Program

*Program is subject to change.

Download Program Booklet

Download the PDF version of the SANS 2024 Program Booklet.

Download Abstract Booklet

Download the PDF version of the SANS 2024 Abstract Booklet.

Download 2024 Program at a Glance

Need a quick check on timing? Check out this Program at a glance for SANS 2024.

Program Schedule

12:30 – 18:00

Conference Registration Desk Open

Frontenac Foyer
Pick up your name badges now!


13:30 – 17:30

Computational Social Neuroscience: A Pre-Conference Workshop

*Sold Out
Queens Quay Room

Speakers
Leor Hackel, University of Southern California
Eshin Jolly, Dartmouth College
Philip Kragel, Emory University

This highly experienced team has published multiple papers in the social computational space in both general science and cross-psychological area journals like Nature Neuroscience, Science Advances, Psychological Science, and Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. The topics covered in the workshop will reflect the work being done in their respective research programs, including social reinforcement learning, multivariate pattern classification as applied to complex phenomena like emotional experience, and using automated computer vision to analyze facial expressions.

Materials will be provided in advance for review, including pre-recorded talks with the relevant theory. On-site at the conference, you will put that theory into practice with this hands-on computational workshop where attendees will learn how to implement computational methods and evaluate results in small groups.

Please note: Familiarity with basic programming in Python/R is recommended, but not required for participation.


15:15 – 15:45

Coffee Break

Frontenac Foyer

Join us for coffee and light refreshments!

07:00 – 18:30

Conference Registration Desk Open

Frontenac Foyer
Pick up your name badges now!


08:00 – 09:00

Mentor-Mentee Kickoff!

Bay Room
*Advanced registration was required for mentor matching. Now closed.

Moderator
Hongbo Yu
, University of California, Santa Barbara

The SANS Trainee Committee will be hosting this icebreaker kick-off event for their new Mentor Match Program. Our goal for the program, and the kick-off event is to provide a mechanism for the SANS community to build new bridges with each other, and more specifically, between the faculty and the trainee communities. Once you receive your pairing (via email), we encourage you to connect in advance (virtually) and then connect in-person at the kick-off event!

Food & beverage provided for participants.


09:00 – 09:30

Opening Remarks

Frontenac Ballroom

Speaker
Aaron Heller, University of Miami
Chelsea Helion, Temple University
Kalina Michalska, University of California, Riverside

Join us for our opening remarks where we officially kick off the conference and highlight sessions not to be missed!


09:30 – 11:00

Symposium 1: Intergroup Relations

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Damian A. Stanley, Adelphi University

Speakers
Jennifer Kubota, University of Delaware
Juncheng Lu, Beijing Normal University
Jaime Castrellon, University of Pennsylvania
Celia Guillard, Cornell University
Jillian Franks, Brandeis University
Ava Ma De Sousa, University of California, Santa Barbara

Studying intergroup relations is critical to understanding the mechanisms that give rise to prejudice, discrimination, conflict, and social injustice, and social affective neuroscience provides an important tool for assessing these mechanisms. The SANS Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Justice committee is excited to present its first symposium highlighting work on intergroup relations by SANS community members. The symposium will start with the announcement of diversity award recipients, followed by a featured talk by Dr. Jennifer Kubota on how interracial contact shapes perceptions of social injustice during arrests of civilians. Finally, there will be a series of flash talks by SANS trainees covering a range of topics, examining how social, affective, and cognitive neural processes contribute to stereotype-induced stress, the influence of group membership on decisions to harm civilians in intergroup conflict, the contributions of stereotypes to social discounting decisions, and empathy biases related to political group membership.


11:00 – 11:30

Coffee Break

Frontenac Foyer

Join us for coffee and light refreshments!


11:30 – 13:00

Symposium 2: The Neurocognitive Dynamics Fostering Social Connection and Agreement in Conversation

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Diana Tamir, Princeton University

Speakers
Laetitia Mwilambwe Tshilobo, Princeton University
Sebastian Speer, Princeton University
Shannon Burns,
Pomona College
Ashley Binnquist, University of California, Los Angeles

Conversation is our most powerful tool for building social connection, resolving disagreements, and navigating ideological differences. It allows us to share our thoughts and feelings, learn about different perspectives, and build empathy for others. When we engage in conversation, we open up the possibility of finding common ground, social connection, and agreement. This can help to break down barriers and divides and foster a more harmonious society. In this symposium, we present four studies exploring the neurobiological aspects of conversations that emphasize their impact on social connection, decision-making, and navigating interpersonal conflict. First, we will present an fMRI-hyperscanning study focusing on what makes conversations most effective in fostering a social connection and the neural mechanisms that support this connection. The second talk investigates what happens when the goal of the conversation changes, and we are conversing to make a joint decision rather than to build a connection. This study employs fMRI-hyperscanning to investigate the mental state dynamics that support agreement. The third study combines fMRI and fNIRS to explore how coordination of neural state transitions fosters more agreement in joint decision-making conversations. The fourth study further increases the conflict between conversation partners. It uses fNIRS-hyperscanning to examine neural states engaged when conversing with people who hold different ideological beliefs. This study contributes to the work on the neural mechanisms that support intergroup communication. Collectively, these studies presented in this symposium highlight the importance of studying real-time conversation to understand human social interaction better. In a panel-style discussion following the empirical research presentations, we will reflect on recent advances and future directions in the science of hyperscanning conversation.


13:00 – 14:00

Lunch (on own)

Check out these lunch spots within walking distance:

A&W
Alexandros
Aroma Espresso Bar
Church’s Texas Chicken
Freshii
Impact Kitchen
Jimmy the Greek
My Roti Place/My Dosa Place
Oyshi Sushi
Subway
Tim Hortons


14:00 – 14:45

Blitz Topics 1

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Anita Tusche,
Queen’s University

P1-F-62 – Neural signatures of emotional inference and experience align during social consensus
Speaker: Marianne Reddan, Stanford University

P1-F-63 – Neural representations of map- and graph-based knowledge structures for two distinct types of social information during naturalistic social interaction
Speaker: Dasom Kwon, Sungkyunkwan University

P1-F-64 – Influence of socioeconomic status and negative life events on the functional brain maturation and social cognitive functioning in children and adolescents.
Speaker: Brianna Hughes, Ontario Tech University

P1-H-67 – Neuro-computational mechanism of reliability-based arbitration between observational and experiential learning
Speaker: Qianying Wu, California Institute of Technology

P1-J-74 – From Opposing Views to Aligned Impressions: Shared Experiences Matter
Speaker: Feng-Chun Chou, National Taiwan University

P1-K-77 – Time spent in conversation over meals predicts default network function: Evidence from a passive mobile-sensing and fMRI study
Speaker: Dhaval Bhatt, Columbia University

P1-K-78 – Neural synchrony predicts future popularity in an emerging community of adolescent girls
Speaker: Yixuan Lisa Shen, University of California, Los Angeles


14:45 – 15:45

Keynote Speaker: Deconstructing Emotions

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderators
Chelsea Helion, Temple University
Kalina Michalska, University of California, Riverside

Speaker
Kristen Lindquist, University of North Carolina

Questions about the nature of emotion are some of the most enduring in psychology and neuroscience. We have been studying emotion scientifically for over a century, but answers to questions about the nature of these important states have remained elusive. Traditionally, attempts to weigh in on the mechanisms of emotion have used a single level of analysis and focus almost exclusively on cognitive, neurophysiological, or cultural mechanisms. In this talk, I discuss work that spans all three. I will begin by showing experimental evidence that emotions are mental states characterized by cognitive features such as valence, arousal, and situated semantic meanings. Next, I’ll demonstrate that these features are the product of interactions amongst distributed brain networks that predictively regulate visceromotor outputs by making best guesses about adaptive actions. Finally, I’ll close by showing that such predictions are learned via experience within particularly cultural contexts. Together, this work forms the basis of a new constructionist model in which emotions are both deeply embodied and encultured states.


15:45 – 18:15

Opening Reception

Queens Quay & Frontenac Foyer

Join us for provided nibbles, or get a drink at the cash bar during our Opening Reception taking place during Poster Session 1! The bar will remain open during Comic SANS.


15:45 – 17:00

Poster Session 1

Queens Quay & Frontenac Foyer

Review the Abstract and Program Books to learn more about the posters in this session!


17:00 – 18:15

“Comic SANS”

Frontenac Ballroom

Hosted By
Vishnu “Deepu” Murty

Some scholars say that comedy is a simple equation of tragedy plus time. We disagree and think comedy is purely driven by Social and Affective Neuroscientists. This year, at SANS 2024, we are introducing Comic SANS, a comedy showcase of social/affective neuroscientists and the research topics they love.  Come see some of your favorite scientists perform stand-up and comedic readings, as well as participate in a game-show style “Name that Loose Construct”. 

07:30 – 18:00

Conference Registration Desk Open

Frontenac Foyer


08:00 – 09:00

BIOPAC Session: Unlocking Virtual Reality for Social and Affective Researchers

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Dominic Fareri, Adelphi University

Speaker
Vineet Gopal, BIOPAC Systems, Inc.

Join us for an exploration of the immersive world of Virtual Reality (VR) in scientific research, tailored for social and affective researchers with no VR experience. Discover how VR has become an accessible tool for creating innovative experiments in minutes, empowering researchers to delve into novel work without the need for extensive programming knowledge.

  • Learn how advancements in technology have made it possible for researchers, regardless of coding experience, to set up a variety of experiments utilizing VR.
  • Engage in practical, hands-on demonstrations that guide you through the process of using VR technology for physiology data collection and analysis.
  • Learn how to use VR to study physiology—brain, heart, fatigue, stress, confusion, engagement, and workload.
  • See VR scenarios showcasing emotion, affect, stress, social cognition, behavior, etc.
  • Gain confidence in utilizing these tools, unlocking the potential to incorporate VR seamlessly into your own research projects.
  • Live demonstration of immersive experience with physiology data collection and analysis.

Food & beverage provided for participants.

Sponsored By:


09:00 – 10:30

Symposium 3: Neuroscience of Narration

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Mareike Bacha-Trams,
University of Duisburg-Essen

Speakers
Mareike Bacha-Trams, University of Duisburg-Essen
Yaara Yeshurun, Tel Aviv University
Iiro Jääskeläinen, Aalto University
Sam Nastase, Princeton University

The importance of narratives in our society is highlighted by biologist Stephen J. Gould’s adage that humans are “the primates who tell stories”. Narratives create a sense of community and bind individuals into functional social groups. However, the modern digital sphere provides a new arena for narratives and the characteristics of digital and social media affect how narratives are created and how they synchronize or polarize different individuals.

Although narratives have existed for so long, the neuroscientific mechanisms of their processing have not yet been fully explored. Recent developments in the field of social neuroscience as e.g., advancements in data analysis algorithms for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have enabled investigation of socially complex interactions such as narratives and their underlying neural correlates. With investigating narrative elements in ecologically valid stimuli, such as movies, audiobooks, news articles, or conversations, ambiguous and convergent features could be studied that may be overlooked in isolated test settings.

This symposium, focusing on the neuroscience of narratives, will show how contextual background shapes the perception and interpretation of a narrative. The symposium will survey different aspects of the social cultural and affective role of narratives in our everyday social lives. The first talk focuses on neural synchronization between followers of different religions and political orientations when watching political videos (Yeshurun). The second talk investigates factors of credibility in news articles as a form of narratives (Bacha-Trams). The third talk explores speaker–listener relationships in context-rich conversations (Nastase) and the fourth talk investigates the impact of the thinking style and cultural background when perceiving narratives (Jääskeläinen). Taken together, the symposium showcases how neuroimaging can provide promising insights into the neurocognitive mechanisms supporting socio-cultural features of narrative processing, including news and political broadcasting (talk 1 and 2), social feedback (talk 2 and 3), cultural understanding (talk 1 and 4), and speaker– listener coupling (talk 3 and 4). The symposium offers unique perspectives from two women and two men speakers from four different countries (Finland, Germany, Israel, USA).


10:30 – 11:00

Early Career Award Talk: Corticolimbic and Connectome-Wide Representations of Anxious Traits

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Aaron Heller, University of Miami

Speaker
Justin Minue Kim,
Sungkyunkwan University

Emotion is a powerful psychological state that can determine how we engage in human interactions, and how we manage our affect is a crucial piece to being successful in the social world. In this talk, I will highlight our lab’s efforts to leverage the interconnectivity of brain networks to identify neural systems supporting emotion regulation by linking ambiguity processing with anxious traits. Traditionally, these include neural circuits centered on the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex, but recent work suggests that macro-scale brain networks that support socioemotional functions may also have important implications for mental health. More broadly, I will illustrate that understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying anxiety is enhanced by considering its universal (i.e., shared among individuals) and idiosyncratic (i.e., variable across individuals) features.


11:00 – 11:30

Coffee Break

Join us for coffee and light refreshments!


11:30 – 13:00

EDIJ Symposium: Socioeconomic Diversity or Disadvantage

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Haroon Popal,
University of Maryland, College Park

Speakers
Cat Camacho, Washington University in St. Louis
Matthew Kersting,
University of California, Riverside
Nina Lauharatanahirun,
Pennsylvania State University
Liz Necka,
National Institute on Aging

The EDIJ Symposium on Socioeconomic Diversity or Disadvantage is honored to present a special session featuring voices often marginalized in academic discourse: scholars from socioeconomically diverse or disadvantaged backgrounds. This unique symposium aims to amplify the voices of those with firsthand experience navigating the complexities of socioeconomic diversity or disadvantage within academia and beyond and provide information about relevant NIH fellowships and grants for these scholars. In this session, esteemed scholars will share their journeys, reflecting on the challenges, triumphs, and insights gained from their lived experiences. In addition, they will be joined by program officer Dr. Necka from NIA, who will share information about programs at NIH dedicated to supporting socioeconomically diverse or disadvantaged scholars. Through candid narratives and reflective discussions, they will illuminate the intersectionality of socioeconomic status, identity, and academic pursuit, offering valuable perspectives often overlooked in social neuroscience.


13:00 – 14:00

Lunch (on own)

Check out these lunch spots within walking distance:

A&W
Alexandros
Aroma Espresso Bar
Church’s Texas Chicken
Freshii
Impact Kitchen
Jimmy the Greek
My Roti Place/My Dosa Place
Oyshi Sushi
Subway
Tim Hortons


13:00 – 14:00

Round Table & Lunch

*Advanced registration was required for this session. Now closed.
Frontenac Ballroom

Moderators
Jennifer Kubota, University of Delaware
Hongbo Yu, University of California, Santa Barbara

The session will be a small group, round table discussion around special topics. The goal is to foster discussion and provide an opportunity to build new connections at SANS. Each group will have 1-2 topic leaders to lead the discussion and a group of 4-5 participants.

Food & beverage provided for participants.


14:00 – 14:45

Blitz Topics 2

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Richard Lopez, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

P2-A-9 – Neural signature approaches to predict behavior change: Evidence from two interventions to reduce alcohol consumption and promote healthy eating
Speaker: Danielle Cosme, University of Pennsylvania

P2-A-10 – Adolescent neurodevelopment supports the emergence of adaptive generalization during value-based decision-making
Speaker: Catherine Insel, Columbia University

P2-A-11 – Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying the subjective cost of exercising self-control
Speaker: Candace Raio, New York University

P2-C-25 – Generalizable Neural Representations of Emotional Arousal Across Individuals and Situational Contexts
Speaker: Jin Ke, University of Chicago

P2-C-26 – Brain representational distinctiveness and fidelity supported long-term associative and affective memory for emotional stimuli
Speaker: Jean Ye, Yale University

P2-F-61 – Shared memory representations in real-world social interactions
Speaker: Jiun Choi, Sungkyunkwan University

P2-F-62 – ‘Eye’ can see your relationships: The neurocomputational mechanisms in social relationship perception
Speaker: Mingzhe Zhang, Beijing Normal University


14:45 – 15:45

Presidential Keynote: Making Memories in Mice

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Aaron Heller, University of Miami

Speaker
Sheena Josselyn, The Hospital for Sick Children & University of Toronto

Understanding how the brain uses information is a fundamental goal of neuroscience. Several human disorders (ranging from autism spectrum disorder to PTSD to Alzheimer’s disease) may stem from disrupted information processing. Therefore, this basic knowledge is not only critical for understanding normal brain function, but also vital for the development of new treatment strategies for these disorders. Memory may be defined as the retention over time of internal representations gained through experience, and the capacity to reconstruct these representations at later times. Long-lasting physical brain changes (‘engrams’) are thought to encode these internal representations. The concept of a physical memory trace likely originated in ancient Greece, although it wasn’t until 1904 that Richard Semon first coined the term ‘engram’. Despite its long history, finding a specific engram has been challenging, likely because an engram is encoded at multiple levels (epigenetic, synaptic, cell assembly). My lab is interested in understanding how specific neurons are recruited or allocated to an engram, and how neuronal membership in an engram may change over time or with new experience. Here I will describe data in our efforts to understand memories in mice.

Sponsored by the Department of Psychology at:


15:45 – 16:00

Transition Break

16:00 – 16:45

Blitz Topics 3

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Elisa BaekUniversity of Southern California

P2-B-13 – Psychological and neurobiological mechanisms of gender differences in pain and pain treatment
Speaker: Elizabeth Losin, Pennsylvania State University

P2-C-27 – Cognitive-Behavioral Predictors of Individual Variability of Functional Connectivity in Healthy Young Adults
Speaker: Colin Hawco, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

P2-C-28 – Hippocampal activity during emotional anticipation moderates the future reinstatement of distributed cortical activity states
Speaker: William Villano, University of Miami

P2-D-30 – Comparing the Neural Bases of Self and Social Reappraisal
Speaker: Zhouzhou He, Columbia University

P2-F-63 – Prosocial Adaptation in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Speaker: Saskia Koch, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen

P2-F-64 – Get out of my head: social evaluative brain states carry over into post-feedback rest and influence remembering how others view us
Speaker: Sasha Brietzke, Columbia University

P2-G-68 – Rewards Bias Self-Evaluations of Ability
Speaker: Jean Luo, University of Southern California


16:45 – 18:00

Poster Session 2 & Refreshment Break

Queens Quay & Frontenac Foyer

Review the Abstract and Program Books to learn more about the posters in this session! Explore the poster session with a drink or light refreshment.


18:00 – 19:00

EDIJ Meet-Up & Happy Hour

The Chartroom Bar & Lounge

Join the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Justice Committee for a meet-up to bring together SANS members from underrepresented/minoritized or marginalized groups and celebrate our shared community. This event is meant to foster belonging and encourage networking among members. Diversity Travel Award winners will be celebrated. The meet-up is open to all SANS members interested in attending.

07:30 – 18:00

Conference Registration Desk Open

Frontenac Foyer


08:00 – 09:00

NIH Roundtable Session

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Ajay Satpute, Northeastern University

Speakers

Kristin Brethel-Haurwitz,
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
David Leitman,
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Liz Necka,
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Matt Sutterer,
National Institute on Aging (NIA)

In this roundtable discussion and open Q&A, staff from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will highlight research priorities, funding opportunities, resources, and updates relevant to social and affective neuroscience. Research priorities from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) will be discussed, in addition to NIH-wide training opportunities, policies, toolkits and data repositories, and other relevant updates.

Food & beverage provided for participants. 


09:00 – 10:30

Symposium 4: Neural, Network, and Neural Network Approaches for Social Relational Representation

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Jae-Young Son
, Brown University
Eshin Jolly, Dartmouth College

Speakers
Eshin Jolly, Dartmouth College
Manasi Malik, Johns Hopkins University
Miriam Schwyck, Columbia University
Jae-Young Son, Brown University

In a memorable scene from the classic film Mean Girls (2004), the transfer student Cady is guided through the great blooming buzzing confusion of a high school cafeteria. Within moments, she is able to perceive the social relationships within and between cliques. Almost instantly, Cady identifies that the popular ‘plastics’ are the school’s power brokers, and she quickly learns a mental map of the friendships, enmity, and shifting alliances within her network. By the end of the film, she is proficient in navigating social decisions with far-reaching consequences, like strategically gossiping to boost her own status. Although most people’s social lives are a little less dramatic than Cady’s, all of us face the same cognitive challenge of using relational information to perceive, infer, learn, represent, and navigate social relationships.

In this symposium, each presenter addresses distinct components of how the mind solves these cognitive problems: Manasi Malik uses graph neural networks to explain how humans use structured visual information to make judgements about social relations; Miriam Schwyck characterizes what makes social brokers so effective at learning others’ relationships within a network; Jae-Young Son identifies abstraction and replay as key cognitive mechanisms for representing and navigating longer-range chains of social relationships; Eshin Jolly demonstrates that the brain represents other people in terms of their relationships and provides evidence that person memory relies on neural reinstatement of social interactions. Together, our abstracts provide multifaceted insights into the broader question of how we make sense of relational information about the complex, vast, and evolving webs of the social world.


10:30 – 11:00

Coffee Break

Join us for coffee and light refreshments!


11:00 – 12:30

Symposium 5: A.I. Approaches to Social & Affective Neuroscience

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Chelsea Helion
, Temple University

Speakers
Mark Thornton, Dartmouth College
Ren Calabro, University of Chicago
Grace Qiyuan Miao, University of California, Los Angeles

Discussant
James (Jim) Thompson, George Mason University

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly large role in both our day-to-day lives and in our research programs. The recent “AI Spring” has resulted in a number of tools that have revolutionized all areas of psychology and neuroscience. The talks in this symposium use a variety of AI tools, including Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Deep Neural Networks (DNN) to examine topics ranging from the linguistic patterns that characterize the political divide in the U.S., the identification of specific neural circuitry to social memory encoding, and the analysis of multimodal features of dyadic interaction. The session concludes with a talk from our invited speaker, Mark Thornton, on how Artificial Neural Networks present a transformative tool for analyzing and understanding social and affective cognition.


12:30 – 13:00

Mid Career Award Talk: Towards a Computational Social and Affective Science

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Kateri McRae
, University of Denver

Speaker
Luke Chang,
Dartmouth College

Psychology is the only scientific discipline in which the subject matter (i.e., the human mind) is also the tool of investigation. Social and affective psychological phenomena are particularly vexing as they arise from internal subjective thoughts, feelings, and motivations that are rarely directly observable. In this talk, I will provide examples illustrating how our lab has grappled with challenges pertaining to representative experimental designs, objective measurements, and quantitative modeling. Directly addressing the immense complexity of our discipline to build a cumulative science will likely require a broader commitment to moving beyond our comfort zones and engineering new innovative methods, collaborating with other scientific disciplines, and engaging and supporting our peers.


13:00 – 14:00

Lunch (on own)

Check out these lunch spots within walking distance:

A&W
Alexandros
Aroma Espresso Bar
Church’s Texas Chicken
Freshii
Impact Kitchen
Jimmy the Greek
My Roti Place/My Dosa Place
Oyshi Sushi
Subway
Tim Hortons


14:00 – 14:45

Blitz Topics 4

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
João Guassi Moreira,
University of California, Los Angeles

Speakers

P3-A-9 – Overlapping yet distinct neural encoding of value and salience during risk decision-making: Insight from intracranial human recordings
Speaker: Xiaoyu Zeng, Beijing Normal University

P3-E-39 – Exploring the patient-clinician relationship in chronic pain treatments: A naturalistic longitudinal study using real-time dual-brain fMRI
Speaker: Arvina Grahl, Harvard University

P3-F-61 – Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex (DMPFC) Prioritizes Social Learning at Rest
Speaker: Courtney Jimenez, Columbia University

P3-I-67 – Precision mapping of the default network reveals common and distinct (inter)activity for autobiographical memory and theory of mind in younger and older adults
Speaker: Colleen Hughes, Indiana University

P3-J-73 – Exploring amygdala encoding of facial expressions with single-unit recordings and deep convolutional networks
Speaker: Katherine Soderberg, Emory University

P3-K-76 – Social environment quality defines hierarchical and dynamic clusters with dissociable brain network functional connectivity
Speaker: Haily Merritt, Indiana University

P3-H-85 – Keeping an eye out for change: Anxiety disrupts adaptive resolution of policy and epistemic uncertainty
Speaker: Amrita Lamba, Massachusetts Institute of Technology


14:45 – 16:00

Poster Session 3 & Refreshment Break

Queens Quay & Frontenac Foyer

Review the Abstract and Program Books to learn more about the posters in this session! Explore the poster session with a drink or light refreshment.


16:00 – 17:00

Distinguished Scholar Award Talk: The Inherent Reward of Social Connection

Frontenac Ballroom

Moderator
Aaron Heller
, University of Miami

Speaker
Mauricio Delgado, 
Rutgers University

From winning a raffle to receiving praise from a colleague, experiences of reward elicit positive feelings, shape our behavior, and influence our emotional well-being. Among the most sought-after rewards in our environment are those of a social nature. Indeed, the value derived from positive social interactions fosters the ability to share perspectives and preferences, in turn encouraging new connections with others, reinforcing existing social bonds, and boosting overall well-being.  This talk underscores the role of the brain’s reward system in processing the motivational features of social rewards and supporting the development of protective factors against negative affect. I will focus on how an enriched social context, such as the level of closeness between individuals, can enhance reward-related neural responses and influence the experience of reward, subsequent behavior, and reactions to acute stress. Additionally, I will highlight mechanisms that facilitate learning about others and promote social connection.


17:00 – 18:00

Closing Remarks/Awards & Society Business Meeting

Frontenac Ballroom

Speaker
Aaron Heller
, University of Miami

Please join us for our Society Business Meeting and a review of our society initiatives, the announcement of our 2024 Innovation Award Winner, and the announcement of our 2025 Conference location!


19:00

”Drop-In” Social @ The Rec Room

The Rec Room – Toronto Roundhouse
255 Bremner Blvd, Toronto, ON M5V 3M9