Official internship Promoter

Practical mentor (if not promoter)

Research Unit / Department

Contact Information (e-mail address)

Internship Topic (outline the aim in 2 or 3 sentences)

Minimum hours needed to complete internship topic (e.g. one week is about 40 hours)

Student is welcome starting from (dd/mm/yyyy)

Student is welcome until (dd/mm/yyyy)

Is extra information from the student required?

Are there any special skills that the student will learn? (eeg, fMRI, modelling,...)

Université de Liège (ULiège)

Psychology & Neuroscience of Cognition

Internship in Cognitive Neuroscience

Investigation of the neural mechanisms of verbal working memory using functional neuroimaging (fMRI)

basic knowledge in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, including theory and methods

development, implementation and analysis of fMRI study designs; Matlab programming; univariate and multivariate fMRI data analysis (SPM, Pronto); fMRI data collection

Department of Experimental Psychology

robert.hartsuiker@ugent.be

I offer various topics in the field of psycholinguistics. Topics include bilingual language processing and the interface between language and memory in bilingualism (with applied relevance for the use of English as a medium of instruction in higher education). Other topics concern speech errors and self-monitoring of speech, disfluencies in speech, social aspects of language use, and effects of ageing on language production.

It's helpful if you know how to program experiments (e.g., in Psychopy) and have basic knowledge of R and LMEs.

Cognitive & Affective Psychophysiology Lab

cognition-emotion interactions

psychophysiology, visual attention, performance monitoring, emotion, cognition

psychophysiology, EEG, psychophysics

Marie-Anne Vanderhasselt

Ghent Experimental Psychiatry Lab

MarieAnne.Vanderhasselt@UGent.be

Stress and emotion regulation, neuromodulation, psychophysiology (heart rate, skin conductance), EEG, eye tracking, healthy individuals and psychiatric patients

The student will be involved in data-collection (using various biological methods), and will learn how to analyse these data using state of the art packages. In addition, the student will learn how to report the results in a scientific paper.

Department of Experimental Psychology

marc.brysbaert@ugent.be

Research about individual differences in language processing (vocabulary size, reading rate, ...) and about word variables affecting performance (word frequency, AoA, ...). Done in several languages (see http://crr.ugent.be/programs-data).

Can learn eye tracking, statistical analyses

muhammet.sahan@ugent.be

Seeing through the mind's eye

"The eyes are the mirror to the soul" is an ancient proverb that has been used over centuries. With this internship, we will try to get a sneek into one's mental world. Our aim is to study whether we can use the eye-movements to track someone's mental world? Our mental world consists of mental images. But how do we store and retrieve information that is has no reference to the physical space? One hypothesis – the mental whiteboard hypothesis- states that serially presented information is spatially represented in an internal coordinate system (Abrahamse, van Dijck, Majerus & Fias, 2014). In other words, the stream of input is anchored to a spatial layout. The aim of this project is to gain direct access to this internal coordinate system -as to whether this is spatial or not- by studying saccadic eye movements. We are using state-of-art eye-tracking to answer the question whether eye movements shift along with where your mind is. Are the eye really the mirror of the soul, or better, the memory.

state-of-the-art eye-tracking methodology + pattern classification skills

Prod. dr. Olivier MAIRESSE

Bérénice Delwiche / Clara Colomb

Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)

Work. Play. Sleep. Repeat.

Perform experimental, clinical and operational sleep research: the intern will provide assistance in conducting and eventually co-supervise sleep deprivation experiments, clinical trials and field sleep monitoring

Dependent on which type of experiment 300-900 hrs

To be determined with student

Mastering French or Dutch (depending on research topics; for clinical topics the studies will be performed at the Brugmann Sleep Lab where most patients are french-speaking); being highly motivated and passionate about sleep research; having high stress and frustration-toleration; being prepared to perform evening and night shifts; being scientifically thorough (logging of data, maintenance of costly materials); interest in data-analysis, programmation and possessing good computer skills is a plus!

Mostly polysomnography (sleep EEG), behavioral reaction time tasks, questionnaires and electrophysiological data-analysis (PSG protocoling, spectral analyses)

Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)

Work and Organizational Psychology research unit

Research internship on individual psychological contract networks

During this internship, you will assist with research on individual psychological contract networks. These networks map the psychological contract (i.e., the mutual obligations between an employee and an employer) from an employee's perspective.

Depends on sending institution

Language: Dutch and English; Research skills: basic understanding of working in R and of experience sampling methods

Psychological networks analysis

Someone from my team - to be discussed

Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)

Brain Body and Cognition / Faculty of Psychology

Frank.VanOverwalle@vub.ac.be

The role of sequencing and the posterior cerebellum in social cognition

Depending on the topic chose, working with cerebellar or autism patients or use fMRI

Department of Experimental Psychology

giulia.cristoforetti@ugent.be

What do working memory and episodic memory have in common?

Do working memory (WM) and episodic memory have something in common? Coding of serial order is a fundamental feature of both WM and episodic memory. Both types of memory require accurate maintenance of the order of events. Research has mostly treated them separately. However, understanding the overlap between working memory and episodic memory is an important question. A series of studies have shown that information presented serially in a WM sequence is spatially coded; elements from the beginning of a sequence are associated with the left side of space and end items with the right side of space (van Dijck et al., 2013). Episodic memory has the ability to maintain the relative serial order of past events, and it is currently believed that the temporal organization of our episodic memory draws upon the same mechanisms as those involved in spatial navigation. The aim of the current study is to investigate the existence of a shared serial order mechanism for WM and episodic memory demonstrating that serial order in episodic memory is also spontaneously coded within a spatial bias. An experimental paradigm similar to the one designated for establishing the spatial coding of serial order in WM will be adopted.

The student will be involved in designing an experiment, in the data collection and data analysis.

Can we detect extinction in healthy participants?

Stroke patients are often diagnosed with neglect after right brain damage. These patients tend to neglect the left (contralesional) hemispace. Some patients only omit contralesional items when an ipsilesional item is concurrently presented, this is what we call extinction. In this project we wish to investigate if we can observe extinction in healthy participants under certain conditions. There are studies that show that neglect and extinction can deteriorate under high cognitive load. Another study in healthy participants has been able to show neglect like symptoms in healthy when increasing cognitive load. Now we want to test if this is similar for extinction. This could give us information if the underlying mechanism is similar for neglect as for extinction.

The student will be involved in designing an experiment, in the data collection (possibly online) and data analysis.

Dept of Experimental Psychology

Learning declarative memory

This topic investigates how computational learning algorithms apply to declarative memory.

The study is behavioral, but the student will learn about the computational models that inspire the experimental design.

Dept of Experimental Psychology

The research group investigates via computational modeling and EEG how neural oscillations are used by the brain to implement cognition. The student will carry out a project in this framework. Focus will be on modeling or on EEG, depending on student's interest.

EEG and/or modeling, depending on the emphasis of the project that is determined mutually between student and promotors.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

kobe.desender@gmail.com

Metacognition and cognitive control

Self-evaluation of performance allows humans to alter their behavior in an adaptive fashion. However, the precise computational and neural mechanisms underlying this link remain elusive. By combining behavioral experiments, computational modeling and neural recordings we aim to shed light on this issue.

Basic skills in experimental programming and statistics are required, as well as an interest to invest in these techniques.

Depending on the interest of the student, computational modeling and EEG analyses.

Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

LCLD (see http://fchetail.ulb.ac.be)

Eye movements database

The aim of the internship is to participate to an international study aiming at collecting and comparing eye movement patterns when reading texts in L1 and L2, in line with individual characteristics (e.g., vocabulary size, spelling abilities, and so on).

The candidate needs to be familiar with psycholinguistics and reading processes; Minimal proficiency in French is required for testing; Knowledge in eye tracking would be appreciated but not mandatory

Eye tracking recording and analyses; Data processing with R

In case testing is not possible in September/October because of Covid-19, the internship will be postponed.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Campus Kortrijk, KULAK)

bert.reynvoet@kuleuven.be

Number and/or Magnitude

The internship topic will be in the domain of numerical cognition in general. Specific topic is to be decided based on the student's interest and ongoing research lines, ranging from fundamental topics (number as a primary feature? where does the meaning from numerical symbols come from?) to more applied topics (educational games to foster math learning), using a variety of methods (RT, EEG,psychophysical).

EEG (depending on the student's own interest and duration of the internship)

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Department of Brain & Cognition

hans.opdebeeck@kuleuven.be

Human brain imaging to understand the neural basis of visual cognition and learning

We plan to apply functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) in combination with so-called "representational similarity analyses" to investigate the rich neural representations that underlie object recognition and learning in experts.

Having followed a course specifically dedicated to brain imaging. Experience with script writing ().

Hands-on experience with brain imaging & programming/scripting; the full research cycle from hypothesis generation to reporting the results.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Centre for the Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology

sara.scheveneels@kuleuven.be

Learning processes in the onset and treatment of anxiety

In this internship, the student will have the opportunity to design and conduct studies related to learning and anxiety. We are fully equipped to conduct fear conditioning studies in the lab, including psychophysiological measures. Another line of research in our lab focuses on virtual reality exposure therapy for fear and anxiety. Third, we are also planning survey research on the attitudes of clinicians and patients about exposure therapy. Depending on the interests of the student and in agreement with the promotors, the intern can be involved in one or more of these research lines.

Psychophysiological measures of fear (skin-conductance, fear-potentiated startle)

Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

Parental Burnout Research Lab

moira.mikolajczak@uclouvain.be

We have several ongoing projects concerning the antecedents and consequences of parental burnout

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Quantitative Psychology and Individual Differences

egon.dejonckheere@kuleuven.be

Adding context to emotion dynamics

Using the experience sampling method, we asked depressed and borderline patients to assess their momentary emotional states multiple time a day. From these time series analyses, multiple emotion dynamical parameters can be derived that are thought to be informative for their psychological well-being. This was recently challenged, however, in Dejonckheere, Mestdagh et al., 2019 (Complex affect dynamics add limited information to the prediction of psychological well-being). A possible explanation for these null-findings is that researchers often overlook the role of context. In this research project, we will investigate whether important context variables moderate the relation between emotion dynamics and psychological well-being.

time series analyses, multilevel analyses, writing a scientific article

We aim to create a friendly and enthusiastic learning environment

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

eva.vandenbussche@kuleuven.be

Cognitive and motor control

During this internship you will conduct an experimental study examining the interplay between cognitive and motor control in healthy young adults. You will be able to collect and analyze behavioral data, present them for the research group and write a paper on the results. Additionally, you can acquire programming skills (for example to design a follow-up experiment yourself).

A minimum of 3 months is needed to complete this internship. Longer internships are also possible.

Data collection and analysis of behavioral data, programming of experiments (PsychoPy)

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

eva.vandenbussche@kuleuven.be

In our research group, we study cognitive control both from a fundamental and a more clinical/developmental angle. We are looking for several interns to work on topics related to cognitive control. Methodologically, interns have the possibility to conduct behavioral experiments, EEG or psychophysiological studies (can be discussed).More info: http://copsresearchgroup.be/

Depends on the selected topic (EEG, behavioral experimentation, programming, psychophysiology)

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Methoden, Individuele en Culturele Verschillen, Affect en Sociaal Gedrag

gert.storms@kuleuven.be

I'm interested in topics regarding (violations of) scientific integrity and questionable research practices (QRP). As we have seen in the past decade, science in general, and psychology in particular, is plagued with published research that cannot be replicated. Empirical research on research would be the topic of the internship.

CV, motivation letter, just an e-mail explaining why one is interested should be enough

Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

Psychological Sciences Research Institute

alexandre.heeren@uclouvain.be

Temporal Network Dynamics of the Cognition X Emotion Interactions in Stress and Anxiety

Investigating the interplay between distinct cognitive (e.g., attention, executive control) and emotional (e.g., avoidance, rumination) processes of stress and anxiety disorders with network analyses. This will include collecting experience sampling measurements (i.e., daily or multiple times a day) and then analyzing it using temporal network analyses (multilevel vector autoregressive models).

At least a 3-month period

Speaking English or French. No knowledge of network analyses/etc. is needed, and all analyses will be done in R (so the candidate should be motivated in learning R during the internship)

R, Graph theory, graphical Vector AutoRegressive modeling, network analysis, temporal network analysis, dynamical system approach

Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

Psychological Science Research Institute

marie.blanchard@uclouvain.be

Investigating parental burnout with network analyses

This internship will include collecting experience sampling measurements (i.e. daily or multiple times a day) from parents about their parenting experience and children's behavior, and then analyzing that data using temporal networks analyses (multilevel vector autoregressive models). No knowledge of network analyses/etc is needed, and all analyses will be done in R.

daniele.marinazzo@ugent.be

Modelling brain effective connectivity

The intern will be introduced to Dynamic Causal Model, a framework aimed to infer the most likely modulation of connections between brain area underlying the data. The lab is involved in applications of the existing DCM framework, as well as in the implementation and validation of improvements and additions to it. The internship can involve several neuroimaging modalities (EEG, fMRI, MEG, fNIRS)

Modelling, Bayesian inference

daniele.marinazzo@ugent.be

Information theory approaches to study brain activity

Information Theory is a powerful framework to handle data of various origin (neuroimaging as well as behavioral). The lab is involved in investigating and validating approaches to detect higher order associations between parts of a complex system (redundant and synergistic information). The intern could both work on applications of an established framework to new data, or to the development of a new theoretical framework

Nothing specific. Coding expertise and some knowledge of statistics and probability theory will make the learning curve less steep, but not required.

Modelling, advanced data analysis and statistics

daniele.marinazzo@ugent.be

The importance of waveform shape and spectral slope in neural oscillations and synchronization

Neural oscillations are crucial to encode information in the brain and to integrate information across brain areas. Historically these oscillations have been characterized in terms of their frequency (theta, alpha, beta, gamma, etc). Albeit powerful and most of the times convenient, the usual characterization omits looking into the shape of the waveform, which is never a pure sinusoid. Additionally the aperiodic part of the spectrum (1/f component) has also important consequences on the detected spectral properties. In this project we will look at the shape of neural oscillations and at the aperiodic part of the spectrum across different paradigms, and try to associate it to psychological constructs.

Nothing specific. Some coding experience will make the progress faster, but it's not a requirement

Modelling, advanced data analysis

Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

Pain Research Lab, Institute of Neuroscience

valery.legrain@uclouvain.be

Exploring the mechanisms of nociception and the perception of pain in humans, using psychology methods (e.g. psychophysics) and/or neurophysiology (EEG, TMS, Eye-tracking). Studying the role of cognitive functions in the detection of noxious stimuli and the modulation of pain (spatial perception, body representation, multisensory interaction with vision, selective attention, executive functions and working memory) in healthy volunteers, chronic pain patients or people with sensory deprivation.

Basic knowledges in experimental methodology, cognitive neuroscience theories and statistics. Programming skills are not mandatory but constitute an added value. Language : French or English.

Depending on the topic, development of skills in experimental procedures, psychophysics methods (threshold measurement, temporal order judgment), neuroscience techniques (EEG, TMS, Eye-tracking), techniques to activate cutaneous receptors (thermal, mechanical, electrical, chemical), programming, and scientific communication.

The Pain Research Lab is on the Brussels campus of UCLouvain. Internship can lead to PhD opportunities. Further details : nocions.org and facebook.com/nocions.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

eva.vandenbussche@kuleuven.be

The effect of aging on different aspects of cognitive control

During this internship you will conduct an experimental study examining the effect of aging on cognitive control. In this behavioral study, several computer tasks target different components of cognitive control. You will be able to collect and analyze behavioral data, present them for the research group and write a paper on the results. Additionally, you can acquire programming skills (for example to design a follow-up experiment yourself).

A minimum of 3 months is needed to complete this internship. Longer internships are also possible.

An interest in cognition, aging and experimental research is needed. Preferable Dutch speaking, for certain research lines in this project.

Data collection and analysis of behavioral data, programming of experiments (PsychoPy)

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Behavioral Engineering Group

siegfried.dewitte@kuleuven.be

Pro-Environmental Behavior I

The aim of the internship is to examine interventions for promoting pro-environmental behavior in field and/or lab studies. Interns will join research projects in the context of running research programs in the BEE group (e.g., on reducing meat consumption, stimulating second-hand and circular economy, or stimulating CO2 neutral areas).

31/08/2021 (please contact us if you prefer a later date)

design of field studies, observational methods, insights in the field of environmental psychology

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Behavioral Engineering Group

florian.lange@kuleuven.be

Pro-Environmental Behavior II

The aim of the internship is to examine interventions for promoting pro-environmental behavior in field and/or lab studies. Students can join ongoing projects (e.g., on the effect of social rewards) or contribute their own ideas on possible intervention techniques and target behaviors.

31/08/2021 (please contact us if you prefer a later date)

design of field studies, observational methods, insights in the field of environmental psychology

frederick.verbruggen@ugent.be

Control of impulsive action

In our lab, we use carefully designed behavioural paradigms, cognitive neuroscience techniques (TMS & EEG, pharmacological manipulations), physiological measures (e.g. facial EMG), and mathematical modelling of decision-making to specify the origin and control of impulsive actions in both humans and avian species.

Depends on the selected topic (e.g. TMS, EEG, or animal research skills,...)

Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

aline.cordonnier@uclouvain.be

Intergenerational memory transmission

During this intership, you will join a interdisciplinary team that examines the intergenerational memory transmission in families linked to WWII collaboration or with colonisation of the Congo.You will help conducting research and experiments on this topic.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Centre for the Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology

marta.walentynowicz@kuleuven.be

Interoception and emotion regulation in daily life

During this internship, you will conduct a study that focuses on the association between interoception (ability to notice sensations from within the body) and emotion regulation. This study will consist of both lab-based session and experience sampling method.

Psychophysiological measures (heartrate variability, respiration)

This project is sponsored by UC Louvain, but will take place at KU Leuven. In case testing is not possible in September/October because of COVID-19, the internship will be postponed.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Centre for the Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology

marta.walentynowicz@kuleuven.be

Repetitive negative thinking and symptom memory

During this internship, you will conduct an experiment that examines the role of repetitive negative thinking in memory for physical complaints. In our well-equipped labs, you will be able to learn how to experimentally induce unpleasant bodily sensations in a controlled setting as well as how to measure psychophysiological responses (heart rate variability, skin conductance, respiration)

Induction of unpleasant bodily sensations in a controlled setting, measurement of psychophysiological responses (heart rate variability, skin conductance, respiration)

Testing is done together with 2 other master students. In case testing is not possible in September/October because of COVID-19, the internship will be postponed.

Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

Psychological Sciences Research Institute - IlLuminetti Lab

olivier.desmedt@uclouvain.be

Interoception measurement and interoceptive false alarms

Two options: (1) working on the measurement of the self-perceived ability to perceive internal bodily states, (2) investigating the role of interoceptive false alarms (reporting non-existent internal sensations) in psychopathology (e.g., health anxiety).

Factor analysis; Psychometry; Interoception tasks.

Someone from my team - to be discussed

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Center for Social and Cultural Psychology

colette.vanlaar@kuleuven.be

Women cannot lead, men cannot care– non-sense or not?

Despite strong reductions in gender inequality women remain underrepresented in several work and study areas (such as math and engineering) and in higher positions in organizations; in addition, they take up a larger share of household chores and childcare. Men are underrepresented in communal roles and careers, such as nursing and childcare. They also take up a smaller part of the family tasks and are seen as less capable to perform these tasks. This research internship is part of a large Odysseus project (FWO) on men and women in fields in which they have traditionally been underrepresented and in which negative stereotypes about their gender prevail. We investigate how they actively regulate their affect, cognition, and behavior and how this influences their well-being, motivation, and performance and the choices they make regarding their work, study, and work-life balance. We study:
• Young adults making decisions regarding their education: What influences boys to choose communal subjects and what influences girls to choose math or technical subjects?
• Women at the police or military forces: How do they deal with negative stereotypes and prejudice? What influences whether they climb the organizational ladder and aim for leadership positions?
• Women engaging in queen bee behavior: what are some effects of queen bee leaders on other women within the same organization?
• Working parents: How do they find a balance between their work and family and how does their environment make this easier or more difficult?
• Men and their interests in nontraditional domains: what processes and factors influence their decision making to engage in communal roles?

Depends on the topic (e.g. experience sampling, experiments, longitudinal data collection, analysis of large scale cross-national data)

CV, motivation letter, support letter

Depends on the topic (e.g. experience sampling, experiments, longitudinal data collection, analysis of large scale cross-national data)

Someone from my team - to be discussed

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Center for Social and Cultural Psychology

colette.vanlaar@kuleuven.be

Gender (in)equality across the world: International research project on stereotypes spanning more than 60 countries.

Research on gender stereotypes commonly focuses on the underrepresentation of women in traditionally male fields. The underrepresentation of men in traditionally female fields in Health care, Elementary Education and the Domestic sphere (HEED) have not received the same attention. The UCOM (Understanding Communal Interest in Men) research project studies male stereotypes and men’s roles cross-nationally and whether these roles can be predicted from socio-cultural and psychological factors (such as national data like gender equality and economic indices, cultural values, and national policies). Data collection was just finalized in over 60 countries with more than 17,000 participants (see ucom2017.wordpress.com). Good statistical knowledge is necessary, interest in multilevel analyses & R is an asset. The internship article could be written with the eye on a scientific publication, and a successful internship could involve an application for an FWO Doctoral scholarship.

Good statistical knowledge is necessary, interest in multilevel analyses & R is an asset. Dutch or English.

CV, motivation letter, support letter

R, Modelling, advanced data analysis and statistics

Someone from my team - to be discussed

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Center for Social and Cultural Psychology

colette.vanlaar@kuleuven.be

Identity negotiation in migrants of negatively stereotyped groups who are upwardly mobile in work settings

This project explores the identity dilemmas that women with a migration background face when pursuing upward professional mobility in work settings. Earlier research has shown that these individuals, as members of negatively stereotyped groups, are placed in the complex situation of choosing whether to be loyal and maintain strong ties with one’s devalued identities, or whether to distance the self from these identities in an attempt to fit in with the groups in one’s new environment. This project addresses this phenomenon by means of a mixed methods approach.

CV, motivation letter, support letter

Design of study, data collection and analysis of experience sampling data

Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Neuropsychology and Functional Neuroimaging Research Group [UR2NF ]

Research internship on the impact of sleep on declarative memory consolidation processus across development

It has been hypothesized that slow wave sleep (SWS) benefits the consolidation of hippocampus-dependent declarative memories (i.e.,memory for facts and events). In this project we test the hypothesis that SWS impacts memory consolidation processes by increasing brain connectivity between the hippocampi and the prefrontal cortex. This research will provide a better understanding of the functional role of sleep-dependent increases of activity in the prefrontal, to create long-term storage of newly learned information.

Student will learn MEG and sMRI

Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Unité de recherche en neuropsychologie et neuroimagerie fonctionelle

oumaima.benkirane@ulb.be

Effet de la perturbation des mécanismes normaux du sommeil réparateur sur la fatigue mentale

Nous nous intéressons à l’effet de la qualité et de la continuité du sommeil de patients présentant des apnées du sommeil et de sujets sains dont nous fragmentons le sommeil via un paradigme contrôlé. L'objectif est de comparer les performances de ces deux populations, avant et après normalisation de leur sommeil, à travers une une tâche induisant de la fatigue mentale. Les modifications corticales associées sont étudiées à travers la combinaison de plusieurs techniques d’imagerie cérébrale.

Imagerie (EEG, NIRS, polysomnnographie), clinique (batterie d'évaluation neuropsychologique), connaissances théoriques relatives au sommeil et à la fatigue mentale, méthode scientifique et esprit de recherche utiles pour l’expérience universitaire.

Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Unité de recherche en neuropsychologie et neuroimagerie fonctionelle

philippe.peigneux@ulb.be; petersimor@gmail.com

The microstructure of REM sleep: oscillatory activity in phasic and tonic REM sleep

Our aim is to examine cortical oscillatory and network activity in REM sleep, focusing on the differences across phasic (REM sleep with eye movements) and tonic (REM sleep without eye movements) REM microstates. We will use MEG (magnetoencephalography) to record early morning sleep in 25 healthy, young (20-35 years) adults. Participants will spend an undisturbed night of sleep in the laboratory assessed by standard polysomnography before the morning MEG recordings. Early morning MEG recordings and compatible EEG, EOG and ECG acquisition will be performed in the laboratory due to the large amount of REM periods in these hours (between 6.00-8.00 AM).

Ability to tolerate shift-work (nocturnal aquisitions), motivation, commitment to study MEG and EEG data acquisition, basic skills in programming/data analyses

CV, motivation letter, support letter

MEG, EEG, and data analyses in MATLAB

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

eva.vandenbussche@kuleuven.be

The developmental aspects of cognitive control

During this internship you will be involved in a study on the development of cognitive control in children. Topics of interest are inhibition, updating, shifting, pro- versus reactive control, and the role of expertise. You can be involved in the behavioral data collection from children and/or young adults. Additionally, you can analyze these data, present them for the research group and write a paper on the results.

A minimum of 3 months is needed to complete this internship. Longer internships are also possible.

An interest in cognition and experimental research is needed. Since this project involves data collection from children, speaking Dutch is a preferred skill.

Data collection and analysis of behavioral data

Batja Mesquita, Alba Jasini

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Center for Social and Cultural Psychology

Emotional Acculturation: Emotions as gateway to minority inclusion

The intern will work in the new ERC-project on Emotional Acculturation. In this project, we are interested in (a) emotional acculturation (the ways emotions change when people come into contact with a new culture), and (b) the role emotions play in minority inclusion. The intern will be involved in the first wave of a comprehensive longitudinal study among “newcomers”, i.e., immigrants who have just recently migrated to Belgium. The intern may also work on existing data sets, among which longitudinal data on minority students in representative sample of Belgian high schools.

An interest in emotions’ theory and affinity with culture and acculturation.
Fluent in English.
Good data-analytical skills and knowledge of Dutch, (Moroccan) Arabic, Tarafiyt, Tashelhiyt, or Turkish are assets.

CV, motivation letter, support letter

Depending on the precise subproject in which the student will take part, they gain insight into the field of emotion and acculturation research, the design of field studies, and multi-level longitudinal analyses. The student will take part in lab discussions, and learns to present, write, and think critically about research. The intern may earn authorship on publications.

Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Unité de recherche en neuropsychologie et neuroimagerie fonctionelle

Sleep-dependent brain structural reorganization and consolidation of motor learning

We are interested in understanding the structural and functional brain changes underlying motor memory consolidation that happen over the subsequent sleep and wake episodes.To do so, we will use EEG and MRI recordings at several timepoints.

EEG, MRI and behavioural data acquisition & behavioural analysis

Data acquisition will be conducted in LIEGE ((ULiège – Sart Tilman campus)

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Klinische Psychologie & Contextuele Psychiatrie

glenn.kiekens@kuleuven.be

Predicting acute risk of non-suicidal self-injury in daily life

In this internship, the student will have the opportunity to work on a project that (a) aims to improve the detection of acute risk of non-suicidal self-injurious behaviors (e.g., cutting or hitting) in daily life, and (b) evaluates the effectiveness of a mobile-based monitoring tool that provides person-tailored feedback to patients and clinicians in treatment. To do this, we will make use of the latest advances in mobile health technology and experience sampling methodology. The exact topic of the internship will be determined depending upon the interest of the selected student.

- Solid background in statistics and research methods (e.g., analyses will involve constructing within-person prediction models)
- Interest in clinically-oriented research
- Good command of English

Experience sampling methodology, individual risk prediction modeling, understanding of non-suicidal self-injury, scientific writing

I have an active mentoring style and challenge students in a constructive way to present the best possible outcome and to reach out of their comfort zones to do so. This may best support students who want to explore pursuing a future research career (e.g., Ph.D. in the field of clinical psychology or psychiatry).

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Meaning&Existence/ Psychology

jessie.dezutter@kuleuven.be

At the edge of Existence: Existential suffering and geriatric depression

The student will in a longitudinal three-wave study in nursing homes. The study aims to clarify how a sense of meaninglessness and existential loneliness are overlapping or distinct from geriatric depressive symptomatology.
The student will be involved in literature study, preregistration of his/her part of the study on the Open Science Framework, building the questionnaire in Qualtrics, data collection (face-to-face assessments for Dutch speaking students, online survey for non-Dutch speaking students), data analyses, lab-meetings, and brainstorm sessions with the team.

Interest in gerontology and existential psychology, team player, able to work with SPPS or Mplus or R, openness to work with frail older adults

interdisciplinary team work, mixed method designs, clinical assessment skills (for Dutch-speaking students)

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Meaning&Existence/Psychology

jessie.dezutter@kuleuven.be

Case-control phenomenological study of existential suffering and geriatric depression

The student will be part of an interdisciplinary group working in the field of existential psychology and will work on a phenomenological study as part of a larger project that aims to clarify how a sense of meaninglessness and existential loneliness are overlapping or distinct from geriatric depressive symptomatology in nursing home residents. In this study, we perform in-depth interviews with nursing home residents in order to obtain narratives of existential distress as described by residents themselves.

Qualitative data analyses, interdisciplinary team research

Internship position is open for students who have a sincere interest in existential psychology and in working with frail older adults.

Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Speech perception and processing in children

Design and run experiments aimed to better understand why children still struggle with perceiving speech in noisy backgrounds until about 13 years.

An interest in the development of the auditory system is required. The internship can take place in French or English

R, eeg, statistics, psychophysics

Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

martin.edwards@uclouvain.be

Neuropsychology serious games for patient diagnosis and treatment

The project involves the development and testing of serious games. We have three parallel interests: 1) the evaluation of user experience; 2) the validity of patient diagnosis and treatment, and; 3) using the data to better understand a patient profile

Knowledge of neuropsychology is an advantage. Fluency in French is needed if testing patients.

The project involves a collaboration between clinical and technology sectors. The student will learn about interdisciplinary research projects.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

miguel.santo@kuleuven.be

BEHAVIORAL AND EEG EXPERIMENTS ON HOW GLOBAL AND LOCAL VISUAL FEATURES SUPPORT AND INFLUENCE OBJECT CATEGORIZATION.

We plan to use behavioral and brain imaging experiment (EEG) to study how different visual features (global or local) support different aspects of categorization.

Must be comfortable with speaking in English; have followed a course where they learned some theory and practicalities of EEG and behavioural experimental design.

The student will have the chance to collect data and learn relevant software for analysis and programming of behavioral or EEG data. Programming is not a requirement but students who are keen to improve their programming skills will get the chance to do so with ample support.

Because of the changes related to COVID-19 this project also has components that are currently being prepared for online research. So it also offers a decent 'plan B'.

Motivated behavior: exloring diverse influences of motivation on human task performance

We combine behavioral experiments with psychophysiological measures (fMRI, EEG, pupillometry) to understand how motivation (e.g., via external reward or internal drive) modulates performance in diverse cognitive tasks, and why people differ in allocating mental resources in these different contexts. There is freedom in shaping the internhip topic.

potentially some acquaintance with pupil and/or fMRI data

We welcome own ideas and input from the student(s)

ProGreen: Assessing inter-individual differences in pro-environmental behavior in the lab

It becomes more and more clear that the climate crisis cannot be ignored, and cognitive scientists started to raise awareness and highlight our responsibilities as researchers in this regard (Aron 2019, Trends in Cognitive Sciences). With the present study, we want to build on our expertise in the domain of human motivation to better understand pro-envionmental behavior with the ultimate goal to promote this kind of behavior. In a first step, we will combine an experimental manipulation of pro-environmental behavior (lab study) with an inter-individual difference approach (questionnaires) to find predictors of high versus low pro-environmental engagement

potentially some acquaintance with pupil and/or fMRI data

We welcome own ideas and input from the student(s)

Department of Experimental Psychology

guy.vingerhoets@ugent.be

We investigate the relation between behavioral, brain functional, and brain structural asymmetry. Our methodology is based on magnetic resonance imaging and the selection of particular groups. Exact topic to be discussed with student.

Basic skills in experimental design/ programming and statistics, English reading and writing skills

We have a lot of data available, so the internship is covid-compatible

Are you just happy or are you also trying harder? Disentangling effects of reward and effort on pupil size

Reward cues predicting that successful performance in a task will be rewarded are believed to have two simultaneous effects on the brain: purely affective and effortful response to gain rewards. Here, we will try to dissociate two effects by comparing matched tasks in which task performance is instrumental to obtaining a reward (hence emphasizing effort-related processes), and a context where this is not necessary (being limited to more purely affective responses). Differences are expected both in the amplitude and possibly the latency of the triggered pupil-size increase, which would be very relevant to a large body of work that usually likely measures a mixture of the two processes.

Experiment building/programming using Python-based software, data collection in pupillometry setting, analysis of pupil and behavioural data using Python

We work in a friendly and enthusiastic environment; ideas and inputs from students are welcome

How long will it last? Long-term effect after reward manipulations on intrinsic motivation and task value

Rewards have been shown to have not only promotive effects on cognitive performance, but also to undermine future performance when rewards are not present. These equivocal findings raise a question to what extent rewards will be beneficial and when it will become detrimental. Here, we will try to establish neurobiological markers and temporal dynamics of undermining effect through the modulations of pupil size and/or even-related potentials. Through these measures, task contexts under which the undermining effect arises are explored, which can make important contributions to the mechanistic understanding of post-reward effects.

Experiment building/programming using Python-based software, data collection in pupillometry and/or EEG settings, analysis of behavioural, pupil, and/or EEG data using Python and/or MATLAB

We work in a friendly and enthusiastic environment; ideas and inputs from students are welcome

Towards functional pupil size: Effect of pupil size on visual discrimination and detection

Ample research has shown that pupil size is a reliable physiological marker of cognitive and other mental states. However, there is still little known about the function of pupil size itself on visual processing. Here, we will try to manipulate pupil size through the pupil's ipRGC function and test performance in visual discrimination and detection tasks. Findings from this study can add to the understanding whether pupil size has a function in visual acuity and sensitivity, as previously found by few studies.

Experiment building/programming using Python-based software, data collection in pupillometry setting, analysis of pupil and behavioural data using Python

We work in a friendly and enthusiastic environment; ideas and inputs from students are welcome

Someone from the lab: https://users.ugent.be/~sbraem/people.html

Department of Experimental Psychology

Getting a grip on cognitive flexibility

Traditional cognitive psychology theories consider certain cognitive control functions, such as cognitive flexibility, as robust modules that overview more low-level processes, such as associative learning. In this project, we want to test whether these more high-level functions, such as the act of switching between two tasks, are also subject to typical associative or reinforcement learning principles. We have several ongoing subprojects working with rewards, contextual modulations, computational models, neuroimaging techniques, and/or autism traits (or populations).

Designing and analyzing cognitive psychology experiments, programming and data analysis, maybe computational modelling or pupillometry if that's of interest, potentially fMRI, EEG, or TMS if sufficiently motivated and currently fits with ongoing studies.

Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

Psychological Sciences Research Institute & Institute of Neuroscience

alexandre.heeren@uclouvain.be

Temporal affective and cognitive dynamics in anxiety disorders

For years, scholars have been obsessed by understanding the interplay between cognitive and affective processes in anxiety disorders. Yet, most of these research agendas were confined to static designs, and the dynamic nature of this interplay has been seldom investigated, ultimately blocking progress in the field of anxiety. During this internship, interns will be involved in research development, data collection, and analyses of research programs aiming at unlocking these barriers.

interest in clinical psychology, affective (neuro)science, and eager to learn basic aspects of time-series analyses.

Being passionated by research ;-)

Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

Research lab Health, Emotion, Cognition, and Memory

olivier.luminet@uclouvain.be

Alexithymia and the cognition-emotion interface

Alexithymia is a multifaceted construct that is characterized by difficulties identifying one’s feelings; difficulties describing one’s feelings to others; and an externally focused, utilitarian cognitive style.
The research training will provide the opportunity to design an experimental study examining how alexithymia scores and context modulation (including emotion induction) affects different processes (attention, appraisals, memory, language and behavior).

conducting all steps of an experimental study on the cognition/emotion interface

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

bert.reynvoet@kuleuven.be

Numerosity processing, that is processing how many objects are presented, is an important predictor for later math abilities. Number and continuous magnitudes (e.g. the total surface covered by the objects) are correlated and in order to be able to accurately process number (independent of continuosu magnnitudes), continuous have to be inhibited. We will explore the role of inhibition in this type of early numeracy development.

the exact content/methods of the internship will be discussed with the candidate. Preferencesof the candidate will be taken into account, together with the current avaialibities in the ongoing research

Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Research center for the promotion of health, prosocial behavior and wellbeing

Compensatory mechanisms and spillover effects between healthy lifestyles (and climate friendly behaviour)

Changes in multiple healthy lifestyles are often needed to impact morbidity and improve public health. However, when we improve one healthy lifestyle (e.g. exercising more), we sometimes compensate with another unhealthy lifestyle (e.g. eating chips), because we think we can reward ourselves, or because we believe the positive effects of one will cancel out the negative effects of the other. In this internship, you will learn to investigate such compensatory mechanisms, how to reduce these and how to increase spillover effects (how one healthy lifestyle leads to another healthy lifestyle). This can be investigated among healthy lifestyles such as healthy diet, exercise, not smoking, reducing alcohol intake, but also in relation to climate friendly behaviour. Methods used are personal project analyses, ecological momentary assessment (EMA/ESM), implicit assessments

personal project analysis, ecological momentary assessment, implicit measurements

Department of Experimental Psychology

How does being in prison impact the sense of agency and empathy for pain

The objective of this research is to investigate the potential influence of restrictions in the possibilities of choice of action arising from the coercive nature of prison on two specific cognitive processes related to decision-making: The sense of agency (SoA) and empathy for pain. To do so, we will take into account different social factors, such as the type of detention and the time spent in prison, and different groups of agents who evolve in this environment, like inmates or prison guards.

Please be aware that we work here with very specific populations and that you will have to demonstrate a good emotional balance regarding the (sometimes) very hard detention conditions of inmates and what they did to be in prison. Any past experience with EEG of interest in coding will be an asset.

Department of Experimental Psychology

The Disobedient brain: The social neuroscience of non-compliance to immoral orders

Regrettably, there is a lack of research investigating the neuro-cognitive processes that play a role in preventing individuals from complying with immoral orders. By using methods from an array of disciplines, I here offer to investigate for the first time this question in a highly ecological paradigm, in which participants will be given the order to inflict a painful shock on another individual in exchange for a monetary gain. Two main neuro-cognitive processes will be considered: the sense of agency that one experiences when performing a voluntary action and the empathic response towards others’ pain. The main hypothesis is that individuals who retain a high sense of agency and empathy for pain even under coercion are more likely to resist immoral orders despite potential social costs. This experiment will either involve EEG or MRI depending on the available budget when the experiments will take place.

Department of Experiment Psychology

How does working in the military influence brain-to-brain synchrony (hyperscanning)

Cooperation is essential in the military profession. To ensure efficient and safe performance on the ground soldiers are required to synchronize each other’s actions, often under the authority of a leader. A key question is to what extent military training shapes cooperation and leadership capacities. We will explore this aspect by comparing cooperative behavior in cadets from the Belgian Royal Military Academy versus civilian controls. In an innovative computer-based paradigm paired subjects engaged in a navigation game requiring them to complete circuits involving traps to be avoided and checkpoints which, depending on color, had to be met by both subjects simultaneously or in sequence. We will record their brain synchrony through EEG-based hyperscanning at the same time.

An important part of the experiment will be conducted at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels. Be aware that accessing this population requires to be available either very early in the morning (starting 7.30 AM) or in the evening ( 6PM to 8PM). An interest in coding and EEG is an asset.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

jan.vandenstock@kuleuven.be

Social cognition in neurodegeneration

The center for neuropsychiatry studies brain-behaviour associations in neuropsychiatric disorders. We use three methods: behavioural studies, neuroimaging and neuro-modulatory techniques. We focus on selected clinical populations including neurocognitive disorders. Within the area of cognitive and affective neuroscience, we aim 1. to gain insight in the neurocircuitries underlying social cognition, emotion processing, mood and behavioural control; 2. to identify imaging biomarkers in clinical populations; 3. to develop new tools including wearable technologies to study behavioural changes. At the intersection of neurodegenerative disorders and cognitive and affective neuroscience, we study social cognition and emotion processing in pre-manifest and manifest neurodegenerative disorders as well as markers of neurodegeneration in late-onset psychiatric disorders. The aim of the centre is to define imaging biomarkers of neuropsychiatric disorders, and to develop targeted interventions and to improve clinical practice (reducing relapse, preventing delirium) and patient’s subjective experience.

The project will focus on social cognition in frontotemporal dementia
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) results from progressive deterioration of the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. The clinical symptoms are caused by degeneration of the areas that are associated with emotion, language and decision making. There are no disease-modifying treatments available and there is also little scientific support for pharmacological management of behavioural symptoms. While non-pharmacological interventions have shown some effectiveness across dementia types, the specific profile of emotional and social symptoms characteristic for FTD requires a specialized approach for these patients. Yet, very few studies have investigated this. Many FTD patients have deficits in social cognition, i.e. how information about the self and others is processed. In this project, we will investigate the behavioral and neural characteristics of social cognition in FTD, and explore a novel non-pharmacological intervention, performed completely digitally and in the everyday environment of FTD patients and their caregivers that may have a beneficial impact on the symptoms of the patients and the burden of their caregivers. We will further relate the FTD-findings with artificial neural networks of social cognition. The methods will thus consist of clinical and psychophysical assessment in combination with wearables and functional brain imaging by means of fMRI in healthy controls and neurodegenerative patients. The specifics of the project can be discussed with the student, depending on the student’s interests.

The project is open to dutch and non-dutch speaking students. Only dutch-speaking students can interact with patients.

The skills that the student will learn will depend on how the details of his/her project will jointly be defined based on the interest of the student, e.g. behavior, neuroimaging, psychophysiology, computational modelling

marc.brysbaert@ugent.be

Development language tests

You will develop language tests as shown here (https://www.psychologicabelgica.com/articles/10.5334/pb.552/ or https://psyarxiv.com/a6x7k).

Analysis of tests (factor structure, reliability, validity)

daniele.marinazzo@ugent.be

Information theory approaches to study brain activity

Information Theory is a powerful framework to handle data of various origin (neuroimaging as well as behavioral). The lab is involved in investigating and validating approaches to detect higher order associations between parts of a complex system (redundant and synergistic information). The intern could both work on applications of an established framework to new data, or to the development of a new theoretical framework.

Nothing specific. Coding expertise and some knowledge of statistics and probability theory will make the learning curve less steep, but not required.

daniele.marinazzo@ugent.be

The importance of waveform shape and spectral slope in neural oscillations and synchronization

Neural oscillations are crucial to encode information in the brain and to integrate information across brain areas. Historically these oscillations have been characterized in terms of their frequency (theta, alpha, beta, gamma, etc). Albeit powerful and most of the times convenient, the usual characterization omits looking into the shape of the waveform, which is never a pure sinusoid. Additionally the aperiodic part of the spectrum (1/f component) has also important consequences on the detected spectral properties. In this project we will look at the shape of neural oscillations and at the aperiodic part of the spectrum across different paradigms, and try to associate it to psychological constructs.

Nothing specific. Some coding experience will make the progress faster, but it's not a requirement

Nothing specific. Some coding experience will make the progress faster, but it's not a requirement

daniele.marinazzo@ugent.be

Modelling/detecting interactions between heart and brain

Several directions are possible within the umbrella topic of studying (as in either detecting, or modelling) interactions between the brain and the central autonomic network. The interested students might work either with EEG or fMRI data with different paradigms.

fMRI or EEG (possibility of acquiring EEG data). Modelling.

daniele.marinazzo@ugent.be

Machine learning and networks for diagnosing speech errors in clinical populations with aphasia

Aphasia is a whole spectrum of language disorders that critically impair language understanding and production. Recently, multiplex lexical networks have been applied to the study of aphasia. These networks are made of multiple layers encompassing phonological and semantic associations between concepts. Multiplexity can thus provide an interactive representation of conceptual knowledge in the human mind, embracing both semantic and phonological forms of concepts.
This project aims to quantify how machine learning and multiplex lexical networks can assist us in achieving correct diagnoses of aphasia in clinical populations.
This project will explore a dataset of 150k+ utterances from the Philadelphia Naming Task, containing names of pictures shown to patients affected by a language disorder known as aphasia. Transforming utterances and target words into vectors of features from a semantic/phonological multiplex lexical network, you will implement and test basic machine learning classifiers to categorise what type of mistakes were done by people with different types of aphasia.
This analysis will have to identify: (i) which features are key to facilitate correct classifications across the different types considered here, (ii) whether the location of words over a multiplex, networked representation of semantic/phonological knowledge in the mind can facilitate word production or not in multiple types of aphasia.

daniele.marinazzo@ugent.be

The role of shared information in psychological networks

Behavioral data collected over multiple subjects can be elegantly and conveniently represented as networks, in which the nodes are the questionnaire items, and two nodes are linked if some statistical dependency exists between the responses given by all subjects to the two items. Apart from a nice representation, this view provides a way to address the specific psychological construct (what is the most "central" symptom, and so on).
There are several methodologies to assess these statistical dependencies. Very few of these though correctly addresses a fundamental issue: the joint information shared in groups of three of more items (synergistic/redundant contributions).
This project will then consist in reanalysing several behavioural datasets, building psychological networks taking into account these high-order dependencies, and compare the results with the original ones.

Software to perform this project already exists, so students with no particular affinity with coding are also encouraged to apply. Student more motivated towards coding on the other hand will have the possibility to implement new analysis methods.

modelling, coding, statistics

Université de Liège (ULiège)

GIGA Cyclotron Research Center

Christine.Bastin@uliege.be

Stage expérimental en neuropsychologie et neurosciences cognitives

Investigation of the origin of subjective memory experiences in normal aging

Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

Louvain Experimental Psychopathology - LEP

pierre.maurage@uclouvain.be

Investigating mechanisms related to the onset and maintenance of alcohol use disorder (AUD) and binge drinking

The 'alcohol team' is composed of researchers who take interest in different mechanisms related to alcohol use disorders and binge drinking. Mainly, we take interest in attentional bias, social-affective emotion processing, interpersonal skills and interoceptive processes. Depending on your interest, you may work on one or multiple topics related to our studies (e.g., testing patients during their hospital stay, developing study-design, performing statistical analyses, ...).

Depending on the field of your interest, you will get familiar with eye tracking methods, EEG, fMRI, ... .

Family Lab, Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology

emotional processes in intimate relationships

Setting up a (lab/ESM) study on dynamic emotional processes in couples. Depending on the time available, the student can do different things. If time is limited, the student can help setting up a dyadic interaction task, in which couples come to the lab, have different conversations, and answer questions on these conversations. If more time would be available, the student could set up an experience sampling study/own study.

the student will learn methodological skills important in the field of relationship research, and advanced statistical skills

Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Development of the neural correlates of speech perception in noise

The auditory pathway is fully mature weeks after birth. However, some complex auditory abilities remain problematic for children until 12 years of age, sometimes even later. The aim of this internship would be to shed light on the neural correlates of speech perception in noise in developing children

EEG, ERP, speech signal processing, statistical modelling

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Applied Psychology Thomas More University of Applied Sciences

eva.vanassche@thomasmore.be

Psychology meets technology: e-mental health as the new normal in mental health care

The expertise unit of Psychology, Technology and Society is a team of clinical and theoretical & experimental psychologists (PhD) with a passion for research on how technology can be used to advance the domain of mental health care. Some of our recent projects include the use of smartwatches for burn-out prevention in the field of wellbeing at work and in the treatment of depression in mental health care, the development of an Appstore for high-quality accessible apps that are useful for use in mental health care, and the use of virtual reality for rehabilitation, in paediatrics, or in the treatment of animal phobias. More information on these and other projects can be found on the expertise unit’s website www.e-mentalhealth.be and on www.epsychology.be.

The student will learn how different technological applications can be applied in mental health care.

gert storms and steven de peuter

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Research group on concepts and categories

gert. storms@kuleuven.be

word meaning / research integrity

The topic of word meaning is studied within the context of the Small World of Words project, see www.smallworldofwords.org. The topic on research integrity is in collaboration with Steven De Peuter and can deal with different aspects of breaches of research integrity.

It all depends on the ambition of the candidate.

Nothing beyond the usual statistical and research skills taught in psychology curricula.

Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Action Bias and Control Group

cognitive control and belief updating

The exact topic is defined together. As general framework we look at the interaction between cognitive control abilities (measured as the ability to resolve conflict tasks) and belief updating (to what extent do we change our opinion in the face of incongruent information)

Université de Mons (UMons)

Cognitive Psychology and Neuropsychology

Laurent.Lefebvre@umons.ac.be

contributing to our researches in cognitive neuropsychology and psychopathology. Our principal topics concern the links between emotion and cognition, language and semantic memory, notably in Alzheimer's disease

from one week to ten weeks

EEG or behavioural techniques

muhammet.sahan@ugent.be

Binding benefits in memory: does 1 plus 1 really equal to 2?

"What comes to your mind when you think of an apple? Its color, shape or its taste? Or all of them at once? With this internship, we are trying to answer the question whether the elementary units of our thought are mere features (e.g. colour) or compound objects of multiple features (e.g. colour + shape)? In other words we will address the question whether 1 plus 1 equals 1(because of object-based attention) or 2 (because of feature-based attention)?

Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

Health, Emotion, Cognition, and Memory Lab

marine.mas@uclouvain.be

Alexithymia and emotion regulation: the role of executive functions and salience processing

Our project aims at (1) understanding the interactions between emotional and cognitive information processing in alexithymia (2) testing innovative cognitive techniques to remediate deficits that are observed in alexithymia.

be involved in all steps of a research project (from litt search to writing a paper), improve data analysis skills, participate to lab activities (including regular meetings), interact with other researchers involved in various projects on cognition-emotion interactions

The student will benefit from an active mentoring from the team members. Students ideas are highly valued and welcomed .

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Methoden, Individuele & Culturele Verschillen, Affect & Sociaal Gedrag (MICAS)

gert.storms@kuleuven.be

Words in different languages: Word meaning as derived from a large-scale word association data base (www.smallworldofwords.org)

Word associations are a rich source of semantic information. The Small World of Words data set is a unique and huge data set that contains associations for 17 different languages. For 4 of these, networks are available for more than 10.000 words. Different sorts of semantic information can be distracted, simulating the human mental lexicon.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Laboratory for Experimental Social Psychology

vera.hoorens@kuleuven.be

Moral self-superiority beliefs

Most people believe that they are better than others, and they particularly do so in the domain of morality. Does moral self-superiority rest upon mechanisms that are different from those underlying self-superiority in other domains? And how does moral self-superiority affect people’s judgments of their own and other people’s morally ambiguous behavior, or the extent to which people reward other people’s morally good actions, or punish other people’s morally bad actions? We aim at answering these questions through experimental and correlational studies.

Some background in social psychology and awareness of the basic principles of experimental research. Some knowledge of Dutch is useful, but not required.

Application for ethical clearance, preregistration, experience with experimental research (operationalization, data collection, data analysis)

Although this offer is for the academic year 2023-2024, we can accommodate students seeking an internship position last-minute for 2022-2023.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Laboratory for Experimental Social Psychology

vera.hoorens@kuleuven.be

Can you be poor without being poorer than others, and vice versa? The use and intuitive truth of generics and comparative claims

People can describe inequalities in different manners. For instance, they may claim that poor people get few opportunities in life, that poor people get fewer opportunities than rich people, or that rich people get more opportunities than poor people. Although these claims are related, and although some of them are logically equivalent, people do not use them equally readily, nor do they find them equally true. An intern may contribute to our experimental research on the determinants of preferred wordings to describe inequalities and the intuitive truth of different types of claims.

Fluency in English and/or Dutch, some familiarity with the basic principles of experimental research.

Application procedures for ethical clearance, preregistration, experience with experimental research (operationalization, data collection, data analysis).

Although we propose this internship opportunity for the academic year 2023-2024, we can also accommodate students seeking an internship position last-minute for 2022-2023.

koen.aesaert@kuleuven.be

charlotte.struyve@kuleuven.be

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Education and Training - Center for Educational Effectiveness and Evaluation

charlotte.struyve@kuleuven.be

Large-scale comparative study ICILS: measuring students' information literacy and computational thinking

The student will participate in this study by contributing to the data analysis. Data analysis will contain, amongst others, IRT and multilevel analysis and will help us to provide an answer to the question: how do Flemish students perform and how do they perform in comparing to students in other participating countries?

The internship topic can be divided in several subtopics. Internships can last from 400 hours till 1200 hours

As all research instruments and all accompanying documents are in Dutch, the internship can only be chosen by Dutch-speaking students.

Advanced understanding of analysis methods and large-scale studies

Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Center for Social and Cultural Psychology

Intergroup Helping Behaviors in favor of refugees

Studying intergroup helping behaviors in favor of refugees, from the minority's point of view.

Research in Developmental Disorders Lab - Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology

Petra.Warreyn@ugent.be; Jorn.Othmer@ugent.be

Effects of preterm birth on child development and academic achievement in primary school.

Various measures thought to predict academic achievement in children born preterm are collected at age 5. This includes questionnaires for the parent, observations, behavioral standardized tests on cognition, language and early numeracy and literacy skills, and a statistical learning task (including EEG measurement). The student will have the opportunity to learn about very different ways of data collection, and if fluent in Dutch, will have the opportunity to be involved in the data collection directly. If the sending institution requires an original research to be presented as result of the internship, the student will be able to choose among an interesting set of variables to compare preterm and term born children at age 5.

at least 4 months (around 640 hours)

12/2023 though later can be discussed.

Preferably Dutch-speaking, with an interest in EEG, standardized behavioral tests and/or observational research. No specific research skills are required, but experience with EEG and/or WPPSI intelligence test is a plus. We do expect the student be motivated, take initiative and independently take care of assigned responsibilities during test preparations, test sessions and data processing.

CV, motivation letter, We will invite students for a video call to ask some follow up questions and allow the student to ask questions about the intership.

Depending on the students interest and progress we will focus on one or more of the following skills: -EEG data collection, -Administering standardized behavioral tests (WPPSI, CELF, TEDI-MATH,...), -Coding observational data, -Data processing and stat analysis

Any questions or request for a meeting in order to obtain more information by students or others are most welcome and can be directed at Jorn.othmer@UGent.be

Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication - research group MULTIPLES

niels.planckaert@ugent.be

Cognitive effects of second language acquisition through CLIL education

This internship will be part of a project looking into the relationship between the acquisition of a second language and cognitive development in children. As an intern, you will work closely with the PhD student in charge of the project. Your tasks will be varied. First, you will learn about the workings of a research institute. You will have the opportunity to attend meetings and you will also be able to expand your theoretical knowledge on a subject related to the project, for example by preparing an article. The internship includes a large amount of fieldwork. Together with the PhD student and/or another intern, you will visit various schools in Brussels and Wallonia to administer both language and cognitive tests to children aged between 4 and 9 (M2 to P4).

Open to all offers - contents can be modified accordingly

As the tests are administered to French-speaking children, a sound level of French is essential. At the university, English and Dutch are the working languages, so a good knowledge of one of these two languages is recommended. A keen interest in research and an affinity with children are equally essential.

The placement can be full-time or part-time. As far as possible, we try to be flexible in terms of working hours, but we ask the same flexibility from our interns. Please do not hesitate to contact us in case of any doubts.

Université de Mons (UMons)

michel.sfeir@umons.ac.be

This internship is funded by the FNRS under the EOS project where we aim to understand how families cope with difficult situations and how resilience is transferred from parents to children. We aim to understand how parents deal with stress and dive more into the concept of behavioral synchrony within the family system. More specifically, we will be recruiting 250 families (father, mother, child) in Wallonia where we will ask them to join us in the laboratory to assess heart measures, transpiration and collect salivary and genetics data as well as run psychometric tests.

A chance to learn how to work with electrodes to measure heartbeats, possibility to observe EEG and hyper-scanning data collection as well as statistical models such as multi-level analysis, hierarchal regressions or network analyses.