Papers by Reyyan Bilge
Alexithymia is characterised by difficulties in identifying, recognising, and describing emotions... more Alexithymia is characterised by difficulties in identifying, recognising, and describing emotions. We studied alexithymia in the context of speech comprehension, specifically investigating the incongruent condition between prosody and the literal meaning of words in emotion-based discourse. In two experiments, participants were categorised as having high or low alexithymia scores based on the TAS-20 scale and listened to three-sentence narratives where the emotional prosody of a key phrase or a keyword was congruent or incongruent with its literal meaning. The incongruent condition resulted in slower reaction times and lower accuracy in recognition of emotions. This incongruence effect was also evident for individuals with high alexithymia, except for anger. They recognised anger as accurately in both congruent and incongruent conditions. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, individuals with high alexithymia did not show an overall difference in emotion recognition compared to the low alexithymia group. These findings highlight the nuanced relationship between emotional prosody and literal meaning, offering insights into how individuals with varying levels of alexithymia process emotional discourse. Understanding these dynamics has implications for both cognitive research and clinical practice, providing valuable perspectives on speech comprehension, especially in situations involving incongruence between prosody and word meaning.
Memory & Cognition, 2022
Although several studies have addressed the relationship between memories and future projections ... more Although several studies have addressed the relationship between memories and future projections regarding personal events, only a few studies exist on collective past and future events, almost all with North American samples. In two studies with Turkish samples, we investigated the relationship between sociopolitical identity and collective past and future representations. In Study 1, we compared the most important past and future collective events generated by voters of the ruling and the main opposition parties. Participants reported the two most important public events in the last 70 years and two in the next 70 years for Turkey, and rated events' valence, centrality, and transitional impact. Past events were dominated by national political events whereas future events' themes were more varied. Past events were also more negative than future events, with the negativity of future events decreasing as their temporal distance from the present increased. Opposition voters rated both the past and the future events more negatively than ruling party voters. In Study 2, we tested whether the negativity for future events may be due to perceived sociopolitical status of ruling party voters. Participants reported events from Turkey's future and provided ratings of status and privilege. We replicated the reduced negativity of distant compared to near future projections, but subjective sense of privilege was not related to events' valence. Overall, we demonstrated that in highly polarized societies, sociopolitical identity can impact the perceived valence of collective mental time travel outputs, diverging from findings of similar responses among Democrats and Republicans in the USA context.
Nesne, 2021
Death is a hard concept to understand and a delicate subject to talk about, especially with child... more Death is a hard concept to understand and a delicate subject to talk about, especially with children. The primary purpose of the current study was to investigate the development of the death concept in children between the ages of 3-10. We also aimed to examine the influence of parental communication in the concept's development. Fifty-four children (M = 6.44; 55.6% girls, 44.4 % boys) and their parents (N = 37; 6 fathers, 16.2%) were recruited. Children were interviewed one-on-one to evaluate their cognitive and emotional understanding of death. Moreover, their parents were administered a questionnaire to assess how they communicated the concept to their children. We found that older children (7-10 years) grasped some cognitive subcategories of death better than younger children (3-7 years). Our results also showed that both younger and older children had better cognitive and emotional comprehension of the concept if their parents have communicated it to them. These findings suggest that talking to children about death, in an age-appropriate way, helps them perceive the concept better. Age-appropriate communication, especially on an important topic such as death, can further be discussed in terms of social policy.
Türk Psikoloji Yazıları, 2020
Individual differences are observed in processing and usage of spatial information in all areas o... more Individual differences are observed in processing and usage of spatial information in all areas of our lives. This study focuses on the relationship between spatial thinking style and spatial ability by holding gender constant. Gender, frequently reported in the literature, was predicted not to be the only factor explaining individual differences but there are other factors such as spatial representation. The sample consisted of all women, 61 university students. Spatial thinking style was measured by self-report questionnaires and spatial ability by Mental Rotation (MR) test. To enable the use of different strategies, 3D stimuli were presented in whole and cut form, followed by the Spatial Representation Questionnaire and the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction Scale. Participants were categorized according to the way they represented space in their minds (survey or landmark). The main finding of the MR literature, Angular Disparity Effect, was replicated; as the angular disparity between the stimuli pair increased, response time slowed down and the accuracy ratio decreased. Furthermore, the stimulus shape and spatial representation were found to influence MR performance. As the angular disparity increased, so did the complexity of the task, and participants, who formed survey representations rotated the figures than the ones with landmark representations. Same pattern was observed with stimulus shape; as angular disparity increased, whole figures were rotated faster. Supporting the previous findings, current study suggests that differences in spatial cognition and spatial skills cannot solely be explained by gender but other factors such as spatial thinking style play an important part.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2020
In the present study, the persistence of personal false memories (FMs) after social feedback that... more In the present study, the persistence of personal false memories (FMs) after social feedback that denies their truth was assessed. Participants imitated actions performed by the experimenter (Session 1) and watched a doctored video with performed and critical "fake" actions (Session 2), followed by a memory rating and a recognition task. A few days later (Session 3), participants were clearly told that some memories were false and received daily reminders of the correct list of objects/actions before testing their memory again in Session 4. Results of both memory ratings and recognition indicated effective FM implantation. Interestingly, response times for correct rejections were longer for fake than true objects, suggesting participants struggled to ignore false suggestions. Crucial for our aim, Session 4 showed that FM persisted also after the debriefing and repeated presentations of correct list of objects/actions, suggesting that FMs for actions are rather difficult to discard. KEYWORDS action memory, false memories, persistence of false memories
Saat kaç? Anahtarlarını nereye bıraktın? Studio X'e nasıl gidersin? Bu ve benzeri sorulara cevap ... more Saat kaç? Anahtarlarını nereye bıraktın? Studio X'e nasıl gidersin? Bu ve benzeri sorulara cevap verirken önceden edindiğimiz bilgiyi işleyip zihnimize alır, algıladığımız kadarını belleğimizde tutup kullanıma hazır hale getiririz . Baştaki sorulara dönecek olursak; analog saatlerdeki akrep ve yelkovanının ne ifade ettiğini anladığımız dönem saat okuma yetisinin oluşmasına tekabül eder. Anahtarlarımızı bıraktığımız yeri düşünürken zaman içinde geri gider apartman kapısından içeri girişi ve ayakkabılığın üzerindeki kaseyi gözümüzde canlandırırız. Studio X'e çıkan yolları tarif ederken bu mekâna ilk nasıl gittiğimiz, hangi yolu takip edip nasıl öğrendiğimiz yani zihnimizde canlanan mekânsal bilgiyi ne şekilde oluşturduğumuz önem kazanır. İnsanın uzayda kapladığı mekânı anlaması, kendinin dışında bir dünyanın varlığını kavraması, çevresindeki canlıların ya da nesnelerin farkına vararak onların lokasyonlarını davranışlarında kullanabilmesi zihinsel gelişim süreçlerini takip eder. Sadece temel reflekslerle hareket eden yeni doğmuş bebeğin kısa sürede, motor fonksiyonlarını kullanıp yuvarlanan, emekleyen, yürüyen, koşan ve zıplayan bir çocuğa dönüşmesinin ötesinde, fiziksel gelişimle eş zamanlı olarak kendi vücudunu ve onun sınırlarını anlayan, diğer varlıkların nerede konumlandığını bilen, bu bilgiyi kullanan ve hatta üreten birey olmasında bilişsel gelişimle damıtılan mekânsal bilgi asıldır.
Memory & Cognition, 2017
The mental rotation literature commonly reports a sex difference, almost always favoring men. Two... more The mental rotation literature commonly reports a sex difference, almost always favoring men. Two strategies have been proposed in the literature to account for this difference: holistic and piecemeal. However, there is great variability in rotation performance suggesting other possible contributing factors. This study investigated the effects of stimuli characteristics and habitual spatial thinking on mental rotation performance. In three experiments, participants completed a mental rotation task with two modifications: (1) 3-D figures were presented with their cut versions to promote piecemeal strategy, and (2) block figures were either presented within a frame or none, in light of reference framework model or perceptual grouping model. Overall, whole figures generated faster responses than cut figures and this was more pronounced with greater angular disparity. Shape or the presence of a frame affected rotation performance. Having a frame seemed to impede overall rotation, especially for cut figures, supporting an object-based reference frame. However, a 3-D frame did not have the same effect, possibly suggesting the unitary configuration idea. Men rotated more accurately than women, but still sex was not as robust as it was suggested in the literature. Interestingly, there were similarities between possible strategy use and habitual spatial thinking. People who were categorized as having landmark-centered representations and who preferred verbal directions showed a pattern suggesting the use of a piecemeal strategy, and survey-centered representations and map preference seemed to reflect a holistic strategy.
Spatial Cognition & Computation, 2010
Creating effective computer-based learning exercises requires an understanding of optimal user in... more Creating effective computer-based learning exercises requires an understanding of optimal user interface designs for improving higher order cognitive skills. Using an online volcanic crisis simulation previously shown to improve decision making skill, we find that a user interface using a graphical presentation of the volcano monitoring data reduces the effectiveness of the exercise compared to an informationally equivalent text-based data presentation format. Results are con- sistent with earlier work demonstrating that the over-automation of quantitative analyses in computer-based learning reduces their effectiveness in improving higher order skills. Additional research is critically needed to clarify the conditions under which user interfaces can be optimized for ease of use while not sacrificing the exercises’ effectiveness in improving higher order cognitive skills.
Objectives: Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) may offer a diagnostic tool through the combination of im... more Objectives: Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) may offer a diagnostic tool through the combination of imaging and guided fine-needle aspiration of pancreatic cysts. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the most accurate test for differentiating mucinous from nonmucinous cysts.
Conference Presentations by Reyyan Bilge
Angular Disparity (0, 30, …,180 0 ), (whole vs. cut; èonly in Expt 1) and Framing (unframed vs. f... more Angular Disparity (0, 30, …,180 0 ), (whole vs. cut; èonly in Expt 1) and Framing (unframed vs. framed èExpt 1; unframed, rectangular-, circular-frame è Expt 2) Following the MR task, 2 questionnaires (Individual Differences and Mental Representation) were administered to categorize participants by the following factors. Individual differences: Sex (man vs. woman), Preference (map vs. verbal), Representation (survey vs. landmark)
The current research, basing on the previous work from Tufts University, Worcester Polytechnic In... more The current research, basing on the previous work from Tufts University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), and Istanbul Sehir University (SEHIR) investigates various factors such as stimulus characteristics mimicking possible strategy use and mental representation on MR performance. The present study examines students from SEHIR; both engineering and psychology majors to test whether one's major selection interacts with one's spatial representation to affect MR performance.
Spatial abilities, by definition, extend from very trivial tasks like moving without bumping into... more Spatial abilities, by definition, extend from very trivial tasks like moving without bumping into furniture to reading a map or driving. In order to carry out these tasks we continuously process spatial information. And through the process we end up creating spatial mental models upon which we rely on for later use. Factors such as our preferences, representations, and strategies are suggested to affect the way we process spatial information. The current study, based on the previous work , investigates the underlying reasons for possible performance difference in spatial tasks.
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Papers by Reyyan Bilge
Conference Presentations by Reyyan Bilge
Syllabus by Reyyan Bilge
Interviews by Reyyan Bilge