The Center for Cognitive Computation (CCC) invites you to the lecture of Gargi Majumdar (University of Hamburg).
Title: Navigating the unknown in emotion dynamics
Chair: Jószef Fiser CCC
Abstract:
An enigmatic phenomenon of the mind that drives almost all our actions and has attracted scientists and sages in its quest for centuries is emotion. Divergent views on the definition of emotion combined with various psychological and computational models have populated the field of emotion research for a long time. Most of the proposed theoretical models are yet to be exploited empirically to robustly explain our affective experiences. Combining the theoretical tenets of the Bayesian Brain hypothesis and predictive coding, I aimed to investigate whether prediction uncertainty can robustly track the temporal dynamics of complex emotions, along with formulating insights into deviations or disruptions of the process. Accordingly, using behavioral and large-scale neuroimaging data, I show how optimal representation of uncertainty can drive the temporal dynamics of our emotions. Crucially, this uncertainty naturally emerges as a continuous, hierarchical inference from the fluctuating valence while watching a movie. Extending this framework further, I explored whether age-associated idiosyncratic changes in emotional processing can stem from misrepresentation and miscomputation uncertainty. Finally, I investigated the dynamic interplay between rest and emotion and how intermittent anticipatory or ruminative resting periods change our emotional experiences.