
New publication: Deepfake smiles matter less
New article by Anna Eiserbeck, Martin Maier, Julia Baum & Rasha Abdel Rahman:
Deepfake smiles matter less—the psychological and neural impact of presumed AI-generated faces
High-quality AI-generated portraits (“deepfakes”) are becoming increasingly prevalent. Understanding the responses they evoke in perceivers is crucial in assessing their societal implications. Here we investigate the impact of the belief that depicted persons are real or deepfakes on psychological and neural measures of human face perception. Using EEG, we tracked participants’ (N = 30) brain responses to real faces showing positive, neutral, and negative expressions, after being informed that they are either real or fake. Smiling faces marked as fake appeared less positive, as reflected in expression ratings, and induced slower evaluations. Whereas presumed real smiles elicited canonical emotion effects with differences relative to neutral faces in the P1 and N170 components (markers of early visual perception) and in the EPN component (indicative of reflexive emotional processing), presumed deepfake smiles showed none of these effects. Additionally, only smiles presumed as fake showed enhanced LPP activity compared to neutral faces, suggesting more effortful evaluation. Negative expressions induced typical emotion effects, whether considered real or fake. Our findings demonstrate a dampening effect on perceptual, emotional, and evaluative processing of presumed deepfake smiles, but not angry expressions, adding new specificity to the debate on the societal impact of AI-generated content.

Neuro-Barbies and Kens
We went to see Barbie at Filmtheater at Friedrichshain. Everyone understood the assignment.


New publication: review article
New review article by Anna Kuhlen and Rasha Abdel Rahman:
Beyond speaking: neurocognitive perspectives on language production in social interaction
The human faculty to speak has evolved, so has been argued, for communicating with others and for engaging in social interactions. Hence the human cognitive system should be equipped to address the demands that social interaction places on the language production system. These demands include the need to coordinate speaking with listening, the need to integrate own (verbal) actions with the interlocutor’s actions, and the need to adapt language flexibly to the interlocutor and the social context. In order to meet these demands, core processes of language production are supported by cognitive processes that enable interpersonal coordination and social cognition. To fully understand the cognitive architecture and its neural implementation enabling humans to speak in social interaction, our understanding of how humans produce language needs to be connected to our understanding of how humans gain insights into other people’s mental states and coordinate in social interaction. This article reviews theories and neurocognitive experiments that make this connection and can contribute to advancing our understanding of speaking in social interaction.

Tai Chi course for the lab
Starting in May, Kathi will give a Tai Chi course in Adlershof for all members and friends of the lab.
Tai Chi Chuan is an ancient Chinese martial art. Because of the way it is practised, it is an excellent connector between effective physical training and meditative practice. Due to its simple application, it can be trained by everyone and almost anywhere.
Although Tai Chi is a practice of individual development, it is originally practised in families, in other words, it is a communal martial art. Individual progress is group progress, the coordination and postural improvement of everyone in the same movement creates a third entity, the better us. It is a space during the week that connects us as a group doing something that also benefits the health of each member.
If you are interested in joining the group, please get in touch with Katherine Fernández.

Adlershof Dissertation Prize: Congrats, Julia!
A massive congratulations to Julia Baum who was a runner up for this year’s Adlershof Dissertation Prize. On February 14, 2023, the Adlershof Dissertation Prize was awarded for the 21st time. Julia had been shortlisted for the prize and presented her work to the judges at an event hosted in Erwin Schrödinger-Zentrum in Adlershof. Her doctoral thesis “Emotional content in social misinformation affects mind, brain, and judgments” is extremely timely and has powerful implications for how we deal with misinformation and questionable sources. Fantastic work, Julia!
Congratulations from our lab also go out to Dr. Jannes Münchmeyer, whose doctoral thesis on early warnings for earthquakes won this year, as well as Dr. Dominique Lungwitz, another runner up.

Summer
Waking up to 0 degrees and grey skies makes us think back to this wonderful summer meet-up in Brandenburg. Soon, spring will be here and we will be sitting outside during lunchs in Adlershof and surely there will be many get togethers when the temperatures are high and the days are long. We miss you, summer!

Dr. done!

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