Dr Bert Timmermans

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

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 Read more »
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 updates
	Empirical 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 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]