- Overview
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The UBC Motivated Cognition lab’s research examines how things in the environment acquire emotional relevance, how the emotional relevance of objects and events influences what we become aware of and remember, and the brain systems underlying this affectively guided learning and attention. We measure brain and behaviour in and out of the lab to examine how these processes manifest differently in mood and anxiety disorders across the lifespan. In our translational research programs we collaborate closely with neuroscientists doing animal research on the one hand and psychiatrists on the other to better understand the precise brain circuitry and pharmacology underlying behaviour patterns associated with mood disorders to guide better clinical diagnosis and treatment.
- Publications
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Short-Term Memory Capacity Predicts Willingness to Expend Cognitive Effort for Reward
eneuro
Brandon J. Forys and Catharine A. Winstanley and Alan Kingstone and Rebecca M. Todd
DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0068-24.2024
07/2024Hear it here: Built environments predict ratings and descriptions of ambiguous sounds
Brandon Jonathan Forys and Emily Qi and Rebecca M. Todd and Alan Kingstone
DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/qtmx8
07/2024Capturing spontaneous interactivity: a multi-measure approach to analyzing the dynamics of interpersonal coordination in dance improvisation
Frontiers in Psychology
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1465595
2024Characterizing affiliative touch in humans and its role in advancing haptic design
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
James H. Kryklywy and Preeti Vyas and Karon E. Maclean and Rebecca M. Todd
DOI: 10.1111/nyas.15056
10/2023Sharing Feelings via Mini Robot Gestures
Chen Ji and Lawrence Kim and Amori Mikami and Elizabeth Reid and Raquel Robinson and Rebecca Todd and Vasileia Karasavva and Karon Maclean and Katherine Isbister
DOI: 10.1145/3588967.3588968
04/2023Gender Impacts the Relationship between Mood Disorder Symptoms and Effortful Avoidance Performance
eneuro
Brandon J. Forys and Ryan J. Tomm and Dayana Stamboliyska and Alex R. Terpstra and Luke Clark and Trisha Chakrabarty and Stan B. Floresco and Rebecca M. Todd
DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0239-22.2023
02/2023Decomposing Neural Representational Patterns of Discriminatory and Hedonic Information during Somatosensory Stimulation
eneuro
James H. Kryklywy and Mana R. Ehlers and Andre O. Beukers and Sarah R. Moore and Rebecca M. Todd and Adam K. Anderson
DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0274-22.2022
01/2023Participatory Sense-Making in Dance Improvisation
Repertório
Lochlan Walsh and Paige Whitehead and Rebecca Todd
DOI: 10.9771/rr.v1i38.48558
01/2023Cognitive-affective processes and suicidality in response to repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for treatment resistant depression
Journal of Affective Disorders
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2022.10.041
2023Factors perpetuating functional cognitive symptoms after mild traumatic brain injury
Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology
DOI: 10.1080/13803395.2023.2247601
2023Rate of perceived stability as a measure of balance exercise intensity in people post-stroke
Disability and Rehabilitation
Aishwarya Shenoy and Tzu-Hsuan Peng and Rebecca M. Todd and Janice J. Eng and Noah D. Silverberg and Towela Tembo and Courtney L. Pollock
DOI: 10.1080/09638288.2021.2022777
12/2022Lateralization of Autonomic Output in Response to Limb-Specific Threat
eneuro
James H. Kryklywy and Amy Lu and Kevin H. Roberts and Matt Rowan and Rebecca M. Todd
DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0011-22.2022
09/2022In the hands of the beholder: Wearing a COVID-19 mask is associated with its attractiveness
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
DOI: 10.1177/17470218211037128
2022Predictive Value of Acute Neuroplastic Response to rTMS in Treatment Outcome in Depression: A Concurrent TMS-fMRI Trial
American Journal of Psychiatry
DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.21050541
2022Lateralization of autonomic activity in response to limb-specific threat
James H. Kryklywy and Amy Lu and Kevin H. Roberts and Matt Rowan and Rebecca M. Todd
DOI: 10.1101/2021.11.24.469931
11/2021Reactivation of hedonic but not sensory representations in human emotional learning
M. R. Ehlers and J. H. Kryklywy and A. O. Beukers and S. R. Moore and B. J. Forys and A.K. Anderson and R. M. Todd
DOI: 10.1101/2021.11.25.469891
11/2021Sense and timing: Localizing objects during emotional distraction.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
James H. Kryklywy and Veronica Dudarev and Rebecca M. Todd
DOI: 10.1037/xhp0000931
08/2021Warped rhythms: Epileptic activity during critical periods disrupts the development of neural networks for human communication
Behavioural Brain Research
Rebecca Reh and Lynne J. Williams and Rebecca M. Todd and Lawrence M. Ward
DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2020.113016
02/2021Assessing the efficacy of tablet-based simulations for learning pseudo-surgical instrumentation
PLOS ONE
James H. Kryklywy and Victoria A. Roach and Rebecca M. Todd
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245330
01/2021Within and beyond an integrated framework of attentional capture: A perspective from cognitive-affective neuroscience
Visual Cognition
DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2021.1935371
2021Pavlovian and Instrumental Conditioning and Their Mutual Influence in Major Depressive Disorder: The Mood and Emotional Learning Dynamics (MELD) Framework
Alex Terpstra and Rebecca M. Todd
DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/zdt36
10/2020Decoding representations of discriminatory and hedonic information during appetitive and aversive touch
James H. Kryklywy and Mana R. Ehlers and Andre O. Beukers and Sarah R. Moore and Rebecca M. Todd and Adam K. Anderson
DOI: 10.1101/2020.09.24.310383
09/2020Affect-biased attention and predictive processing
Cognition
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104370
2020Show me how you feel: Iconicity and systematicity in visual morphology
Iconicity in Language and Literature
DOI: 10.1075/ill.17.13ken
2020From Architecture to Evolution: Multisensory Evidence of Decentralized Emotion
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2020.08.002
2020Emotional objectivity: Neural representations of emotions and their interaction with cognition
Annual Review of Psychology
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010419-051044
2020Affectively Biased Competition: Sustained Attention is Tuned to Rewarding Expressions and is Not Modulated by Norepinephrine Receptor Gene Variant
Collabra: Psychology
Kevin H. Roberts and Maria G. M. Manaligod and Colin J. D. Ross and Daniel J. Müller and Matthias J. Wieser and Rebecca M. Todd
DOI: 10.1525/collabra.202
01/2019The influence of the noradrenergic/stress system on perceptual biases for reward
Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience
DOI: 10.3758/s13415-018-00657-0
2019Implicit guidance of attention: The priority state space framework
Cortex
Rebecca M. Todd and Maria G.M. Manaligod
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.08.001
05/2018Experiential history as a tuning parameter for attention
Journal of Cognition
DOI: 10.5334/joc.25
2018Episodic autobiographical memory is associated with variation in the size of hippocampal subregions
Hippocampus
DOI: 10.1002/hipo.22818
2018Political orientation and climate concern shape visual attention to climate change
Jennifer Carol Whitman and Jiaying Zhao and Rebecca M. Todd
DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/8br26
12/2017Emotion and the prefrontal cortex: An integrative review
Psychological Bulletin
DOI: 10.1037/bul0000096
2017I saw mine first: A prior-entry effect for newly acquired ownership
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
DOI: 10.1037/xhp0000295
2017Acute psychophysiological stress impairs human associative learning
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2017.09.003
2017SOAP Opera: Self as object and agent in prioritizing attention
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01083
2017The Blur of Pleasure: Appetitively Appealing Stimuli Decrease Subjective Temporal Perceptual Acuity
Psychological Science
DOI: 10.1177/0956797617702698
2017Genesis and Maintenance of Attentional Biases: The Role of the Locus Coeruleus-Noradrenaline System
Neural Plasticity
Mana R. Ehlers and Rebecca M. Todd
DOI: 10.1155/2017/6817349
2017Alternation between different types of evidence attenuates judgments of severity
PLoS ONE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0180585
2017Tuning to the positive: Age-related differences in subjective perception of facial emotion
PLoS ONE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0145643
2016What BANE can offer GANE: Individual differences in function of hotspot mechanisms
The Behavioral and brain sciences
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X15001971
2016Iconic faces are not real faces: enhanced emotion detection and altered neural processing as faces become more iconic
Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications
DOI: 10.1186/s41235-016-0021-8
2016Dynamics of neural recruitment surrounding the spontaneous arising of thoughts in experienced mindfulness practitioners
NeuroImage
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.04.034
2016The neural correlates of memory for a life-threatening event: An fMRI study of passengers from flight AT236
Clinical Psychological Science
DOI: 10.1177/2167702615589308
2016Soldiers with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder See a World Full of Threat: Magnetoencephalography Reveals Enhanced Tuning to Combat-Related Cues
Biological Psychiatry
DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.05.011
2015Neurogenetic variations in norepinephrine availability enhance perceptual vividness
Journal of Neuroscience
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4489-14.2015
2015Strengthening emotion-cognition integration
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X14001022
2015Corrigendum to "Genetic differences in emotionally enhanced memory" [Neuropsychologia 49 (4) (2011) 734-744].
Neuropsychologia
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.09.001
2014Tuning to the significant: Neural and genetic processes underlying affective enhancement of visual perception and memory
Behavioural Brain Research
DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2013.11.018
2014Temporal-spatial neural activation patterns linked to perceptual encoding of emotional salience
PLoS ONE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0093753
2014Deletion variant in the ADRA2B gene increases coupling between emotional responses at encoding and later retrieval of emotional memories
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2013.10.008
2014Erratum: Temporal-spatial neural activation patterns linked to perceptual encoding of emotional salience (PLoS ONE (2014) 9, 4 (e93753) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone. 0093753)
PLoS ONE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105648
2014Shared neural substrates of emotionally enhanced perceptual and mnemonic vividness
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2013.00040
2013Genes for Emotion-Enhanced Remembering Are Linked to Enhanced Perceiving
Psychological Science
DOI: 10.1177/0956797613492423
2013KIBRA polymorphism is associated with individual differences in hippocampal subregions: Evidence from anatomical segmentation using high-resolution MRI
Journal of Neuroscience
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1406-13.2013
2013Affect-biased attention as emotion regulation
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2012.06.003
2012Withholding response in the face of a smile: Age-related differences in prefrontal sensitivity to Nogo cues following happy and angry faces
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2012.01.004
2012Visual and emotional salience influence eye movements
ACM Transactions on Applied Perception
DOI: 10.1145/2325722.2325726
2012Psychophysical and neural evidence for emotion-enhanced perceptual vividness
Journal of Neuroscience
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0155-12.2012
2012Affective salience can reverse the effects of stimulus-driven salience on eye movements in complex scenes
Frontiers in Psychology
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00336
2012Genetic differences in emotionally enhanced memory
Neuropsychologia
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.11.010
2011The changing face of emotion: Age-related patterns of amygdala activation to salient faces
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsq007
2011Neurophysiological correlates of executive function: A comparison of european-canadian and chinese-canadian 5-year-old children
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
DOI: 10.3389/neuro.09.072.2009
2010Group specific optimisation of fMRI processing steps for child and adult data
NeuroImage
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.11.039
2010Through the lens of emotion: The role of the amygdala in emotionality, arousal, and attention to the visual world
Social Psychology of Visual Perception
2010Six degrees of separation: The amygdala regulates social behavior and perception
Nature Neuroscience
DOI: 10.1038/nn1009-1217
2009The neurogenetics of remembering emotions past
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0910755106
2009The time course of social-emotional processing in early childhood: ERP responses to facial affect and personal familiarity in a Go-Nogo task
Neuropsychologia
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.10.011
2008Changes in the neural bases of emotion regulation associated with clinical improvement in children with behavior problems
Development and Psychopathology
DOI: 10.1017/S0954579408000448
2008Event-related potential measures of emotion regulation in early childhood
NeuroReport
DOI: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e328010a216
2007The self-regulating brain: Cortical-subcortical feedback and the development of intelligent action
Cognitive Development
DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2007.08.004
2007Getting emotional a neural perspective on emotion, intention, and consciousness
Journal of Consciousness Studies
2005Toward a neuropsychological model of internal dialogue: Implications for theory and clinical practice
The Dialogical Self in Psychotherapy
DOI: 10.4324/9780203314616
2004 - Research
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Examining the relationship between within-participant stability and between-participant similarity and social behaviour traits over development.
Brain development over childhood and adolescence has been associated with more stability over time between patterns of large-scale brain network activity measured at rest or during movie watching. At the same time, patterns of brain activation linked to certain individual characteristics, such as the capacity to engage skillfully in commonly encountered social interactions, solidify over development. In this case, an individual’s patterns of large scale brain network activity may become more like the brains of others with similar traits, and more unlike the brains of individuals with traits that differ. In this collaboration with Dr. Tamara Vanderwal, we are combing our labs expertise in functional brain imaging techniques to examine both patterns of brain activation stability and similarity over development. Using a large publicly available dataset, we will investigate whether these patterns are associated with individual differences in social interaction behaviours that are indices of autistic traits. Comparing whether interaction behaviour traits are more linked to sensorimotor network vs. social brain network stability and similarity will provide important insights into foundations of variation in these behaviours.Translational research projects on avoidance and cognitive effort in mood disorders
There is more than one way to avoid an unpleasant event: We can either take direct action or passively do nothing. The neural circuitry and pharmacology underlying these behaviours has been well studied in rodents. In humans, depression and anxiety are both associated with tendencies towards avoidance, but avoidance is understudied in depression. Moreover, it is not known whether symptoms of depression are characterized by distinct patterns of active relative to inhibitory avoidance. This research program is a collaboration with behavioural neuroscience researchers and psychiatrists at UBC’s Mood Disorders Clinic. The goal is to build on rodent research to examine whether active/inhibitory brain and behaviour patterns predict depression levels in humans with a range of depression and anxiety symptoms, as well as characterize patients with major depression. This project works iteratively. In rodents, our collaborators can subsequently examine the neurochemicals that produce behaviours that characterize depression, which in turn can inform more effective treatment approaches.Participatory Sensemaking through food and dance
In 2023, a group of 28 prominent researchers across the field of cognitive science published a manifesto titled Beyond single-mindedness: A figure-ground reversal for the cognitive sciences (Dingemanse et al., 2023). In it the authors point out that the field’s current focus on individual minds and brains, as isolated senders, receivers, and decoders of signals, is insufficient for understanding how the mind works. Drawing on research across the cognitive sciences, the authors claim that, rather, cognition is co-constituted in and by interaction. The call was to recenter the cognitive sciences around interacting minds.
Building on this premise, we further propose that to a large extent our attentional biases to what is relevant in the world are shaped by social interaction in adulthood as well as in childhood. The current SSHRC-funded research program seeks to take the study of social interaction out of the lab and into the community to focus on the patterns of interactions themselves in relation to subjective experience. Here we take a mixed method approach using dance improvisation and food preparation as laboratories for studying how the coordination dynamics, measured as movement and physiological coordination, influence attention, emotion, and sense of agency. Understanding how coordination dynamics shape attention and memory will have major implications for educational and therapeutic contexts.GrantsPrimary Investigator. Contextual guidance of attention by emotional information. Funding Source: NSERC Discovery Grant/NSERC Accelerator Grant
Primary Investigator. Neurophysiological and Behavioral Indices of Active and Inhibitory Avoidance in Health and Major Depressive Disorder. Funding Source: DMCBH Kickstart Research Award
Co-Investigator. Functional cognitive disorder after concussion. Funding Source: Worksafe BC
Co-Investigator. Reward and avoidance in major depressive disorder: Developing predictive markers of treatment response. Funding Source: UBC Health Health Innovation Funding Investment Award
Co-Investigator. Designing for subversion: Finding a framework for embodying teen social interaction in a robot swarm. Funding Source: New Frontiers in Research Funds Exploration
Honours & Awards2018 - Scholar Award, Michael Smith Health Research BC
Advancing understanding of the developing brain in preterm babies to help inform therapies
BCCHR research found new evidence that the younger a baby is born, the slower their brain development will be. Scientists are investigating how the brain functions at an early gestational age so they can identify potential therapies.
