Isabelle Blanchette
Professor
Regular member of ESEI
Isabelle Blanchette has held the position of Full Professor at the School of Psychology since September 2019. She is also affiliated with the CERVO Brain Research Centre. She holds a PhD in Experimental Psychology from McGill University. After completing a postdoctorate at the University of London, she began her career at the University of Manchester, in Great Britain, and then went on to work at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières where she led the CogNAC (Cognition, Neurosciences, Affect, Comportement) research group.
Isabelle Blanchette’s research explores the effect of emotions and traumatic events on cognitive processes such as reasoning, attention and memory. She currently leads a research program in the African Great Lakes region that aims to understand the impact of experiences related to the Tutsi genocide in 1994 (in Rwanda) or armed conflicts (in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) on the mental and cognitive health of individuals. Among other topics, this research addresses sexual violence; the links between psychological health and involvement in the process of justice; issues of reconciliation; and building perspectives of peace.
Recent publications:
Giroux, S.V., Caparos, S., Gosselin, N., Rutembesa, E., & Blanchette, I. (2020). Impact of music on working memory in Rwanda. Frontiers in Psychology – Cognition. Special Issue: Untangling Cultural Influences on Human Cognition: Integrating Evidence across Cultural Contexts and Methodological Approaches, 11, 774.
Grégoire, L., Gosselin, I. & Blanchette, I. (2020). The impact of trauma exposure on explicit and implicit episodic memory. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 33(1), 1-18. doi: 10.1080/10615806.2019.1664477.
Williot, A. & Blanchette, I. (2020). The influence of an emotional processing strategy on visual threat detection by police trainees and officers. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 34(2), 295-307. doi:10.1002/acp.3616
Damjanovic, L., Williot, A, & Blanchette, I. (2020). Is it dangerous? The role of an emotional visual search strategy and threat-relevant training in the detection of guns and knives. British Journal of Psychology, 111, 275-296. doi:10.1111/bjop.12404
Caparos, S., Linnell, K.J. & Blanchette, I. (2019). The local perceptual bias of a non-remote and educated African population. Psychological Research. doi: 10.1007/s00426-019-01158-6
Fortier-St-Pierre, S., Grégoire, L., & Blanchette, I. (2019). Do different types of US produce similar Evaluative Conditioning? An examination with contingency-awareness and cognitive load. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 31(2), 196-205. doi:10.1080/20445911.2019.1585436
Williot, A, & Blanchette, I. (2019). Attentional processing of neutral and threatening words in the cueing paradigm: horizontal or vertical presentation? Cognition, Brain, Behavior. An Interdisciplinary Journal, 23, 1-27.
Deldar, Z., Rustamov; N., Blanchette, I., Piché, M. (2019). Improving working memory and pain inhibition in older persons using neuromodulation of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Neuroscience Research, 148, 19-27. doi: 10.1016/j.neures.2018.12.007
Duagani Masika, Y., Leys, C., Matonda-Ma-Nzuzi, T., Blanchette, I., Mampunza Ma Miezi, S. & Kornreich, C. (2019). Peritraumatic dissociation and post-traumatic stress disorder in individuals exposed to armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 20(5), 582-593, doi: 10.1080/15299732.2019.1597814
Blanchette, I., Rutembesa, E., Habimana, E. & Caparos, S. (2019). Long term cognitive correlates of exposure to political violence: Short-term memory in Rwanda twenty years after the genocide. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy, 11(2), 147-155. doi: 10.1037/tra0000388
Abbassi, E., Blanchette, I., Sirmon-Taylor, B., Ansaldo, A.I., Ska, B. & Joanette, Y. (2019). Lateralized Affective Word Priming and Gender Effect. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2591. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02591
Viau-Quesnel, C., Savary, M. & Blanchette, I. (2019). Reasoning and concurrent timing: A study of the mechanisms underlying the effect of emotion on reasoning. Emotion & Cognition, 33(5), 1020-1030. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2018.1535427
Viau-Quesnel, C., Savary, M. & Blanchette, I. (2018). Reasoning and concurrent timing: A study of the mechanisms underlying the effect of emotion on reasoning. Emotion & Cognition. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2018.1535427.
Forest, M. & Blanchette, I. (2018). Memory for neutral, emotional and trauma-related information in sexual abuse survivors. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 9(1), 1476439. doi: 10.1080/20008198.2018.1476439.
Gosselin, J. & Blanchette, I. (2018). L’influence des émotions intégrales positives sur le raisonnement déductif et inductif. Revue Québécoise de Psychologie, 39 (2).
Herry, C., Maintenant, C., Blanchette, I., Tricard, É., Gimenes, G. & Pennequin, V. (2018). Emotional response categorization in adolescents and young adults. Psychological Reports, doi: 10.1177/0033294118784864.
Williot, A. & Blanchette, I. (2018). Can threat detection by police cadets be enhanced using processing strategies? Acta Psychologia, 187, 9-18. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.04.010.
Research interests
- Trauma
- Armed conflict
- Normal and pathological cognition
- Cognitive neuroscience