Department of Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that studies the processes, states and contents of the human mind. It strives to explain how humans acquire and use the knowledge of the external and internal world. Our department aims to enhance our understanding of human perception, attention, memory, language, problem solving and consciousness. As one of the central branches of psychology, cognitive psychology in general, as well as our department in particular, has strong ties to neuropsychology, developmental science, and applied psychology. At the same time, cognitive psychology represents a significant building block of cognitive science, including also philosophy of mind, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and linguistics.

The Department of Cognitive Psychology conducts experimental research and builds theories in the following areas:

• Visual attention and eye movements
• Sensory deprivation and changes in perception
• Visual spatial perception
• Speech and language acquisition
• Psycholinguistics and grammar structure processing
• Experimental scientific instruments

In addition to our research activity, we have also translated Eysenck and Keane’s Cognitive Psychology, we host the Winter School of Cognitive Psychology annually and, in the years of 2006 and 2011, we have organized the interdisciplinary conference Cognition.

Members

Ongoing projects

• Filip Děchtěrenko: Czech-German project GA ČR - DFG, The role of typicality in visual scene recognition: A comparison between neural networks and human memories, (2024-2027), RIV
• Nikola Paillereau: The effect of bilingualism on speech perception and production in the first year of life, (2024-2028), RIV
• Filip Smolík: Cze-Lex: A large-scale quantification of the Czech lexicon, (2023-2025), RIV

Past projects

• Nikola Paillereau: Diagnostic tool for assessment of communicative development in Czech children from 8 to 30 months, (2021-2023), RIV
• Kateřina Chládková: Learning to recognize words: a developmental cross-dialectal perspective, (2021-2023), RIV
• Filip Děchtěrenko: Maximal visual memory (2020-6/2023), RIV
• Filip Smolík: The comprehensive battery for assessment of language and phonological skills of prescholl and early school age children (2019-2022), RIV
• Filip Smolík: Predictive and adaptive processes in children’s language (2019-2022), RIV
• Jiří Lukavský: Tracking moving objects – identity, uncertainty, and visually rich environments (2019-2022), RIV
• Kateřina Chládková: The effect of talker accent on speech sound learning in infants (2018-2020), RIV
• Filip Smolík: On-line processing of grammar and semantics in Czech children (2016-2018), RIV
• Jiří Lukavský: Visual scene memory: the effect of correlation of visual input in space and time on memory fidelity (2016-2018), RIV
• Filip Smolík: The acquisition of Czech grammar: rules, context, and the theory of mind (2013-2015), RIV
• Michal Šimeček: Visual space perception in photographs (2013-2015), RIV
• Jiří Lukavský: Personality and spontaneous brain activity during rest and movie watching: relation and structural determinants (2013-2015), RIV
• Radovan Šikl: Longitudinal study of visual perception of sight-recovery patients after a long-term sensory deprivation (2012-2014), RIV
• Dalibor Vobořil: Traditional and computer-based methods in testing of spatial reasoning (2011-2013), RIV
• Jiří Lukavský: Attention shifts and eye movements in Multiple Object Tracking in healthy adults (2010-2012), RIV
• Filip Smolík: Comprehension of grammar and lexicon in toddlers: agreement, word order, information structure and their relationships with lexicon (2010-2012), RIV
• Michal Šimeček: Relationship between physical and visual space in different experimental settings (2010-2012), RIV
• Radovan Šikl: Perception and memory changes during long-term isolation (2009-2012), RIV