Emotion regulation strategies

Let’s talk emotion regulation strategies! What is the best way to regulate (or control) your emotions? Is it distracting yourself with a good TV show 📺, letting the emotion out 😡, or attempting to conceal your emotions so nobody knows how you are feeling?

In this post, directed lab student Tasha Manuel discusses the pros and cons of each emotion regulation strategy. Swipe through the slides to find out if one emotion regulation strategy is better than others! If you had to guess, which emotion regulation strategy do you use the most, and which do you think is the most effective? (Hint: The answer is on slides 9 & 10!)

#DSECLab #scicomm #emotionregulation #emotions #learn #science

The fusiform gyrus

Welcome to the fourth installment of our Brain & Emotion series! 🧠 In this post, research assistant Sophie Ye discusses some functions and fun facts about the fusiform gyrus! The fusiform gyrus is of particular interest to us here at the DSEC Lab, because it’s a key brain structure linked to facial processing. 😀

When you see someone expressing an emotion like happiness, sadness 😢, or fear, this brain structure is probably activated! 😮 The fusiform also usually activates when you see faces more broadly (with or without an emotion).

Swipe through the following slides to learn more about this fascinating brain structure.

#DSECLab #brain #research #scicomm #fusiformgyrus #science

Did you know? (Episode 2)

Are you curious about recent findings in the literature about neural activity, peer rejection 👭❌, and depression?

Directed lab student Mia Schubert breaks down a paper 📃 by Stroud and colleagues that describes how teens’ neural responses after peer rejection and acceptance are related to their risk for depression. In this study, Stroud and colleagues recruited 76 girls between the ages of 10-17 to chat with fake peers in a “chatroom” while undergoing a functional MRI scan. They were specifically interested in how teens’ brains responded to being rejected or accepted by the fake peers. They looked at whether those patterns of brain response were related to current risk for depression, and future risk of depression (6 and 12 months later). 🧠💥

Read through the post to find out what the authors found, and what this means for understanding risk for depression in adolescents.

#DSECLab #scicomm #knowledgetranslation #research #peerrejection #depressionresearch

Let's talk study designs in developmental psychology!

Did you know that the DSEC Lab has 2 studies that involve bringing participants into the lab at multiple timepoints across development? In this post, Ph.D. student Daniel Nault explains the difference between a cross-sectional study and a longitudinal study. 📝 What are the benefits of each? In a cross-sectional study, data is collected at one time point; in a longitudinal study, participants are invited back to collect data at multiple time points 🗓️.

Have you ever participated in a study that involved coming back for 2 or more visits? Let us know in the comments below!

#research #curious #psychology #science #longitudinal

fMRI Scans vs Mock Scanner: what's the difference?

Our DETECT-AF study uses an fMRI scanner to look at participants’ neural activity by measuring blood flow in the brain 🧠. BUT, before participants enter the real scanner, they will be asked to test out our mock scanner. In this post, Honours thesis student Emily Schreiner describes how and why a mock scanner is used before the real thing. If you are interested in participating in our DETECT-AF study, or are curious about fMRI, swipe through this post to find out more!

#research #psychology #science #fMRI #brain #YGK #YGKteens

Does closeness to peers relate to neural responses to teenage faces?

Adolescence is a period with many brain 🧠 and behavioural changes. One of these behavioural changes is that youth begin placing greater importance on their friends over their family. This shift from family to friends (called social re-orientation) is thought to be related to some of the neural changes we see in adolescence.

In this post, directed lab student Paige Stockley breaks down a study that looked at youth’s brain activity in response to emotional expressions 🎭, and how this brain activity mapped onto adolescents’ feelings of closeness to their peers 👭 and their parents 👩‍👧 (aka, an index of their social re-orientation!)

Thank you to the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at @nationwidekids @fondsrecherchequebec for making studies like this possible!

#scicomm #research #explainittome #science #brain #adolescence #psychology

Did you know? (Episode 1)

Did you know that high intensity 💥 emotions do not always make vocal cues easier to recognize? In this post, DSEC Lab research assistant Jake Hartwig-MacDonald describes some surprising findings about the intensity at which various emotions 😄😡 are recognizable in the voice! 🗣️

#emotions #vocal #nonverbal #YGKyouth #science #affectivescience

How does emotion recognition differ in children with epilepsy?

Epilepsy is a brain disorder characterized by recurring seizures. 🧠 It most commonly starts during childhood 🧒 or older adulthood 👨‍🦳. The most common form of epilepsy in youth is “temporal lobe epilepsy”, which impacts parts of the brain that help us understand social and emotional information. 🎭 To better understand the impact of early-onset epilepsy on youth’s social perception, we investigated emotion recognition skills in youth with and without epilepsy. Compared to youth without epilepsy, we found that youth with epilepsy struggled to identify emotional expressions in faces. This was related to different brain activation patterns in the temporal lobe. DSEC Lab Research Assistant Sophie Ye breaks down these findings and their implications for youth with epilepsy, as well as where future research can go with these results. 📝

#epilepsy #scicomm #knowledgetranslation #research

Does loneliness impact the way youth interpret vocal emotions?

Does loneliness impact the way youth interpret vocal emotions? Given that loneliness tends to increase 📈 during puberty, this is an especially important question to ask in youth. In this post, research assistant Sophie Ye breaks down a research study 📝 which looked to answer this question!

Before swiping through the slides, do you believe youth with greater loneliness were better at recognizing friendliness 🙂 or meanness 😡? Comment below to share your answer! 🙋

#infographic #psychology #emotions #scicomm #science

Psychology terms made easy: prosody

Welcome to another installment of our Psychology Terms Made Easy series! In this post, we will be breaking down the concept of prosody 🔊! Can you think of a time when your friend told you they were “fine”, but the features of their voice (such as the pitch, intensity level and rhythm) told you otherwise? Together, these features were helping you understand how your friend really felt!

Not only can researchers investigate how well people identify emotional states through prosody, but they can also study how we use prosody to express ourselves… such as in our EXPRESS-1 Study 😄!

Special thanks to our research assistant Jake Hartwig-Macdonald for helping us deconstruct the concept of prosody!!

#psychology #prosody #science #scicomm #emotion #PTME

Psychology terms made easy: social re-orientation

New post in our Psychology Terms Made Easy series! If you’re a parent of a teenager, you may have noticed changes in your teen’s social behaviour as they enter adolescence. 👦 👧 Psychologists often call this phenomena “social re-orientation”. It describes the changes in social behaviour that prioritize peers outside of the family home during adolescence. 👯 More research is needed to understand WHY this happens, but many researchers think that social re-orientation is spurred on by changes in teenagers’ hormones, brain function, and social environments. 🧠

Our DETECT-A study focuses on exactly this—check out our link in bio to learn more about this study, and how 12- to 15-year-olds can participate! ✌️

(Thanks to lab member Olivia Merulla for this explainer! 🙏)

Dual systems model and adolescence

Welcome back to our third installment of our Brain & Emotions series! 🧠 This episode is about understanding risk-taking in adolescence. Compared to children and adults, teenagers tend to take more risks than children and adults in their daily lives. 🚫 Why is that? There are many theories about this, but one theory is the “dual systems model”. This theory suggests that there are changes in the teenage brain that make risk-taking more likely. 💥 On one hand, the teenage brain is very sensitive to rewards (see episode 2 about this!). 🍭 At the same time, the brain systems that allow us to regulate (or control) our behaviours may not be fully developed yet. The mismatch between these two brain systems is thought to make teenagers more likely to take risks.

Let’s talk about this theory! Do you think this makes sense to explain risk-taking in adolescence? Let us know in the comments below! 👇 (Special thanks to former DSEC Lab volunteer Bingyi Lin for her work in creating these slides!)

The way you talk to your infant could be related to their language development

Parents tend to speak to their young babies using “babytalk”, which researchers call “infant-directed speech”. 👶 This is thought to help promote bonding, attention, emotion processing, and language development in children. Former lab coordinator Emma Ilyaz put together an infographic describing the results of one of our studies on the impact of infant-directed speech (during a parent-child play session) on children’s later language abilities. Let us know what questions you have about this below! 🧑‍🍼

#research #parentchildinteraction #parenting #vocalcues #parentese #babytalk #languagedevelopment

Reward system in the brain

Welcome back to our second installment of our Brain & Emotions series! 🧠 This episode is about the reward system. There are a number of regions in the brain that tend to activate when we encounter rewarding things. 🍭 Adolescence is often accompanied by heightened response to reward in this brain system. How does it work? ❓ Swipe through to learn more! (Special thanks to former DSEC Lab volunteer Bingyi Lin for her work in creating these slides!)

#psychology #neuroscience #research #explainittome #brain #reward #adolescence

3 acoustic properties of the voice

One big focus of the DSEC Lab’s work is to better understand how we communicate emotions and attitudes through our tone of voice. 🗣️ Beyond the words we say, *how* we say something matters! 🗯️ But, how do we measure that “how”? PhD student Daniel Nault put together a primer of the 3️ main characteristics of the voice that can be combined to communicate emotional meaning. Swipe through the slides to learn more! 👉

#psychology #research #explainittome #acoustics #voice #speechanalysis #prosody #primer

Psychology terms made easy: Attentional biases

New post in our Psychology Terms Made Easy series… on attentional biases! The DSEC Lab is interested in how humans direct their attention to different things in our social environments. 👀 Certain things (like threatening faces, for example) are more likely to draw our attention than others. ❗ Is everyone likely to show attentional biases? Are some people more likely than others to experience this? Check out these slides by DSEC Lab directed research student Olivia Merulla for some answers to these questions! 🕵️

Let us know what questions you have for us in the comments below! What terms should we cover next? 🤗

#PTME #research #psychology #attention #explain

How do we measure facial expressions?

How do we measure facial expressions? 😀 DSEC Lab volunteer Kate Cullen put together a brief explanation of two methods researchers can use to measure someone’s facial movements. 📐 Although we don’t know for sure what a particular facial movement means (a smile could indicate feelings of joy, but also politeness or sarcasm!), others’ facial expressions are part of the rich social signals that we humans try to interpret as we move around the world. 🎭

You might already know that the DSEC Lab is interested in how we *learn* to use facial expressions to communicate nonverbally with others. We are currently recruiting 10-15 participants for the EXPRESS-1 study, which focuses on just that! 🌟 You can find more information about the study and how to sign up in the link in bio.

#research #YGK #Kingston #developmentalpsychology #emotions

Get to know your brain: what parts of the brain process social and emotional information?

Our brain allows us to make sense of our environment and guides our behaviour. How does it do this? 🧠 These slides are brief overviews of some key regions of the brain that work together to process all the social and emotional information we encounter in our daily lives. Think about it: your brain has to detect, interpret, and respond to lots of information from other people… including their smiles or frowns, the content of what they say to us, and the context we are in! 🤯

Think of this as a primer to your brain in its social environment. But, make sure to check out the last slide: none of these brain regions work alone! 🧩

Shout out to @DSECLab volunteer and former directed lab student Jay Burns for this guide of the social brain! Have you heard of these brain regions before? ❔

#psychology #neuroscience #brain #research

Psychology terms made easy: Nonverbal encoding

Welcome to a new series: Psychology Terms Made Easy! 🙌 We’ll be breaking down the terms we use for concepts we study in the lab. First up: nonverbal encoding! 🎭 Flip through the slides to see an explanation of this concept, and an example of when you would be encountering nonverbal encoding in the real world!

Shout out to Honours student Sarah Robichaud for her work in creating this installment of #PTME! What terms do you want us to tackle next? 😁

What is facial expression analysis and how does it help identify emotions?

In our previous posts, we’ve talked about how facial expressions can be measured using electromyography or automated facial movement coding software. 🖥️ Today, DSEC Lab volunteer Logan Goldring explains how one of those programs works! How do we quantify facial expressions? 📏 Flip through these slides to find out!

📢 Something to note: our lab is currently using this type of software to understand how teenagers and adults express their emotions. 🎭 Visit the link in bio if you are interested in being a participant for this study! 🤝

#research #psychology #developmentalpsychology #emotion #explainittome #YGK #YGKstudies #YGKresearch #YGKfamilies #kingstonON