The Social Neuroscience Lab at the University of Queensland was founded in 2007 by Dr. Eric Vanman. The lab uses multiple physiological measures in a variety of research paradigms.  Among the measures used recently include facial electromyography (EMG), heart rate, eye tracking, fMRI, salivary cortisol, and salivary testosterone.

 
2014-11-20 - fMRI scanner.jpg

Some Ongoing Research Projects Include

  • Facebook Use

  • Crying and Tears

  • The Perception of Emotion

  • Perceptions of Intergroup Trust

  • Self-Regulation and Restoration

  • Aging and Empathy

  • Music and Emotional Regulation

  • Social Robotics

  • Anonymous Behaviour on the Internet

  • Compassion

  • Role of Emotion in Victim Testimony

  • Political Differences and Empathy

Recent Publications (since 2013)

(bold indicates a current or past member of the lab)

1.     Molenberghs, P., Halász, V., Mattingley, J., Vanman, E.J., & Cunnington, R. (2013).  Seeing is believing: Neural mechanisms of action perception are biased by team membership.  Human Brain Mapping, 34, 2055-2068.

2.     Owren, M., Philipp, M., Vanman, E., Trivedi, N., Schulman, A., & Bachorowski, J. (2013). Understanding spontaneous human laughter. In E. Altennmüller, S. Schmidt, & E. Zimmerman (Eds.), Evolution of emotional communication: From sounds in nonhuman mammals to speech and music in man (pp. 175-190). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3.     Milston, S. I., Vanman, E. J., & Cunnington, R. (2013). Cognitive empathy and motor activity during observed actions. Neuropsychologia, 51(6), 1103-1108.

4.     Stewart, T. L., Amoss, R. T., Wiener, B. A., Elliott, L. A., Parrott, D. J., Peacock, C. M., & Vanman, E. J. (2013). The psychophysiology of social action: Facial electromyographic responses to stigmatized groups predict anti-discrimination action. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 35(5), 418-425.

5.     Vartanian, L. R., Thomas, M. A., & Vanman, E. J. (2013). Disgust, contempt, and anger and the stereotypes of obese people. Eating and Weight Disorders – Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, 18(4), 377-382.

6.     Vanman, E. J., Ryan, J. P., Pedersen, W. C., & Ito, T. A. (2013). Probing prejudice with startle eyeblink modification: A marker of attention, emotion or both? International Journal of Psychological Research, 6, 30-41.

7.     Iyer, A., Webster, J., Hornsey, M. J., & Vanman, E. J. (2014). Understanding the power of the picture: The effect of image content on emotional and political responses to terrorism. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 44, 511-521.

8.     Tobin, S. J., Vanman, E. J., Verreynne, M., & Sari, A. (2015). Satisfying your belonging needs on Facebook: The importance of sharing information and receiving a response from others. Social Influence, 10(1), 31-42. doi: 10.1080/15534510.2014.893924

9.     Iyer, A., Hornsey, M., Vanman, E., Esposo, S., & Ale, S. (2015). Fight and flight: Evidence of aggressive capitulation in the face of fear messages from terrorists. Political Psychology, 36(6), 631-648. doi:10.1111/pops.12182

10.  Sharman, L., & Dingle, G. A. (2015). Extreme metal music and anger processing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9, 272. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00272

11. Vartanian, L. R., Trewartha, T., & Vanman, E. J. (2016). Disgust predicts prejudice and discrimination toward individuals with obesity. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 46, 369-375.

12. Tassinary, L.G., Cacioppo, J.T., & Vanman, E.J. (2016). The somatic system. J.T. Cacioppo, L.G. Tassinary, & G.G. Berntson (Eds.), Handbook of Psychophysiology (4th ed., pp. 151-182). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

13. Sung, B., Hartley, N., Vanman, E., & Phau, I. (2016). How can the word “NEW” evoke consumers’ experiences of novelty and interest? Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 31, 166-173.

14. Vanman, E. J. (2016). The role of empathy in intergroup relations. Current Opinion in Psychology, 11, 59-63.

15. Sung, B., Vanman, E., Hartley, N., & Phau, I. (2016). The emotion of interest and its relevance to consumer psychology and behavior. Australian Marketing Journal. 24, 337-343.

16. Cui, Q., Vanman E. J., Long, L., Pang, Y., Chen, Y., Wang, Y., Gong, Q., Zhang, W., Chen, H., Duan, X., & Chen, H. (2017). Social anxiety disorder exhibits impaired networks involved in self and theory of mind processing. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12, 1284-1295. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsx050

17. Grainger, S. A., Henry, J. D., Phillips, L. H., Vanman, E. J., & Allen, R. (2017). Age deficits in facial affect recognition: The influence of dynamic cues. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 72(4), 622-632.

18. Vartanian, L. R., Trewartha, T., Beames, J. R., Azevedo, S. M., & Vanman, E. J. (2018). Physiological and self-reported disgust reactions to obesity. Cognition and Emotion. 32, 579-592, doi: 10.1080/02699931.2017.1325728

19. Grainger, S. A., Henry, J. D., Steinvik, H.R., Vanman, E. J., Rendell, P. G., & Labuschagne, I. (2018). Intranasal oxytocin does not reduce age-related difficulties in social cognition. Hormones and Behavior, 99, 25-34. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2018.01.009

20. Vanman, E. J., Baker, R., & Tobin, S. J. (2018). The burden of online friends: the effects of giving up Facebook on stress and well-being, The Journal of Social Psychology, 158(4), 496-507. doi: 10.1080/00224545.2018.1453467

21. Tsankova, E., Vanman, E. J., & Kappas, A. (2018). Interaction of stereotypical trustworthiness, facial resemblance, and group membership in the perception of trustworthiness and other traits. Journal of Trust Research, 8(1), 31-44. doi: 10.1080/21515581.2018.1453824

22. Grainger, S. A., Henry, J. D., Steinvik, H.R., Vanman, E. J. (2018) Intranasal oxytocin does not alter initial perceptions of facial trustworthiness in younger or older adults. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 33(2), 250–254. doi: 10.1177/0269881118806303.

23. Vanman, E.J., & Philipp, M.C. (2019). Physiological measures. In J. Edlund & A. Nichols (Eds.), Advanced Research Methods and Statistics for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

24. Sharman, L. S., Dingle, G. A., & Vanman. E. J. (2019) Does crying help? Development of the beliefs about crying scale (BACS), Cognition and Emotion, 33:4, 722-736, DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2018.1488243

25. Sharman, L. S., Dingle, G. A., Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M., & Vanman, E. J. (in press). Using crying to cope: Physiological responses to stress following tears of sadness. Emotion. Accepted 6 May 2019.