Chelsea Miao Rose Hills
Predicting Differential Emotion Processing with fNIRS Neural Synchrony
Our interpretation of others’ emotions is perhaps our most valuable skill, aiding us in navigating our complex social world—yet it is also the most subjective. How do we begin to study something defined by its variability? Current research relies on participant self-evaluation as a measure of emotional inference; at the Berkeley Whitney Lab for Perception and Action, subjects are asked to track the emotions of characters in a series of video clips. Their evaluations are compared to the larger dataset to judge social-emotional processing ability. This project hopes to further develop the field, seeking to understand how individual neural feedback, relative to an intersubject dataset, parallels behavioral self-rating in emotional perception studies. Using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) (a relatively accessible method of neural imaging), we ask, can neural synchrony across subjects predict emotion processing task performance and individual differences in psychological assessments (i.e., Emotional Intelligence and Autistic Traits)?
Message To Sponsor
Thank you so much! I believe this project will inspire the use of accessible imaging in emotion processing studies, further integrating structured neural evidence into our multifaceted, complex understanding of social psychology. Even more so, I know this scholarship has become my first taste of opportunity in research, further cementing my goals in pursuing cognitive neuroscience. I will not take this opportunity for granted—thank you, truly.