Psychology

Dr Julian Basanovic

Dr Julian Basanovic

Lecturer

 j.basanovic@exeter.ac.uk

 Washington Singer 119

 

Washington Singer Laboratories, University of Exeter, Perry Road, Prince of Wales Road, Exeter, EX4 4QG, UK

Overview

My research aims to enhance understanding of how patterns of cognitive information processing, such as biases in the processing of emotional information, characterise and contribute to variation in emotional vulnerability and behaviour. My research holds a general focus on anxiety vulnerability and fear, but extends to interests in depression, consumption, and other emotional vulnerabilities and behaviours.

My current projects seek to investigate . . .

  • Patterns of appraisal and avoidance behaviours, and their modification, in elevated fear.
  • Biases in the processing of emotional information and their relation to emotional vulnerability.
  • The association between cognitive control and emotional information processing biases.
  • The causes and consequents of expectancy formation in the experience of emotional events.
  • The development of novel methods for assessing, and modifying, biases in information processing that characterise anxiety and fear.

You can see my research publications here.

I serve on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Cognitive Therapy, and actively serve as peer-reviewer for a wide range of journals, including Clinical Psychological Science, Behaviour Research and Therapy, Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, BMC Psychiatry, and others.

Qualifications

Career

I completed my PhD as a member of the Elizabeth Rutherford Memorial Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion (CARE) at the University of Western Australia in 2016. My research investigated relationships between biased selective attention and attentional control in elevated anxiety vulnerability.

After completing my PhD, I worked at the Western Australia Centre for Health and Ageing as the coordinator of a set of cognitive intervention trials aimed at alleviating depression symptoms amongst people with dementia.

In 2018 I re-joined CARE as a Research Fellow, where my research widely investigated the role of information processing on emotion and behaviour. During this role I also lectured undergraduate courses and supervised research students.

In 2022, I commenced as Lecturer at the University of Exeter and hold an adjunct position at the University of Western Australia.

Research group links

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Research

Research interests

My research aims to enhance understanding of how patterns of cognitive information processing, such as biases in the processing of emotional information, characterise and contribute to variation in emotional vulnerability and behaviour. My research holds a general focus on anxiety vulnerability and fear, but extends to interests in depression, consumption, and other emotional vulnerabilities and behaviours.

You can see my research publications here.

Research projects

My current projects seek to investigate . . .

  • Patterns of appraisal and avoidance behaviours, and their modification, in elevated fear.
  • Biases in the processing of emotional information and their relation to emotional vulnerability.
  • The association between cognitive control and emotional information processing biases.
  • The consequents of pre-event cognitive processes upon the formation and experience of post-event negative thinking following emotional events.
  • The development of novel methods for assessing, and modifying, biases in information processing that characterise anxiety and fear.

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Publications

Journal articles

Basanovic J (2024). Attentional biases to signals of negative information: Reliable measurement across three anxiety domains. Behav Res Methods Abstract.  Author URL.
Ji JL, Basanovic J, MacLeod C (2024). Author Correction: Social activity promotes resilience against loneliness in depressed individuals: a study over 14 days of physical isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. Sci Rep, 14(1).  Author URL.
Basanovic J, Kowal L, Millward S, MacLeod C (2024). The legacy of social anxiety-linked negative expectancy: a pathway from pre-event negative expectancies to post-event negative thinking. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 83, 101937-101937.
Dondzilo L, Basanovic J, Grafton B, Bell J, Turnbull G, MacLeod C (2023). A serial mediation model of attentional engagement with thin bodies on body dissatisfaction: the role of appearance comparisons and rumination. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY, 42(3), 1896-1904.  Author URL.
Basanovic J, Todd J, van Bockstaele B, Notebaert L, Meeten F, Clarke PJF (2023). Assessing anxiety-linked impairment in attentional control without eye-tracking: the masked-target antisaccade task. Behav Res Methods, 55(1), 135-142. Abstract.  Author URL.
Dondzilo L, Basanovic J (2023). Body dissatisfaction and selective attention to thin-ideal bodies: the moderating role of attentional control. Body Image, 46, 443-448.
Basanovic J, Myles O, MacLeod C (2023). Do the eyes have it? a comparison of eye-movement and attentional-probe-based approaches to indexing attentional control within the antisaccade paradigm. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove), 76(2), 221-230. Abstract.  Author URL.
Pandzic I, Notebaert L, Basanovic J, MacLeod C (2023). Examining the role of trait anxiety and attentional bias to negative information in intrusion vulnerability following an emotionally negative event. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 81
Basanovic J, Dondzilo L, Rudaizky D, Van Bockstaele B (2023). Reliability and convergence of approach/avoidance bias assessment tasks in the food consumption domain. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove), 76(5), 968-978. Abstract.  Author URL.
Ji JL, Basanovic J, MacLeod C (2022). Social activity promotes resilience against loneliness in depressed individuals: a study over 14-days of physical isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. Sci Rep, 12(1). Abstract.  Author URL.
Basanovic J, Page J, MacLeod C (2022). The attenuation of spider avoidance action tendencies in spider-fearful individuals and its impact on explicit evaluation of spider stimuli. Behav Res Ther, 151 Abstract.  Author URL.
Dondzilo L, Basanovic J, Bell J, Mills C, Dinic R, Blechert J (2021). Assessment of approach-avoidance tendencies in body image using a novel touchscreen paradigm. J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry, 70 Abstract.  Author URL.
Mazidi M, Grafton B, Basanovic J, MacLeod C (2021). Attentional control moderates the relationship between social anxiety and selective attentional responding to negative social information: evidence from objective measures of attentional processes. Cogn Emot, 35(7), 1440-1446. Abstract.  Author URL.
Basanovic J, Kaiko I, MacLeod C (2021). Change in Attentional Control Predicts Change in Attentional Bias to Negative Information in Response to Elevated State Anxiety. COGNITIVE THERAPY AND RESEARCH, 45(1), 111-122.  Author URL.
Basanovic J, Notebaert L, Clarke PJF, MacLeod C (2021). Emotion-in-Motion: an ABM Approach that Modifies Attentional Disengagement from, Rather than Attentional Engagement with, Negative Information. COGNITIVE THERAPY AND RESEARCH, 45(1), 90-98.  Author URL.
Basanovic J, Grafton B, Ford A, Hirani V, Glance D, MacLeod C, Almeida OP (2020). Cognitive bias modification to prevent depression (COPE): results of a randomised controlled trial. Psychol Med, 50(15), 2514-2525. Abstract.  Author URL.
Qi S, Basanovic J, Wang L, Xiang S, Hu W, Yi X (2020). Regulation of negative emotions through positive reappraisal and distancing in high-trait-anxious women. J Affect Disord, 267, 191-202. Abstract.  Author URL.
Clarke PJF, Marinovic W, Todd J, Basanovic J, Chen NTM, Notebaert L (2020). What is attention bias variability? Examining the potential roles of attention control and response time variability in its relationship with anxiety. Behav Res Ther, 135 Abstract.  Author URL.
Basanovic J, Dean L, Riskind JH, MacLeod C (2019). High Spider-Fearful and Low Spider-Fearful Individuals Differentially Perceive the Speed of Approaching, but not Receding, Spider Stimuli. COGNITIVE THERAPY AND RESEARCH, 43(2), 514-521.  Author URL.
Basanovic J, Notebaert L, Clarke PJF, MacLeod C, Jawinski P, Chen NTM (2018). Inhibitory attentional control in anxiety: Manipulating cognitive load in an antisaccade task. PLoS One, 13(10). Abstract.  Author URL.
Chen NTM, Basanovic J, Notebaert L, MacLeod C, Clarke PJF (2017). Attentional bias mediates the effect of neurostimulation on emotional vulnerability. J Psychiatr Res, 93, 12-19. Abstract.  Author URL.
Basanovic J, Notebaert L, Grafton B, Hirsch CR, Clarke PJF (2017). Attentional control predicts change in bias in response to attentional bias modification. Behav Res Ther, 99, 47-56. Abstract.  Author URL.
Basanovic J, Dean L, Riskind JH, MacLeod C (2017). Direction of stimulus movement alters fear-linked individual differences in attentional vigilance to spider stimuli. Behav Res Ther, 99, 117-123. Abstract.  Author URL.
Basanovic J, MacLeod C (2017). Does anxiety-linked attentional bias to threatening information reflect bias in the setting of attentional goals, or bias in the execution of attentional goals?. Cogn Emot, 31(3), 538-551. Abstract.  Author URL.
Rudaizky D, Basanovic J, MacLeod C (2014). Biased attentional engagement with, and disengagement from, negative information: Independent cognitive pathways to anxiety vulnerability? (vol 28, pg 245, 2014). COGNITION & EMOTION, 28(2), 384-385.  Author URL.
Rudaizky D, Basanovic J, MacLeod C (2014). Biased attentional engagement with, and disengagement from, negative information: independent cognitive pathways to anxiety vulnerability?. Cogn Emot, 28(2), 245-259. Abstract.  Author URL.

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External Engagement and Impact

Editorial responsibilities

I serve on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Cognitive Therapy.

I actively serve as peer-reviewer for a wide range of journals, including Clinical Psychological Science, Behaviour Research and Therapy, Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, BMC Psychiatry, and others.


External positions

I hold an adjunct position at the University of Western Australia.

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