I am the principal investigator of Bilgi Cognitive Lab at Istanbul Bilgi University. In our lab, we examine various cognitive processes utilizing behavioral methods. One major focus of our research is the role of pre-existing knowledge on memory performance, behaviors, and attitudes. Over the years, we have tested and collected free association norms for Turkish words. We still continue collecting normative data. Besides memory processes, an important focus of our research is time perspective. We utilize questionnaire methods to examine individual differences in time orientations and how they are related to various indices of well-being. Finally, we translated and tested the validty and reliability of several popular scales into Turkish.
Students find the opportunity to work as research assistants in my lab. Typically, I supervise two undergraduate students' thesis research. I also supervise graduate students from the Clinical Psychology and Industrial & Organizational Psychology MA programs.
We examine explicit and implicit memory with experimental methods. We have conducted studies primarily on episodic memory, false memory and autobiographical memory. We primarily utilized free recall, recognition, and cued-recall tasks. We collect normative data through free association task and examine the role of the associative structure of words in predicting task performance.
Our sense of subjective time affects many of our behaviors and happiness. In our lab, we focus both on the psychosocial processes related to time perspective and the corelates of subjective well-being. A few of our studies concentrated on the role of balanced time perspective. A balanced time perspective is the one where an individual puts equal weight to the past, present, and future focus.
We do validation studies that are aimed at improving the tools psychologists use for their research. We have translated and adapted the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) and Intuitive Eating Scale-2 (IES-2) You can find and download these scales and the scoring instructions from this link.