Course Syllabus

Neuroscience of Emotion Lab

Semester & Location:	Spring 2023 - DIS Stockholm
Type & Credits:	Companion Course - 3 credits
Major Disciplines:	Neuroscience, Psychology
Prerequisites:	One semester of neuroscience, physiological psychology, or biological psychology at university level
Co-requisite Course	Neuroscience of Emotion
Faculty Members:	Élodie Cauvet & Joshua Juvrud (current students please use the Canvas Inbox)
Program Director:	Suman Ambwani - sam@dis.dk
Academic Support:	academics@disstockholm.se
Time & Location	Tuesdays/Fridays 13.15-16.10, Location: 1E-510 (1E-511)

 

Course Description

You will participate in all stages of the research process, focusing on emotion as this relates to cognitive and social functions. Experimental paradigms will include neuropsychological measures, and behavioral measures such as self- report, face recording camera, reaction time, eye tracking, skin conductance etc. Class work consists of supervision of your research activities and review of your selected research topics within the field of Affective Neuroscience. This class involves an intensive work load.

Classes include lectures, group work and supervision. The instructors will discuss and guide you regarding the selected topics, ethical aspects, methods and methodologies, data analysis, and dissemination methods (scientific writing and poster building). You are expected to present to the instructors the different stages of their work throughout the semester. Strengths and weaknesses of all projects will be discussed within each session collegially, so that each group receives constructive feedback from their faculty and classmates. The classes will include time for the group to develop their experimental study and receive individualized technical support.

Concretely, you will be grouped together by 3 or 4 to learn research methodology by practicing it within the field of Affective Neuroscience. Research will focus on the interaction between emotion and cognitive processes. You will carry out an experimental study from hypothesis generation to discussion of the results. You will phrase your own research question within your assigned subtopic, carefully review the literature associated, design your experimental paradigm, collect the data, analyze and interpret it in the light of recent findings. Your work will culminate with a poster presentation as well as a research article. All studies will be computer-based and will focus on collecting quantitative behavioral data (reaction time, accuracy measures, skin conductance, eye tracking etc.). For programming the experimental paradigms, you will be able to use iMotions, E-Prime or PsychoPy. Statistical analyses will be carried out using SPSS or R.

Note: The class room is 1-E510 for the lab. The testing room of the lab is 1-E511.

 

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course students should be able to:

• Conduct a literature review on a selected research topic approved by the instructor
• Discuss and critically analyze the methodology employed in cognitive neuroscience research
• Elaborate a research question given the current literature and design a small scale experimental study to answer it
• Implement an experimental study: from setting up the experimental paradigm, to data collection
• Choose the proper statistical framework for the analysis of an experimental study and conduct the analysis
• Discuss and critically reflect on their findings with regard to the literature
• Present (poster + article) and defend in class and publicly at the showcase the results of the conducted experiment
• Understand and discuss the ethical considerations and implication at stake within the research field of psychology and neuroscience
• Provide constructive feedback on others’ work including discussing strengths and weaknesses of other projects

 

Faculty

Élodie Cauvet obtained her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, from Pierre & Marie Curie University in Paris (France). Her research interest started with language acquisition in infants leading to the study of the cerebral processing of language and music in adults. She became interested in neurodevelopmental disorders starting with developmental dyslexia then expending into autism spectrum disorders as well as ADHD. She is using techniques from psychology as well as neuroimaging in her research, this includes MRI (anatomical and functional) as well as EEG and eye tracking. She has been conducting her latest research at Karolinska Institute Center for Neuro-developmental Disorders (KIND). Her interests include social cognitive skills, empathy and emotion processing within the whole spectrum of functioning from typicality to disorders such as ASD. With DIS since 2016.

 

Joshua Juvrud has a Ph.D. in Psychology (Uppsala University). As a research psychologist, his work has focused on the ways that novel techniques in research (eye-tracking, pupil dilation, virtual reality) can be used to assess how children and adults perceive and interpret people, emotions, and actions. Josh focuses this research in two fields. In developmental psychology at the Child and Babylab in Uppsala, he seeks to understand how children learn about their world and the social cognitive development of face perception and socialization processes such as gender, race, and ethnicity. In games research at the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design in Visby, Gotland, his work examines the psychology of people, their actions, and emotions in game development, player engagement, learning, and immersion to understand better how different game players (with different personalities, traits, and experiences) interact with various game mechanisms and are, in turn, affected by game experiences.

 

Readings

Books (selected chapters)

Harrington, M. (Ed.). (2010). The design of experiments in neuroscience. Sage.Mayers, A. (2013).

Introduction to Statistics and SPSS in Psychology (Vol. 28). Harlow, England: Pearson.

 Peer reviewed Articles

Aïte, A., Cassotti, M., Linzarini, A., Osmont, A., Houdé, O., & Borst, G. (2018). Adolescents’ inhibitory control: keep it cool or lose control. Developmental science, 21(1), e12491.

Annesley, T. M. (2010). Who, what, when, where, how, and why: the ingredients in the recipe for a successful Methods section. Clinical chemistry, 56(6), 897-901.

Ashar, Y. K., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Yarkoni, T., Sills, J., Halifax, J., Dimidjian, S., & Wager, T. D. (2016). Effects of compassion meditation on a psychological model of charitable donation. Emotion, 16(5), 691.

Baron-Cohen, S., Bowen, D. C., Holt, R. J., Allison, C., Auyeung, B., Lombardo, M. V., ... & Lai, M. C. (2015). The “reading the mind in the eyes” test: complete absence of typical sex difference in~ 400 men and women with autism. PLoS One, 10(8), e0136521.

Calvo, M. G., Gutiérrez-García, A., & Del Líbano, M. (2018). What makes a smiling face look happy? Visual saliency, distinctiveness, and affect. Psychological research, 82(2), 296-309.

Evers, K. (2016). The Responsible Brain. Free Will and Personal Responsibility in thhe Wake of Neuroscience. Revista latinoamericana de filosofía, 42(1), 33-44.

Gendron, M., Roberson, D., van der Vyver, J. M., & Barrett, L. F. (2014). Perceptions of emotion from facial expressions are not culturally universal: evidence from a remote culture. Emotion, 14(2), 251.

Kalanthroff, E., Henik, A., Derakshan, N., & Usher, M. (2016). Anxiety, emotional distraction, and attentional control in the Stroop task. Emotion, 16(3), 293.

Kawakami, A., & Katahira, K. (2015). Influence of trait empathy on the emotion evoked by sad music and on the preference for it. Frontiers in psychology, 6, 1541.

Ladouceur, C. D., Dahl, R. E., Williamson, D. E., Birmaher, B., Axelson, D. A., Ryan, N. D., & Casey, B. J. (2006). Processing emotional facial expressions influences performance on a Go/NoGo task in pediatric anxiety and depression. Journal of Child psychology and Psychiatry, 47(11), 1107-1115.

Pacheco‐Unguetti, A. P., & Parmentier, F. B. (2016). Happiness increases distraction by auditory deviant stimuli. British Journal of Psychology, 107(3), 419-433.

Pinkham, A. E., Griffin, M., Baron, R., Sasson, N. J., & Gur, R. C. (2010). The face in the crowd effect: anger superiority when using real faces and multiple identities. Emotion, 10(1), 141.

Roux, P., Christophe, A., & Passerieux, C. (2010). The emotional paradox: dissociation between explicit and implicit processing of emotional prosody in schizophrenia. Neuropsychologia, 48(12), 3642-3649.

Reppold, C. T., Hauck Filho, N., Hutz, C. S., & Teixeira, M. A. P. (2016). Social Conduct Scale (SCS): a psychometric investigation. Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica, 29(1), 24.

Zhang, W., Gross, J., & Hayne, H. (2017). The effect of mood on false memory for emotional DRM word lists. Cognition and Emotion, 31(3), 526-537.

 

Literature related to each group research project

A literature review of the group research topic is part of the class requirements. This should include 150 pages of peer-reviewed research articles (might also include systematic review and meta-analyses). This is part of the first assignments as well as the final project.

Field Studies

Please note that the field studies from the Affective Neuro class and lab are complementary to each other.

*Check "course summary" for details.

Guest Lecturers

Prof. Kathinka Evers is a senior researcher in Philosophy and leads the CRB neuroethics research team at Uppsala University. She is a co-director of the EU Flagship Human Brain Project. Her research focuses on philosophy of mind, neurophilosophy, bioethics and neuroethics. She directs the teaching and research on neuroethics at Uppsala University, where she started the first courses in the subject. Since 2013, she leads the neuroethics and philosophy work in the Human Brain Project

 

Approach to Teaching

We are enthusiastic teachers. We aim at developping your curiosity, sense of questioning and critical thinking. As such, we encourage asking questions whether for clarification or for deeper understanding. No questions are stupid and what appears trivial might actually turn into the most interesting and insightful questions. This class is by essence designed to trigger and nurture scientific questioning and methods. You will learn by doing and experiencing science by yourself. We will guide you through the scientific process starting from the formulation of a research question to the interpretation of self-acquired data and leading to the acquisition of new knowledge about the affective neuroscience field and experimental scientific work. Reflection on ethical considerations constitutes an essential aspect of experimental work, especially within affective neuroscience field, and as such of this class.

Classes are a mix of short lectures as well as individual and group reflections, research work tutored by both teachers. We will guide the students through the integration of the theory into practice.

We believe that more brains are more effective than single ones, with different thinking styles enriching the debate and discussions. We also believe that interacting with peers by presenting one’s owns project at different stages, listening carefully to others presentation, while proposing constructive criticisms and feed-back with regards to their experiment will provide the best learning outcomes in terms of critical thinking and high quality science.

 

Expectations of the Students

Students are expected to be involved in their studies and are responsible for them. On top of being present in class, having read the required readings and handing out the assignments on due time (all mandatory), they are expected to participate actively in class to create a lively and positive learning environment. This include (but is not restricted to) participating in the discussions and asking questions to teacher and peers. Students are thus expected to come in class with notes and questions related to their reading and the topic of the class. They are expected to collaborate constructively with their peers and teachers by providing feed-back at all stages of the projects. All students are expected to contribute equally in terms of time and quality to the group work and the class in general.

 

Evaluation

Students attendance to the classes and their active participation in the discussions are taken into account in the evaluation. Both in class and lab sessions, students are required to demonstrate that they read the literature for the classes, that they are able to apply their knowledge (theoretical, practical, methodological etc.) at all the stages of the experimental process. Showing independent and critical thinking is also subject to evaluation, this includes but is not restricted to constructive criticism of their fellow students.

 

Grading

Assignment	Percent
Attendance and Participation (individual)	20%
Ass1: Preparation and Planning Outline (group)	10%
Ass2: Experimental design and translation into software (group)	10%
Ass3: Project description and ethical considerations (group)	10%
Final Outcome:  * Manuscript (Group – 15%)  * Class presentation - conference format (Group - 15%)  * Poster (Group – 10%)  * Pitching your research for Grandma (Group - 10%)	50%
Total	100%

Please note that all presentation grades are modulated by individual performance including asking questions to other groups.

 

Attendance and Participation – 20%

Individual

Attendance to all classes and lab session is mandatory. Students have to inform the teacher in advance in case they cannot attend a class. The student is active in discussions and group work. Active participation and engagement includes asking questions related to readings and material presented in the class and taking part in discussions, including constructive criticism of others work. Active participation means to contribute on own initiative.

Every week, progress will be checked. Students will all need to present their progress and discuss the upcoming steps. They will keep a logbook which will serve as a basis to their 3 progress reports. 

See Canvas for the corresponding rubric.

 

Ass1: Preparation + Planning Outline – 10%

Group based

Students need to write an outline of their project including milestones and deadlines applied to their specific question. This should include their initial research question, their hypotheses and prediction. This document will also include a definition of their constructs and their operationalization.

 

Ass2: Experimental design and translation into e-prime  – 10%

Group based

Student will write a second outline to detail their experimental design: description of the paradigm, the required sample size and expected results. They need to present a plan but also a contingency plan: discuss which part might not go as expected and propose solution in these cases.They will need to discuss the validity of their constructs and translate their paradigm into e-prime terms.

The assignment aims at checking the proper understanding of experimental design terminology and apply it to their group experiment. Further, this documents outlines the proper implementation and operationalization of the experiment using the software terminology.

 

Ass3: Project description and ethical considerations – 10%

Group based

The assignment aims at reflecting upon the ethical aspects relating to each groups project. They will write a mock ethical proposal including all essential aspects of a real ethical application: the scientific issue at stake, a short overview of the field, the description of the project, its significance, the availability of relevant safety measures and its ethical considerations. Gender and minorities issues should be discussed.

Final Outcome – 50% 

Group based

 * Scientific Paper - 15%

Student groups will write down an academic paper following the standard research journal layout: abstract (250 words), introduction including the literature review, the hypothesis, the predicted results, a method section including statistical methodology, the result section illustrated by relevant pictures, graphs and tables and a discussion section putting their results in perspective and opening on potential(s) experiment to dig deeper in the neurological mechanisms associated to their question. The manuscript should be handed in per group.

 * Class presentation: Conference format + Discussion  - 15%

Student groups will present their results to their peers in a mock conference format with supporting slides for 15 minutes. Then, discussion will be opened by their peers questions, which will also be graded from both perspectives (questions asked and answers provided).

 * Poster + presentation at showcase  - 10%

Posters will follow conference template including all relevant sections: hypothesis/question at stake, short literature review, methods, results, discussion and conclusion with opening. Students are expected to present their results at the showcase where they will explain their experiments and results to their peers and teachers including from other programs, in a short and interactive format (3 to 5min). This also involves vulgarizing their results since part of the audience will be completely naïve regarding research in affective neuroscience.

 * Pitching your research for Grandma  - 10%

All assignments need to be passed to complete this course. Failing at one of them, will be reflected in the final grade.

 

Use of laptops and phones in class

Based on the latest research on the topic, the only use of laptops or phones beneficial to the learning process is if it is solely used as a learning tool, namely taking notes, or working on the lab project. However, most of the time, it is extremely hard (to to cerebral attentional processes to ignore all other enticement that these devices provide. In this lab, you will have access to computers in the classroom and in the lab room. However, for group work efficiency, you might want to use your own laptop to work on the lab project. I actively recommend to mute/ignore non class related tools/processes to work as efficiently as possible.

 

Academic Regulations 

Please make sure to read the Academic Regulations. on the DIS website.

There you will find regulations on:

• Course Enrollment and Grading 
• Academic Expectations and Honor Code

 DIS - Study Abroad in Scandinavia - www.DISabroad.org