I am interested in the neuropsychology of emotion and the cortical determinants involved in the cognitive processes during the genesis of emotion.
The temporal aspects of appraisal processes of emotion and the underlying brain processes are central research issues. The main goal of my thesis, under the direction of professor Klaus Scherer, was to examine the sequence hypothesis. More specifically, a series of EEG studies adressed the hypothesis of a temporal sequence of the evaluation checks.

The processes underlying the perception and evaluation of emotional prosody are a major topic of my research. Different projects are ongoing in collaboration with the University Hospital of Geneva using brain imaging techiques. fMRI and high density surface electroencephalography are used to investigate the psychological processes involved in emotional prosody decoding. Beyond these usual brain imaging techniques, local field potentials (LFPs) analysis from intracranial recordings in humans is used to determine the treatment of information processes in the perception of emotional auditory stimuli and the relationship between attention and emotion.

I am particularly interested in the cerebral mechanisms of the cognitive processes of emotional prosody at conscious and unconscious levels. The particular processes involved in semantic prosody compared to emotional prosody are addressed in collaboration with the Geneva University Hospital using dense electroencephalography methods as well as intracranial recordings.
I am also working on the Emovox – Verivox project studying the identification of acoustic patterns related to emotional prosody in different paradigms involving induced and acted emotional states such as stress.

Currently, I am researcher in the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences and in the Geneva Emotion Research Group.

Nature Neuroscience article of "The Voices of Wrath: Brain responses to angry prosody in meaningless speech."

Commentary of professor G. Ron Mangun on Wired News

by Sophie Schwartz