Dr. Divya Bhatia

Dr. Divya Bhatia is an Associate Professor at Jindal School of Psychology and Counselling, O.P. Jindal Global University. She obtained her PhD in behavioural neuroscience (con lode/with honors) from Sapienza University, Rome, Italy. She has published a number of peer-reviewed journal articles and also works as a peer-reviewer for renowned journals such as PLOS ONE and Frontiers in Psychology. She is also a member of the Cognitive Science Society and Psychonomic Society.

Dr. Bhatia has managed and worked on several scientific projects including the investigation of language choice behaviour in Hindi-English bilinguals, cognitive preparedness in healthy Indian population and collaborative remembering. To carry out her doctoral work, she was awarded with International PhD Fellowship by Sapienza University. In her doctoral work, she investigated how movements and visuo-spatial working memory interact and how one’s visuo-spatial memory is influenced by performing movements in a shared/social context. In other words, her work investigated the question of how performing an action together with a partner influences individual’s encoding processes and subsequent memory retrieval. With behavioural, eye-tracking and event-related potential data, her findings provide robust evidence suggesting that people working together in a shared/social context simulate each other’s actions and that is reflected into a memory improvement in a subsequent memory task. At JGU, she is involved in a number of collaborative research projects such as investigating the influence of socioeconomic status on cognitive processing and risk-perception in emergency situations such as Covid-19.

• Global Engagement Seed Grant by the International Brain Research Organisation (IBRO) (2021-22). 
• Research Start-up Grant awarded by Sapienza University (2019-20).  
• Research Start-up Grant awarded by Sapienza University (2018-19).  
• Joint Mobility Grant awarded by Sapienza University (2018-19).

Peer-reviewed Publications

• Bhatia, D. (2023). Neuroscience Engagement and Outreach on Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Report from India. Annals of Neurosciences. doi:10.1177/09727531231176122
• Khetrapal, N., & Bhatia, D. (2022). Our brightly‐lit future: Exploring the potential for astrotourism in Khajuraho (India). The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadien. 
• Bhatia, D., Mohite, V., Spataro, P., Rossi-Arnaud, C., & Mishra, R. K. (2021). Effects of pointing movements on visuospatial working memory in a joint-action condition: Evidence from eye movements. Memory & Cognition, 1-17. 
• Rossi-Arnaud, C., Spataro, P., Bhatia, D., Doricchi, F., Mastroberardino, S., & Cestari, V. (2020). Long-lasting positive effects of collaborative remembering on false assents to misleading questions. Acta Psychologica, 203, 102986. 
• Rathee, S., Bhatia, D., Punia, V., & Singh, R. (2020). Peak alpha frequency in relation to cognitive performance. Journal of Neurosciences in Rural Practice, 11(03), 416-419. 

• Bhatia, D., Spataro, P., Mishra, R.K., Cestari, V. , Doricchi F., Rossi-Arnaud, C. (2019) Pointing movements and visuo-spatial working memory in a  joint setting: the role of motor inhibition. Psychological Research.  
• Rossi-Arnaud, C., Spataro, P., Bhatia, D., & Cestari, V. (2018). Collaborative remembering reduces suggestibility: A study with the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale. Memory, 1-9. 
• Bhatia, D., Prasad, S. G., Sake, K., & Mishra, R. K. (2017). Task Irrelevant External Cues Can Influence Language Selection in Voluntary Object Naming: Evidence from Hindi-English Bilinguals. PloS one, 12(1), e0169284. 

Book Chapters

• Bhatia, D., Pandiaraj, D., & Reddy, S. (2024). The Effect of Demographic and Psychological Factors on Vaccine Reluctance in COVID-19: A Systematic Review. Exploring the Psycho-Social Impact of COVID-19, 153-199.

Conference Proceedings 

• Santirocchi, A., Bhatia, D., Gupta, R., Spataro, P., Rossi-Arnaud, C., & Cestari, V. (2022). Perception of Risk and Intention for Vaccination in times of Covid-19 emergency in an Indian sample. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 44. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/62s9j9rp 
• Gupta, R., Junnarkar, M., & Bhatia, D. (2021). Impact of Socio-Economic Status on Cognitive Processing. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 43.  
• Bhatia, D., Spataro, P., & Rossi-Arnaud, C. (2019). Movements and Visuospatial Working Memory: Examining the Role of Movement and Attention to Movement, 41st Annual Meeting of Cognitive Science Society (COGSCI), 2019. 
• Bhatia, D., Spataro, P., & Rossi-Arnaud, C. (2018). Whose pointing is beneficial for visuo-spatial working memory: Mine, yours or an animated hand’s? COGNITIVE PROCESSING (Vol. 19, pp. S57-S57). TIERGARTENSTRASSE 17, D-69121 HEIDELBERG, GERMANY: SPRINGER HEIDELBERG. 
• Bhatia, D., & Mishra, R. K., (2015). Influence of other’s choice on own language production. Evidence from Hindi-English bilinguals, Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP, p. 163). 

• Santirocchi, A., Bhatia, D., Gupta, R., Spataro, P., Rossi-Arnaud, C., & Cestari, V. (2022). Perception of Risk and Intention for Vaccination in times of Covid-19 emergency in an Indian sample. 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
• Bhatia, D., Spataro, P., & Rossi-Arnaud, C., Functional equivalence between executed and imagined pointing movements in visuospatial working memory, 62nd Annual Meeting of Psychonomic Society (2021).
• Gupta, R., Junnarkar, M., & Bhatia, D. (2021). Impact of Socio-Economic Status on Cognitive Processing. 43rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
• Bhatia, D., Spataro, P., Mohite, V., Mishra, R. K., & Rossi-Arnaud, C., Your actions are my actions: An eye-movement study on the joint effects of pointing in visuo-spatial working memory, 8th Joint Action Meeting, Genoa, Italy (2019)
• Bhatia, D., Spataro, P., & Rossi-Arnaud, C., Movements and Visuo-spatial working memory: Examining the role of Movement and Attention to Movement, 41st Annual Meeting of Cognitive Science Society (COGSCI), Montreal, Canada (2019).
• Bhatia, D., Spataro, P., & Rossi-Arnaud, C., Whose pointing is beneficial for visuo-spatial working memory: Mine, yours or an animated hand’s?, 7th international conference on spatial cognition (ICSC), Rome, Italy (2018).
• Bhatia, D., Spataro, P., & Rossi-Arnaud, C., Pointing performed by others facilitate visuo-spatial memory, but how much should I be involved?, MeeTo Conference, Turin, Italy (2018).
• Bhatia, D., Spataro, P., & Rossi-Arnaud, C., You and the hand: investigating the effects of other-performed pointing movements on visuo-spatial memory, 16th European Workshop on Imagery and Cognition (EWIC), Padova, Italy (2018).
• Bhatia, D., Spataro, P., & Rossi-Arnaud, C. (2018). Movements & visuo-spatial working memory: The effect of active, passive and other’s pointing, Ninth European Working Memory Symposium (EWOMS- 9), Pavia, Italy.
• Bhatia, D., Spataro, P., & Rossi-Arnaud, C., My movements help me remember better, what about yours?, VII Joint Action Meeting, London, UK (2017).

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