Dr Aureliu Lavric

I am Associate Professor in Cognitive Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Exeter. I am part of the Cognition Research Group and Director of our MSc in Psychological Research Methods.

My research is at the intersection of cognitive control, attention and psycholinguistics. I am particularly interested in how the mind ensures that highly practiced behaviours commonly thought as ‘automatic’ (such as speaking and comprehending words, or listening to one of multiple simultaneous voices) are in line with one’s current goal. To understand this, I have been conducting experiments where participants frequently switch between simple cognitive asks, or between languages they must speak or comprehend, or between visual attributes of a stimulus, or between voices in multitalker settings. In such experiments the shifting between sets of mental processes and the need to integrate well-practiced responses with constantly changing demands, can provide insights into the hierarchical organisation of the mind. In my experiments, my students and I have been collecting and analysing multiple kinds of data based measurements of button/key presses, spoken responses, scalp electrophysiological (EEG) recordings and eye movements.

A more detailed summary of my research can be found here.

The publications that have resulted from this research are listed here (see also Google Scholar) and can be downloaded here and/or here (Research Gate).