Göttinger Graduiertenzentrum für Neurowissenschaften, Biophysik und Molekulare Biowissenschaften

Schacht, Anne, Prof. Dr.

Professor of Cognition, Emotion and Behavior


  • since 2023: Professor of Cognition, Emotion and Behavior, Institute of Psychology, University of Goettingen
  • 2016-2022: Professor of Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology, Institute of Psychology, University of Goettingen
  • 2010-2016: Junior Professor, Courant Research Centre ´Text Structures´, University of Goettingen
  • 2011: Habilitation (venia legendi) in Psychology (HU Berlin)
  • 2010: Visiting Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Psychology, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin
  • 2010: Visiting Professor of Affective Neuroscience, Swiss Center for Affective Sciences (CISA), University of Geneva
  • 2009: Visiting Professor of Psychology of Motivation and Emotion (substitution), Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam
  • 2008: Dissertation (Dr. rer. nat., HU Berlin)



Major Research Interests

Our research focuses on cognition and behavior, and their modulations by context conditions and individual aspects. We investigate a variety of cognitive and information processing processes, including in the domains of perception, language, face cognition, learning, and judgment and decision making. In particular, we focus on influences of motivational, emotional, and social aspects and also model interindividual differences. In order to address the complexity of the research questions, we are committed to a multi-method approach. We consistently combine established behavioral paradigms with a variety of physiological and neural measures, including electrophysiology, peripheral physiology, and neuroendocrinology.

Research areas:
- Motivational and emotional impacts on perception and cognition
- Moral judgments and decision-making
- Social signals in human communication
- Cognition in social contexts
- Face cognition
- Associative learning and meaning acquisition
- Semantic, syntactic and para-linguistic language processing
- Hormone-cognition interactions and variations of cognitive functions

Methods and indicators:
- Electroencephalography (EEG)/Event-related brain potentials (ERPs)
- Eye tracking (mainly in simultaneous co-registration with ERPs), Pupillography
- Electrodermal and respiratory activity
- Facial muscle activity (via EMG recordings)
- Behavioral performance measures


Homepage Department/Research Group

https://www.psych.uni-goettingen.de/de/anap


Selected Recent Publications


  • Rafiee Y, Stern J, Ostner J, Penke L, Schacht A (2023). Does emotion recognition change across phases of the ovulatory cycle? Psychoneuroendocrinology 148, 105977
  • Demel R, Grassi F, Rafiee Y, Waldmann MR, Schacht A (2022). How German and Italian Laypeople Reason about Distributive Shortages during COVID-19. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19 (19), 12067
  • Kulke L, Brümmer L, Pooresmaeili A, Schacht A (2021). Overt and covert attention shifts to emotional faces: Combining EEG, eye tracking, and a go/no-go paradigm. Psychophysiology, 58, e13838.
  • Hammerschmidt W, Kagan I, Kulke L, Schacht A (2018). Implicit reward associations impact face processing: Time-resolved evidence from event-related brain potentials and pupil dilations. NeuroImage 179, 557-569