Dr Ala Yankouskaya
- 01202 961557
- ayankouskaya at bournemouth dot ac dot uk
- http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0794-0989
- Senior Lecturer In Psychology
- Poole House P120, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, Poole, BH12 5BB
Biography
Having a medical background, I completed my second PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at Birmingham University (School of Psychology) in 2012. Prior to coming to Bournemouth, I held post doc and senior post doc positions at The Centre of Cognitive Neuropsychology at Oxford University and lectureship position at Liverpool Hope University.
My research interest lies in social cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging. I investigate the cognitive and brain mechanisms of human perception and attention. A major focus of my current research is how social factors modulate perceptual decision making and integrative processes in the brain. I am interested in the computational and neural basis of these processes, their reliability, and their uses in guiding social behaviour.
RESEARCH INTERESTS: fMRI, Neuropsychology, Face Perception, Facial expression, Self Representation, Uniltimodal Interaction, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Functional Connectivity
Journal Articles
- Constantinou, M., Pecchinenda, A., Burianová, H. and Yankouskaya, A., 2024. The Impact of Ageing on Episodic Memory Retrieval: How Valence Influences Neural Functional Connectivity. NeuroSci, 5 (4), 542-564.
- Taylor, Z., Yankouskaya, A. and Panourgia, C., 2024. Social media use, loneliness and psychological distress in emerging adults. Behaviour and Information Technology, 43 (7), 1312-1325.
- Pecchinenda, A., Yankouskaya, A., Boccia, M., Piccardi, L., Guariglia, C. and Giannini, A.M., 2024. Exploring the relationship between perceived loneliness and subjective cognitive decline in older individuals. Aging and Mental Health, 28 (1), 73-82.
- Keyes, J., Yankouskaya, A. and Panourgia, C., 2023. Self-compassion, coping strategies and gender differences in psychology, counselling and psychotherapy practitioners during COVID-19: Lessons learnt. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 23 (4), 1052-1062.
- Yankouskaya, A., Massey, H., Totman, J.J., Lai, L.H. and Williamson, R., 2023. The Effects of Whole-body Cold-water Immersion on Brain Connectivity Related to the Affective State in Adults Using fMRI: A Protocol of a Pre-post Experimental Design. Bio-protocol, 13 (17).
- Yankouskaya, A., Lovett, G. and Sui, J., 2023. The relationship between self, value-based reward, and emotion prioritisation effects. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 76 (4), 942-960.
- Yankouskaya, A., Williamson, R., Stacey, C., Totman, J.J. and Massey, H., 2023. Short-Term Head-Out Whole-Body Cold-Water Immersion Facilitates Positive Affect and Increases Interaction between Large-Scale Brain Networks. Biology, 12 (2).
- Pizzio, A.P.G., Yankouskaya, A., Alessandri, G., Loreto, S. and Pecchinenda, A., 2022. Social contacts and loneliness affect the own age bias for emotional faces. Scientific Reports, 12.
- Viviani, G., De Luca, F., Antonucci, G., Yankouskaya, A. and Pecchinenda, A., 2022. It is not always positive: emotional bias in young and older adults. Psychological Research, 86 (6), 2045-2057.
- Yankouskaya, A., Denholm-Smith, T., Yi, D., Greenshaw, A.J., Cao, B. and Sui, J., 2022. Neural Connectivity Underlying Reward and Emotion-Related Processing: Evidence From a Large-Scale Network Analysis. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 16.
- Yankouskaya, A. and Sui, J., 2022. Self-prioritization is supported by interactions between large-scale brain networks. European Journal of Neuroscience, 55 (5), 1244-1261.
- Massey, H., Gorczynski, P., Harper, C.M., Sansom, L., McEwan, K., Yankouskaya, A. and Denton, H., 2022. Perceived Impact of Outdoor Swimming on Health: Web-Based Survey. Interact J Med Res, 11 (1), e25589.
- Aliche, C.J., Ifeagwazi, C.M., Yankouskaya, A., Comoretto, A., Wezyk, A., Ventouris, A. and Panourgia, C., 2021. Post-traumatic stress disorder and depressive symptoms following a Herdsmen attack: The role of life meaning in mediating trait mindfulness. Stress and Health, 37 (3), 528-537.
- Yankouskaya, A. and Sui, J., 2021. Self‐positivity or self‐negativity as a function of the medial prefrontal cortex. Brain Sciences, 11 (2), 1-17.
- Panourgia, C., Wezyk, A., Ventouris, A., Comoretto, A., Taylor, Z. and Yankouskaya, A., 2021. Individual factors in the relationship between stress and resilience in mental health psychology practitioners during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Health Psychology.
- Panourgia, K., Ventouris, A., Wezyk, A., Yankouskaya, A., Comoretto, A. and Taylor, Z., 2020. COVID-19: Vicarious traumatisation and resilience in Mental Health Psychology Practitioners.
- Yankouskaya, A., Bührle, R., Lugt, E., Stolte, M. and Sui, J., 2020. Intertwining personal and reward relevance: evidence from the drift-diffusion model. Psychological Research, 84 (1), 32-50.
- Yankouskaya, A., Boughey, A., McCagh, J., Neal, A., de Bezenac, C. and Davies, S.J., 2019. Illness Perception Mediates the Relationship Between the Severity of Symptoms and Perceived Health Status in Patients With Behçet Disease. J Clin Rheumatol, 25 (8), 319-324.
- Yankouskaya, A., Palmer, D., Stolte, M., Sui, J. and Humphreys, G.W., 2017. Self-bias modulates saccadic control. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70 (12), 2577-2585.
- Yankouskaya, A., Humphreys, G., Stolte, M., Stokes, M., Moradi, Z. and Sui, J., 2017. An anterior-posterior axis within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex separates self and reward. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12 (12), 1859-1868.
- Moradi, Z., Mantini, D., Yankouskaya, A., Hewstone, M. and Humphreys, G.W., 2017. Changes in intrinsic functional connectivity and group relevant salience: The case of sport rivalry. Behavioural Brain Research, 332, 126-135.
- Yankouskaya, A., Stolte, M., Moradi, Z., Rotshtein, P. and Humphreys, G., 2017. Integration of identity and emotion information in faces: fMRI evidence. Brain and Cognition, 116, 29-39.
- Stolte, M., Humphreys, G., Yankouskaya, A. and Sui, J., 2017. Dissociating biases towards the self and positive emotion. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70 (6), 1011-1022.
- Moradi, Z., Duta, M., Hewstone, M., Yankouskaya, A., Enock, F. and Humphreys, G.W., 2017. The rival doesn’t catch my eyes: In-group relevance modulates inhibitory control over anti-saccades. Visual Cognition, 25 (1-3), 366-380.
- Moradi, Z., Yankouskaya, A., Duta, M., Hewstone, M. and Humphreys, G.W., 2015. Coactive processing of sensory signals for in-group but not out-group stimuli. Visual Cognition, 23 (9-10), 1124-1149.
- Sui, J., Yankouskaya, A. and Humphreys, G.W., 2015. Super-capacity me! Super-capacity and violations of race independence for self-but not for reward-associated stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41 (2), 441-452.
- Yankouskaya, A., Humphreys, G.W. and Rotshtein, P., 2014. The processing of facial identity and expression is interactive, but dependent on task and experience. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8 (November).
- Yankouskaya, A., Humphreys, G.W. and Rotshtein, P., 2014. Differential interactions between identity and emotional expression in own and other-race faces: Effects of familiarity revealed through redundancy gains. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 40 (4), 1025-1038.
- Yankouskaya, A., Rotshtein, P. and Humphreys, G.W., 2014. Interactions between identity and emotional expression in face processing across the lifespan: Evidence from redundancy gains. Journal of Aging Research, 2014 (1).
- Yankouskaya, A., Booth, D.A. and Humphreys, G., 2012. Interactions between facial emotion and identity in face processing: Evidence based on redundancy gains. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 74 (8), 1692-1711.
Chapters
- Yankouskaya, A., Sui, J., Moradi, Z., Rotshtein, P. and Humphreys, G.W., 2017. Applications of Capacity Analysis into Social Cognition Domain. Systems Factorial Technology: A Theory Driven Methodology for the Identification of Perceptual and Cognitive Mechanisms. 381-400.
Conferences
- Mousa, O., Yankouskaya, A., Panourgia, C. and Ali, R., 2024. Good Technology Requires a Good Environment: The Role of Parenting Practices in Adolescent Internet Addiction. ACM 4th International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good. In: ACM GOODIT 2024 4-6 September 2024 Bremen, Germany.
- Mousa, O., Alshakhsi, S., Yankouskaya, A., Panourgia, C. and Ali, R., 2024. Good Technology Requires a Good Environment: The Role of Parenting Practices in Adolescent Internet Addiction. GoodIT, 143-150 ACM.
- Aydin, T., Yankouskaya, A. and Hills, P., 2022. Investigation of social media platform preferences depending on who they contacted. In: The 14th Annual Postgraduate Research Conference 30 November 2022 Bournemouth University.
- Ventouris, A., Wezyk, A., Panourgia, K., Comoretto, A. and Yankouskaya, A., 2021. Keep the bounce in your step: Developing resilience as a Mental Health Psychology Practitioner during Covid -19. In: 3rd International Conference on Psychology, Counselling and Education : Redefining Resilience 29-31 October 2021 virtual conference.
PhD Students
- Marianna Constantinou, (In progress)
- Natasha Burns, (In progress)
- Gemma Lovett, 2024. Interaction between self-, reward-, emotion biases across lifespan, (In progress)
Profile of Teaching PG
- Advanced Research Methods, Experimental Design in Cognitive Neuroscience
Profile of Teaching UG
- Biological Psychology (Level 5), Neuroimaging (Level 6)
Grants
- Examining the effects of cold-water immersion on depression biomarkers using resting-state EEG measures (Wessex Heath Partners, 01 Dec 2024). Awarded
- Understanding Young People’s Engagement with Influencer Content Related to Gambling or Gambling-Like Activities & Co-Designing Possible Interventions in Response (GambleAware’s Open Call for Research Proposals (Regulatory Settlement Research Programme), 01 Apr 2024). Awarded
- Understanding resilience in mental health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic (follow-up) (BU QR-fund, 01 Nov 2021). Completed
- Understanding resilience in mental health psychology practitioners during the COVID-19 pandemic (BU QR-fund, 01 May 2020). Completed
Journal Reviewing/Refereeing
- ocial Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Anonymous peer review, 18 Jun 2023
- Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Open peer review, 05 Apr 2023
- Cognition, Anonymous peer review, 06 Mar 2023
- Psychophysiology, Anonymous peer review, 02 Jan 2023
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 04 Jul 2022
- Scientific Reports, Open peer review, 20 May 2022
- Brain Sciences, Anonymous peer review, 01 Mar 2022
- NeuroImage, Anonymous peer review, 01 Mar 2022
- Journal of Integrative Neuroscience, Anonymous peer review, 06 Jan 2022
- Behavioural Brain Research, Anonymous peer review, 01 Dec 2021
- Brain Sciences, Anonymous peer review, 01 Nov 2021
- Human Brain Mapping, Anonymous peer review, 11 Sep 2021
- Brain Sciences, Anonymous peer review, 15 May 2021
- Developmental Science, Anonymous peer review, 15 Apr 2021
- Vision Research, Anonymous peer review, 19 Jan 2021
- Cognition, Anonymous peer review, 04 Aug 2020
- Psychophysiology, Anonymous peer review, 21 Dec 2019
- Philosophical Psychology, Anonymous peer review, 01 Dec 2019
- Acta Psychologica, Anonymous peer review, 04 Nov 2019
- Research Methods for Cognitive Neuroscience (three book chapters), Open peer review, 04 Sep 2018
- Brain and Cognition, Anonymous peer review, 02 Jun 2017
- Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Anonymous peer review, 15 Oct 2015
- Developmental Science, Anonymous peer review, 09 Sep 2015
Public Engagement & Outreach Activities
- Can cold water enhance mood? (18 Mar 2023-19 Mar 2023)
- To swim or not to swim. The positive effects of cold water on mental health (16 Mar 2023)
- The effects of cold water immersion on mental health (09 Mar 2023)
- The brain scan that proves cold water really IS good for you (07 Feb 2023)
Conference Presentations
- BPS:Cognitive Psychology Section Annual Conference, Large-scale brain networks support self-prioritisation effects, 02 Sep 2021, London
- BPS Conference 2021: Positive Adaptations: Psychological Strengths, Risk and resilience in mental health psychology practitioners during the COVID-19 pandemic., 01 Jul 2021, virtual
- Experimental Psychology Society, It is not always positive: Emotional bias in Young and Older Adults, 06 Jan 2021, Online
- Experimental Psychology Society, Interactive processing between identity and emotions in faces, 10 Jul 2019, Bournemouth University
Attended Training
- Scitech Established Supervisor Training, 18 May 2022
Broadcast Interview
- BBC Breakfast Shows, Short-term head-out whole-body cold-water immersion facilitates positive affect and increases interaction between large-scale brain networks, Yankouskaya, A, 07 Mar 2023. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0f2v4fn
- Radio Solent Isle of Wight, Short-term head-out whole-body cold-water immersion facilitates positive affect and increases interaction between large-scale brain networks, Yankouskaya, A, 07 Mar 2023