School of Psychology

Contact Us School of Psychology
Aras an Phiarsaigh
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin 2
Ireland

+353 1 896 1886

View the contact page for more contact and location information

psychology@tcd.ie
Professor Sonia Bishop

Professor Sonia Bishop

Professor of Psychology 1968, Psychology

Professor of Psychology 1968

https://bishoplab.org

Biography

I am a computational clinical and experimental psychologist and neuroscientist. I use a combination of computational modelling, functional neuroimaging and experimental methods to investigate altered cognitive and brain function in anxiety and depression. I trained at Oxford University (BA in Experimental Psychology), the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London (PhD in clinical psychology), Cambridge University and the MRC CBU (postdoc) and held a tenured faculty position at UC Berkeley before coming to Trinity College Dublin.

Publications and Further Research Outputs

  • Gagne C, Agai S, Ramiro C, Dayan P, Bishop S., Biased belief priors versus biased belief updating: Differential correlates of depression and anxiety., PLoS computational biology, 18, (8), 2022, pe1010176Journal Article, 2022, DOI
  • Lawrance EL, Gagne CR, O'Reilly JX, Bijsterbosch J, Bishop SJ., The Computational and Neural Substrates of Ambiguity Avoidance in Anxiety., Comput Psychiatr, 6, (1), 2022, p8-33Journal Article, 2022, DOI
  • Bishop SJ, Gagne C., Anxiety, Depression, and Decision Making: A Computational Perspective., Annual review of neuroscience, 41, 2018, p371-388Journal Article, 2018, DOI
  • Gagne C, Zika O, Dayan P, Bishop SJ., Impaired adaptation of learning to contingency volatility in internalizing psychopathology. , eLife, 9, 2020, pe61387Journal Article, 2020, DOI
  • McDougle SD, Ballard IC, Baribault B, Bishop SJ, Collins AGE., Executive Function Assigns Value to Novel Goal-Congruent Outcomes., Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 32, (1), 2021, p231-247Journal Article, 2021, DOI
  • Ironside M, Browning M, Ansari TL, Harvey CJ, Sekyi-Djan MN, Bishop SJ, Harmer CJ, O'Shea J., Effect of Prefrontal Cortex Stimulation on Regulation of Amygdala Response to Threat in Individuals With Trait Anxiety: A Randomized Clinical Trial., JAMA psychiatry, 76, (1), 2019, p71-78Journal Article, 2019, DOI
  • Bijsterbosch JD, Ansari TL, Smith S, Gauld O, Zika O, Boessenkool S, Browning M, Reinecke A, Bishop SJ., Stratification of MDD and GAD patients by resting state brain connectivity predicts cognitive bias., NeuroImage. Clinical, 19, 2018, p425-433Journal Article, 2018, DOI
  • Gagne, C. , Dayan, P. , Bishop, S.J., When planning to survive goes wrong: predicting the future and replaying the past in anxiety and PTSD, Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, (24), 2018, p89"95Journal Article, 2018, DOI , TARA - Full Text
  • Forster S, Nunez Elizalde AO, Castle E, Bishop SJ., Unraveling the anxious mind: anxiety, worry, and frontal engagement in sustained attention versus off-task processing., Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 25, (3), 2015, p609-618Journal Article, 2015, DOI
  • Browning M, Behrens TE, Jocham G, O'Reilly JX, Bishop SJ., Anxious individuals have difficulty learning the causal statistics of aversive environments., Nature neuroscience, 18, (4), 2015, p590-596Journal Article, 2015, DOI
  • Bishop SJ, Aguirre GK, Nunez-Elizalde AO, Toker D., Seeing the world through non rose-colored glasses: anxiety and the amygdala response to blended expressions., Frontiers in human neuroscience, 9, 2015, p152Journal Article, 2015, DOI
  • Bijsterbosch J, Smith S, Bishop SJ., Functional Connectivity under Anticipation of Shock: Correlates of Trait Anxious Affect versus Induced Anxiety., Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 27, (9), 2015, p1840-1853Journal Article, 2015, DOI
  • Bijsterbosch J, Smith S, Forster S, John OP, Bishop SJ., Resting state correlates of subdimensions of anxious affect., Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 26, (4), 2014, p914-926Journal Article, 2014, DOI
  • Forster S, Nunez-Elizalde AO, Castle E, Bishop SJ., Moderate threat causes longer lasting disruption to processing in anxious individuals., Frontiers in human neuroscience, 8, 2014, p626Journal Article, 2014, DOI
  • Indovina I, Robbins TW, Núñez-Elizalde AO, Dunn BD, Bishop SJ., Fear-conditioning mechanisms associated with trait vulnerability to anxiety in humans., Neuron, 69, (3), 2011, p563-571Journal Article, 2011, DOI
  • Bishop SJ, Fossella J, Croucher CJ, Duncan J., COMT val158met genotype affects recruitment of neural mechanisms supporting fluid intelligence., Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 18, (9), 2008, p2132-2140Journal Article, 2008, DOI
  • Bishop SJ, Jenkins R, Lawrence AD., Neural processing of fearful faces: effects of anxiety are gated by perceptual capacity limitations., Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 17, (7), 2007, p1595-1603Journal Article, 2007, DOI
  • Bishop S, Duncan J, Brett M, Lawrence AD., Prefrontal cortical function and anxiety: controlling attention to threat-related stimuli., Nature neuroscience, 7, (2), 2004, p184-188Journal Article, 2004, DOI
  • Bishop SJ, Duncan J, Lawrence AD., State anxiety modulation of the amygdala response to unattended threat-related stimuli., The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 24, (46), 2004, p10364-10368Journal Article, 2004, DOI
  • Bishop SJ, Dalgleish T, Yule W., Memory for emotional stories in high and low depressed children., Memory (Hove, England), 12, (2), 2004, p214-230Journal Article, 2004, DOI
  • Bishop DV, Bishop SJ, Bright P, James C, Delaney T, Tallal P., Different origin of auditory and phonological processing problems in children with language impairment: evidence from a twin study., Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR, 42, (1), 1999, p155-168Journal Article, 1999, DOI
  • Bishop DV, Carlyon RP, Deeks JM, Bishop SJ., Auditory temporal processing impairment: neither necessary nor sufficient for causing language impairment in children., Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR, 42, (6), 1999, p1295-1310Journal Article, 1999, DOI
  • Bishop DV, Bishop SJ., "Twin language": a risk factor for language impairment?, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR, 41, (1), 1998, p150-160Journal Article, 1998, DOI
  • Bishop SJ., Trait anxiety and impoverished prefrontal control of attention., Nature neuroscience, 12, (1), 2009, p92-98Journal Article, 2009, DOI
  • Bishop SJ., Neural mechanisms underlying selective attention to threat., Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1129, 2008, p141-152Journal Article, 2008, DOI
  • Bishop SJ., Neurocognitive mechanisms of anxiety: an integrative account., Trends in cognitive sciences, 11, (7), 2007, p307-316Journal Article, 2007, DOI
  • Achaibou A, Loth E, Bishop SJ., Distinct frontal and amygdala correlates of change detection for facial identity and expression., Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 11, (2), 2016, p225-233Journal Article, 2016, DOI
  • Rowe JB, Hughes L, Williams-Gray CH, Bishop S, Fallon S, Barker RA, Owen AM., The val158met COMT polymorphism's effect on atrophy in healthy aging and Parkinson's disease., Neurobiology of aging, 31, (6), 2010, p1064-1068Journal Article, 2010, DOI
  • Duncan J, Parr A, Woolgar A, Thompson R, Bright P, Cox S, Bishop S, Nimmo-Smith I., Goal neglect and Spearman's g: competing parts of a complex task., Journal of experimental psychology. General, 137, (1), 2008, p131-148Journal Article, 2008, DOI
  • Bishop SJ, Cohen JD, Fossella J, Casey BJ, Farah MJ., COMT genotype influences prefrontal response to emotional distraction., Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience, 6, (1), 2006, p62-70Journal Article, 2006, DOI
  • Fossella JA, Bishop S, Casey BJ., Exploring genetic influences on cognition: emerging strategies for target validation and treatment optimization., Current drug targets. CNS and neurological disorders, 2, (6), 2003, p357-362Journal Article, 2003, DOI
  • Vandenberghe R, Duncan J, Arnell KM, Bishop SJ, Herrod NJ, Owen AM, Minhas PS, Dupont P, Pickard JD, Orban GA., Maintaining and shifting attention within left or right hemifield., Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 10, (7), 2000, p706-713Journal Article, 2000, DOI
  • BISHOP, D. V. M., BRIGHT, P., JAMES, C., BISHOP, S. J., VAN DER LELY, H. K. J., Grammatical SLI: A distinct subtype of developmental language impairment?, Applied Psycholinguistics, 21, (2), 2000, p159-181Journal Article, 2000, DOI
  • Hao S, Whitney D, Bishop SJ., Judging emotion in natural images of crowds., Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 2024Journal Article, 2024
  • Abdel-Ghaffar SA, Huth AG, Lescroart MD, Stansbury D, Gallant JL, Bishop SJ., Occipital-temporal cortical tuning to semantic and affective features of natural images predicts associated behavioral responses., Nature communications, 15, (1), 2024, p5531Journal Article, 2024

Research Expertise

Computational psychiatry, affective cognitive neuroscience, decision-making, attention, emotion, face processing, anxiety, depression