Job description

Do you speak a Scandinavian language(s) and English, but no other languages? Delta i et EEG-eksperiment.

 

After completing a research master's, I became a PhD student and graduate teaching assistant in Psychology at Lancaster University. In my thesis, I investigated how conceptual processing—that is, the comprehension of the meaning of words—is supported by linguistic and sensorimotor brain systems, and how research on this topic is influenced by methodological aspects such as the operationalisation of variables and the sample size of experiments.

Currently, I am a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Language and Culture, and specifically within the PoLaR Lab and C-LaBL, where I have co-organised multiple events. 

As the local manager of the LESS Project (Language Economy through Transfer Source Selectivity), I work on a six-session longitudinal study that investigates how bilingual people acquire an additional language, how this process is influenced by the characteristics of the languages, and how the process is instantiated in the brain. As part of this work so far, I contributed to the design of our study, developed most of the materials for our study and for a partner study in Spain, documented the creation of the materials and pretested them, wrote a preregistration, recruited participants, designed the protocol for the electroencephalography (EEG) sessions, trained students and research assistants in this protocol and in EEG more generally, set up and managed an EEG lab, conducted many of the sessions and oversaw those conducted by our research assistants, monitored the longitudinal progress per participant, presented the design of the study at conferences, preprocessed the EEG and behavioural data in collaboration with research assistants, and performed the statistical analysis.

Previously, I worked as a statistical consultant for the CLICK Project (Cross-Linguistic Influence of Competing Knowledge), which investigated multilingualism in heritage speakers. I worked with questionnaire and eye-tracking data.

I am also interested in the associations between language and other cognitive domains, as well as in the origins and evolution of language.

I employ a range of tools, including behavioural and electroencephalographic experiments, corpus analysis, statistics and programming. The materials, data and analyses used in my research are available at https://osf.io/25u3x.

My CV is available here. After February 2025, I can be contacted at pcbernabeu@gmail.com.

 

In addition to my publications, I have shared some short essays, tutorials, presentations and inquiries, as well as functions for the implementation of experiments, data analysis and other purposes.

• Reducing the impedance in electroencephalography using a blunt needle, electrolyte gel and wiggling

• Passive constructions and asymmetries between languages

• A makeshift EEG lab

• R functions for checking and fixing vmrk files from BrainVision

• Preventing muscle artifacts in electroencephalography sessions

• Making research materials Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable

• rscopus_plus: An extension of the rscopus package

• How to end trial after timeout in jsPsych

• A session logbook for a longitudinal study using conditional formatting in Excel

• Motivating a preregistration (especially in experimental linguistics)

• Learning how to use Zotero

• FAIR standards for the creation of research materials, with examples

• FAQs on mixed-effects models

• Two-second delay after logger in OpenSesame

• Discussion of Jost et al. (2019)

• Discussion of Labotka et al. (2023)

• Preprocessing the Norwegian Web as Corpus (NoWaC) in R

• An inline script for OpenSesame to send EEG triggers via the serial port

• How to correctly encode triggers in Python and send them to BrainVision through serial port (useful for OpenSesame and PsychoPy)

• Simultaneously sampling from two variables in jsPsych

• Assigning participant-specific parameters automatically in OpenSesame

• Intermixing stimuli from two loops randomly in OpenSesame

• Specifying version number in OSF download links

• A table of results for Bayesian mixed-effects models: Grouping variables and specifying random slopes

• Modality switch effects emerge early and increase throughout conceptual processing: Evidence from ERPs

• Review of the Landscape Model of reading: Composition, dynamics and application

• Bayesian workflow: Prior determination, predictive checks and sensitivity analyses

• Open data and reproducibility: R Markdown, dashboards and Binder

• Open data and reproducibility v2.1: R Markdown, dashboards and Binder

• Avoiding (R) Markdown knitting errors using knit_deleting_service_files()

• Mixed-effects models in R, and a new tool for data simulation

• Towards reproducibility and maximally-open data

• How to engage Research Group Leaders in sustainable software practices

• Incentives for good research software practices

• Why can't we be friends? Plotting frequentist (lmerTest) and Bayesian (brms) mixed-effects models

• Covariates are necessary to validate the variables of interest and to prevent bogus theories

• Naive principal component analysis in R

• Parallelizing simr::powercurve() in R

• Pronominal object clitics in preverbal position are a hard nut to crack for Google Translate

• Assigning participant-specific parameters automatically in OpenSesame

• Intermixing stimuli from two loops randomly in OpenSesame

• How to break down colour variable in sjPlot::plot_model into equally-sized bins

• How to map more informative values onto fill argument of sjPlot::plot_model

• Event-related potentials: Why and how I used them

Last, I have developed a few web applications, such as the following ones.

• Dutch modality exclusivity norms

• Modality switch effects emerge early and increase throughout conceptual processing

• Simulation of experimental data

• WebVTT caption transcription