Comparative Animal Psychology and Behaviour:

This line of research focuses on the comparative study of different animal species, mainly non-human primates, in natural state, semi-freedom and in captivity.We study their behaviour, processes and cognitive abilities and personality, from both basic and applied research perspectives.The study of the behaviour and cognition of the species closest to the humans, and other non-human species, allows us to identify our similarities and differences and therefore understand the evolution and phylogeny of human behaviour and our cognitive, emotional, social and cultural systems.This research is fundamental for deciphering the evolutionary roots of our behaviour, including cognitive skills, communication and social interaction.The understanding of how other species experience the world and relate to others in their species can be valuable from both a scientific and a practical perspective, with implications for the conservation of biodiversity, animal welfare, education and human psychology. 

Sociocognitive Development and Communication:

How do children make sense of their social environment?How do they communicate and learn from others?What impact does culture have on their socialisation and cognitive development?These are the main questions we aim to address in this line of research.To respond to these questions, although not exclusively, the intention is to study emergency and the development of epistemic monitoring, trust, social hierarchy and argumentation.Complementary subject matter consists of improving our understanding of the subjacent cognitive processes to collaborative learning, and how culture can have an impact on its development.Beyond theoretical considerations, the results of this research could be valuable in generating educational proposals and to foster activities that can have a positive impact in the development of argumentative skills and reasoning in children of preschool age. 

Development and Multimodal Language Learning:

When we communicate, not only do we do so through speech, but we also use other communicative elements such as movement or gestures with our hands, head, body and facial expressions.The combination of both modalities is known as "a multimodal language".This line of research focuses on the development and learning of language from a multimodal perspective to understand the predictive mechanisms and subjacent causes of the gestures of speech in the human communication and cognition.This research should provide broader knowledge about the multimodal development of language and a better understanding of the pragmatic and discursive functions and gestures of speech, as well as its linguistic and cognitive benefits in education-learning processes and language development. The research also places the emphasis on teacher training.The results will bring fundamental practical and methodological implications for educational practical.

How do our brains produce our thoughts?

Close your eyes for a moment, and think about what you are going to do tomorrow.While imagining social events, dinner plans or job-related activities, something intriguing is happening: you are mentally navigating for a simulated future created by your brain.Although this exercise may seem like a deliberate and conscious process, the internal generation of information is a fundamental mechanism of the brain that often operates below the threshold of consciousness.For example, when you see someone for the first time, your brain automatically starts to generate thoughts and hypotheses about that person (what we know as ‘first impressions’), which go far beyond the information directly observable.Sometimes, at night, your brain can also generate problematic future scenarios that make sleep difficult.These examples show that the brain can generate information automatically or in a controlled way, consciously or unconsciously, and that this process plays a key role in guiding our thoughts and behaviour.However, while research has studied extensively how the brain processes external information at different levels of consciousness (for example, in visual perception), it is still the case that relatively little is known about how information is created internally.Through this line of research, we aim to explore how the brain creates information internally, and how that process contributes to phenomena such as inference (filling in information that is not explicitly or immediately present), ‘thought’ (the internal generation and transformation of information), and how generalisation of previous experiences or knowledge is applied in new situations.From a theoretical point of view, the project aims to decipher the 'language of thought’, a concept that explores the structured nature and similarity to the natural language of our way of thinking.We aspire to decode internal brain dialogue, offering a window that opens onto deeper cognitive processes.This objective will not only improve our fundamental understanding of cognition, but also open the door to innovative technological advances, and could contribute new insights to clinical psychology.

 

🎬 For more information and to discover the projects in progress, you can visit our YouTube channel.