ABOUT US
We have planned the emerging field divided into three subgroups, although we often cooperate with each other. We often use neuropsychology tools during developmental research. When studying culture and cultural differences (especially in relation to the collective Chinese culture), we do not forget about developmental changes. When refining tools and neuropsychological training, we take into account individual differences.
1. Social Cognition and Culture Group
The research of the Group: Social Cognition and Culture will focus on mindreading, folk psychology, socialization of emotion, and cross-culture variation with developmental and neural aspects. As part of our activities, we also intend to establish a Centre for Research on Social Interaction and Mindreading: INTER-MIND. In our activities within EF, we will undertake the following research topics: a) Social research on mindreading and reading competencies. We aim to investigate reading comprehension and mindreading, covering the whole lifespan and cognitive factors behind it (with Education Univ. of Hong Kong). The purpose is to examine the roles of some of the major factors (e.g., simple view of reading) accounting for reading comprehension change across the lifespan. b) Mindreading and folk views of the soul and mind in various cultures. We will continue our research on folk attributions and understanding of fundamental mental concepts, especially soul and mind. After the publication of data from Poland and China in the Journal of Culture and Cognition (2021), we will elaborate on data collected in Ukraine, Germany, and South America. We cooperate with: City Univ. of New York; USA; prof. A. Lambert; Alvernia Univ.; USA; prof. B. Seok. c) Mindreading: Applied Research; we start with an idea of what kind of international status we take against humanoid robots and how mindreading processes work in relation to artificial intelligence. Our research will be coupled with the process of mind perception (Gray et al., 2007). We will try to show that our psychological stance on robots also mediates soul perception. The first paper was submitted to Minds and Machines Journal; we cooperate with Texas A&M Univ. prof. J. L. Bermúdez.d) Mental rotation and mindreading. We will conduct research using an eye-tracking system, and we will focus on a functional and neuronal relationship between mental rotation and social perspective-taking. We cooperate with Education Univ. of Hong Kong Prof. H. Cheung. e) Socialization of emotion and social cognition. Adopting the interactivist model of the mind, we plan to develop an account of the role of the child's emotional processes in acquiring socio-cognitive competencies. Next to building a theoretical model, we plan to develop the empirical study design. We plan to conduct a qualitative study with audiovisual recordings of natural interactions between children aged 2-5 and their caregivers in kindergartens and family homes. We cooperate with F. Pons; Oslo Univ. Prof. J.W.P. Allen, Bilkent Univ. Turkey; prof. M. Bickhard, Lehigh Univ.
2. Development (Deve) group
Most studies on the development of social cognition, meaning the cognitive processes that underpin interactions with others, including attention, perception, memory, attribution, or heuristics and biases, focused mainly on the development theory of mind (ToM). ToM refers to our cognitive capacity to attribute mental states to make sense of an agent's behavior. Taking into account how ToM as socio-cognitive ability develops in childhood, we create a new line of research. We plan to investigate children’s knowledge sensitivity, defining this ability as metacognitive competence or reflection on testimony and information gained via observation. One of the biggest questions of the 21st century, in “the age of misinformation”, is how to maintain toddlers’ interest in others and so-called natural curiosity about the world, preschoolers’ propensity to ask questions and school-aged children's epistemic vigilance. Two main lines of research are to be developed.
First, research on parents’ beliefs about children about their development is proposed. We assume that these beliefs impact children’s socio-cognitive abilities. We prepare a new tool – parent report - to measure parents’ beliefs about their children’s social understanding abilities. Moreover, we aim to reveal what strategies children use to comfort the other person when they are expected to tell a polite lie or to falsely praise this person. The social-cognitive correlates of children's first interventional lies will also be of interest here.
In the second line, we plan to study children’s knowledge sensitivity and its correlates. We review the literature on critical stance and critical thinking in childhood to provide clear and coherent argumentation for why the research on the development of children’s knowledge sensitivity is currently so important.
We cooperate with two significant centers in the field of development research: Oslo University (Dr. Paula Rubio-Fernandez) and Brock University (Dr. Sandra Bosacki).
The rationale for the study on knowledge sensitivity is to be described to prepare the scientific project for the National Science Centre in Poland (MAESTRO). Based on the results of our previous research on the stability and continuity in the theory of mind development in childhood, we focus here on how parents’ beliefs about their children and scientific knowledge relate to their attitudes to knowledge, especially its basic form – knowledge sensitivity.
The research conducted by our team will allow for the preparation of two doctoral dissertations and one habilitation thesis.
3. Wellbeing & Support Group
As a part of the activities of the Wellbeing & Support team, the Psyche&Soma Research and Clinical Centre will be set up to explore psychological and physiological correlates of psychosomatic diseases (physical symptoms without medical explanation), which constitute a serious medical, social, and economic problem worldwide. In the first years, we will attempt to develop the diagnostic and treatment methods for chronic pain with no identified reason, sleep disorders, tinnitus, or misophonia. The studies in this area are in line with current global research trends. We will attempt to identify common features of psychophysical signals (e.g. EEG, EMG, ECG, etc.) for the aforementioned conditions that are abnormal and possible to be affected by biofeedback or electrical stimulation. Our original biofeedback protocols will also be developed and tested. We are an interdisciplinary team consisting of clinical psychologists, cognitive scientists, physicians, and neurophysiologists with long research and clinical practice. In a newly planned laboratory (EEG & Neurotherapy lab), the scientific projects in the frames of international and Polish grants, post-doctoral fellowships, doctoral and master theses, student internships, etc., will be completed. In the next few years, we intend to apply for funding for our studies. We intend to establish cooperation with both scientific teams and clinical centers in Poland and abroad, e.g., with the University of Zurich in Switzerland (Martin Meyer) or the Department of Otolaryngology and Laryngological Oncology of the University Hospital No. 1 in Bydgoszcz (Kazimierczak). We will attempt to publish our outcomes in the top scientific journals and present them at international conferences, including those organized by the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine https://www.eapm.eu.com/. In the next three years, the Centre plans to organize its own scientific conference, where experts in the field of psychosomatics will be invited to share their results and give lectures and educational workshops for the patients.
The emerging field will create a place for even better cognitive-psychological collaboration and advancement. In the search for complementary IT competencies, we cooperate with the applied computer science team (with the group from Riken in Japan).
Thanks to the opportunity to participate in research projects and grants, our students can quickly develop their scientific careers. Access to modern research tools allows us to conduct objective and reliable measurements of psycho-physiological variables, settling current issues related to experimental- and neuropsychology, and thus publications in major journals.