Alexandra Reis is Full Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Algarve. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Lisbon and completed postdoctoral training at the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. Her research focuses on cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, language processing, literacy, and cognitive neurophysiology. She co-founded the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group and has published more than 70 peer-reviewed scientific articles. She has led and collaborated on numerous national and international research projects and has served on editorial boards and scientific evaluation panels. She has also held several academic leadership positions at the University of Algarve and served as President of the Portuguese Association of Experimental Psychology.
The team brings together complementary expertise in Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuropsychology, Experimental Psychology, Engineering, Clinical Sciences, and Quantitative Methods, ensuring strong theoretical grounding, methodological rigor, and translational impact.
The team includes senior researchers with internationally recognized expertise in cognitive neuroscience, language processing, literacy, neuropsychology, and neuroimaging. Their combined experience encompasses behavioral experimentation, EEG, eye-tracking, fMRI, machine learning, computational modeling, psychometrics, and advanced statistical analysis. Members have coordinated and participated in numerous national and international research projects, published extensively in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, and served on editorial boards and scientific evaluation panels.
The team has a strong track record in the study of reading acquisition, visual word recognition, dyslexia, implicit learning, and the neural mechanisms underlying language processing. In addition to fundamental research, members have developed evidence-based assessment tools and community-oriented intervention programs, demonstrating a sustained commitment to translational research and societal impact.
Collectively, the team integrates expertise in advanced neuroimaging and electrophysiological analyses, computational modeling, experimental design, psychometric validation, linguistic stimulus development, behavioral assessment, and neuropsychological research. This interdisciplinary consortium combines Engineering, Psychology, and Neuroscience, fostering innovation and scientific excellence. Supported by state-of-the-art research facilities and extensive experience in complex experimental paradigms, the team is well positioned to ensure high-quality data acquisition, robust analytical strategies, and impactful scientific outcomes.
1. Characterizing the heterogeneity of the cognitive profiles among adults with dyslexia, to understand the mechanisms that enable certain individuals to compensate for their deficits and succeed in their academic lives. while others do not.
2.Continuing to deepen our knowledge about the time course of visual word recognition, both in typical readers and in readers with dyslexia, exploring the electroencephalographic component N170 as a marker of the sensitivity of the reading system to the orthographic characteristics of words.
3. To explore the engagement of evolutionary older brain networks beyond the conventional reading network in visual word recognition. Namely: 1) to determine whether emotional written words undergo preferential processing compared to neutral ones, and to identify the time window when this differential processing begins; and 2) to investigate whether the differential processing of emotional words is linked to the emotional amygdala network.
4. Characterizing the developmental trend and neurocognitive correlates of mind-wandering during childhood, to predict mind-wandering occurrence and its putative decremental impact on school-related task performance.
5. Investigate the role of the hyper-direct basal-ganglia pathway in speech production and its potential to understand stuttering. This pathway is involved in inhibitory control, motor initiation and sensorimotor integration, all of which are altered in persons who stutter, even in non-verbal tasks. EEG provides a neural marker of hyperdirect pathway activation to study neural plasticity associated with therapeutic training for stuttering.
Gonçalves, F., Reis, A., Inácio F., Morais I.S., & Faísca, L. (2021). Reading Comprehension Predictors in European Portuguese Adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 12: 789413. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.789413
Barriga-Paulino, A.I., Guerreiro, M., Faísca, L., & Reis, A. (2022). Does emotional valence modulate word recognition? A behavioral study manipulating frequency and arousal. Acta Psychologica, 223,103484. doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103484
Faísca, L., Reis, A., & Araújo, S. (2025). Temporal Unfolding of Spelling-to-sound Mappings in Visual (Non)word Recognition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_02293
Reis, A., Araújo, Morais, I.S., & Luís Faísca (2020). Reading and reading related skills in adults with Dyslexia from different orthographic systems: A review and meta-analysis. Annals of Dyslexia, 70(3), 339-368. doi: 10.1007/s11881-020-00205-
Correia, J., Jansma, B., Hausfeld, L., Kikkert, S. & Bonte, M. (2015) EEG decoding of spoken words in bilingual listeners: from words to language invariant semantic-conceptual representations. Frontiers in Psychology. 6:71. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00071