group members:

Dr. Orlando Espino

Dr Ruth Byrne (Trinity College of Dublin)

Dr. Philip Johnson-Laird

Interests: 

In our research, we are interested in studying the effect that certain factors, such as negations and illusions, have on reasoning tasks with conditionals in a subjunctive mood: counterfactual, semifactual, and prefactual. Regarding negations, their relevance is evident, since people frequently use them when arguing or counterarguing, and are willing to revise their beliefs in light of the inconsistencies and contradictions that arise from this process. Illusions in reasoning are systematic errors that people make when reasoning, and they are very difficult to avoid. Understanding why humans make systematic errors in reasoning is a way to prevent them from occurring.

Ongoing lines of research:

  • Negated counterfactual and semifactual inferences
  • Thinking with the future conditional in the indicative and subjunctive moods.
  • Illusions in counterfactual, semifactual and prefactual conditionals.

Techniques/Methods: 

  • Behavioral tests
  • Reaction time records
  • Eye movements

Relevant publications:

  • Espino, O., & Byrne, RMJ (2020). How people keep track of what is real and what is imagined: The epistemic status of counterfactual alternatives to reality, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/xlm0000965
  • Espino, O., Byrne, RMJ, & Johnson-Laird, P.N. (2020). Possibilities and the parallel meaning of factual and counterfactual conditionals. Memory & Cognition, 48, 1263-1280. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-020-01040-6
  • Orenes, I., García, JA, Gómez, I., Espino, O., & Byrne, RMJ(2019). The comprehension of counterfactual conditionals: evidence from eye-tracking in the visual world paradigm. Frontiers of Psychology, 10:1172 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01172
  • Espino, O., & Byrne, R. (2018). Thinking About the Opposite of What Is Said: Counterfactual Conditionals and Symbolic or Alternate Simulations of Negation. Cognitive science, 42(8), 2459–2501. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12677
  • Espino, O., & Villar, B. (2016). Priming effect in affirmative complex conditional connectives. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 28(6), 764–769. https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2016.1188820

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Social cognition and group and interpersonal relationships

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Coordinator: Armando Rodríguez Pérez (Professor of Social Psychology).  SR: Juan Capafóns Bonet (Professor of Clinical Psychology) and Carmen Dolores Sosa Castilla (Full Professor of Clinical Psychology).

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Language: Comprehension and Production

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Coordinators: Carlos Álvarez González (Professor of Basic Psychology) and Alberto Domínguez Martínez (Professor of Basic Psychology).

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Group members:

Dr. Olivia Afonso

Dr. Beatriz Bermúdez-Margaretto (Institute for Cognitive

Neuroscience, Moscow)

Anthea Santo

Fu Yang

Ivan Sanchez Borges

Interests

We investigated word recognition processes and the acquisition of new lexical representations, how lexical traces are consolidated in memory, and how the transition occurs from serial reading strategies to automatic parallel recognition. We also investigated word writing processes, measuring the times at which writing begins and the transitions between letters and other units. We studied the influence of phonological and semantic processes on peripheral writing activity.

Lines of research:

  • Central and peripheral processes in word writing. 
  • Writing words in a second language. 
  • Learning new words in a second language. 
  • Influence of L1 to L2 transfer processes

Techniques/Methods: 

  • Tablet writing start time, transition time. 
  • Reaction times in visual word recognition tasks. 
  • Potential Event-Related (EEG). 
  • Source analysis. Eye movements.

Relevant publications: 

  • Rabovscky, M. Conrad, M. Álvarez CJ Pasche-Goldt & Sommer, W. (2019) Attentional motivation of orthographic neighborhood effects during reading; Evidence from event related brain potentials in a psychological refractory period paradigm. Plos One, 14 (1).
  • Afonso, O. & Álvarez, CJ (2019). Constituent frequency effects in the written production of Spanish compound words. Memory & Cognition, 47, 1284-1296.
  • Beatriz Bermúdez; Beltran David; Yury Shtyrov; Alberto Dominguez; Fernando Cuetos. (2020). Neurophysiological correlates of top-down phonological and semantic influence during orthographic processing of novel visual word forms. Brain Sciences, 10, 717. doi: 10.3390/brainsci10100717.
  • Bermúdez-Margaretto; Yuri Shtyrov; David Beltran; Fernando Cuetos; Alberto Dominguez. 2020. Rapid Acquisition of Novel Written Word-Forms: ERP Evidence. Behavioral and Brain Functions. Behavioral and Brain Functions, 16, 11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12993-020-00173-7
  • Fu Y, Wang H, Guo H, Bermúdez-Margaretto B, Domínguez A. (2020) What, Where, When and How of Visual Word Recognition: A Bibliometrics Review. Language and Speech. November 2020. doi:10.1177/0023830920974710    

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Motivation and the Brain

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Coordinator: Hipólito Marrero Hernández (Professor of  Basic Psychology). SR: Elena Gámez Armas (Professor of Basic Psychology) and Jose Miguel Díaz Gómez (Professor of Psychology). Pedro Avero (Professor of Clinical Psychology). Alberto Ardèvol-Abreu (Viera y Clavijo Researcher).

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Team members:

Dr. Hipólito Marrero Hernández

Dr. Elena Gámez Armas

Dr. José Miguel Díaz Gómez

Dr. Mabel Urrutia Martínez (University of Concepción, Chile)

Dr. Sara Nila Yagual Rivera

Interests

Our research lies at the intersection of several subfields within psychology, neuroscience, and economics, including affective science, cognitive neuroscience, and behavioral economics. One of our current goals is to delve deeper into the role of language in communicating preferences and aversions, thereby facilitating social navigation and adaptive behavior.  We study behaviors in the laboratory that we believe are directly related to real-world behaviors, and to do this we use a combination of behavioral and neuroscience techniques.

Ongoing lines of research: 

  • Approach and avoidance in language.
  • The brain's encoding of social approach and avoidance.
  • Motivated reasoning.
  • Goals and motivations in university students 

Techniques/Methods: 

  • ERP (Event-related potentials)
  • tDCS (Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation)
  • Behavioral measures of response latency

Relevant publications: 

Marrero, H., Yagual, SN, García-Marco, E., Gámez, E., Beltrán, D., Díaz, JM, & Urrutia, M. (2020). Enhancing memory for relationship actions by transcranial direct current stimulation of the superior temporal sulcus. Brain Sciences, 10, 497-513.   https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10080497

Marrero, H., Yagual, SN, Gámez, E., Urrutia, M., Díaz, JM, & Beltrán, D. (2020). Negation interacts with motivational direction in understanding action sentences. PlosOne, 15(6)

Marrero, H., Gámez, E., Urrutia, M., Beltrán, D., Díaz, JM, & Yagual, SN (2019). Brain Encoding of social approach: is it associated with spatial ability? Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 13:179 https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00179

Marrero, H., Gámez, E., and Díaz, JM (2016). Do people reason when they accept complicated offers? A case of approach and avoidance motivated reasoning. Journal of Economic Psychology, 57, 26-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2016.08.006

Gámez, E., Marrero, H., Díaz, JM, Urrutia, M (2015). What do students expect to find in psychology studies? Goals and personal motivations of students in their first year at university. Annals of Psychology, 31, 589-599. https://doi.org/10.6018/analesps.31.2.171851

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The neural basis of the locus of control of health

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Coordinator: Carlos de las Cuevas Castresana (Professor of Psychiatry).

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Team members:

Dr. José de León (Professor of Psychiatry, University of Kentucky (UK)

Dr.Mariela Lara-Cabrera (University of Technology and Science, Norway)

Dr.Ingunn P.Mundal (Postdoctoral research Molde University College, Norway)

Trino Baptista (Professor of Psychiatry, University of the Andes, Venezuela)

Mariano Motuca, (Psychiatrist at Center for Studies, Assistance and Research in Neurosciences, Vilapriño Institute, Mendoza, Argentina.

Dr. Alejandro G Villasante Tezanos, (University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Texas, USA)

Research interests

In this current era of mindless psychiatry dominated not only by biological reductionism but by the marketing of biological simplifications, we have felt the need to criticize psychiatrists for forgetting the importance of bedside manners. Therefore, our research, using Health Belief Model dimensions, is important and new in psychiatry, but the ideas are not new. Traditional psychopharmacology textbooks insisted on involving patients in treatment planning. We insist on the importance of psychological approaches in pharmacological research and highlight that: (1) psychiatry needs to be open to the best scientific advances in clinical psychology and (2) studies on attitudes toward medications may need to be expanded to other medical disciplines to be able to consider attitudinal effects on chronic treatment like antihypertensives, antiepileptic drugs and statins.

Current Research lines

·      The relationship of psychological reactance, health locus of control and sense of self-efficacy with adherence to treatment in psychiatric patients.

·      The necessity-concern framework in the assessment of treatment adherence of psychiatric patients

·      To what extent is treatment adherence of psychiatric patients influenced by their participation in shared decision-making? 

·      The Biological Processes of the Health Locus of Control

Technologies/Methods

·      Self-report methods

·      Magnetic Resonance Imaging

·      Eye Movements

 Highlighted publications

– De las Cuevas C, Peñate W, Cabrera C. Perceived Health Control: A Promising Step Forward in Our Understanding of Treatment Adherence in Psychiatric Care. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 2016, 77(10):e1233-e1239.

– De las Cuevas C, de Leon J. Reviving Research on Medication Attitudes for Improving Pharmacotherapy: Focusing on Adherence. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 2017, 86(2): 73-9.

– De las Cuevas C, Peñate W, García de Cecilia JM, de Leon J. Predictive validity of the Sidorkiewicz instrument in Spanish: Assessing individual drug adherence in psychiatric patients. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology 2018, 18: 133-142.

– De las Cuevas C, Motuca M, Baptista T, Villasante‐Tezanos AG, de Leon J. Ethnopsychopharmacology study of patients' beliefs regarding concerns about and necessity of taking psychiatric medications. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental 2019, 34(2): e2688.

– De las Cuevas C, de Leon J. Self-Report for Measuring and Predicting Medication Adherence: Experts' Experience in Predicting Adherence in Stable Psychiatric Outpatients and in Pharmacokinetics. Patient Preference and Adherence 2020, 14:1823-1842.

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Emotions and facial expressions

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Coordinator: Manuel Gutiérrez Calvo (Professor of Basic Psychology); Andrés Fernández Martín (Professor of Social Psychology).

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