@roelandheerema.bsky.social at #cpconf2025 talking about a new task linking specific emotional appraisals to computational states.

Among many things, the man is terribly funny and doesn't hold back stirring up the Chomskyists 😂

Thrilling to attend a lecture by Geoffrey Hinton at the Royal Institution this weekend about the development and future of AI - with a reminder of the risks (arxiv.org/pdf/2310.17688)

Symposium on setbacks in science! @imagingneuroucl.bsky.social @roelandheerema.bsky.social Looking forward to share my rocky journey through science with everyone

Good point Maya. We may record some sections of the day, but we'll also want to make sure everyone is comfortable speaking up in discussions, and I can imagine recording the discussions may not feel comfortable for everyone. So I think we might record some talks but not all. Will let you know!

So, it will be a fascinating day of reckoning with "failure" as a normal part of science. The event is part of Mental Health Awareness Week, which is all about creating a positive research culture! Register for FREE online or in-person attendance here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/symposium-...

Why do we do this? Even the most successful researchers do not always succeed, so if we only focus on victories, we forego golden opportunities to learn from errors. As important, we reinforce biased impressions of others as being much more capable than ourselves. (2/3)

On 15 May, we're organizing a very special hybrid event at the FIL: a Symposium on Setbacks in Science!
In a series of talks and discussions with a wonderful set of speakers, we will address the disappointments that are entirely common in research, but that we all hesitate to talk about. (1/3)

Early registrations for SBDM are closing soon (1st of May!). Make sure to pay before then if you want the reduced rates!
sbdm2025.github.io

📢 Early registration prices end tomorrow 15 April! 🚨

Computational Psychiatry Conference is 14-16 July in Tübingen, Germany. www.cpconf.org

Speakers inc. Phil Corlett, Charlotte Fraza, Andreas Heinz, Georgia Koppe, Jill O'Reilly, Chandra Sripada, Sophie Valk, Tor Wager

🚨 Available postdoc in my lab @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social

See below 👇 for further details. 🧠

Any Qs feel free to email 📧

PS: all data, scripts, and *emotion induction stimuli* are accessible!

Thank you so much!

Several of you may have seen these results on a conference poster – you are not allowed to remind me of the year you saw it! But I am proud to finally be able to share it in writing. [fin]

Zooming out even more, the mood bias follows from a theoretical prediction we made about the role of mood in evolution. In simulations we showed that, due to correlations in the environment, an animal has foraging advantages when it follows its mood: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... [8/9]

This result is in line with our previous work where we demonstrated the same mood bias parameter to exist in studies of much slower mood fluctuations: www.nature.com/articles/s41....
Importantly, in this new study, we present results that cannot be subject to demand effects. [7/9]

Further proof of the existence of this ‘mood bias’ comes from RT (the costly option gets chosen faster when happy & slower when sad) and in gaze patterns (the costly option is inspected faster when happy; the uncostly option when sad). [6/9]

It was particularly exciting that we could ‘reconstruct’ mood purely with physiological valence and arousal markers. So, emotion ratings were not even necessary! Importantly, *physiological* mood bias and the *rated* mood bias were correlated. [5/9]

When modelling this effect, it could best be explained as follows: mood modulates a choice bias towards the costly but more rewarding option. We reproduced this finding in a confirmatory study. [4/9]

We found emotions on the mood continuum (happiness-neutral-sadness) to be associated with changes in economic choice. When happy, people sought larger rewards (in exchange for risk/delay/effort). When sad, people accepted smaller rewards that were safe/immediate/effortless. [3/9]

With text vignettes and music, we induced short (<1 min) states of happiness, sadness, anger, and fear. We validate the successful inductions with self-report and physiology: pupil dilation, skin conductance, facial musculature of the zygomaticus (😊 ) and corrugator (☹) [2/9]

I don’t dare to tell you how many years this took, but the project that I started as a MSc intern and kept working on throughout my PhD is now finally published: www.nature.com/articles/s44... [1/9]