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Overview
We follow two lines of research in our group. On the one hand, we are examining how social signals (especially facial expressions) are processed in the brain, how they are perceived and evaluated in mental disorders (e.g., social phobia) and how these processes can be modulated by exogenously administered neuropeptides. Our second main interest is the cognitive neuroscience of deception and we especially focus on the Concealed Information Test as an application of forensic psychophysiology that allows to reveal whether suspects have knowledge of crime related details. Our work aims at enhancing our understanding of the psychological processes involved in the Concealed Information Test and we are mainly interested in the modulatory effect of emotions. Although our studies have a clear focus on basic research questions, they can ultimately help to improve existing methods for detecting deception and concealed knowledge in forensic applications.
We use a multimodal approach for examining these issues consisting of behavioral studies involving a measurement of eye movements and autonomic responses, as well as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) techniques.