Dr Zeynep Barlas

Dr Barlas' research is mainly focused on the examination of the mechanisms underlying the sense of agency, i.e., the subjective experience of being in control of one's actions and the outcomes of these actions. Dr Barlas uses both behavioural methods and electroencephalography (EEG) techniques to investigate how sense of agency is altered in individual and joint actions as well as during human-robot interactions. 

Institute for Psychological Science

• Kaya, E., Barlas, Z., Barlas, F., Wilson, A., Donmezler, S. (2024). Bereavement during lockdown: the potential impact of COVID-19 restrictions on grief and post-traumatic stress disorder in a Turkish-Muslim population. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2023.2244905

• Barlas, Z. (2019). When robots tell you what to do: Sense of agency in human- and robot-guided actions. Consciousness and Cognition, 75(July), 102819. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2019.102819

• Barlas, Z., & Kopp, S. (2018). Action Choice and Outcome Congruency Independently Affect Intentional Binding and Feeling of Control Judgments. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12(April), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00137

• Barlas, Z., Hockley, W. E., & Obhi, S. S. (2017). The effects of freedom of choice in action selection on perceived mental effort and the sense of agency. Acta Psychologica, 180, 122–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.09.004

• Barlas, Z., Hockley, W. E., & Obhi, S. S. (2017). Effects of free choice and outcome valence on the sense of agency: evidence from measures of intentional binding and feelings of control. Experimental Brain Research. http://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-017-5112-3

• Barlas, Z., & Obhi, S. S. (2014). Cultural background influences implicit but not explicit sense of agency for the production of musical tones. Consciousness and Cognition, 28(1), 94–103. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2014.06.013

• Barlas, Z., & Obhi, S. S. (2013). Freedom, choice, and the sense of agency. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7(August), 514. http://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00514

• Fişek, M. H., & Barlas, Z. (2013). Permutation tests for goodness-of-fit testing of mathematical models to experimental data. Social Science Research, 42(2), 482–95. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2012.09.010

• Sense of agency
• Cross-cultural differences in cognition
• Trust, responsibility, and sense of agency in Human-Robot Interaction

• PSYC1200 (Level 4): Cognition, Brain, and Development (ML)
• PSYC2100 (Level 5): Mind, Brain, and Behaviour
• PSYC3000 (Level 6): Psychology Project

• PhD: Cognitive Neuroscience-Psychology (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada)
• PGCert: (FHEA) Fellowship of Higher Education Academy
• MA: Cognitive Science (Bogazici University, Turkey)
• BSc: Computer Science and Engineering (Yildiz Technical University, Turkey)

• Psychology

• Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC)
• Psychonomic Society
• European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP)
• Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS)

• Barlas, Z. (2024).  Sense of agency in human- versus robot-guided actions. Presented in symposium “Artificial agents as tools to explore the (human) Self”. European Society for Cognitive And Affective Neuroscience (22-25 May 2024, Ghent, Belgium).

• Barlas, Z. (2022). Experience of Control and Responsibility over Shared Monetary Outcomes: The Effects of Outcome Value and Gain Probability. 2022 Psychonomic Society 63rd Annual Meeting.

• Napier, E. M., & Barlas, Z. (2021). The influence of self-construal on the acceptability of moral decisions made by autonomous cars. In TMS Proceedings 2021.

• Barlas, Z. (2018). Self-construal in biculturals. The effect of culture-specific social cues on error related negativity and flanker task performance in Asian-Canadian and Canadian individuals. Open Self Conference 2018, Berlin, Germany.

• Barlas, Z. (2018). Perceived autonomy of the co-agents: Examination of the sense of agency in human- versus robot-intended actions. 22th meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, Krakow, Poland.

• Barlas, Z., Kopp, S. (2017). Prospective influence of emotional valence on the sense of agency. Presented at Psychonomic Society 58^th Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

• Barlas, Z., Hockley, W. E., & Obhi, S. S. (2017). Free action selection without any external influence enhances the sense of agency. Presented at the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP), Potsdam, Germany.

• Barlas, Z., & Hockley, W. E. (2015). The effect of contextual meaningfulness on recognition memory. Presented at CSBBCS (Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science), Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.

• Barlas, Z., & Obhi, S. S. (2013). Freedom, choice, and the sense of agency. Presented at ICCS (International Conference of Cognitive Science), Kuching, Malaysia.

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