Research Topics

Emotion, Feelings and Language aims at understanding how emotions are conveyed by words and how language processing interacts with perception and action in the body and the brain.  The different research projects investigate questions such as:

• How can words elicit emotions and feelings?
• If putting feelings into words, how does it shape emotion perception; emotion regulation and behavior, e.g., approach and avoidance or affective decision making?
• How are words perceived and appraised by self and others in healthy people and people with mental disorders, e.g. depression, schizophrenia or personality disorders?

We use neurophysiological, behavioral and self-report measures, own experimental paradigms and computer-assisted linguistic analysis tools to determine the role of language in social communication and social interaction. Understanding how language, perception, feelings and behavior interact and influence each other is fundamental for the development of novel technology-driven language applications including those based on machine learning and artificial intelligence in human-human vs. human-computer interactions.

Body, Language and the Self investigates the mental concepts and multisensory representations of the body. The different projects use neurophysiological, behavioral and self-report measures in combination with linguistic paradigms to measure body image, body dissatisfaction as well as implicit attitudes towards the body (bodily self). Our research aims at determining the interactions between prereflective and reflective as well as non-linguistic and linguistic aspects of the self, body ownership, agency and changes therein in children and adults at risk of eating disorders or suffering from mental disorders (schizophrenia). Understanding interactions between Body, Language and the Self addresses core problems from the disciplines of philosophy, ethics, psychology, neuroscience, and computer science.

Exercise, Physical Activity and Well-Being investigates the effects of physical activity, acute exercise and exercise interventions on cognition, emotion, behavior change, mental health and well-being in controlled laboratory studies and in cross-sectional cohort studies. In randomized controlled trials we develop, investigate and evaluate the effects of own exercise interventions (for supervised and home-based training by different age-groups). We use neuro- and psychophysiological measures as well as own experimental paradigms and computer-assisted linguistic tools in order to get insight into the self-regulatory, cognitive, affective, and motivational states and personality traits that promote physical activity, exercise adherence and exercise-related changes in well-being in sedentary as well as physically active participants including athletes. Furthermore, we investigate the interaction between cognition, motor-control and locomotion under controlled laboratory conditions (gait, treadmill walking).

Oral Health and Well-Being investigates the role of psychological and neuropsychological factors in dental medicine and dental disorders. We focus on the relationship between oral health, mental health, stress and lifestyle-related diseases and examine the effects of psychological tasks, psychoeducative tools and interventions for oral health communication and self-regulatory oral health prevention.

Character Computing is a novel field of Behavior Computing that combines Psychology and Computer Science and Affective and Personality Computing, natural language, linguistic analysis, ontologies and machine learning (supervised learning and deep learning). It addresses ethical and privacy aspects of data sharing and privacy awareness. Psychologically-driven Character Computing has been co-developed by Cornelia Herbert together with colleagues from computer science of the GUC (German University in Cairo, Egypt). Privacy aspects are investigated in cooperation with the Institute of Embedded Systems of Ulm University.

Herbert, C., Ethofer, T., Fallgatter, A. J., Walla, P., & Northoff, G. (2018). The janus face of language: Where are the emotions in words and where are the words in emotions?. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 650. https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/2202/the-janus-face-of-language-where-are-the-emotions-in-words-and-the-words-in-emotions

Editorial: Herbert, C., Ethofer, T., Fallgatter, A. J., Walla, P., & Northoff, G. (2018). The janus face of language: Where are the emotions in words and where are the words in emotions?. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 650. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00650/full

Herbert, C. (2020). An Experimental-Psychological Approach for the Development of Character Computing. In Character Computing (pp. 17-38). Springer, Cham.

Herbert, C., El Bolock, A., & Abdennadher, S. (2020). A Psychologically Driven, User-Centered Approach to Character Modeling. In Character Computing (pp. 39-51). Springer, Cham.

El Bolock, A., Abdennadher, S., & Herbert, C. (2020). Applications of Character Computing from Psychology to Computer Science. In Character Computing (pp. 53-71). Springer, Cham.

Herbert, C. (2019). Where are the emotions in written words and phrases? Commentary on Hinojosa, Moreno and Ferré: Affective neurolinguistics: towards a framework for reconciling language and emotion (2019).
Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 1-6.

Herbert, C. (2015). Human emotion in the brain and the body: Why language matters: Comment on "The quartet theory of human emotions: An integrative and neurofunctional model" by S. Koelsch et al. Physics of Life Reviews, 13, 55.

Stefanova, E., Dubljević, O., Herbert, C., Fairfield, B., Schroeter, M. L., Stern, E. R., ... & Drach-Zahavy, A. (2020). Anticipatory feelings: neural correlates and linguistic markers. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763419300570

Herbert, C. (2019). Zum Zusammenhang von Sprache, Emotion und Körperlichkeit aus Sicht von Psychologie und Neurowissenschaft. In Emotionen (pp. 272-281). JB Metzler, Stuttgart.