Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Cultural difference and social belonging: The formation of social ties and identities in intercultural interactions and networks" "Karen Phalet" "Social and Cultural Psychology" "Belonging denotes the social grounding of people’s sense of self in their relationships with others. This process connects critical individual outcomes - such as (poor) health, (under)achievement, civic (dis)engagement - to the social environment. As our social world is becoming increasingly culturally diverse, a lack of belonging of (some) cultural minorities causes public concern, and there is an urgent need to better understand the micro-foundations of belonging in high-diversity environments. Our theoretical aim is to rethink a well-established social identity approach of human sociality with a view to articulating belonging with cultural difference. Building on recent experimental and naturalistic evidence of social identity formation in interactive groups, we shift attention away from category-based identities (‘being Belgian defines who I am’) towards less researched tie-based identities (‘having a Belgian friend defines who I am’). Extending this line of inquiry, we will examine the formation of social ties and identities in intercultural interactions and networks. Planned studies supplement social network analysis of large-scale multi-level longitudinal ‘CILS’ data in low-/high-diversity interactive groups in 5 countries with new lab and field experiments creating identities and promoting belonging in intercultural interactions." "FWO travel grant for a long stay abroad at Polytechnique Montréal, Canada" "Stijn DANIELS" "Traffic Safety" "Since the start of my PhD, PM has been involved in my project: the research stay supervisor is a member of my doctoral committee. IMOB and PM are both part of the Horizon 2020 project InDeV, focusing on methods for evaluating vulnerable road users' safety. Besides the benefits for IMOB in general, the research stay provides the unique opportunity to explore future joint efforts between both institutions. Furthermore, a long research stay abroad is beneficial for the progress and quality of my research." "Learning and memory in psychopathology" "Tom Beckers" "Centre for Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology, Research Group Psychiatry" "Learning and memory play a central role in various forms of psychopathology. People with depressive complaints are characterized by overgeneral autobiographical memories, flashbacks are a core feature of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), avoidance learning is an important factor in the genesis and maintenance of clinical anxiety, and deficits in working memory and other executive functions are central in ADHD, to give but a few examples. Treatment aims to adjust memory representations, for instance through corrective learning experiences, and to target impairments in learning and memory more directly, e.g., through the training of working memory and related cognitive functions or through improving an individual’s reminiscence style. Those examples illustrate how psychological and neurobiological theories of learning and memory have always been an important source of inspiration for our understanding of psychological disorders, and how evolutions in basic knowledge regarding learning and memory have provided the impetus for the development and improvement of treatments and interventions. Yet the translation of the newest insights from experimental cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience regarding basic processes of learning and memory into novel and more effective treatments is often slow and cumbersome. This is due in part to the fact that research groups are typically specialized either in generating novel basic insights regarding psychological and neurobiological mechanisms of learning and memory or in developing novel interventions for psychological complaints (sometimes based on basic insights developed elsewhere). Few teams are experts in both aspects, which impairs the translation of novel insights from basic experimental science to the clinic and also has basic scientists sometimes overestimate the degree to which their findings are relevant or applicable to clinical practice, due to a lack of research on the predictive validity of laboratory models for psychological disorders. The aim of the current scientific research network is to intensify existing contacts between some of the most prominent research groups and departments on this domain and to forge a number of new connections. This involves on the one hand teams that already bridge the divide between basic psychological science and clinical psychopathology and on the other hand groups that either push the boundaries in basic research on learning and memory or set the agenda in the understanding and treatment of psychopathology. Common denominator of all partners involved is a clear interest in and commitment to the translation between basic science and clinical application." "Useful are the parent-completed ages and stages questionnaires for screening of motor problems in preschoolers with high-functioning autism?" "Marleen VANVUCHELEN" "Rehabilitation Research Center" "Background: Up to 79% of individuals with autism spectrum disorders, including those with intellectual disabilities, have concurrent motor problems. Mild motor problems are often seen in high-functioning children with autism spectrum disorders (HF-ASD). Unfortunately, motor skills of children with HF-ASD are habitually not a priority for early assessment and intervention teams who may focus primarily on social-communication and behavioural concerns. Developmental screening with a broadband screen that is appropriate for parents may help to identify those children who are in need of further profound motor evaluation. Objectives: To determine the usefulness of the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ-2) for screening gross and fine motor problems in preschoolers with HF-ASD in the clinical setting of an autism diagnostic center." "Dissociating the neurobiology of fear-reducing techniques." "Rudi D'Hooge" "Laboratory for Biological Psychology" "Anxiety disorders pose an important problem to health care and society. Experimental models propose different mechanisms to reduce fear. First, extinction learning results in the gradual decay of fearful responding due to repeated exposure to the feared stimulus. Unfortunately, extinction is not unlearning of fear but leaves the original fear memory intact. While extinction is a well-known and commonly applied technique, research is now starting to unravel an alternative method of fear reduction: reconsolidation disruption. Ground-breaking discoveries have been made in the last decade, first in animal and later in human neuroscience research, showing that upon fear re-exposure, memory can regain a sensitive, plastic state. Consequently, pharmacological manipulation of the re-stabilization process of the memory (reconsolidation) leads to long-term and more permanent fear amnesia. Thus, in contrast to extinction learning, reconsolidation allows us to directly target the fear memory. Critically, both extinction learning and reconsolidation are induced by re-exposure, but the mechanisms that dissociate the two fundamentally different processes are not yet identified. The central aim of this proposal is to reveal the neurobiological mechanisms that determine whether re-exposure engages extinction or reconsolidation mechanisms." "About the validity of road user behaviour and near accidents as predictors of the number and the nature of road accidents." "Tom BRIJS" "Traffic Safety" "Traditional analysis methods in the domain of traffic safety rely strongly on crashes as measurement units. However, important limitations are related with the use of crash data. The occurrence of crashes is a relatively rare event, which means that registered variations in crash numbers (over time, between locations...) are at least partly due to chance. Furthermore, crashes are not always correctly reported and - most importantly - too little is known about crash-preceding factors and mechanisms. The main objective of this research is to improve the understanding of crash occurrence by defining relations of these crashes with crash-preceding events and higher-order conditions that influence the occurrence of these preceding events. An improved knowledge hereof would contribute to the establishment of conceptual, law-like relationships between variables describing features of the traffic system (roadway, vehicles and human (inter)actions) and the level of traffic safety. My research will consist of four parts, each of them related to particular research questions on (1) the validation of traffic conflicts as safety indicators, (2) error recovery strategies, (3) validating relationships between nearcrash events and more common behaviour and (4) assessing the 'self-explaining' nature of road environments." "Waking up an Exhausted Brain: The Effects of Cognitive Fatigue on Fear Memory Generalization and Its Modulation by Glucose and Vagus Nerve Stimulation." "Ilse Van Diest" "Health Psychology, Centre for Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology" "Anxiety disorders are costly to both individuals and society and yet, despite their prevalence and impact, the causal mechanisms are poorly understood. Predisposing factors (e.g., genetics) certainly contribute, as do learning processes such as generalization (i.e., making the same response to similar stimuli). The latter is likely sensitive to situational factors such as mental fatigue that impair memory, as poorer memory for a stimulus is more likely to produce a generalized response. However, the degree to which mental fatigue affects fear generalization is unknown. My goal is to address this question and contribute to our understanding of anxiety. I will also seek to eliminate the effects of mental fatigue on fear generalization through the administration of glucose. Past research has observed that glucose, but not a placebo, can replenish mental fatigue. It may have such an effect because it provides energy to the brain. However, there is evidence that energy transfer is not necessary, and that the activation of the vagus nerve, which is involved in digestion, is sufficient. The proposed research will explore this possibility using a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator to replenish fatigue. The replenishing ability of vagal activation will be further investigated through a nutrient manipulation where fatty acid solutions that are equated in energy, similarly metabolized, but that differentially activate the vagus nerve are administered to depleted participants." "Three-level analysis of single-case experimental data: Characteristics and methodological issues." "Wim Van Den Noortgate" "Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Kulak Kortrijk Campus, Methodology of Educational Sciences" "During the last decade, the number of published single-case experimental design (SCED) studies is increasing at an astonishing rate in the area of educational research (Kratochwill et al., 2010). In an SCED, one case is observed repeatedly across time under different levels of at least 1 independent variable (Onghena & Edgington, 2005).The synthesis of SCED data is of critical importance as it yields significant contributions to research, practice, and policy (Maggin, O’Keeffe & Johnson, 2011). We aim to optimize and extend the multilevel modeling (MLM) framework to synthesize SCED data as little is known about its performance if specific synthesis characteristics and SCED data characteristics are included. A clear overview of these characteristics is missing in the literature and therefore a systematic review of published meta-analyses of SCED studies in the domain of education is needed. A large dataset will be created which will establish the empirical foundation for further studies by SCED researchers, meta-analysts and methodologists. Another important challenge, given the typically small sample sizes in SCED context, is the estimation of the MLM parameters. We present alternative estimation procedures to the traditional maximum likelihood estimation. Once we succeed in dealing with estimation issues, we further extend the MLM framework by including commonly encountered synthesis and SCED data characteristics. We evaluate how powerful the extended multilevel models are." "Experimental setup for research on binocular rivalry" "Mark Vergeer" "Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, Brain and Cognition" "All research in this proposal will be in the area of Experimental Psychology. .Vision science is filled with examples showing that under certain conditions the brain ‘chooses’ the visual input that reaches awareness while other parts of the visual scene do not lead to awareness; they are perceptually suppressed. Identifying the mechanisms that cause such perceptual suppression provides crucial information about the mechanisms behind conscious visual experience. During my Pegasus Marie Curie fellowship, I am investigating the mechanisms underlying perceptual suppression. The project mainly focuses on suppression that results from binocular rivalry, so-called binocular suppression. Binocular rivalry occurs when different, incompatible information is presented at the same location to the left and right eye. Because the brain is unable to integrate this incompatible information, competition occurs, resulting in suppression of one of the images. This project  ontains a series of studies that will dissociate the different views, which will lead to a comprehensive understanding of the role of different suggested mechanisms underlying perceptual suppression. In this application, we would like to apply for an experimental set-up that combines stereoscopic methods with eye tracking. The combination of these techniques is  crucial for dissociating adaptation-based processes from effects of interocular and interstimulus inhibition by allowing access to the subjects’ viewing direction at different time points." "Executives' social background, espoused and enacted organizational justice/fairness values, and long-run organizational outcomes." "Christophe Boone" Management "With this project, we aim to understand the impact of executives on organizational values and long-term organizational performance stability. The main goal of this project is to unravel how executives' social backgrounds affect organizational outcomes, such as long-term stability, through organizations' espoused and enacted values concerning justice/fairness."