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Victor Manuel Navarro Pinto

Position Senior Research Fellow
Institution School of Psychology, Cardiff University
Address 70 Park Pl, CF10 3AT, Cardiff, UK
Contact navarrov@cardiff.ac.uk
Languages Spanish (Native), English (Expert)

Education and Research

  • 2023-
    Senior Research Fellow
    • MSCA Fellowship (UKRI Guarantee) at Cardiff University: Generative Adversarial Networks for Categorization (GANCAT).
  • 2022-2023
    Research Associate
    • BBSRC project at Cardiff University: How knowledge affects behaviour in a model system (PI: Prof. Robert Honey; Co-I: Prof. Dominic Dwyer).
  • 2021
    Research Associate
    • Comparative study of the categorisation of medical images in pigeons and humans. The University of Iowa. Blast-induced TBI in rats and its effect in complex visual discrimination and retinal ganglion cell function. VA Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Visual Loss.
  • 2014-2020
    PhD and MA Student in Psychology
    • Comparative study of category learning, visual discrimination, and decisional processes in pigeons and humans. Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of Iowa. Supervised by Prof. Edward Wasserman.
  • 2008-2013
    Psychologist and BA in Psychology
    • Techniques for the prevention of the resurgence of extinguished conditioned responses (drug tolerance and conditioned fear). Universidad de Chile. Supervised by Prof. Ronald Betancourt.

Awards and Fellowships

  • 2023
    • Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral European Fellowship, European Commission (€220,000).
  • 2022
    • SEAB Dissertation Award in Basic Research. Division 25 (Behavior Analysis), American Psychological Association (€1,000).
  • 2021
    • Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) grant for the installation in the academy (declined; €188,000).
  • 2021
    • Brenda A. Milner Award for outstanding paper in the field of behavioral neuroscience or comparative psychology. Division 6 (Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology) American Psychological Association (€1,000).
  • 2018
    • Ballard-Seashore Dissertation Fellowship. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of Iowa (€10,000).
  • 2016
    • Ballard-Seashore Dissertation Fellowship. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of Iowa (€10,000).
  • 2014-2018
    • Fulbright Commission Fellowship for Doctoral Students and CONICYT Fellowship for International Doctorate Studies (€95,000).
  • 2008-2013
    • Chilean Education Ministry (MINEDUC) Scholarship for Academic Excellence (€10,000).

Teaching Experience

  • 2021
    • Invited lecturer. Escuela de Psicología, Universidad Católica del Maule. Workshop: Bayesian Estimation of Mixed-effects Models.
  • 2019-2020
    • Teaching Assistant. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of Iowa. PSYC:2812 Research Methods and Data Analysis in Psychology II. PSYC:2975 Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience. PSYC:4020 Laboratory in Psychology: Visual Attention. PSYC:4020 Laboratory in Psychology: Adaptive Processes.
  • 2013
    • Co-lecturer (with Prof. Ronald Betancourt). Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Chile. Contemporaneous Perspectives in Motivation.
  • 2009-2013
    • Teaching Assistant. Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Chile. Experimental Psychology. Basic Processes of Learning. Elementary Psychology.
  • 2010-2013
    • Teaching Assistant. Escuela de Psicología, Universidad Alberto Hurtado. Behavioral and Cognitive Psychology. Teaching Assistant. Programa de Bachillerato, Universidad de Chile. Elementary Psychology.

Student Supervision

  • 2023-
    • Magdalena Lazarczyk (Ph.D). Human and computer representation of images synthesized by generative adversarial networks. Cardiff University
  • 2020-2023
    • Odysseus Orr (Undergraduate). Categorization of medical images by humans and pigeons. Science Alliance Internship Program.
  • 2018
    • Daniel Cole (Undergraduate). Pigeon precrastination in choice tasks with identical options. Summer Research Opportunities Program.
  • 2017-2018
    • Xueying Zhao (Undergraduate). Perceptual separability and integrality of three-dimensional visual stimuli in the pigeon. Honors program at The University of Iowa.
  • 2016-2017
    • Tatiana Smith (Undergraduate). The effect of target-background congruency on categorization in pigeons. Honors program at The University of Iowa.

Technical Experience / Workflow

Analysis HPC using SLURM + R, Python
Experiments ABET, MedPC, jsPsych, Psychopy, Psychtoolbox
General programming R, Python, MATLAB/Octave, JavaScript, C++

Additional Information

  • Invited talks
    • Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) as a Tool for Cognitive Science. University of Nottingham.
    • Prediction error in models of adaptive behavior. PALM: Online Meetings on the Psychology of Associative Learning and Memory.
    • La complejidad en el estudio de la conducta: Tumores redes y modelos. Universidad de Chile (2023).
    • La búsqueda de asociaciones recíprocas en animales no-humanos. Sociedad Interamericana de Psicología (2022).
    • The quest for bidirectional associations in non-humans. American Psychological Association Convention (2022).
    • The acquisition and expression of select- and reject-control in pigeons and humans. American Psychological Association Convention (2022).
  • Ad-hoc reviewer for
    • Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
    • Behavioural Processes
    • Animal Cognition
  • Media coverage

Open source projects

calmr Canonical Associative Learning Models in R, a package to simulate associative learning experiments using mathematical models.

Publications

  • In preparation/under review
    • Navarro, V. M., Honey, R. C., & Dwyer, D. calmr: Canonical Associative Learning models in R.
    • Navarro, V. M., Honey, R. C., & Dwyer, D. Conditioning and extinction of and sign tracking.
    • Navarro, V. M., & Wasserman, E. A. Humans show symmetry despite the absence of backward training and stimulus overlap.
  • Articles in peer-reviewed journals