Prof. Sebastian Wallot PhD

Research Interests
- Reading Research
- Comprehension and Meaning
- Timing and Time Perception
- Joint Action
- Complex Systems Theory
- Nonlinear Dynamics
Vita
Academic Education
2008–2011 | Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology, University of Cincinnati, USA |
2003–2008 | Diploma in Psychology, University of Trier, Germany |
Professional Experience | |
since 10/2020 | Professor Institute for Psychology, Leuphana Universität, Lüneburg, Germany |
02/2016–09/2020 | Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany |
10/2013–01/2016 | Postdoc, Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Denmark |
01/2012–09/2013 | Senior Fellow, EU Marie-Curie TESIS Network, Aarhus University, Dänemark |
03/2008–07/2008 | Visiting Scholar, CAP Center for Cognition, Action and Perception, University of Cincinnati, USA |
Publications
Articles (in peer-reviewed journals)
Gordon, I., Wallot, S., & Berson, Y. (2021). Group-level physiological synchrony and individual-level anxiety predict positive affective behaviors during a group decision-making task. Psychophysiology, Article e13857. doi:10.1111/psyp.13857. Ilanit Gordon and Sebastian Wallot contributed equally to writing this manuscript and share first authorship.
*Menninghaus, W., & *Wallot, S. (2021). What the eyes reveal about (reading) poetry. Poetics, 85, Article 101526. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2020.101526 *shared first authorship
Schlotz, W., Wallot, S., Omigie, D., Masucci, M. D., Hoelzmann, S. C., & Vessel, E. A. (2020). The Aesthetic Responsiveness Assessment (AReA): A screening tool to assess individual differences in responsiveness to art in English and German. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/aca0000348
Cocoa, M. I., Mønster, D., Leonardi, G., Rick, D., & Wallot, S. (2020). Unidimensional and Multidimensional Methods for Recurrence Quantification Analysis with crqa. arXiv. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.01954.
Drews, H., Wallot, S., Brysch, P., Berger-Johannsen, H., Mitkidis, P., Baier, P., et al. (2020). Bed-Sharing in Couples Is Associated With Increased and Stabilized REM Sleep and Sleep-Stage Synchronization. Frontiers in Psychiatry,11, Article 583. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00583.
Wallot, S., Lee, J. T., & Kelty-Stephen, D. G. (2019). Switching between reading tasks leads to phase-transitions in reading times in L1 and L2 readers. Plos One, 14(2), Article e0211502. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0211502
Wallot, S., & Leonardi, G. (2018). Analyzing Multivariate Dynamics Using Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis (CRQA), Diagonal-Cross-Recurrence Profiles (DCRP), and Multidimensional Recurrence Quantification Analysis (MdRQA) – A Tutorial in R. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, Article 2232. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02232
Wallot, S. (2018). Multidimensional Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis (MdCRQA) – A Method for Quantifying Correlation between Multivariate Time-Series. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 1–19. doi:10.1080/00273171.2018.1512846
Wallot, S., & Mønster, D. (2018). Calculation of average mutual information (AMI) and false-nearest neighbors (FNN) for the estimation of embedding parameters of multidimensional time series in Matlab. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, Article 1679. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01679
Wallot, S., & Leonardi, G. (2018). Deriving inferential statistics from recurrence plots: A recurrence-based test of differences between sample distributions and its comparison to the two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science, 28(8), Article 085712. doi:10.1063/1.5024915
Wallot, S., & Menninghaus, W. (2018). Ambiguity effects of rhyme and meter. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition,44(12), 1947–1954. doi:10.1037/xlm0000557
Wallot, S., & Kelty-Stephen, D. G. (2018). Interaction-dominant causation in mind and brain, and its implication for questions of generalization and replication. Minds and Machines, 28 (2), 353–374. doi:10.1007/s11023-017-9455-0
Roeske, T. C., Kelty-Stephen, D., & Wallot, S. (2018). Multifractal analysis reveals music-like dynamic structure in songbird rhythms. Scientific Reports, 8 (1), 4570. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-22933-2
Booth, C. R., Brown, H. L., Eason, E. G., Wallot, S., & Kelty-Stephen, D. G. (2018). Expectations on hierarchical scales of discourse: Multifractality predicts both short- and long-range effects of violating gender expectations in text reading. Discourse Processes, 55(1), 12–30. doi:10.1080/0163853X.2016.1197811
Abney, D. H., Warlaumont, A. S., Oller, D. K., Wallot, S., & Kello, C. T. (2017). Multiple coordination patterns in infant and adult vocalizations. Infancy, 22(4), 514–539. doi:10.1111/infa.12165
Kelty-Stephen, D., & Wallot, S. (2017). Multifractality versus (mono)fractality in the narrative about nonlinear interactions across time scales: Disentangling the belief in nonlinearity from the diagnosis of nonlinearity. Eclological Psychology, 29, 259–299.
Wallot, S. (2017). Recurrence quantification analysis of processes and products of discourse: A tutorial in R. Discourse Processes, 54(5-6), 382–405.doi:10.1080/0163853X.2017.1297921
Drews, H. J., Wallot, S., Weinhold, S. L., Mitkidis, P., Baier, P. C., Roepstorff, A., & Goeder, R. (2017). "Are we in sync with each other?" Exploring the effects of cosleeping on heterosexual couples' sleep using simultaneous polysomnography: A pilot study. Sleep Disorders, 2017, 5. doi:10.1155/2017/8140672
Mitkidis, P., Ayal, S., Shalvi, S., Heimann, K., Levy, G., Kyselo, M., Wallot, S., Ariely, D., & Roepstorff, A. (2017). The effects of extreme rituals on moral behavior: The performers-observers gap hypothesis. Journal of Economic Psychology, 59, 1–7. doi:10.1016/j.joep.2016.12.007
Lyby, M., Mehlsen, M. Y., Wallot, A., & Wallot, S. (2016). Perspektiver inden for teknologisk-assisteret indsamling af data i psykologisk forandring - rammesat af den synergetiske psykologi [Möglichkeiten der technologiegestützten Datenerfassung psychischer Veränderungsprozesse – Methoden der synergetischen Psychologie]. Psyke & Logos, 37, 144–170.
Wallot, S., Mitkidis, P., McGraw, J. J., & Roepstorff, A. (2016). Beyond synchrony: Joint action in a complex production task reveals beneficial effects of decreased interpersonal synchrony. Plos One, 11(12), Article e0168306. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0168306
Lang, M., Shaw, D. J., Reddish, P., Wallot, S., Mitkidis, P., & Xzgalatas, D. (2016). Lost in the rhythm: The effects of rhythm on subsequent interpersonal co-ordination. Cognitive Science, 40, 1797–1815. doi:10.1111/cogs.12302
Wallot, S., Roepstorff, A., & Mønster, D. (2016). Multidimensional Recurrence Quantification Analysis (MdRQA) for the analysis of multidimensional time-series: A software implementation in MATLAB and its application to group-level data in joint action. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, Article 1835, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01835
O'Brien, B. A., & Wallot, S. (2016). Silent Reading Fluency and Comprehension in Bilingual Children. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, Article 1265. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01265
Xygalatas, D., Kundtová Klocová, W., Cigán, J., Kundt, R., Maňo, P., Kotherová, S., Wallot, S., Mitkidis, P. & Kanovsky, M. (2016) Location, location, location: Effects of cross-religious primes on prosocial behavior. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 4, 304–319. doi:10.1080/10508619.2015.1097287
Teng, D. W., Wallot, S., & Kelty-Stephen, D. G. (2016). Single-word recognition need not depend on single-word features: Narrative coherence counteracts effects of single-word features that lexical decision emphasizes. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 45(6), 1451–1472. doi:10.1007/s10936-016-9416-4
Wallot, S. (2016). Understanding reading as a form of language-use: A language game hypothesis. New Ideas in Psychology, 42, 21–28. doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2015.07.006
Mønster, D., Håkonsson, D. D., Eskildsen, J. K., & Wallot, S. (2016). Physiological evidence of interpersonal dynamics in a cooperative production task. Physiology & Behavior,156, 24–34. doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2016.01.004
Mitkidis, P., McGraw, J. J., Roepstorff, A., & Wallot, S. (2015). Building trust: Heart rate synchrony and arousal during joint action increased by public goods game. Physiology & Behavior, 149, 101–106. doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2015.05.033
Wallot, S. (2015). Intentions and synergies: The cases of control and speed. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 22, 80–83.
Wallot, S., Coey, C. A., & Richardson, M. J. (2015). Cue predictability changes scaling in eye-movement fluctuations. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 77(7), 2169–2180. doi:10.3758/s13414-015-0983-5
Wallot, S., Coey, C. A., & Richardson, M. J. (2015). Interdependence of saccadic and fixational fluctuations. Ecological Psychology, 27, 68–86. doi:10.1080/10407413.2015.991666
Abney, D. H., Warlaumont, A. S., Haussman, A., Ross, J. M., & Wallot, S. (2014). Using nonlinear methods to quantify changes in infant limb movements and vocalizations. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 771. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00771
Kiefer, A. W., Wallot, S., Gresham, L. J., Kloos, H., Riley, M. A., Shockley, K., & Van Orden, G. (2014). Development of coordination in time estimation. Developmental Psychology, 50, 393–401. doi:10.1037/a0033629
McGraw, J. J., Wallot, S., Mitkidis, P., & Roepstorff, A. (2014). Culture’s building blocks: investigating cultural evolution in a LEGO construction task. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 1017. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01017
O’Brien, B. A., Wallot, S., Haussmann, A., & Kloos, H. (2014). Using complexity metrics to assess silent reading fluency: A cross-sectional study comparing oral and silent reading. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18, 235–254. doi:10.1080/10888438.2013.862248
O’Brien, B. A., & Wallot, S. (2014). Dynamical structure of silent reading fluency in bilingual students (pp. 175-179). Proceedings of the XVIth European Conference on Developmental Psychology. Bologna: Medimondo.
Steenberg, M., Bräuner, P., & Wallot, S. (2014). Text technology: Building subjective and shared experience in reading. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 14, 357–372. doi:10.1163/15685373-12342131
Wallot, S. (2014). From “cracking the orthographic code” to “playing with language”: toward a usage-based foundation of the reading process. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 891. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00891
Wallot, S., & Kelty-Stephen, D. (2014). Constraints are the solution, not the problem. [Commentary on Reichle and Reingold (2013): Neurophysiological constraints on the eye-mind link]. Frontiers in Neuroscience. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.00324
Wallot, S., O’Brien, B. A., Haussmann, A., Kloos, A., & Lyby, M. S. (2014). The role of reading time complexity and reading speed in text comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40, 1745–1765. doi:10.1037/xlm0000030
Reddy, V., Markova, G., & Wallot, S. (2013). Anticipatory adjustments to being picked up in infancy. Plos One, 8, Article e65289. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0065289
Wallot, S., Fusaroli, R., Tylén, K., & Jegindø, E.-M. (2013). Using complexity metrics with RR intervals and BPM heart rate measures. Frontiers in Physiology. doi:10.3389/fphys.2013.00211
Wallot, S., & Grabowski, J. (2013). Typewriting dynamics: What distinguishes simple from complex writing tasks? Ecological Psychology, 25, 267–280. doi:10.1080/10407413.2013.810512
Wallot, S., Hollis, G., & van Rooij, M. (2013). Connected text reading and differences in text reading fluency in adult readers. Plos One. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0071914
Coey, C. A., Wallot, S., Richardson, M. J., & Van Orden, G. (2012). On the structure of measurement noise in eye-movements. Journal of Eye-Movement Research, 5, 1–10.
Riley, M. A., Bonnette, S., Kuznetsov, N., Wallot, S., & Gao, J. (2012). A tutorial introduction to adaptive fractal analysis. Frontiers in Physiology.doi:10.3389/fphys.2012.00371
Riley, M. A., Mitra, S., Saunders, N., Kiefer, A. W., & Wallot, S. (2012). The interplay between posture control and memory for spatial locations. Experimental Brain Research, 217, 43–52. doi:10.1007/s00221-011-2970-y
Van Orden, G., Hollis, G., & Wallot, S. (2012). The blue collar brain. Frontiers In Physiology, 3, Article 207. doi:10.3389/fphys.2012.00207
Wallot, S., & Van Orden, G. (2012). Ultrafast cognition. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 19, 141–160.
Kuznetsov, N., & Wallot, S. (2011). Effects of accuracy feedback on fractal characteristics of time estimation. Frontiers in Neuroscience.doi:10.3389/fnint.2011.00062
Wallot, S., & Van Orden, G. (2011). Grounding language in the anticipatory dynamics of the body. Ecological Psychology, 23, 157-184. doi:0.1080/10407413.2011.5912
Wallot, S., & Van Orden, G. (2011). Toward a life-span metric of reading fluency. International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, 21, 1173–1192.
Wallot, S., & Van Orden, G. (2011). Nonlinear analyses of self-paced reading. The Mental Lexicon, 6, 245–274.
Further Articles and Book Chapters
Lyby, M. S., Wallot, S., & Mehlsen, M. Y. (2020). Measures of microgenetic changes in emotion regulation strategies across life transitions. In K. Viol, H. Schöller, & W. Aichhorn (Eds.), Selbstorganisation – ein Paradigma für die Humanwissenschaften: Zu Ehren von Günter Schiepek und seiner Forschung zu Komplexität und Dynamik in der Psychologie (pp. 287-302). Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
Håkonsson, D. D., Mitkidis, P., & Wallot, S. (2020). Team Emotions and Team Learning. In L. Argote & J. M. Levine (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Group and Organizational Learning (pp. 453-474). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Wallot, S., & Grabowski, J. (2019). A tutorial introduction to Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA) for key-logging data. In E. Lindgren & K. Sullivan (Eds.), Observing Writing - Insights from Keystroke Logging and Handwriting (pp. 163-189). Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004392526_009
Wallot, S., Lyby, M., & van Rooij, M. M. J. W. (2015). Recurrence quantification analysis as a general-purpose tool for bridging the gap between qualitative and quantitative analysis. In Flavian, H. & Huber, G. L. (Eds.), Qualitative Psychology Nexus Vol. 13: New Perspectives on Qualitative Research (pp. 65–87).
Wallot, S., O’Brien, B., Coey, C. A., & Kelty-Stephen, D. (2015). Power-law fluctuations in eye movements predict text comprehen- sion during connected text reading. In D. C. Noelle, R. Dale, A. S. Warlaumont, J. Yoshimi, T. Matlock, C. D. Jennings, & P. P. Maglio (Eds.), Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2583–2588). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
Fusaroli, R., Konvalinka, I., & Wallot, S. (2014). Analyzing social interactions: The promises and challenges of using cross recurrence quantification analysis (pp. 137-155). In N. Marwan, M. Riley, A. Giuliani, and C. L. Webber, Jr., Translational Recurrence. Springer Proceedings in Mathematics (103). London: Springer.
Wallot, S., O’Brien, B. A. & Van Orden, G. (2012). A tutorial introduction to fractal and recurrence analyses of reading (pp. 395–430). In G. Liben, G. Jarema, and C. Westbury, Methodological and analytical frontiers in lexical research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Gresham, L. J., Kloos, H., Wallot, S., & Van Orden, G. (2011). A developmental trend in the structure of time-estimation performance (pp. 3547–3551). Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
Konvalinka, I., Xygalatas, D., Bulbulia, J., Schjødt, U., Jegindø, E. M., Wallot, S., Van Orden, G., & Roepstorff, A. (2011). Synchronized arousal between performers and related spectators in a fire-walking ritual. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 108, 8514–8519. doi:10.1073/pnas.1016955108
Van Orden, G., Kloos, H., & Wallot, S. (2011). Living in the pink: Intentionality, wellbeing, and complexity (pp. 629–672). In C. A. Hooker (Ed.), Philosophy of Complex Systems. Handbook of the Philosophy of Science. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Monograph
Schiepek, G., Eckert, H., Kravanja, B., Wallot, S., & Wallot, A. (2015). Integrative Psychotherapy - A Feedback-Driven Dynamic Systems Approach. Heidelberg: Hogrefe.
Awards and Grants
2008–2011 | University Graduate Scholarship (UGS), University of Cincinnati |
2009–2010 | GSGA Research and Travel Award, University of Cincinnati |
External Funding
2020–2026 | „Quantifizierung nichtlinearer Dynamiken in psychologischen Daten“, Heisenbergprogramm der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (WA 3538/5-1), PI |
2020–2024 | "Die Rolle (nicht-)synchroner Koordination und ihre Quantifizierung in der kollektiven Handlungssteuerung“, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (WA 3538/6-1), PI |
2018–2021 | “Leseprozessregularität”, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, ((WA 3538/6-1), PI |
2016–2020 | “Development of emotion regulation during life transitions”, Danish Council for Independent Research, CO-PI (PI: Prof. Mimi Young Mehlsen, Aarhus University) |
2014–2015 | “Expressive writing in cancer patients?”, IMC Seed Funding, PI |
2014–2015 | “Be quick and be dead? Acting and reacting in a high-noon-style shootout situation.”, IMC Seed Funding, PI |
2013–2014 | “Dynamics of Reading Disorders”, IMC Seed Funding, PI |
2013–2014 | “Measuring Social Interaction”, IMC Seed Funding, Collaborator (PI: Prof. Dimitris Xygalatas, Aarhus University) |
Projects
- Does reading of poetic and literary language recruit/involve distinct eye movement patterns?
This research project investigates the processing of aesthetically relevant features of language during reading of poetry and literary narratives. The aim of the project is to use analyses of eye movement records to investigate the cognitive, ...
- Aesthetic Responsiveness and Engagement Assessment (AREA): Psychometric analysis and test of measurement invariance across samples from the USA and Germany
It is generally accepted that most people are capable of having moving aesthetic experiences, with the caveat that the particular types of stimuli that are effective elicitors of positive aesthetic responses, and the intensity of aesthetic ...
- Reading time regularity
The current project is concerned with predicting text comprehension from statistical measures of the reading process. The process of skilled reading is usually marked by fast information processing, as well as a systematic coupling between reading ...