Laboratory for neurocognition and applied cognition (LNPK for short, from Serbian Laboratorija za neurokogniciju i primenjenu kogniciju) is a research unit of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy, in which behavioural methods are combined with psychophysiological measurements such as EEG and eye-tracking to study human cognition.
Read more about the LNPK Lab history
LNPK Lab was officially founded on 2 October 2014 as a research unit of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy Department of Psychology. In practice, the Lab launched its first studies two years prior, when the conditions have been met to expand the until-then purely behavioural research at the Department into the field of psychophysiological measurements. Professors Dejan Lalović, Vasilije Gvozdenović, and Vanja Ković served as the founding members and the initial core research group of the lab.
Over the first decade, LNPK members have published XX books, more than XX chapters and papers, and presented their work at conferences at home and abroad. XX PhD students and XX master students have graduated in our lab, and it is hard to count how many students have undertaken part of their training with us. The lab has hosted one conference and two pop-sci symposia, and more than XX guest lectures by experts on various topics in cognitive science and neuroscience. Equally, lab members have given more than XX invited talks at scientific and popular science events, and we have established close collaboration with a number of institutions at home and abroad. As such, LNPK lab has quickly become one of the key neuroscientific research institutions in Serbia.
Research topics
- visual perception and attention (illusory contours, visual search)
- mental representations in long-term memory (language and memory, sound symbolism, categorisation)
- learning and memory
- reading (basic research, reading acquisition, individual differences)
- cognitive development
- psycholinguistics (grammar processing, esp. inflectional morphology)
- computational modelling of cognitive processes
- research methods in psychology and psychophysiology
- metascience (reporting transparency and accuracy)
Lab organisation
LNPK Lab core members are teaching and research staff mainly employed at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy, though we typically work closely with researchers affiliated with other institutions, especially when it comes to interdisciplinary projects. Lab maintains a network of close collaborators in Serbia and all over the world, who are an integral part of the laboratory activities.
In addition, the Laboratory is committed to training students to become competent and independent in conducting rigorous, ethical, and meaningful research in the field of cognitive science. For this reason, the Lab gathers a semi-formal group of student members at different career stages, from BA students curious about the research conducted in the lab, to PhD mentees.
Our research facilities
LNPK lab has several recording set-ups for behavioural, EEG and eye-tracking research. EEG data is acquired using a research-grade stationary EEG system (Compumedics Neuroscan Nuamps), generously shared with the lab by Prof Guillaume Thierry from the University of Bangor, UK. Eye-tracking data is collected using a mobile monitor-mounted device (Tobii Pro Nano).
On occasion, LNPK Lab research staff combines experimental data with psychometric instruments, such as IQ tests or our own Čitalko test of pre-reading and early reading skills.
In addition, the Lab takes advantage of a close-knit collaboration with other research units at the university and broader to collect other types of psychophysiological data (mobile EEG, fNIRS, electrodermal and EKG data, and others).
Taken all together, LNPK Lab is well-prepared to conduct a variety of laboratory and field studies, on both basic and applied topics in cognitive science.