Psychology
Topics of Research: Psychosomatic conditions, mood (depression/ bipolar), cognition, perception, cognitive neuroscience, effects of trauma on mental health.
Potential Clients and Partners: Schools and hospitals
Key Research Projects: Transdiagnostic cognitive processes and neurobiological correlates of common mental health problems (e.g. mood, psychosomatic and eating disorders); Impact of depression on Weight, CVD and Diabetes, along with Vitamin D link; Neurobiology of mental illness (depression, schizophrenia); Cognitive processes with a special focus on written and spoken language, facial communication, and the enhancement of English and Arabic reading abilities through technology; The role of basic visual cues in reading Arabic, Urdu, and English; Effects of aging on eye-movement behavior when reading Arabic and English; Facial occlusion and visual speech perception.
Our research facilities support cutting-edge research programs and provide an excellent environment for research-led teaching and supervision of research projects. Below are some of the ongoing research projects that are currently underway on both campuses.
Research in our Laboratory in Abu Dhabi is looking at the long standing idea that people spend more time looking at the right side of faces they deem attractive. This is known as the left field bias. We replicated this effect in Arabic speaking females using faces deemed attractive and unattractive there was a clear left field bias. The heat map on these images helps tell the story.
One of the topics currently under investigation in the Cognition and Neuroscience Research Laboratory, Dubai Campus, is Arabic reading and literacy. In our lab we use eye-tracking and other advanced methodologies to study how the brain processes Arabic, so that we are able to learn about text comprehension processes in real time. In our research we are not only interested in developing theoretical knowledge about reading in Arabic, and addressing current gaps in this knowledge, but we are also committed to putting this knowledge in the service of the National Reading Strategy put forward by the President of the UAE, HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Our plans for the near future are to expand the scope of our investigations to incorporate more advanced techniques to study reading in Arabic (such as co-registration of eye movement and EEG data). We aim to make ZU not only the national, but the main regional center for reading and development sciences.
