Cognitive Processes Lab

Ongoing Research...

Prof. Dr. Ayhan Koç’s research interests are centered around the developmental relations between language and theory of mind, the acquisition of Turkish as a first language, and the development of narrative abilities, and development of language support programs in preparation for literacy acquisition. In the area of language and cognition, a number of studies have been carried out on the relation between evidentiality marking (with the suffixes –mIş, and –Dır) and the use of the false belief verb (sanmak) on theory of mind mastery in Turkish-speaking children. Related work on the possible effects of evidentiality marking on development of source monitoring abilities in 3- to 6-year olds is about to be completed. A study in progress is on the different methodologies of tapping receptive and productive narrative competence in preschool children. A large-scale collaborative project on the adaptation of the McArthur Communicative Development Inventory to assess the course of early acquisition in Turkish is about to start.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. İ. Ercan Alp’s current research program involves investigations of the relations between working memory capacity and processing speed, inhibitory control, and drawing skills in very young children.

Assist. Prof. Dr. Ayşecan Boduroğlu is interested in how visual and spatial information is represented and rehearsed in working memory. Her current research is investigating questions on how and when representations become more detailed and the effects of capacity limitations on such representations. Another line of ongoing research investigates cultural differences in attentional (e.g. picture memory) and executive (e.g. inhibition) processes.

Assist. Prof. Dr. Feyza Çorapçı’s research focuses primarily on the role of parenting and effortful control, a temperamentally-based ability to inhibit a dominant response, on preschoolers’ social competence. Her research program also examines the operation of individual, family, and contextual risk factors (e.g., daycare chaos, chronic mild malnutrition) on preschoolers’ behavioral adjustment.

Assist. Prof. Dr. Esra Mungan’s research centers around encoding processes and their relationship to subsequent memory performance. Of particular interest are the specific phenomenal, qualitative aspects experienced during retrieval and how these can be used to understand the relationship between encoding and retrieval. A related area of interest is directed forgetting and implicit memory. A currently running study investigates the effect of conceptual and perceptual processing on remembering melodies and how that relationship is connected to different familiarity levels of the melodies. This research is a continuation of a series of studies with musicians and nonmusicians that looks at the effects of different encoding tasks on both explicit and implicit remembering.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ali Tekcan’s main research interests are autobiographical memory, experimental psychopathology, and collective memory. Regarding autobiographical memory, main issues of interest are the generality and possible explanations of the reminiscence bump and childhood amnesia components. A related topic is whether and how flashbulb memories are different from autobiographical memories. In terms of experimental psychopathology, the focus is on memory and metamemory processes in obsessive-compulsive disorder. A more recent interest is collective memory; we plan to start investigating this issue by identifying the public events that form Turkish society’s collective memory and addressing how one’s generation is linked to collective memories.

Dr. Nur Yeniçeri’s main research interests are neuropsychological testing, clinical assessment and child psychopathology. She is currently trying to establish the developmental norms of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test for 8- to 11-year-old Turkish children.