Guest speakers
Prof. Dr. Sonja A. Kotz
Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University
Sonja A. Kotz is Professor at the University of Maastricht and Research Group Leader at the Max-Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig. She studied Psycholinguistics, Literary and Political Sciences at the University of Tübingen. She then continued at Tufts University (USA), where she obtained a MSc and a PhD in Experimental Psychology/Neuropsychology. After teaching at the University of Leipzig, she was appointed Max Planck Minerva Professor at the Max Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig. In 2012 she was appointed Chair in Cognitive and Affective Neurosciences, School of Psychological Sciences, at the University of Manchester.
Sonja Kotz investigates timing and entrainment in the action-perception cycle underlying motor behavior, speech/language, and social interaction. More specifically, her research centers on predictive coding and motor/cognitive/affective control in healthy and clinical (aphasic, neurodegenerative and psychiatric) populations using behavioral and neuroimaging methods (event-related brain potentials (ERPs), M/EEG-oscillations, magnetoencephalography (MEG), and structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (s/fMRI)).
Prof. Dr. Michael Mendl
School of Veterinary Sciences, University of Bristol
Michael Mendl is Professor of Animal Behaviour and Welfare at the University of Bristol. He obtained his PhD from Cambridge University, where he was supervised by Prof Pat Bateson FRS. With a Royal Society European Research Fellowship, he then joined Groningen University in the Netherlands, before returning to Cambridge University. After having held a position at the Scottish Agricultural College in Edinburgh he moved to Bristol University Veterinary School. Michael Mendl is interested in the links between affective and cognitive processes, in particular the ways in which attention, memory and decision-making both influence and are influenced by affective state. One aim of his current research, in collaboration with Liz Paul, is to investigate whether affect-induced modulation of decision-making, which leads to so-called 'cognitive bias' in humans, is also observed in animals, and hence can be used as a novel indicator of animal affect (emotion) and welfare. He is also interested in the evolution and function of affective states, developing new measures of animal emotion and welfare that can be used under field conditions, and understanding more about animal cognition, emotion, personality, and social behaviour with a view to identifying and minimising welfare problems for captive animals.
Prof. Dr. Klaus R. Scherer
Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Klaus Scherer is a Professor emeritus at the University of Geneva and directs the Centre Interfacultaire en Science Affectives and the Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences. He studied economics and social sciences at the University of Cologne and the London School of Economics and obtained a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1970. After teaching at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Kiel, he was appointed Full Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Giessen, Germany. From1985 to 2008, Klaus Scherer was Full Professor of Psychology at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and director of the Human Assessment Centre (Laboratoire d´Evaluation Psychologique).
His research activities are directed at the study of cognitive evaluations of emotion-eliciting events and on facial and vocal emotion expression. Klaus Scherer's major research interest is the further theoretical development and empirical test of his Component Process Model of Emotion (CPM), specifically the modeling of appraisal-driven processes of motor expression and physiological reaction patterns, as well as the reflection of these processes in subjective experience. Other major research foci consist of the study of the expression of affect in voice and speech and applied emotion research. Cross-cultural research also constitutes an important aspect of his work.