SHARMILI MITRA

Sharmili has completed her bachelors in Psychology from University of Calcutta and her masters in Applied Psychology from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Her research interests include, but are not limited to, Human Cognition, Fear Conditioning, Psychopathology and Social Cognition. Currently, she is a PhD student and is particularly working in the area of Fear Generalization and Return of Fear in Humans. Through multi-measure assessments, she is interested in examining the efficacy of cognitive and behavioural interventions in Human Fear Generalization and Return of Fear, and its implications in anxiety disorders. She is also working on projects on understanding digital inclusion and technology acceptance among elderly, Gender based stereotypes among women in STEM, Human Spatial Cognition and Route Learning and Fear Memory Reconsolidation.

• B.A. in Psychology, Gokhale Memorial Girls’ College, University of Calcutta.
• M.A in Applied Psychology with specialization in Counseling, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai.

• Technology Acceptance and Ease of Use among the Elderly.
• Efficacy of Sex Differences on the Perceptual Experience of Virtual Building Images.
• The Gender-STEM Dynamics in Higher Education in Premier Institutions of India.
• Investigating the effects of emotional eliciting images on human route learning strategies.
• Category-Based Fear Generalization in Humans.
• Investigating the effects of Imagery Rescripting and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Fear Generalization and Extinction.

• Trainee Professional Development Award (TPDA) by the Society for Neuroscience, providing access to professional development courses and travel grant (2500 USD) to attend Neuroscience 2023 at Washington D.C.
• Received the International Travel Support (ITS) Scheme travel grant by the Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB) for attending the 33rd International Congress of Psychology 2024 at Prague, Czech Republic (2024)
• Received the Best Poster Award- 3rd Position at the Institute Research Day poster presentation

• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2024). Imagery rescripting attenuates the return of generalized fear through spontaneous recovery, poster presentation at the Neuroscience 2024, annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience on 7th October, 2024 at Chicago, USA.
• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2024). Role of Imagery Rescripting and Imaginal Extinction in Fear Generalization and UCS Devaluation, oral presentation at the 33rd International Congress of Psychology (ICP) 2024, on 22nd July 2024 at Prague, Czech Republic. Funding source: International Travel Support (ITS) Scheme travel grant by the Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB).
• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2023). Imagery Rescripting and Imaginal Extinction in Reducing Generalized Fear: A Comparison, poster presentation at the 10th Annual Conference of Cognitive Science, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur on 10th December, 2023.
• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2023). Continuous and partial reinforcement impact threat expectancies in conceptual fear generalization, poster presentation at the Neuroscience 2023, annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience on 11th November, 2023 at Washington DC, USA. Funding source: Trainee Professional Development Award (TPDA) by the Society for Neuroscience (2500 USD).
• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2023). Exploring the role of Imagery Rescripting and Imaginal Extinction in Reducing Generalized Threat Expectancies, poster presentation at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Indian Academy of Neurosciences and International Conference on Brain: Chemistry to Cognition, Jiwaji University, Gwalior.
• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2023). Investigating the Effect of Reinforcement Levels on Conceptual Fear Generalization, oral presentation at the 32nd National Academy of Psychology (NaOP) Annual Convention, Ahmedabad University.
• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2022). Effect of Continuous and Partial Reinforcement in Conceptual Fear Generalization, poster presentation at the 9th Annual Conference of Cognitive Science, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.
• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2022). Information and Communication Technology Acceptance and Digital Inclusion among Elderly Users, oral presentation at the 2nd Young Graduate Meet, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi.
• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2022). Understanding Information and Communication Technology Acceptance among Elderly Users, poster presentation at the 4th Summer School: Cultural Psychology as an Interdisciplinary Synthesis at the University of Luxembourg (APA Div. 52).
• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2022). Modulation of Imagery Rescripting and Extinction using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, No-data poster presentation at TEAP Conference 2022, Germany.
• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2021). Can Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Modulate Generalized Fear Memories, oral presentation at SYNAPSE Neuroscience Symposium 2021 by IISER Thiruvananthapuram IISER Tirupati.
• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2021). A Qualitative Approach to Examine Technology Acceptance and Ease of Use among Elderly, poster Presentation at Florida Psychological Association Conference- Diversity at Practice.
• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M.K. (2021). Can Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Douse Fear Generalization?, oral presentation at Euregio Brain Networking Conference.

• Mitra, S., & Asthana, M. K. (2024). Attenuating Conditioned Fear using Imagery-Based Interventions: An Overview. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 105751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105751
• Verma A, Mitra S, Khamaj A, Kant V, Asthana MK (2024). Preventing fear return in humans: Music-based intervention during reactivation-extinction paradigm. PLoS ONE 19(2): e0293880. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293880
• Maji, S., Mitra, S., & Asthana, M. K. (2023). ‘Treading the no woman’s land’: The gender-STEM dynamics in higher education in premier institutions of India. European Journal of Engineering Education, 0(0), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2023.2168518
• Mitra, S., Singh, A., Rajendran Deepam, S., & Asthana, M. K. (2022). Information and communication technology adoption among the older people: A qualitative approach. Health & Social Care in the Community, 30(6). https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.14085
• Sambath, R. D., Mitra, S., & Asthana, M. K. (2022). Efficacy of Sex Differences on the Perceptual Experience of Virtual Building Images. In D. Chakrabarti, S. Karmakar, & U. R. Salve (Eds.), Ergonomics for Design and Innovation (pp. 247–258). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94277-9_22

• Indian Academy of Neuroscience (Life Member)
• Society for Neuroscience (January to December 2023)