Ala Yankouskaya

Dr Ala Yankouskaya

  • Senior Lecturer In Psychology
  • Poole House P120, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, Poole, BH12 5BB
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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

  • Noman, M., Almourad, M.B., Yankouskaya, A., Alam, F., Ali, R., 2026. In what style shall I confront them? The role of social relationships in social correction of misinformation among the UK and Arab Social media users. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 111.
  • Yankouskaya, A., Salera, C., Constantinou, M., Pecchinenda, A., 2026. Effects of social exclusion on following the gaze of others. British Journal of Psychology, 117 (1), 406-428.
  • Bolat, E., Panourgia, C., Yankouskaya, A., Kelly, M., 2025. Influencer-Driven Gambling Content and Its Impact on Children and Young People: A Scoping Study. Current Addiction Reports, 12 (1).
  • Liebherr, M., Babiker, A., Alshakhsi, S., Al-Thani, D., Yankouskaya, A., Montag, C., Ali, R., 2025. Artificial Intelligence vs. Users’ Well-Being and the Role of Personal Factors: A Study on Arab and British Samples. Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science, 10 (4), 811-820.
  • Arden-Close, E., Sweeting, F., Guy, D., Mallia, C., Yankouskaya, A., 2025. Exploring medication adherence in Behçet’s disease following COVID-19: a mixed-methods study. Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases, 20 (1).
  • Rahman, M.M., AlShakhsi, S., Babiker, A., Ali, R., Yankouskaya, A., 2025. On the role of personality in attitudes toward AI: Do AI’s freedom of choice and social proof matter? World Wide Web, 28 (6).
  • Supti, T.I., Abuelezz, I., Muhanad, A., Barhmagi, M., Yankouskaya, A., Khan, K.M., Erbad, A., Ali, R., 2025. Debiasing the Influence of Demographic and Appearance Cues in Social Engineering via Role-Taking: Negative Results. CoRR, abs/2509.23271.
  • Alshakhsi, S., Yankouskaya, A., Liebherr, M., Ali, R., 2025. Measuring Large Language Models Dependency: Validating the Arabic Version of the LLM-D12 Scale. CoRR, abs/2508.17063.
  • Paine, B., Yankouskaya, A., Sweeting, F., 2025. ‘You can get a bit immune to it’: Emotional preparedness and coping strategies as utilised by English homicide detectives. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 27 (2), 199-209.
  • Yankouskaya, A., Babiker, A., Rizvi, S.W.F., Alshakhsi, S., Liebherr, M., Ali, R., 2025. LLM-D12: A Dual-Dimensional Scale of Instrumental and Relational Dependencies on Large Language Models. CoRR, abs/2506.06874.
  • Katos, V., Rosenorn-Lanng, E., Henriksen-Bulmer, J., Yankouskaya, A., 2025. So, I climbed to the top of the pyramid of pain - now what? CoRR, abs/2505.24685.
  • Constantinou, M., Yankouskaya, A., Burianová, H., 2025. Valence Effects on Episodic Memory in Young and Old Adults Following Exposure to Emotional Stimuli. European Journal of Neuroscience, 61 (5).
  • Yankouskaya, A., Liebherr, M., Ali, R., 2025. Can ChatGPT Be Addictive? A Call to Examine the Shift from Support to Dependence in AI Conversational Large Language Models. Human Centric Intelligent Systems, 5 (1), 77-89.
  • Abuelezz, I., Barhamgi, M., Alshakhsi, S., Yankouskaya, A., Nhlabatsi, A., Khan, K.M., Ali, R., 2025. How do gender and age similarities with a potential social engineer influence one’s trust and willingness to take security risks? International Journal of Information Security, 24 (1).
  • Alshakhsi, S., Chemnad, K., Panourgia, C., Hassan, D.A., Yankouskaya, A., Ali, R., 2025. From parents to their adolescent children: reexamining the link between parental and adolescent internet addiction. Behaviour and Information Technology, 44 (18), 4599-4615.
  • Yankouskaya, A., Ali, R., AlShakhsi, S., Delvecchio, E., Manesis, N., Mazzeschi, C., Turan, S.G., Panourgia, C., 2025. Emerging Impact of Parental Internet Addiction on Adolescent Internet Use: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2025 (1).
  • Supti, T.I., Khan, K.M., Yankouskaya, A., Abuelezz, I., Barhmagi, M., Erbad, A., Ali, R., 2025. Examining the Role of Self-Construal on Cybersecurity Attitudes and Perceptions of Vulnerability. Journal of Applied Security Research, 20 (3), 355-381.
  • Supti, T.I., Yankouskaya, A., Barhmagi, M., Nhlabatsi, A., Khan, K.M., Martin Domingo, J., Erbad, A., Ali, R., 2025. Digital Dependency and Security Risk: Investigating the Connections Between Fear of Missing Out, Problematic Social Media Use, and Vulnerability Perceptions. Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science.
  • Supti, T.I., Yankouskaya, A., Barhmagi, M., Nhlabatsi, A., Khan, K.M., Martin Domingo, J., Erbad, A., Ali, R., 2025. Digital Dependency and Security Risk: Investigating the Connections Between Fear of Missing Out, Problematic Social Media Use, and Vulnerability Perceptions. Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science.
  • Alshakhsi, S., Almourad, M.B., Babkir, A., Al-Thani, D., Yankouskaya, A., Montag, C., Ali, R., 2025. Designing AI to foster acceptance: do freedom to choose and social proof impact AI attitudes among British and Arab populations? Behaviour and Information Technology.
  • Muhanad, A., Supti, T.I., Abuelezz, I., Yankouskaya, A., Khan, K.M., Barhamgi, M., Nhlabatsi, A., Ali, R., 2025. Does security attitude really predict susceptibility to persuasion tactics in social engineering attempts? Information and Computer Security.
  • Panourgia, C., Ali, R., Yankouskaya, A., 2025. It Is Not Only the Child! Exploring the Nexus of Adolescents’ Internet Addiction With Family Environment in Internet-Addicted Versus Nonaddicted Parents. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2025 (1).
  • Salera, C., Yankouskaya, A., Petrucci, M., Pecchinenda, A., 2025. Social and non-social directional cues differentially orient attention by learned habit. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 19.
  • Elfadl, A., Alshakhsi, S., Ali, R., Yankouskaya, A., 2025. Revisiting preferences for communication styles in computer-mediated communication: a study amongst UK and Arab samples. Telematics and Informatics Reports.
  • Constantinou, M., Pecchinenda, A., Burianová, H., 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., 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., 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.
  • Salera, C., Yankouskaya, A., Gazzaneo, M.D., Bonavita, A., Pazzaglia, M., Guariglia, C., Pecchinenda, A., 2024. Preserved learning of implicit regularities with predictive social cues in older adults. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 15.
  • Keyes, J., Yankouskaya, A., 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., 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., 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., 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).
  • Yankouskaya, A., Gonzalez Pizzio, A.P., Alessandri, G., Pecchinenda, A., 2022. Social contacts and loneliness affect the own age bias for emotional faces. Scientific Reports.
  • Pizzio, A.P.G., Yankouskaya, A., Alessandri, G., Loreto, S., 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., Pecchinenda, A., 2022. It is not always positive: emotional bias in young and older adults. Psychological Research, 86 (6), 2045-2057.
  • Panourgia, C., Wezyk, A., Ventouris, A., Comoretto, A., Taylor, Z., Yankouskaya, A., 2022. Individual factors in the relationship between stress and resilience in mental health psychology practitioners during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Health Psychology, 27 (11), 2613-2631.
  • Yankouskaya, A., Denholm-Smith, T., Yi, D., Greenshaw, A.J., Cao, B., 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., 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., 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., 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., Sui, J., 2021. Self‐positivity or self‐negativity as a function of the medial prefrontal cortex. Brain Sciences, 11 (2), 1-17.
  • Panourgia, K., Ventouris, A., Wezyk, A., Yankouskaya, A., Comoretto, A., 2020. COVID-19: Vicarious traumatisation and resilience in Mental Health Psychology Practitioners.
  • Yankouskaya, A., Bührle, R., Lugt, E., Stolte, M., 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., Davies, S., 2018. Illness Perception Mediates the Relationship Between the Severity of Symptoms and Perceived Health Status in Patients With Behçet Disease. Journal of Clinical Rheumatology.
  • Yankouskaya, A., Palmer, D., Stolte, M., Sui, J., 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., 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., 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., 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., 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., 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., 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., 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., 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., 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., 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., 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., 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

  • Rahman, M.M., Alshakhsi, S., Babiker, A., Yankouskaya, A., Liebherr, M., Ali, R., 2026. Personality Traits vs. AI Attitudes, Ethics, and Well-Being: Do Autonomy and Criticality in Design Matter? Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 16079 LNCS, 347-361.
  • Supti, T.I., Yankouskaya, A., Alshakhsi, S., Babiker, A., Al-Thani, D., Ali, R., 2025. Do Social Media Simultaneously Contribute to Well-Being and Use Disorder? Empirical Evidence and Design Challenges. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 547 LNBIP, 347-361.
  • Babiker, A., Alshakhsi, S., Abumalloh, R.A., Yankouskaya, A., Al-Thani, D., Liebherr, M., Ali, R., 2025. Gamified vs. Non-Gamified Language Learning: The Role of Working Memory and Gaming Disorder. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 15711 LNCS, 330-340.
  • Muhanad, A., Yankouskaya, A., Khan, K.M., Barhamgi, M., Ali, R., 2025. On People’s Susceptibility to Persuasive Techniques in Social Engineering: Is It About the Technique or Their Readiness to Be Persuaded? Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 15711 LNCS, 232-246.
  • Mousa, O., Alshakhsi, S., Yankouskaya, A., Panourgia, C., Ali, R., 2024. Good Technology Requires a Good Environment: The Role of Parenting Practices in Adolescent Internet Addiction. Goodit 2024 Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good, 143-150.
  • Mousa, O., Alshakhsi, S., Yankouskaya, A., Panourgia, C., Ali, R., 2024. Good Technology Requires a Good Environment: The Role of Parenting Practices in Adolescent Internet Addiction. Goodit 2024 Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good, 143-150.
  • Aydin, T., Yankouskaya, A., Hills, P., 2022. Investigation of social media platform preferences depending on who they contacted. In: The 14th Annual Postgraduate Research Conference 30/11/2022 Bournemouth University.
  • Ventouris, A., Wezyk, A., Panourgia, K., Comoretto, A., 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 29/10/2021 virtual conference.

Reports

Internet Publications

Preprints

  • Yankouskaya, A., Babiker, A.B., Rizvi, S.W.F., Alshakhsi, S., Liebherr, M., Ali, R., 2025. LLM-D12: A Dual-Dimensional Scale of Instrumental and Relational Dependencies on Large Language Models.
  • Katos, V., Rosenorn-Lanng, E., Henriksen-Bulmer, J., Yankouskaya, A., 2025. So, I climbed to the top of the pyramid of pain -- now what?
  • Liebherr, M., Almourad, M.B., Alshakhsi, S., Montag, C., Xu, G., Ali, R., Yankouskaya, A., 2025. Developing and Validating the Attitudes Toward Large Language Models Scale.
  • Liebherr, M., Almourad, M.B., Alshakhsi, S., Montag, C., Xu, G., Ali, R., Yankouskaya, A., 2025. Developing and Validating the Attitudes Toward Large Language Models Scale.

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

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. 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
The data on this page was last updated at 22:00 on February 17, 2026.