The ESCoP Early Career Publication Award (€1000) is an award for the best article accepted for publication in the previous year. The applicant must be the first author of the article and a member of ESCoP. Two awards are granted:

• ESCoP Early Career Publication Award for PhD students: to be granted for articles accepted while applicant is a PhD student, or within a year of receipt of the PhD.
• ESCoP Early Career Publication Award for Post-docs: to be granted for articles accepted within five years of receipt of the applicant's PhD. Priority is given to publications different from PhD work.

The 2026 call for the PhD and Post-doc Awards is currently OPEN

Applicants should submit their materials to Tilo Strobach (Post-doc track) or Luca Rinaldi (PhD track) by April 15, 2026. Submissions must include a copy of the publication, a current CV, the date of acceptance, and the PhD award date (if applicable). Winners will be announced in the June newsletter.

• Eligibility Note: The eligibility period for applications can be extended by 12 months for maternity leave or 6 months for paternity leave (regardless of the number of children). Only one submission per person is permitted per cycle.

 

Past Early Career Publication Award recipients:

 

2025: Award for Post-docs: Moretti, L., Koch, I., Hornjak, R., & von Bastian, C.C. (2025). Quality over quantity: Focusing on high-conflict trials to improve the reliability and validity of attentional control measures . Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.

2025: Award for PhD students: Platonova, O., & Miklashevsky, A. (2025). Warm and fuzzy: Perceptual semantics can be activated even during shallow lexical processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.

2024: Award for Post-docs: Sá-Leite, AR, & Lago, S. (2024). The role of word form in gender processing during lexical access: A theoretical review and novel proposal in language comprehension. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1-20.  https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-023-02426-8

2024: Award for PhD students: Musfeld, P., Souza, AS, & Oberauer, K. (2023). Repetition learning is neither a continuous nor an implicit process. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(16), e2218042120.  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2218042120

2023: Award for Post-docs: Popov, V., & Dames, H. (2022). Intent matters: Resolving the intentional versus incidental learning paradox in episodic long-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 10.1037/xge0001272. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001272

2023: Award for PhD students: Hautekiet, C., Langerock, N., & Vergauwe, E. (in press). Accessibility of Information in the Focus of Attention: Heightened or Reduced? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.

2022: Award for Post-docs: Foerster, A., Moeller, B., Huffman, G., Kunde, W., Frings, C., & Pfister, R. (2021, November 22). The Human Cognitive
System Corrects Traces of Error Commission on the Fly. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online
publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0001139

2022: Award for PhD students: Gatti, D., Rinaldi, L., Marelli, M., Mazzoni, G., & Vecchi, T. (2021, December 23). Decomposing the Semantic Processes
Underpinning Veridical and False Memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0001079

2021: Award for Post-docs: Deschrijven, E., & Palmer, C. (2020). Reframing social cognition: Relational versus representational mentalizing. Psychological Bulletin, 146(11), 941-969.

2021 :  Award for PhD students: Quinn, MS, Campbell, K., & Keane, MT (2021). Do we “fear for the worst” or “Hope for the best” in thinking about the unexpected?: Factors affecting the valence of unexpected outcomes reported for everyday scenarios. Cognition, 208, 104520.

2020: Award for Post-docs: van Ede, F., Chekroud, SR, & Nobre, AC (2019). Human gaze tracks attentional focusing in memorized visual space. Nature human behavior, 3(5), 462-470.

2020: Award for PhD students :  Verbeke, P., & Verguts, T. (2019). Learning to synchronize: How biological agents can couple neural task modules for dealing with the stability-plasticity dilemma. PLoS computational biology, 15(8), e1006604.

2019: Vermeylen, L., Braem, S., & Notebaert, W. (2019). The affective twitches of task switches: Task switch cues are evaluated as negative. Cognition, 183, 124-130. 

2018: Wolff, M. J., Jochim, J., Akyürek, E. G., & Stokes, M. G. (2017). Dynamic hidden states underlying working-memory-guided behavior. Nature Neuroscience, 20(6), 864.

2017: Tom Heyman with Heyman, T., Hutchison, K. A., & Storms, G. (2016). Is semantic priming (ir)rational? Insights from the speeded word fragment completion task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, memory, and cognition, 42(10), 1657-1663.

2016: Efthymia Kapnoula with Kapnoula, E.C., & McMurray, B. (2016). Training alters the resolution of lexical interference: Evidence for plasticity of competition and inhibition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(1), 8-30.

2015: Mathieu Servant with Servant, M., Montagnini, A. & Burle, B. (2014). Conflict tasks and the diffusion framework: Insight in model constraints based on psychological laws. Cognitive Psychology, 72, 162-195.

2014: Kobe Desender with Desender, K., Van Opstal, F., & van den Bussche, E. (2014). Feeling the Conflict: The Crucial Role of Conflict Experience in Adaptation. Psychological Science, 25(3), 675-683.

2013: Elena Cañadas with Cañadas E, Rodríguez-Bailón R, Milliken B, Lupiáñez J. (2012). Social Categories as a Context for the Allocation of Attentional Control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 142(3), 934-943.

2012: the committee decided to not award ECPA for 2011.

2011: Markus Janczyk with Janczyk, M., Franz, VH & Kunde, W. (2010). Grasping for parsimony: Do some motor actions escape dorsal processing? Neuropsychologia, 48, 3405-3415. 

2010: Sascha Topolinski with Topolinski, S. & Reber, R. (2010). Immediate Truth - Temporal Contiguity Between a Cognitive Problem and its Solution Determines Experienced Veracity of the Solution. Cognition, 114, 117-122.

2009: Frank Oppermann with Oppermann, F., Jescheniak, J. D., & Schriefers, H. (2008). Conceptual Coherence Affects Phonological Activation of Context Objects During Object Naming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 587–601. 

2008: Zara Bergström with Bergström, ZM, Velmans, M, de Fockert, J, & Richardson-Klavehn, A (2007). ERP evidence for successful voluntary avoidance of conscious recollection. Brain Research, 1151, 119-133 

2007: Nieuwland, MS, Van Berkum, JJA with: When peanuts fall in love: N400 evidence for the power of discourse. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 1098-1111. 

2006: Angel Correa, Spain, with Correa, A., Lupianez, J., & Tudela, P. (2005). Attentional preparation based on temporal expectancy modulates processing at the perceptual level, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 12, 328-334

2005: Maria Ruz, Spain with Ruz, M., Worden, M. S., Tudela, P., & McCandliss, B. D. (2005). Inattentional amnesia to words in a high attentional load task. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 768-776.