Bence C. Farkas 

Born in the Miskolc, Hungary, Bence earned his BA in Psychology at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest in 2019. He then completed an MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience and the diplôme de l’ENS in Paris, graduating in 2021, at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, after having been selected for their International Selection scholarship programme. He is currently completing his PhD, in public health, with a focus on evolutionary developmental psychopathology, at Ecole Doctorale de Santé Publique, of Université Paris-Saclay. Bence has taken a keen interest in quantitative research, experimental psychology, and computational modelling early on in his studies. He initially worked as part of the Brain, Memory and Language lab of Eötvös Loránd University, where he studied implicit learning processes in neurodevelopmental disorders. Before starting his master’s degree, he briefly worked for the Child Welfare Service of his hometown of Miskolc, an experience that was crucial in solidifying his interest in better understanding the effects of childhood adversity. During his years in Paris, developmental psychopathology has become his focus. He currently strives to
combine computational modelling, evolutionary biology, and cognitive neuroscience in order to elucidate the ways in which early life environments affect emotional and neurocognitive development and decision making and to gain insight into
neuropsychiatric conditions, such as Tourettes syndrome, OCD and psychopathology in general. Bence joined Forward College in 2022 as Teaching assistant and has since taught research design and statistics courses at Forward’s Paris campus.

•  Develomental psychopathology
•  Evolutionary psychology
• Reinforcement learning
• Procedural learning
• Computational psychiatry

•  PL2020 Research design and statistics 2A: analysis of variance
• PL2030 Research design and statistics 2B: multivariate measures

Peer Reviewed Articles

Tóth-Fáber, E., Tárnok, Z., Janacsek, K., Kóbor, A., Nagy, P., Farkas, B. C., … & Takács, Á. (2021). Dissociation between two aspects of procedural learning in Tourette syndrome: Enhanced statistical and impaired sequence learning. Child Neuropsychology, 27(6), 799-821.
doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2021.1894110

Farkas, B. C., Tóth-Fáber, E., Janacsek, K., & Nemeth, D. (2021). A process-oriented view of procedural memory can help better understand Tourette’s syndrome. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 15,
doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.683885

Farkas, B. C., Chambon, V., & Jacquet, P. O. (2022). Do perceived control and time orientation mediate the effect of early life adversity on reproductive behaviour and health status? Insights from the European Value Study and the European Social Survey. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 9(1), 1-14. doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01066-y

Farkas, B. C., Krajcsi, A., Janacsek, K., & Nemeth, D. (2023). The complexity of measuring reliability in learning tasks: An illustration using the Alternating Serial Reaction Time task. Behavior Research Methods,
doi.org/10.3758/s13428-022-02038-5

Preprints

Farkas, B. C., Baptista, A., Speranza, M., Wyart, V., & Jacquet, P. O. (2022). Refining developmental psychopathology concepts with reinforcement learning: Distinguishing early life unpredictability and volatility helps explain individual differences in children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms. PsyArXiv, doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/t5avy

Conference Presentations, Participation, and Invited Talks 

“Executive functions and procedural learning in Tourette’s syndrome”
International Convention of Psychological Science
2019 March 7 – 9

“Tanulási folyamatok Tourette szindrómában / Learning processes in Tourette’s syndrome”
XXVIII. National Scientific Assembly of the Hungarian Psychological Associations
2019 May 30 – June 1

“Investigating the differential role of early life unpredictability and volatility on human psychopathological development”
European Human Behaviour & Evolution Association Conference
2022 April 19 – 22

“Understanding individual differences in reward-guided learning as an efficient adaptation to task uncertainty and computational noise”
Forum of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies
2022 July 9 – 13

“Prévisibilité, volatilité et trauma : quel devenir pour les enfants ? / Unpredictability, volatility and trauma : Their impact on children”
Journée scientifique Réseau francophone des thérapies basées sur la mentalisation
2022 November 30