Current Organizations / Institutes

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Neşe Alkan has a total of 19 co-authors. Here are the top co-authors by number of shared publications:


Latest Publications

  • Open Access

    Next Generation Mood Adaptive Behavioral Modeling for Decarbonizing Office Buildings and Optimizing Thermal Comfort

    by Cihan Turhan, Özgür Reşat Doruk, Neşe Alkan, Mehmet Furkan Özbey, Miguel Chen Austin, Samar Thapa, Vadi Su Yılmaz, Eda Erdoğan, Barış Mert Akpınar, Poyraz Pekcan

    Conventional Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) control systems primarily rely on environmental and physiological parameters, largely ignoring the critical influence of psychological states on thermal comfort. Overlooking this factor often leads to suboptimal occupant satisfaction, energy inefficiency and thus carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. To this aim, this study introduces a novel mood-adaptive HVAC control system integrating psychological feedback to decrease CO2 emissions in office buildings by reducing energy consumption and optimizing comfort. A total of 7000 thermal facial measurement records and high-resolution camera images were collected across seven mood state conditions using video stimuli and the Profile of Mood States (POMS) questionnaire to evaluate mood variations. A dual artificial intelligence system was developed: a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for analyzing facial expressions and an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for processing facial temperatures via thermal imaging. These models collectively predict occupant mood in real-time, and a custom-designed wearable necklace interface transmits this data to dynamically adjust HVAC setpoints. To evaluate system performance, energy consumption was directly measured in real-life operations using an energy analyzer, without relying on simulations. Results indicate that this prototype personalized mood-driven system has the potential to enhance perceived thermal comfort while achieving up to a 20% reduction in carbon emissions compared to conventional systems. This human-centered approach significantly advances intelligent building management and climate change mitigation.


  • Open Access

    Recognition and Misclassification Patterns of Basic Emotional Facial Expressions: An Eye-Tracking Study in Young Healthy Adults

    by Neşe Alkan

    Accurate recognition of basic facial emotions is well documented, yet the mechanisms of misclassification and their relation to gaze allocation remain under-reported. The present study utilized a within-subjects eye-tracking design to examine both accurate and inaccurate recognition of five basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness) in healthy young adults. Fifty participants (twenty-four women) completed a forced-choice categorization task with 10 stimuli (female/male poser × emotion). A remote eye tracker (60 Hz) recorded fixations mapped to eyes, nose, and mouth areas of interest (AOIs). The analyses combined accuracy and decision-time statistics with heatmap comparisons of misclassified versus accurate trials within the same image. Overall accuracy was 87.8% (439/500). Misclassification patterns depended on the target emotion, but not on participant gender. Fear male was most often misclassified (typically as disgust), and sadness female was frequently labeled as fear or disgust; disgust was the most incorrectly attributed response. For accurate trials, decision time showed main effects of emotion (p < 0.001) and participant gender (p = 0.033): happiness was categorized fastest and anger slowest, and women responded faster overall, with particularly fast response times for sadness. The AOI results revealed strong main effects and an AOI × emotion interaction (p < 0.001): eyes received the most fixations, but fear drew relatively more mouth sampling and sadness more nose sampling. Crucially, heatmaps showed an upper-face bias (eye AOI) in inaccurate trials, whereas accurate trials retained eye sampling and added nose and mouth AOI coverage, which aligned with diagnostic cues. These findings indicate that the scanpath strategy, in addition to information availability, underpins success and failure in basic-emotion recognition, with implications for theory, targeted training, and affective technologies.


  • Open Access

    Latent Psychological Pathways in Thermal Comfort Perception: The Mediating Role of Cognitive Uncertainty on Depression and Vigour

    by Mehmet Furkan Özbey, Cihan Turhan, Neşe Alkan, Gulden Gokcen Akkurt

    Thermal comfort is the condition of mind that expresses satisfaction with the thermal environment, and it is assessed through subjective evaluation, according to the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers. While research has traditionally emphasised physical factors, growing evidence highlights the role of the state of mind in shaping thermal perception. In a prior Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis, six mood subscales—Anger, Confusion, Vigour, Tension, Depression, and Fatigue—were examined for how they affect the absolute difference between actual and predicted thermal sensation. Depression and vigour were found to be the most influential, while confusion appeared least impactful. However, to accurately assess the role of confusion, it is necessary to consider its potential interactions with other mood subscales. To this end, a mediation analysis was conducted using Hayes’ PROCESS tool. The mediation analyses revealed that confusion partially mediated depression’s effect in males and vigour’s effect in females. These results suggest that, despite a weak direct impact, confusion critically influences thermal perception by altering the effects of key mood states. Accounting for the indirect effects of mood states may lead to more accurate predictions of human sensory experiences and improve the design of occupant-centred environments.


  • The Big Five Personality Traits and Shopping Addiction among Young Turkish Adults

    by Neşe Alkan

    With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions, online shopping has become a part of the daily life of individuals across the globe. Shopping addiction or compulsive buying, on the other hand, is considered to be a growing behavioral addiction problem which renders individuals’ wellbeing and happiness. The current study aimed at examining the role of gender and the Big Five personality traits on shopping addiction among university students. Study data were obtained through an online survey platform. Seventy university students aged between 18 and 33 (M=23.10, SD=3.38) were included in the analyses. Group comparisons were carried out by conducting One-way Analysis of Variance. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized model where the shopping addiction score was the dependent variable. The predictor variables were extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience scores of the participants. One-way Analysis of Variance tests results indicated a gender difference, with females scoring higher on the shopping addiction score. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that only the openness to experience trait significantly and inversely predicted the shopping addiction. Empirical studies that address the relationship between potentially addictive shopping and the Big Five personality traits are producing inconclusive results. This study was specifically designed to examine the personality – shopping addiction relationship and supports the existing body of knowledge by providing findings from a non-Western culture. A possible protective role of openness to experience trait with regards to shopping addiction is the main implication of the study

  • Open Access

    Investigation of the Relationship between Tension Level and Thermal Sensation. A Case Study of University Study Hall

    by Mehmet Furkan Özbey, Neşe Alkan, Cihan Turhan

    The adaptive thermal comfort model steps forth against Fanger's Predicted Mean Vote/ Percentage of Dissatisfied model because of considering the psychological and behavioural adjustments in addition to environmental and personal parameters in mixed-mode and non-air-conditioned buildings. Among behavioural and psychological adjustments, human behaviour is more investigated than psychological adjustments in aspects of thermal sensation and comfort in the studies. To meet the deficit in the literature on how psychological adjustments affect thermal sensation, an experimental investigation was conducted to explore the effects of tension level on the Thermal Sensation Votes (TSV) of the students. Profile of Mood States (POMS) questionnaire was used to determine the tension level of the students. Experiments were conducted in a university study hall which is in the warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb) zone according to Köppen-Geiger Climate Classification. A total of 1159 students participated in the study, and the relation between the tension level and TSVs of the students were investigated for each gender. To test the associations between the nine quantitative subscales of tension level and the TSV, Pearson’s correlation coefficient was computed. Based on results, “anxious” were considerable for the TSVs of both genders where the p-values were <0,001 for male and 0,044 for female students. In addition, while “shaky” (p=0,001) and “uneasy” (p<0,001) were found significant for the TSVs of male, “nervous” (p=0,013) were discovered noteworthy for the TSVs of the female students.


  • Open Access

    Attention or Heart Rate: A Preliminary Study towards Integrating the Top-down and Bottom-up Processes in Estimating the Apnea Durations

    by Neşe ALKAN, Tolga Akiş

    Accurate perception of time is vital in some athletic activities such as free-diving performance. The exact mechanisms underlying the correct estimation of long intervals using different time estimation paradigms are still an issue to be solved in psychology. To this end, in the current study, by using a prospective paradigm, examined top-down and bottom-up predictors of 25, 50, and 75 seconds of apnea durations. Eleven free-diving athletes performed the target apnea estimations in two experimental conditions: apnea in the air and immersed apnea. In line with our integrative perspective, we obtained heart rate values, attentional control capacities, and affectivity states of the participants, and analyzed the relationship of these with the directional errors of three target apnea estimations. A series of within-participants analyses found the following: first, the heart-rate alone is not the only factor influencing time estimation during long intervals; second, attentional capacity and positive affect contributed to the accuracy of time estimation in a non-constant fashion; third, these three variables affected the accuracy of time estimation differently according to the modality and the duration of the target interval; and fourth, the participants were most accurate in estimating the time during 75s of apnea in the immersed condition.

  • Sensitivity analysis of the effect of current mood states on the thermal sensation in educational buildings

    by Mehmet Furkan Özbey, Aydın Ege Çeter, Şevval Örfioğlu, Neşe Alkan, Cihan Turhan

    Adaptive thermal comfort is a model which considers behavioral and psychological adjustments apart from Fanger's Predicted Mean Vote (PMV)/Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD) method. In the literature, the differences between the PMV/PPD method and adaptive thermal comfort were mainly considered in aspects of behavioral adjustments in an environment. Conversely, limited studies related to psychological adjustments were considered in detail for thermal comfort. This study purposes to investigate the effects of current mood state subscales on thermal sensation of the occupants for the first time in the literature. To this aim, the Profile of Mood States (POMS) questionnaire is used to determine the mood state of the occupants with six different subscales: Anger, Confusion, Vigor, Tension, Depression, and Fatigue. The experiments were conducted in a university study hall in Ankara, Turkey, which is in warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb) according to Köppen-Geiger Climate Classification. The distributions of each subscale were examined via Anderson Darling and Shapiro-Wilk tests accordingly given responses from the occupants. The sensitivity analysis was applied to the six subscales of the POMS with Monte Carlo simulation method by considering the distributions of each subscale. The results revealed that the current mood state has a crucial effect on the thermal sensation of the occupants. The subscales of the Depression and Vigor were found as the most vital ones among the six subscales. Only the pure effects of the Vigor and Depression would change the thermal sensation of the occupants 0.31 and 0.30, respectively. The Confusion was determined as the least effective subscale to the thermal sensation of the occupants. Moreover, with the combination of all the six subscales, the thermal sensation might change up to 1.32. Findings in this study would help researchers to develop the personalized thermal comfort systems.


  • Open Access

    YENİ ESENLİK ÖLÇEĞİ: TÜRKÇE FORMU GEÇERLİLİK VE GÜVENİLİRLİK ÇALIŞMASI

    by Neşe ALKAN

    Amaç: Bireylerin, çok yönlü iyi olma halinin bir üst kademesi olan esenlik halini ölçen Yeni Esenlik Endeksinin Türkçe’ye çevrilerek, geçerlilik ve güvenilirlik analizlerinin yapılması bu araştırmanın amacıdır. Yöntem: Araştırmaya 18-54 yaşları arasında, %69,5’i çalışan %29,5’i üniversite öğrencisi toplam 213 yetişkin dahil edilmiştir. Katılımcılar, demografik bilgileri ile birlikte, Esenlik Ölçeği, Yaşam Doyumu, Manevi Doyum, Alışveriş Bağımlılığı ve Yalnızlık Ölçeklerini, hazırlanan soru formunda çevrimiçi olarak cevaplamışlardır. Ölçeğin yapı geçerliliği açıklayıcı ve doğrulayıcı faktör analizleri ile, benzeşim ve ayrışım geçerlilikleri iki yönlü tam ve parçalı korelasyon analizleri ile, ölçüm değişmezliği ise tekyönlü varyans analizleri ile test edilmiştir. Bulgular: Faktör analizleri, ölçeğin orijinalindeki yapıda altı boyuttan oluştuğunu göstermiştir. Ölçeğin iç tutarlılığı Cronbach α = .82 bulunmuştur. İki yönlü korelasyon analizleri esenlik ölçeği toplam puanının beklendiği şekilde genel yaşam doyumu (r = .62) ve manevi doyum (r = .29) ile pozitif, yalnızlık (r = -.51) ve alışveriş bağımlılığı (r = -.15) ile negatif ilişkili bulunmuştur. Ölçek puanı cinsiyet, daha önce geçirilen hastalık ve sigara kullanımına göre değişmezken, daha önce antidepresan ilaç kullanmış olan katılımcıların toplam esenlik ölçeği puanlarının, kullanmamış olanlardan daha düşük olduğu bulunmuştur (F(1,204) = 7.713, p = .005).Sonuç: Altı boyuttan oluşan 12 maddelik Esenlik Ölçeğinin geçerli ve güvenilir bir ölçüm aracı olarak, araştırmalarda ve sağlık bilimleri uygulamalarında kullanılabilir olduğu sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. Esenlik ölçeği’nin çok boyutlu esenlik araştırmalarında kullanılabilecek bir ölçme aracı olması nedeni ile önemli bir ihtiyaca cevap vereceği ümit edilmektedir.


  • The adaptation of The Cancer Coping Questionnaire (CCQ) for Turkish-speaking population

    by Ozan Bahcivan, Neşe Alkan, Doğu Erdener

    The adaptation of Cancer Coping Questionnaire (CCQ) for Turkish-speaking population


  • Psychometric properties of a Turkish version of the oral health impact profile-14

    by N Balci, N Alkan, Ca Gurgan

    Objectives: The purpose of this study was to analyze and evaluate a Turkish translation of the oral health impact profile-14 (OHIP-14) in a Turkish population to provide an objective standard for future studies. Methods: This cross-sectional research study consisted of three independent studies. Data were collected utilizing a personal interview and a review of periodontal records. This study was performed on 1205 subjects who were visiting for routine medical check-ups. The OHIP-14 was administered to measure oral health related to the quality of life, along with a questionnaire addressing demographic information, such as age, gender, and education. Results: The reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) of the Turkish version OHIP-14-TR (OHIP-14-TR) was reported to be nearly perfect in all 3 parts of our study (alpha 1: 0.82; alpha 2: 0.76; alpha 3: 0.91); additionally, values were greater than the recommended 0.70 threshold. Spearman's correlation coefficients showed that both OHIP scores significantly correlated with periodontal parameters, serving as proof of convergent validity (P < 0.01, P< 0.001). The principal component analysis with varimax rotation revealed seven factors. The OHIP-14-TR was more than 95% comprehensible. Conclusion: The OHIP-14-TR is a reliable, valid, and comprehensible scale for measuring oral health-related quality of life in the Turkish population.