ABSTRACT:

fNIRS devices open up a new way to examine the human brain during natural social interaction.  This talk will consider the opportunities and challenges of this new technology, including how to design experiments that make the best use of fNIRS and how to analyse and interpret rich complex hyperscanning datasets.  I will share data from several fNIRS studies of social sharing, imitation and actors performing Shakespeare on stage, and will discuss how different models can help us make sense of these data.

BIO:

Professor Hamilton is the leader of the Social Neuroscience group at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (UCL). She completed a PhD on the impact of neuronal noise for the optimal control of human arm movements (UCL, 2002) and has since worked on imitation and brain systems for social interaction. She was awarded the Experimental Psychology Society prize lectureship for 2013. Her current research interests include how and why people imitate each other, how social skills differ in autism, and the neural mechanisms of social interaction.