معرفی
Associate Professor Alan Pegna is a neuropsychologist at the School of Psychology, University of Queensland, where he has been faculty since 2015. His research focuses on cognitive neuroscience and clinical neuropsychology, with particular expertise in visual and emotional processing using EEG methodologies.
Dr. Pegna received his Masters in Psychology from the University of Geneva (Switzerland) followed by a second Masters in Human Physiology from University College London (UK). He completed his PhD at the University of Geneva, where he used brain imaging techniques to study spatial processing in both healthy controls and brain-damaged patients.
His research interests center on the neural mechanisms underlying emotional face processing, particularly examining how the brain responds to different facial expressions and variations in perceived approachability and trustworthiness. He has extensive experience working with brain-damaged individuals to investigate the role of specific brain regions in visual and emotional processing. His work frequently employs EEG to measure early neural responses to emotional stimuli under various attentional conditions.
Analysis of his recent publications reveals a consistent focus on emotional face processing using EEG methodologies. His work examines how spatial attention, visual awareness, and task relevance modulate neural responses to emotional faces. Key themes include the role of the amygdala in emotional processing, perspective taking in social cognition, blindsight phenomena, and the neural correlates of trustworthiness and dominance perceptions.
Dr. Pegna has maintained an active research program since joining UQ in 2015, with over 150 journal articles and 30 conference papers to his name. His work demonstrates strong international collaboration, particularly with researchers in Switzerland and other European institutions.
His laboratory specializes in EEG research on visual and emotional processing, with particular expertise in studying both healthy participants and individuals with neurological conditions. Current research focuses on how the brain processes emotional facial expressions under varying conditions of attention and awareness, with implications for understanding social cognition disorders.
