Dr Bert Timmermans
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Dr Bert Timmermans
Senior Lecturer
- About
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Biography
- 2019– Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor), University of Aberdeen
- 2013–2019 Lecturer (Assistant professor), University of Aberdeen
- 2010–2012 Marie Curie / Volkswagen Foundation Fellow, Neuroimaging Group, UHCologne
- 2007–2009 Research Fellow, Consciousness, Cognition & Computation Group, ULBruxelles
- 2006 PhD in Psychology (Social Cognition), Vrije Universiteit Brussel
- 2000–2006 Research & Teaching Assistant, Social Psychology Lab, VUBrussel
- 1999 Master in Cognitive Science, Université Libre de Bruxelles
- 1998 MSc in Psychology (Clinical/Experimental), Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Qualifications
- Higher Education Academy Fellow2018 - University of Aberdeen
- PhD Psychology2006 - Vrije Universiteit Brussel
- MSc Cognitive Science1999 - Université Libre de Bruxelles
- MSc Psychology1998 - Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Memberships and Affiliations
- Internal Memberships
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- School Education Committee 2022–
- School representative to the Senate 2015–16 / 2022–26
University & College Union school representative 2022–- School of Psychology first aider (First Aid at Work SCQF Level 6) 2019–
- External Memberships
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- ASSC Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
- ESCoP European Society for Cognitive Psychology
- Research
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Research Overview
- Social cognition: social interaction, action contingencies & interaction dynamics, gaze & eye tracking, social reward, virtual avatars, social agency. Consciousness: perceptual awareness and metacognition, implicit learning, subliminal perception, agency.
Current Research
Topics & Projects
Here's some of what's currently going on or will be in the near future. Undergraduates, prospective PhD students or postdocs, please enquire — people with skills in Python, Vizard, MatLab, eye tracking, or Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis (CRQA) are especially welcome:
- Social cognition in interaction versus observation
- Social versus monetary reward in social cognition & motor learning
- Real-time gaze-based social interaction, analysis of interaction dynamics
- Ascriptions of self- and other-agency in social interaction
- Subjective measures of consciousness and metacognition
Past year's Social Cognition updates
Empirical paper — Zapata–Fonseca L, Dotov D, Fossion RYM, Froese T, Schilbach L, Vogeley K & Timmermans B (2018) Multi-scale coordination of distinctive movement patterns during embodied interaction between adults with high-functioning autism and neurotypicals. Frontiers in Psychology, 9:2760. — showing that persons with High Functioning Autism do display different interaction and movement dynamics despite ostensibly similar task outcomes, focusing more on overall exploration than social interaction [1/2019]
Empirical paper — Zapata–Fonseca L, Froese T, Schilbach L, Vogeley K & Timmermans B (2018) Sensitivity to social contingency in adults with high-functioning autism during computer-mediated embodied interaction. Behavioral Sciences 8:22. — showing that persons with High Functioning Autism are equally apt at reacting to and identifying interpersonal dynamics as healthy controls, in an embodied minimalist virtual environment [2/2018]
Past year's Consciousness updatesEmpirical paper — Siedlecka M, Skóra Z, Paulewicz B, FijaÅ‚kowska S, Timmermans B & WierzchoÅ„ M (2018) Responses improve the accuracy of confidence judgements in memory tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, in press — in which we show that when you first report on a memory task, this improves your metacognitive evaluation of whether you remember something or not. Draft available soon. [3/2018]
Most cited- Schilbach L* and Timmermans B*, Reddy V, Costall A, Bente G, Schlicht T, & Vogeley K (2013) Toward a second-person neuroscience. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36(4):393–462 (Target Article + Open Peer Commentary + Author's Response). — 682 citations 2013-17
- Sandberg K* and Timmermans B*, Overgaard M, & Cleeremans A (2010) Measuring consciousness: Is one measure better than the other? Consciousness and Cognition 19(4):1069-78. — 215 citations 2010-17
[* equal contributions]
Collaborations
- Social interaction: fMRI hyperscanning & social interaction dynamics with the Norihiro Sadato Lab: Hiroki Tanabe, Takahiko Koike, Japan National Institute of Physiological Sciences, Okazaki (Nagoya); Iva Barišic, ETH Zürich; Frouke Hermens, University of Lincoln; Leonhard Schilbach, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry Munich; Kai Vogeley, University Hospital of Cologne
- Consciousness: Axel Cleeremans, Université Libre de Bruxelles; Boryslaw Paulewicz, SWPS University Katowice; Michal Wierzchon, Jagiellonian University of Krakow
Funding and Grants
Principal Investigator
- 2019—2020 Carnegie Trust Research Incentive Grant (RIG008270) — "Experiencing myself through you: Self-agency in social interaction" £10,000
- 2015—2019 Marie Curie Career Integration Grant (EU FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG) — "DUALGAZE: Social cognition in gaze-based interaction" €100,000
- 2010—2013 Volkswagen Foundation grant — “Being addressed as you: Conceptual and empirical investigations of a Second-Person approach to other minds” — co-PI with L. Schilbach (University Hospital of Cologne), T. Schlicht (Ruhr-University of Bochum), N. Steinbeis (MPI Leipzig) €316,650
- 2009—2011 Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (EU FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008) — "SOCIAL BRAIN: How does our brain learn to be social?" €168,700
Other
- 2019—2023 Participant to, and UK Management Committee Substitute for COST Action (CA18106) “The neural architecture of consciousness” (PI Kristian Sandberg, Aarhus University)
- 2015—2018 Research partner to PI Michal Wierzchon, Jagiellonian University of Krakow, on a HARMONIA grant from the Polish National Science Centre — "Cognitive and neuronal mechanisms of metacognitive awareness"
- Teaching
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Courses
Teaching Responsibilities
Undergraduate
- Level 1-3 — Psychology Methodology curriculum coordinator
- Level 2 — PS2518 Advanced Psychology 2 - Methods & Applications (Anova)
- Level 3 — PS3015 Methodology A [course coordinator; GLM/SPSS]
- Level 3 — PS3522 Methodology B [course coordinator; GLM/SPSS; research project supervisor]
- Level 3 — PS3520 Social Psychology [Social Dynamics tutorials]
- Level 3-4 — SX3504 Consciousness [course coordinator; Behavioural Measures]
- Level 4 — PS4019 / PS4038 Psychology Thesis [supervision]
Postgraduate
- MRes — PS5302 / PS5801 Basic & Advanced Research Methods for Postgraduates [R: ANOVA/Factor Analysis/Logistic regression]
- MRes — PS5017 Research Project for Postgraduate Students in Psychology [supervision]
- MSc Psychological Studies — PS5903 Research Project [supervision]
- Publications
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Page 1 of 5 Results 1 to 10 of 44
Social Agency as a Continuum
Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, vol. 28, pp. 434-453Contributions to Journals: ArticlesAlexithymic and autistic traits: relevance for comorbid depression and social phobia in adults with and without autism spectrum disorder
Autism, vol. 24, no. 8, pp. 2046-2056Contributions to Journals: ArticlesResearch Plan - How gaze is deployed in visual target choice and how we identify if like-wise choices are human- or computer-generated when observing and interacting
EPS Online 2020Contributions to Conferences: Posters- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/GUQWJ
Motor response influences perceptual awareness judgements
Consciousness and Cognition, vol. 75, 102804Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2019.102804
- [OPEN ACCESS] http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/14957/1/SiedleckaHobotSkoraPaulewiczTimmermansWierzchon2019ConCogPREPRINTacceptedMS.pdf
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
- [ONLINE] https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1053810018305622
- [ONLINE] View publication in Mendeley
Multi-scale coordination of distinctive movement patterns during embodied interaction between adults with high-functioning autism and neurotypicals
Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 9, 2760Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02760/full#supplementary-material
- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02760
- [OPEN ACCESS] http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/11764/1/fpsyg_09_02760.pdf
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
- [ONLINE] View publication in Mendeley
Responses improve the accuracy of confidence judgements in memory tasks
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, vol. 45, no. 4, pp. 712-723Contributions to Journals: ArticlesSensitivity to social contingency in adults with high-functioning autism during computer-mediated embodied interaction
Behavioral Sciences, vol. 8, no. 2, 22Contributions to Journals: ArticlesInitiating Both Joint and Nonjoint Attention Improves Memory for Other Race Faces
Scottish Vision Group Meeting, 2017, pp. 5-6Contributions to Journals: Abstracts- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2041669517709809
- [OPEN ACCESS] http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/8834/1/2041669517709809.pdf
The influence of dyadic gaze dynamics on joint and individual decisions
Perception, vol. 44, no. Suppl 1, pp. 263-264Contributions to Journals: Abstracts- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0301006615598674
How can we measure awareness? An overview of current methods.
Behavioral Methods in Consciousness Research. Overgaard, M. (ed.). Oxford University Press, pp. 21-46, 26 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters