Collaborator Member
Cognition Team
Sara got her European Doctorate in Psychology in 2025 from the University of Aveiro (UA), with City, University of London as the foreign host institution. She is also certified psychologist (OPP CP: 28945).
She completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology in 2016 and a Master’s degree in Health Psychology and Neuropsychological Rehabilitation in 2018, both at the University of Aveiro. Her PhD research, supported by an FCT mixed PhD fellowship (SFRH/BD/145097/2019), explored the mnemonic effect of animacy — how living/nonliving stimuli influence memory — across young and older adults.
Sara’s doctoral work was supervised by Josefa N. S. Pandeirada (WJCR-UA) and co-supervised by Marie Poirier (City, University of London, UK) and James S. Nairne (Purdue University, USA).
Her main research interests include experimental psychology, cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive aging.
Main publications
Félix, S. B., Poirier, M., & Pandeirada, J. N. S. (2025). Exploring the animacy effect in focal prospective memory tasks: When animates don’t stand out. Journal of Memory and Language, 144, 104673. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104673
Nairne, J. S., Pandeirada, J. N. S., Fernandes, N. L., & Félix, S. B. (2025). Adaptive memory. In J. Wixted (Ed.), Learning and memory: A comprehensive reference (3rd ed., Ch. 4.04, pp. 59-79). Academic Press. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-443-15754-7.00016-X
Félix, S. B., Poirier, M., Nairne, J. S., & Pandeirada, J. N. S. (2024). The breadth of animacy in memory: New evidence from prospective memory. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 31, 1323-1334. doi: 10.3758/s13423-023-02406-y
Félix, S. B., & Pandeirada, J. N. S. (2024). The animacy (bias) effect in recognition: Testing the influence of intentionality of learning and retrieval quality. Memory. Advance online publication.. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2024.2362755
Félix, S. B., Poirier, M., & Pandeirada, J. N. S. (2023). Is “earth” an animate thing? Cross-linguistic and inter-age analyses of animacy word ratings in European Portuguese and British English young and older adults. PlosOne, 18, e0289755. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0289755
Contacts
E-mail: sara.felix@ua.pt
CiênciaVitae: https://www.cienciavitae.pt/portal/en/EC19-D6EE-7009
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9645-5787
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.pt/citations?user=uJe6hjUAAAAJ&hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-b-félix-499944113
Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sara_B_Felix
Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57207347812
WJCR 