About me

I obtained a BA degree in Psychology from the University of Sofia (Bulgaria) in 2013 and a MSc degree in Linguistics from the University of Potsdam (Germany) in 2015. During my Master's degree, I also did study visits at the University of Eastern Finland and the University of Groningen (the Netherlands). I completed my PhD degree at Bournemouth University between 2015 - 2018. I then did a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Tim Slattery between 2018-2020, before starting as a lecturer at Bournemouth University in 2020. In 2023, I moved to UCL to start a lectureship in behavioural statistics.

I'm studying oculomotor control during reading and other similar tasks. My current research focuses on a few topics: auditory distraction, saccade targeting during reading, and computational modeling. I am also interested in evidence synthesis, statistical inference, and open science.

Publications

  1. Vasilev, M. R. , Ozkan, Z. G., Kirkby, J., Nuthmann, A., Parmentier, F. (2024). Unexpected sounds induce a rapid inhibition of eye-movement responses. Psychophysiology , 62(1), e14728. | Data + Materials | PDF

  2. Allbritton, D., Gomez, P., Angele, B., Vasilev, M. R., & Perea, M. (2024). Breathing life into meta-analytic methods. Journal of Cognition , 7(1): 61, 1–17. 10.5334/joc.389 | Code + Materials | PDF

  3. Mercier, T. M., Budka, M., Vasilev, M. R., Kirkby, J. A., Angele, B., & Slattery, T. J. (2024). Dual input stream transformer for eye-tracking line assignment. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 1-12. 10.1109/TPAMI.2024.3411938 | Data | PDF

  4. Vasilev, M. R., Lowman, M., Bills, K., Parmentier, F. B. R., & Kirkby, J. A. (2023). Unexpected sounds inhibit the movement of the eyes during reading and letter scanning. Psychophysiology , 1-19. 10.1111/psyp.14389 | Data + Materials | PDF

  5. Adedeji, V. I., Vasilev, M. R., Kirkby, J. A., & Slattery, T. J. (2023). Children’s reading of sublexical units in grades three to five: A combined analysis of eye-movements and voice recording. Scientific Studies of Reading, 1-20. 10.1080/10888438.2023.2259522 | Data | PDF

  6. Vasilev, M. R., Hitching, L., & Tyrrell, S. (2023). What makes background music distracting? Investigating the role of song lyrics using self-paced reading. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, , 1-27. 10.1080/20445911.2023.2209346 | Data + Materials | PDF

  7. Pownall, M., Azevedo, F., König, L. M., Slack, H. R., Evans, T. R., Flack, Z., … Vasilev, M. R., ..., FORRT (2023). Teaching open and reproducible scholarship: A critical review of the evidence base for current pedagogical methods and their outcomes. Royal Society Open Science, 10(15), 221255. 10.1098/rsos.221255 | Materials | PDF

  8. Woods, A. D., Gerasimova, D., Van Dusen, B., Nissen, J., Bainter, S., Uzdavines, A., Davis-Kean, P., …, Vasilev, M. R., … Elsherif, M. M. (2023). Best practices for addressing missing data through multiple imputation. Infant and Child Development, , e2407. doi:10.1002/icd.2407 | Data | PDF

  9. Buchanan, E.M., Lewis, S. C., Paris, B., Forscher, P. S., Pavlacic, J. M., Beshears, J. E., Gourdon-Kanhukamwe, A., … Vasilev, M. R. .,... Primbs, M. A. (2023). PSACR: The Psychological Science Accelerator's COVID-19 rapid-response dataset. Scientific Data, 10, 87. doi:10.1038/s41597-022-01811-7 | Data | PDF

  10. Adedeji, V. I., Vasilev, M. R., Kirkby, J. A., & Slattery, T. J. (2021). Return-sweep saccades in oral reading. Psychological Research, 86, 1804–1815. doi:10.1007/s00426-021-01610-6 | Data | PDF

  11. Dorison, C. A., Coles, N. A., Heller, B. H., Rothman, A. J., Kawachi, I. I., Wang, K., Rees, V. W., … Vasilev, M.R. , ... & Coles, N.A. (2022). Loss versus gain message framing influences self-reported anxiety, but not behavioral intentions, policy attitudes, or information seeking related to COVID-19: Experimental evidence from 84 countries. Affective Science. https://psyarxiv.com/sevkf   PDF

  12. Psychological Science Accelerator Self-Determination Theory Collaboration (2022). A global experiment on motivating social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(22) , e2111091119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2111091119 | Data + Materials | Pre-registration | PDF

  13. Parsons, S., Azevedo, F., Elsherif, M. M. M., Guay, S., Shahim, O. N., Govaart, G. H., Norris, E., … Vasilev, M.R. , ... & Aczel, B. (2022). A community-sourced glossary of open scholarship terms. Nature Human Behaviour, 6, 312–318. doi: 10.1038/s41562-021-01269-4 PDF

  14. Pownall, M., Azevedo, F., Aldoh, A., Elsherif, M., Vasilev, M.R. , Pennington, C.R., Robertson, O., … Parsons, S. (2021). Embedding open and reproducible science into teaching: A bank of lesson plans and resources. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000307 | Materials | PDF

  15. Attard-Johnson, J., Vasilev, M. R., Ciardha, C. Ó., & Bindemann, M., Babchishin, K. (2021). Tracking arousal: A meta-analytic review of pupil responses to sexual stimuli. Archives of Sexual Behavior , 50, 3385–3411. doi:10.1007/s10508-021-02137-y PDF

  16. Hills, P. J., Vasilev, M. R., De Vai, R. L., Mahabeer, A., Morisson, R., Silveira, A., & Angele, B. (2021). Sensory gating is related to positive and disorganised schizotypy in contrast with smooth pursuit eye movements and latent inhibition. Neuropsychologia , 162, 107989. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107989 PDF

  17. Wang, K., Goldenberg, A. Dorison, C. A., Miller, J. K., Uusberg, A., Lerner, J. S., Gross, J. J., ... Vasilev, M.R., ... Moshontz, H. (2021). A global test of brief reapprisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature Human Behaviour, 5, 1089–1110. doi: 10.1038/s41562-021-01173-x . | Data + Materials | Pre-registration | PDF

  18. Vasilev, M. R. , Adedeji, V. I., Laursen, C., Budka, M., & Slattery, T. J. (2021). Do readers use character information when programming return-sweep saccades? Vision Research, 183, 30-40. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2021.01.003 | Data + Materials | Pre-registration | PDF

  19. Vasilev, M. R., Parmentier, F. B. R., & Kirkby, J. A. (2021). Distraction by auditory novelty during reading: Evidence for disruption in saccade planning, but not saccade execution. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology , 74(5), 826-842. doi: 10.1177/1747021820982267 | Data + Materials | PDF

  20. Vasilev, M. R., Yates, M., Prueitt, E., & Slattery, T. J. (2021). Parafoveal degradation during reading reduces preview costs only when it is not perceptually distinct. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 74(2), 254-276. doi: 10.1177/1747021820959661 | Data + Materials |

  21. Vasilev, M. R., Yates, M., & Slattery, T. J. (2019). Do readers integrate phonological codes across saccades? A Bayesian meta-analysis and a survey of the unpublished literature. Journal of Cognition, 2(1), 43, 1–29. doi: 10.5334/joc.87 | Data + Materials |

  22. Vasilev, M. R., Liversedge, S. P., Rowan, D., Kirkby, J. A., & Angele, B. (2019). Reading is disrupted by intelligible background speech: Evidence from eye-tracking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 45(11), 1484-1512. doi: 10.1037/xhp0000680 | Data + Materials |

  23. Slattery, T. J. & Vasilev, M. R. (2019). An eye-movement exploration into return-sweep targeting during reading. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 81(5), 1197-1203. doi: 10.3758/s13414-019-01742-3 | Data + Materials |

  24. Vasilev, M. R. , Parmentier, F. B. R., Angele, B., & Kirkby, J. A. (2019). Distraction by deviant sounds during reading: An eye-movement study. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 72(7), 1863–1875. doi: 10.1177/1747021818820816 | Data + Materials |

  25. Parmentier, F. B. R., Vasilev, M. R., & Andrés, P. (2019). Surprise as an explanation to auditory novelty distraction and post-error slowing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(1), 192-200. doi: 10.1037/xge0000497

  26. Vasilev, M. R. , Kirkby, J. A., & Angele, B. (2018). Auditory distraction during reading: A Bayesian meta-analysis of a continuing controversy. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(5), 567 - 597. doi: 10.1177/1745691617747398 | Negative results in European psychology journals. Europe's Journal of Psychology, 9(4), 717-730. doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 | Data |

  27. Vasilev, M. R. , Slattery, T. J., Kirkby, J. A., & Angele, B. (2018). What are the costs of degraded parafoveal previews during silent reading? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 44(3), 371-386. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000433 | Materials |

  28. Vasilev, M. R. & Angele, B. (2017). Parafoveal preview effects from word N+1 and word N+2 during reading: A critical review and Bayesian meta-analysis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24(3), 666-689. doi:10.3758/s13423-016-1147-x | Data + Materials |

  29. Vasilev, M. R. (2013). Negative results in European psychology journals. Europe's Journal of Psychology, 9(4), 717-730. doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 | Data |


Pre-prints

  1. Buchanan, E. M., Cuccolo, K., Coles, N. A., Iyer, A. Lewis, N. Jr., Peters, K. O., van Berkel, N., van 't Veer, A., ... Vasilev, M. R. , ... Lewis, S. C. Measuring the semantic priming effect across many languages . https://osf.io/q4fjy/ .