Principal Investigator

Prof. Dr. Sean Hughes

Research Interests

• ​Attitude Formation and Change
• Learning and Behavior Modification
• Open Science
• Chronic Pain
• Misconceptions and Misinformation
• Measurement and Validation

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Dr. Marine Rougier

Research Interests

My research interests are mainly about the measure of spontaneous preferences (such as approach and avoidance reactions) as well as on the modification of these preferences, that is, learning effects (e.g., approach/avoidance training, evaluative and attribute conditioning) and impression formation (e.g., spontaneous trait inferences). Relying on the feature transformation effect framework, my current research focuses more on how previous conceptual beliefs about features (and how they relate; e.g., trustworthiness and intelligence) can determine future learning effects.

Academic Bibliography

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Dr. Pieter Van Dessel

Research Interests

My research primarily concerns the manner in which spontaneous (implicit) preferences are learned and can be changed. I investigate effects of mere exposure, evaluative conditioning, and approach-avoidance training as well as effects of instructions and persuasive arguments. In each of these research lines, I focus on the role of propositional and inferential learning. 
My work also aims at elucidating the mental mechanisms that underlie (implicit) evaluation. I focus on the relation between evaluation and memory processes. Other empirical interests include implicit cognition, learning psychology, cognitive control, and psychopathology.

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Dr. Jamie Cummins

Research Interests

My research focuses on developing and using computerised training procedures, based on basic principles of learning, to train relational reasoning skills in children, typically-developed adults, and older adults with cognitive impairment and dementia. I examine whether training these skills can offer clinically-meaningful improvements in the cognitive performances of these groups (e.g., better performance at school for children, reduced cognitive decline in older adults). I am also interesting more generally in the psychology of learning, implicit measures, and the philosophy of science and language. I am a strong proponent of Open Science.

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Femke Cathelyn

Research Interest

Within psychological research and real world contexts, the most commonly used type of measure to examine and predict psychological attributes in individuals, are self-report measures (e.g. questionnaires). Yet, these types of measures have a few important limitations. Over the past twenty years, different kinds of  implicit measures have been developed to overcome these limitations. Even though these implicit measures are used in a wide variety of studies and have provided valuable contributions to theory-driven research, it seems that there are hardly any instances in which these measurement procedures have proven their utility outside the academic world. Nevertheless, there are different reasons to assume that certain real world contexts could benefit from the use of implicit measures. This is why I am examining the utility of implicit measures in a wide variety of real world settings, ranging from smartphone use to road safety behaviour. 

Other research interests include psychopathology and couple and family psychology. 

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Sarah Kasran

Research Interests

My research focuses on social learning, a broad term that refers to the many ways in which a person’s behavior can change as a result of observing other people when they interact with the environment.

Specifically, I study how and when observing the reactions of another person to a stimulus can influence your own response to that stimulus (e.g., whether you like or dislike it, fear it, or want to avoid it).

My doctoral project investigates the idea that this type of effect is mediated by propositional processes. Testing the predictions of this theoretical account can help us discover important moderators of the effects of observational learning (i.e., tell us under which conditions an observer’s behavior will or will not be influenced by the reactions of others). My other research interests include implicit cognition and the effects of persuasive arguments.

Academic Bibliography

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Matthias Raemaekers

Research Interests

My work at the LIPLab involves the study of learning from a functional psychological perspective. Currently, we are investigating complex learning effects (i.e., changes in behavior that are due to the joint effect of multiple regularities, or regularities in the presence of regularities, in the environment), including the functions that relations can have in relational learning effects and the moderators of these functions. I am also interested in the possible practical applications of this work on relational learning (e.g., relational training to increase scholastic aptitude or symbolic thinking in ASD), as well as implications for research in cognitive psychology. Furthermore, for my doctoral project, we aim to interface functional learning psychology with computational reinforcement learning models, to address the limitations of these models as well as suggest improvements, additions and predictions from a functional perspective.

Academic Bibliography

• ResearchGate
  

Interns

Leonard Severin Heusler

Research Interests

During my research internship my project will be placed within the context of the feature transformation effect framework. Specifically, I will deal with the question of whether spontaneous trait transference effects can be moderated by truth values and relational information and could therefore be understood as being mediated by propositions about stimulus relations instead of associations. Otherwise, my interests include complex learning and the relation between functional and cognitive psychology.

Academic Bibliography

• ResearchGate