Elisabeth Norman

Position

Professor, Deputy head of department

Affiliation

Department of Psychosocial Science

E-mail: elisabeth.norman@uib.no
Phone number: +47 55589884; +4748058925
Visitor address: Christies gate 12
5015 Bergen
Postal address: P.O. Box 7807

NO-5020 Bergen

Norway

Elisabeth Norman

Position

Professor, Deputy head of department

Affiliation

Department of Psychosocial Science

Research groups

Short info

I am interested in how people monitor and regulate their thoughts and feelings in different situations. Currently I mostly focus on how this occurs in situations of learning and reading.

Research

Research interests:

Broadly, my research is concerned with the interplay between cognition and emotion, and the role of consciousness in this relationship. I have a particular focus on metacognition, i.e., “thinking about one’s thinking”. I have also done work on meta-emotion, i.e., “emotions about emotions”. Currently, my main focus is on exploring these questions in situations of learning and reading.

Metacognition and metaemotion in reading and learning. One area of my work examines the role of metacognition in reading and learning. I have explored metacognition in the context of digital versus non-digital reading devices, as well as the different forms of metacognition exhibited by typical readers compared to those with dyslexia. I explore this question theoretically as well as in applied settings.

Implicit vs. Explicit learning. In implicit learning, learners acquire knowledge as a result of passive exposure to a vast amount of stimuli, e.g., letter strings derived from an artificial grammar. I have studied the relationship between implicit learning and metacognition, effects of mood on implicit versus explicit learning, and the extent to which implicitly learned knowledge can be consciously controlled. The implicit-explicit continuum is highly useful for understanding how people acquire knowledge in a range of everyday situations as a result of intentional acquisition vs. passive exposure, e.g., learning from factual vs. fictional texts.

Future thinking and emotion. I am interested in the cognitive and emotional aspects of «mental time travel», including self-serving optimism, future planning, as well as the role of episodic future thinking in suicidality.

Teaching

PSYK208 Affect and cognition (BA course, 15 ECTS)

PSYK250 Bachelor thesis (BA course, 15 ECTS)

Publications

Academic article