Methods Events

Informal events highlighting a range of methods used in affective science, hosted by expert users. Come along to ask all your burning questions!

Clicking on each speaker’s name will take you to their personal websites.

Workshop Speakers

Amit Goldenberg

Harvard Business School

Title: Detecting and Changing Emotions on Social-Media

Date: Saturday April 1

Time: 13:45 – 14:45

Description:

Social media is a social environment rich with emotions and therefore a fertile ground for any budding and senior affective scientist. But what seems to be a simple platform to answer questions can often be more complicated than initially predicted. In the following session I hope to first map the questions that can be asked using social media data. I then hope to review and provide examples of ways in which emotions can be extracted from social media data such as through texts, pictures, and videos. I hope to close with some future directions on emotion regulation and algorithmic testing of emotion processing.

Ilanit Gordon

Bar Ilan University

Sponsored by:

Topic: Physiological Synchrony

Title: Basic Principles in Physiological Synchrony Research

Date: Friday March 31, 2023

Time: 09:30 – 10:45

Description: Interpersonal synchrony is the spontaneous temporal coordination of actions, emotions, and physiological processes between two or more individuals. Synchrony is a ubiquitous phenomenon thought to function as “social glue”, with a biological basis in neural networks, genes, and physiological markers of social function. Interpersonal synchrony is a growing area of interest in the psychophysiology research community as new technology becomes more integrated, affordable and accurate. With the capability to collect these data comes the need to utilize robust and standardized data analysis methods and techniques. During this workshop, Dr. Gordon will provide an introduction to physiological synchrony research and discuss tools and techniques that have emerged from her research in this area while serving as the Lab Director of the Social Neuroscience Lab at Bar-Ilan University. Physiological synchrony data (in heart rates and electrodermal activity) will be presented from four studies that examined group face-to-face interactions in the lab. Examples of physiological synchrony will be given, and we will discuss what these indices of synchrony mean and what constructs they predict, such as cohesion and efficacy. Aspects of pre-processing and preparation of the data for analysis will be mentioned. We will further discuss basic linear methods of calculating physiological synchrony, namely cross correlation functions (CCFs) as well as windowed CCFs. The methodological strengths and weaknesses of CCF will be discussed. Non-linear methodologies such as multidimensional recurrence analysis will also be mentioned. During the workshop we will emphasize the importance of transparency in physiological synchrony calculation and the advantages of a multiverse approach to data analysis.

Mircea Zloteanu

Kingston University

Topic: Ecologically Valid Research on Facial Expression

Title: Emotions and Facial Expressions: Theoretical, Operational, Methodological, and Statistical Considerations for Modern Open Research

Date: Friday, March 31, 2023

Time: 16:45 – 18:00

Description: Emotion research has observed a resurgence in critical debates surrounding its core tenants and framework of operation. These debates have been fueled by new methodological advances, such as the widespread adoption of mixed effects models, Bayesian statistics, and dynamic stimuli. Importantly, more recent findings call into question elements of the prevalent encoding-decoding approach to emotion research, finding more compatibility with the affective signaling framework. This requires us to carefully consider how we fundamentally reason about emotions, facial expressions/displays, and emotion recognition (human and automated). In this workshop, the elements of these debates will be discussed and exemplified. First, it will discuss how the emotion framework adopted by a researcher impacts the hypotheses that they can and cannot investigate. Second, the often-overlooked importance of operational definitions and operationalization in individual studies will be addressed, focusing on inference and generalizability. Third, considerations will be given to the emotion stimuli we employ and the open research movement. And finally, the workshop will make statistical analysis recommendations (frequentist and Bayesian), with practical examples, to aid researchers in getting the most out of their data.

Teague Henry

University of Virginia

Title: Network Psychometrics for Affective Scientists

Date: Saturday, April 1, 2023

Time: 08:15-09:15

Description: This workshop will cover common approaches to cross-sectional and dynamical psychometric network modeling, which seeks to represent the relations between psychological/behavioral constructs as a network, and ultimately to use network science methods to understand different properties of the psychological system under study. The first third of the workshop will discuss cross-sectional network psychometric approaches, such as Gaussian graphical modeling and exploratory graph analysis, as a different view on the measurement of psychological constructs than the more traditional latent variable framework. The second third of the workshop will move to network psychometric methods for longitudinal data, and discuss methods such as vector auto-regression and state space modeling. Finally, the last third of the workshop will focus on the network science aspect of network psychometrics, discussing different graph theoretic summaries that can be computed, and how they can be used to characterize different features of the psychological system. Each method will be discussed generally, but resources for tutorials and code will be provided in each case. Finally, while the workshop itself will use a running example of understanding mood dynamics/measurement via self report data, the methods discussed are applicable to a wide variety of data types, from psychophysiology to neuroimaging, in addition to behavior.

Speaker: Brett Denaro, Biopac, Account Manager for Asia Pacific and South America

Title: Biopac Methods Event: An Integrated Solution for Affect research – Stimulus Presentation, Scent Delivery, Eye Tracking, Physiology, and Reporting

Date: Saturday April 1st, 2023

Time: 11:00 AM – 12:15 PM

Description:Combining different physiological measures can enhance the ability to discriminate cognitive and affective neural states. Researchers who leverage systems with multi-signal integration can simplify the management of data collection and analysis, making it easier to study how the brain responds to discrete events and continuous stimuli. Whether recording from stationary or active subjects, a single participant or groups, within a controlled lab space or field-based environment-multimodal researchers need access to proven solutions. In this workshop, BIOPAC will provide a quick overview of available integrated solutions spanning signals such as ECG/HRV, Respiration, Electrodermal Activity (EDA/GSR), Eye Tracking, Stimulus Delivery, Scent Delivery, and others. After the brief overview, a 45-minute demonstration will be provided to show how all the above signals can be recorded in a way that enables perfect synchronization between various applications and systems.

Methods Roundtable

The Methods Roundtable – Saturday, April 1, 2023, from 12:30 – 13:30.

The Methods Roundtable discussion is a 60-minute session over the lunch break where the discussion leader and a maximum of 9 registered attendees gather to informally discuss a shared methodological topic of interest. The goal of this format is to provide attendees interested in a topic with an opportunity to connect with each other and with an expert on that topic, whether attendees wish to further develop their existing expertise or are a novice seeking out a new area of interest. Ultimately, our goal is to help reduce barriers for attendees to informally explore new ideas with an accessible expert at the cutting-edge of a topic. Space is limited and you must pre-register. Registration will close on February 28. Optional box lunch will be available for purchase in advance during the registration process if attending this event. It will be delivered to the participant at the event.