Ana P. Pinheiro

My research aims to enhance our understanding of how the brain perceives and recognizes the identity, affective and semantic aspects of the human voice. Some of the questions underlying current research projects include: a) How do we differentiate and recognize familiar and unfamiliar voices? b) How do we modulate our own voice to convey emotions? c) How do we assign meaning to speech stimuli and how do we differentiate between emotionally salient and not salient speech? Behavioral, neurophysiological and neuroimaging tools are used to probe these questions. Ultimately, these studies aim to bring us closer to understanding why some people hear voices when there is nobody speaking such as in psychotic disorders.

Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience: Social communication; Language and speech perception; Voice processing; Predictive coding in auditory processing; Psychosis and auditory hallucinations; Learning and neuroplasticity.

“When prediction errs: Examining the brain dynamics of altered saliency in self-voice perception” (238/16 – BIAL)

“I predict, therefore I do not hallucinate: a longitudinal study testing the neurophysiological underpinnings of auditory verbal hallucinations” (PTDC/MHC-PCN/0101/2014 – FCT])

Expert Evaluator – Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships, ERC Advanced Grants, Leading Fellows Programme (The Netherlands);

Swiss National Science Foundation; Austrian Science Fund (Hertha Firnberg-Position).

Pinheiro, A. P., Barros, C., Vasconcelos, M., Obermeier, C., & Kotz, S. A. (2017). Is laughter a better vocal change detector than a growl? Cortex, 92, 233-248. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.03.018

Pinheiro, A. P., Barros, C., & Pedrosa, J. (2016). Salience in a social landscape: electrophysiological effects of task-irrelevant and infrequent vocal change. Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience, 11(1), 127-139. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsv103

Pinheiro, A. P., del Re, E., Mezin, J., Rauber, A., Nestor, P. G., McCarley, R. W., Gonçalves, O. F., & Niznikiewicz, M. (2013). Sensory-based and higher-order operations contribute to abnormal emotional prosody processing in schizophrenia: an electrophysiological investigation. Psychological Medicine, 43(3), 603-618. doi: 10.1017/S003329171200133X

Pinheiro, A. P., del Re, E., Nestor, P., McCarley, R. W., Gonçalves, O. F., & Niznikiewicz, M. (2013). Interactions between mood and the structure of semantic memory: Event-related potentials evidence. Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience, 8(5), 579-594. doi: 10.1093/scan/nss035

Pinheiro, A. P., Rezaii, N., Rauber, A., Nestor, P. G., Spencer, K. M., & Niznikiewicz, M. (2017). Emotional self-other voice processing in schizophrenia and its relationship with hallucinations: ERP evidence. Psychophysiology, 54(9), 1252-1265. doi: 10.1111/psyp.12880