Projects

Emotions, especially negative ones, can affect not only psychological, but also physical condition of a person. Continuous and excessive suppression of negative emotions is associated with a deterioration of well-being, as well as with an increased risk of developing a number of diseases. At the same time, strategies of reappraisal, elaboration and restructuring, on the contrary, are highlighted as the most effective methods of psychotherapy. However, the mechanism of the relationship between different types of emotion regulation and long-term consequences remains poorly understood. This project aims to study the features of emotion regulation strategies in relation to various physiological systems, as well as to study the dynamics of emotional states during regulation.

Ensemble perception refers to the visual system's ability to rapidly extract statistical information from groups of items. This capacity allows us to efficiently summarize and interpret large amounts of visual input, even when attention and working memory are limited. For example, people can accurately estimate the mean or variance of features like size or color, even when objects are briefly presented. In particular, ensemble perception helps us assess emotional expressions from groups of faces, enabling us to capture an overall emotional "gist." However, there is ongoing debate about the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. To address this, our project investigates face ensemble perception through behavioral experiments and neuroscience techniques, aiming to determine whether it occurs without conscious effort and how both perceptual and affective features contribute to the ensemble representation of faces.

The project investigates the role of cognitive functions (executive functions, cognitive flexibility, working memory and planning) in shaping and implementing coping behavior. Using the previously developed situational coping assessment, we will examine how cognitive resources relate to the ability to generate alternative courses of action in stressful situations, select an individual strategy, and reflectively evaluate satisfaction with that choice. The findings will clarify the cognitive mechanisms of coping and identify targets for psychotherapeutic and remedial interventions aimed at improving adaptation and psychological well-being.

The project aims to study anxiety as a psychological phenomenon encompassing a wide range of emotional reactions, including both general and specific forms (such as social anxiety). Questions remain regarding whether the effects of specific anxiety extend beyond their respective domains: for instance, what role does the general anxiety play in recognizing partner's emotions or in solving mathematical problems? Psychophysiology is a main focus of the project; we examine how physiological markers of anxiety relate to performance on cognitive tasks. The study seeks to analyze multimodal data and identify links between various types of anxiety and success in performing cognitively demanding tasks across different domains.

A sense of humor is a multidimensional personality construct with many components. Some of them may be more relevant to psychological health than others. Although there are many studies devoted to this issue, the topic of preferences of humor style in media and internet-consumption in connection with personality traits, in particular, subclinical manifestations of psychopathy, remains open. Our research aims to develop tools that allow us to evaluate preferences directly through content consumption, bypassing self-descriptive forms that can introduce distortions into preference estimates. We also explore the relationship between the perception of content as funny in people with different personality traits

The aim of the study is to determine whether the sensation of a “lump in the throat” can be considered a marker of emotion suppression, as well as to determine the degree of correlation between the frequency and intensity of the sensation of a “lump in the throat” and the severity of anxiety, depressive background, and other psychological factors. In the future, it is planned to continue the study using psychophysiological equipment

The relationship between a person's psychoemotional state and the physiological responses of the cardiovascular system has been documented through empirical experience and common linguistic expressions (e.g., "my heart is bleeding," etc.). However, the precise psychosomatic mechanisms linking emotions to the responses of peripheral organs and tissues remain poorly understood. The goal of this project is a comprehensive study of the psychological aspects of emotion regulation and physiological indicators of cardiovascular activity, in order to identify and verify stable patterns of various emotional states. The project involves a comprehensive approach to data collection: psychological testing, clinical interviews, psycholinguistic studies, and psychophysiological experiments using specialized sensors (ECG, GSR, PPG, temperature sensors, respiration sensors, etc.). During the project, objective data will be obtained on the relationship between emotions and emotional states and cardiovascular system responses.

The aim of the study is to identify new markers of discrete emotional states in the peripheral nervous system. The project is based on a comprehensive approach to collecting psychophysiological data: psychological testing, clinical interviews, psycholinguistic studies, and psychophysiological experiments using specialized sensors (ECG, GSR, PPG, temperature sensors, respiratory sensors, etc.).

the aim of this project is a comprehensive research of the cognitive and psychophysiological correlates of insight during user interaction with generative AI in the context of solving a therapeutic task related to the emotion of shame, with a focus on the cognitive processes of perception, memory, and decision-making.

This project focuses on the analysis of Russian somatic idioms with the meaning of various emotions, based on data from the Russian National Corpus.

Somatic idioms are conventionalized multi-word expressions that incorporate body-part terms or references to bodily processes (e.g., skripet' zubami 'to grind one's teeth', krov' brosilas' v litso 'the blood rushed to the face'). They serve as a compact and rich means of encoding complex emotional states. Within cognitive linguistics, they are considered a key to understanding the deep connection between language, bodily experience, and culture.

The study contributes to the empirical description of Russian emotive phraseology and demonstrates the value of corpus methods for verifying lexicographic data.