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., 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

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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

  9. 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

  10. 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

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. 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

  14. 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

  15. 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

  16. 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

  17. 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 |

  18. 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 |

  19. 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 |

  20. 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 |

  21. 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 |

  22. 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

  23. 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 |

  24. 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 |

  25. 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 |

  26. 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. Vasilev, M. R. , Ozkan, Z. G., Kirkby, J., Nuthmann, A., Parmentier, F. Unexpected sounds induce a rapid inhibition of eye-movement responses

  2. Mercier, T. M., Budka, M., Vasilev, M. R. ,Kirkby, J. A., Slattery, T. J., Angele, B. , Dual input stream transformer for eye-tracking line assignment

  3. 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/ .