Talk Title: “Neural and Behavioral Mechanisms for Human-to-Human Interaction: A New framework for Social Disorders and Treatment”

Abtract:

---

Bio: Emerging interest in human-inspired models of natural communication and increasing needs for
treatments for social disorders motivate investigations of the neurobiological mechanisms that
underlie live human-to-human interactions. Professor Hirsch and her laboratory aim to
understand the fundamental neural mechanisms for this new “neuroscience of two” Her
laboratory has pioneered the development of novel two-person live paradigms to investigate
neural responses during live face-to-face interactions that elicit natural communicative bi-
directional behaviors such as micro-expressions and spontaneous language using functional
neuroimaging (near infrared spectroscopy) with concurrently acquired measures of eye-tracking,
pupillometry, EEG, facial classifications, subjective perceptual and sensory reports. as well as
spoken language, and acoustic measures of prosody. Groundbreaking findings include previously
undescribed neuroanatomical substrates for integration of diverse and complex signals for on-
going computations during natural real-time face-to-face interactions; and also insight and
models for treatments related to autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, loneliness, depression,
and others.