The 2012 joint meeting: The 2012 meeting will be a special event since this will be a joint meeting with SEPEX, the Spanish society for experimental psychology. For this reason, we will exceptionally have a two-day meeting (May 10 and May 11). It is organized by Steve Majerus.

Symposium, talk and poster presentations
The call for symposium, talk and poster submissions is now open. The conference website is:
https://w3.fapse.ulg.ac.be/conferences/BAPSSEPEX/2012/.
                                                  
Deadline for submissions: February 15, 2012, at 11:59pm.

Keynote speakers
The keynote speakers will be Daniel Schacter (Harvard University) and Pio Tudela (Universidad de Granada).

The 2010 annual meeting: On Friday May 28th 2010, the Belgian Association for Psychological Science (BAPS) held its Annual Meeting at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. The main keynote speaker was Prof. Patrick Haggard (University of London) and the main theme of the conference was cognitive psychology. The organizers were Cécile Colin, Arnaud Destrebecqz and Wim Gevers.

The 2011 meeting was organized in Ghent by Alain Van Hiel, Barbara De Clercq and Frederik Anseel.

The 2012 meeting is planned on May 10 and 11, 2012 (Thursday and Friday) in Liège and organized by Steve Majerus. It will be a joint meeting with the Spanish society for experimental psychology. The organizers are looking for a joint scientific committee and have a look at collaborations that are going on between Belgian and Spanish researchers.

On Wednesday June 3rd 2009 the Belgian Association for Psychological Science (BAPS) held its Annual Meeting at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Together with the journal, Psychologica Belgica, the Annual Meeting is one of the highlights of BAPS’s activities.

Organizers
The meeting was organized by the “Vakgroep Klinische en LevensloopPsychologie” (Department of Clinical and Life Span Psychology) of the VUB (Caroline Andries, Eva Dierckx, Gina Rossi, Christiaan Schotte, Wim Van den Broeck). They took inspiration from the previous successful meeting at the KULeuven but in good tradition were given the freedom to make their own choices in addition to the regular presentations by the BAPS members. As a result, the program had a stronger applied component than in many other years.

Keynote speakers
There were two keynote speakers from the USA:

1. Prof. Steve Strack (Pepperdine University & Alliant International University; USA, CA) on  “Differentiating normal and abnormal personality the Millon way”
2. Prof. Russell Revlin (University of California, Santa Barbara; USA, CA) on “Reasoning about hypothetical situations”.

Lectures, posters, and symposia
Due to a healthy submission rate, the program was quite packed. In addition to the plenary sessions, there were five parallel session, including 32 talks by members and 9 symposia on:

1. Neurobiological perspectives on depression
2. The Big Five
3. Economic psychology
4. Numerical abilities
5. The use of the MMPI-2 RF
6. Research on dyslexia
7. Psychological factors in oncology
8. Working conditions and work behavior
9. Psychopathy: Emotions & cognition

At lunch time there was a poster session with a total of 75 posters on display.

Best thesis award
For the 14th time, the Society conferred its Best Thesis Award (€1000; half sponsored by the BFP-FPB) for the best Master’s thesis. This involves a two-step procedure.
First, members of staff from the different universities were invited to encourage their best students to write a 2000 word English summary of their Master’s thesis (this was done in November 2008). The 16 submissions were judged by a committee consisting of the following members of the BAPS Executive Committee:

1. Cécile Colin (ULB)
2. Axel Cleeremans (ULB)
3. Alain Van Hiel (UG)
4. Marc Brysbaert (UG)

Four summaries were shortlisted. They were in alphabetical order:

1. Stefanie Adriaensen (UG): “The iceberg beneath the surface: Impact of stuttering on self-esteem in adolescents through mediating processes”
2. Leen Bastiaansen (VUB): “The structure of the DSM-IV-TR Axis II classification: An assessment of the clusters, categories and criteria using confirmatory factor analysis”
3. Florine De Brouwer (ULB): “Influence of gaze perception in a detection task”
4. Astrid Vermeiren (UG): “Tracking down the asymmetric switch cost: the case of the antisaccades”

These students were asked to send their full theses, which were judged by the following 4 examinators appointed by the National Committee for Psychological Sciences (Royal Society of Sciences)

1. F.  Van Overwalle – President (VUB)
2. B. Rimé (UCL)           
3. W. Gevers (ULB)      
4. P. De Boeck (KUL)

After deliberation, Astrid Vermeiren was selected as the 2009 Laureate. She received the award and gave a short presentation at one of the plenary sessions of the Annual Meeting.

Poster prizes
The posters were judged by a committee on clarity, appeal, and informativeness and three of them were awarded a poster prize (€ 150). They were:

1. Walvoort, S., Egger, J.I.M., & Wester, A.J. (Venray, Nijmegen) Alcohol related cognitive deficits and the MMPI-2 neuropsychological correlation
2. Brants, M. Van Belle, G., Verfaillie, K., & De Neys, W. (KULeuven) Conflict detection during reasoning: Eye-movement data
3. Delespaux, E., Rijckebosch, A.S., & Zech, E. (UCLouvain) Attachment style and coping strategies in adjustment to conjugal bereavement

General Assembly
At the General Assembly it was agreed that from July 1, 2009 Etienne Quertemont (ULg) would start dealing with the new submissions to Psychologica Belgica. The outgoing editor, Karl Verfaillie (KUL), will take care of the ongoing submissions and the Special Issue of 2009 (Festschrift José Morais). From 2010 on, Etienne Quertemont will become the new editor in chief for a period of 3 year, which can be renewed once.

The general theme of the meeting is: "Recent trends in Clinical and Life Span Psychology: Emotion, Cognition, and Personality". There will be two keynote lectures by

(1) Prof. Dr. Steve Strack (USA: Pepperdine University & Alliant International University, CA) and

(2) Prof. Dr. Russell Revlin (USA: University of California, Santa Barbara, CA)