SCAN Unit
Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, est. 2010, led by @ClausLamm and based at @univienna | Curated by @lukasmayrhofer
- We finally tackled our lab cleanup - turns out 15+ years of research leave a trail: - Folders of printed papers 🗞️ - Old study materials & consent forms 📁 - Cables, phones, and chunky monitors 🖥️ - Lots of dust 🧼 Thanks to our team for the joint effort - we promise to keep it tidier now 🤞
- Reposted by SCAN UnitIt's about time somebody did this ⤵️ We systematically reviewed 50/2060 screened studies that looked at how changing someone's own pain experience also affects how people feel and respond to others’ emotions and pain. ⚡ Read it now in @painthejournal.bsky.social: journals.lww.com/pain/fulltex...
- A new meta-analysis lead by our member @maxsteininger.bsky.social was just published, showing that nature exposure is linked to pain reductions 🤕🌳➡️🙂 See his thread below for details 👇
- Another amazing year at the SCAN unit with: 30+ papers🗞️ Many new faces 🤓 Long train rides 🚂 Rejections, resubmissions 📝 Tomatoes 🍅 A lot of science 🧠 And even more teamwork and shared moments 🫶 Thanks 2025 - looking forward to 2026 ✨
- Reposted by SCAN UnitWe are glad to see this paper out by @markusforamitti.bsky.social in collaboration with @mauriciojdmartins.bsky.social, @clauslamm.bsky.social and @scanunit.bsky.social! 🧠🫀🎵Read more about the shift toward music with more negative, stressful, and simpler lyrics over the past 50 years below.
- New paper out! 🥸 Over the last 50 years, people have gravitated toward music with increasingly negative, stressful, and simpler lyrics. Societal crises like COVID-19 disrupted these long-term trends, suggesting escapist music preferences at a societal level. 🎶🧠 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- 🚨 New paper from the lab! Using computational modeling we showed how people discount time and effort for self-benefitting vs pro-environmental outcomes and that the rate of discounting relates to their willignness to support costly climate policies 👇🏼
- I’m thrilled to share that our paper “Effort and time costs influence motivational asymmetries in self-benefitting vs. pro-environmental decisions” is now published in Communications Psychology! 🌿 OA link: www.nature.com/articles/s44... 1/6
- Last weekend’s lab hike came with maximum fog and minimum views of Vienna 😶🌫️. The company more than made up for it though 🫶
- Reposted by SCAN Unit🎉 New paper alert! In this collaboration across 6 countries 🇧🇬🇬🇷🇳🇬🇸🇪🇬🇧🇺🇸 (n = 3,055), we developed a new pro-environmental behavior task and tested which psychological interventions actually make people more willing to put in real effort for mitigating climate change. Fully OA: tinyurl.com/2s46fppb
- Reposted by SCAN UnitWer von euch hat schon Mal ein Hundegehirn gesehen? Hier mal ein strukturelles MRT aus einem meiner Paper: link.springer.com/article/10.1... (Guran et al., 2024) Dieses Modell basiert auf einem sogenannten Hirnatlas. Unsere funktionellen Daten sehen meist ganz anders aus ...
- Reposted by SCAN UnitHabt ihr schon mal einen Hund in einem MRT Scanner gesehen? Darf ich vorstellen, das ist Toffee, einer unserer 4-pfotigen Freiwilligen.
- Our colleague @rinaguran.bsky.social is giving insights in her life as PostDoc this week. Check out @realscientists.de if you are interested in animal research or just want to see what everyday life looks like for a scientist 🤓
- Guten Morgen meine Science Peeps :) Mein Name ist Alexandrina, und es ist mir eine Freude, in dieser Woche die Posts von @realscientists.de zu liefern. Worauf ihr euch freuen könnt? - Posts über Tiere 🐶🐷😼🐝🙆 und ihr Verhalten - Einblicke in den Alltag einer 4-ever-PostDoc - Hundesocken-Fotos
- Reposted by SCAN UnitNew global study lead by @psysciacc.bsky.social with @scanunit.bsky.social across 18 languages challenges a classic idea in psycholinguistics: when we read, we don’t always imagine objects in the same orientation as described. doi.org/10.1007/s121...
- See below to read a short story from our member @lauragschw.bsky.social describing her research - really cool way to communicate science!
- 🎲 New #ScienceandFiction short story 🎲 This month, @lauragschw.bsky.social talks about anhedonia and how our mood may affect our gaming behavior! 🃏 Content warning: Mental health, depression, anhedonia 🇬🇧 scienceandfiction.net/stories/34_i... 🇩🇪 scienceandfiction.net/de/stories/3...
- Reposted by SCAN UnitHappy #worlddogday! 🐶 👨🔬👩🔬 In this video, you will discover how dogs support us in our research at the University of Vienna and what we can learn from dogs about our own social behavior. 🧠 ⤵️
- Congratulations to @madalina.bsky.social, our former member @kimdoell.bsky.social and all of the 256(!) other collaborators for winning SPSP's Robert Cialdini prize for their manylabs project on how behavioral interventions can help address climate change 🎉
- I'm excited to share the news that our climate change project won the @spspnews.bsky.social Robert Cialdini Prize for a "paper that uses field methods and demonstrates the relevance of social psychology to outside groups and communities"! You can read it here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
- Check out our new publication led by former member @clamassaccesi.bsky.social showing that individuals are equally motivated to incur effort costs to reduce pain to themselves and others 🤝
- New paper out in NYAS! nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... We show that protecting others' from pain promotes effortful prosocial behavior 💪🧑🤝🧑🤝 w/ @clauslamm.bsky.social @silanilab.bsky.social @lei-zhang.bsky.social (thread below)
- Reposted by SCAN Unit🧠🌍 Join me next week for the Planetary Health Alliance – Next Gen Speaker Series to learn why climate action is brain health action! When? 24th of September, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT Where? Online - register here: planetaryhealthalliance.org/events/next-...
- Reposted by SCAN UnitNew tutorial alert! Crowdsourcing multiverse analyses to explore the impact of different data-processing & analysis decisions published in Psychological Methods. Full text: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... Lead: Tom Heyman, @epronizius.bsky.social @slewis5920.bsky.social @aggieerin.bsky.social
- Reposted by SCAN UnitAnother highlight in my mentoring career- tinyurl.com/lukelikely 's stellar defense; Lukas provided plenty of evidence to radically update our priors and call him DOKTA Luke from now on. Shout-out also to great co-supervisors @predragpetrovic.bsky.social & Isa Wagner & all @scanunit.bsky.social
- Reposted by SCAN UnitOur 2-day social cognition workshop "From Self-knowledge to knowing others" in Brussels on Dec1-2 now welcomes registration and abstracts for poster/talk ! Go www.self-knowing-others.org @selfknowingothers.bsky.social @escaneu.bsky.social @escop.bsky.social @scanunit.bsky.social
- A new study by our colleagues from Bern was covered as research highlight in @natclimate.nature.com: 🎉 www.nature.com/articles/s41... They show how structural neuroscience data can be used to better understand interindividual differences in pro-environmental behavior 🧠🌳
- Congratulations to Thomas Baumgartner, Daria Knoch and their team behind this study 🥳 You can find the full publication at: doi.org/10.1016/j.je...
- Reposted by SCAN UnitCheck our new preprint! Our systematic review of 206 reversal learning studies shows that behavioural flexibility research is heavily biased towards birds, rodents, and humans, with most animal diversity virtually untested. #Manymanys #BigTeamScience #ComparativeCognition
- 🚨A new multi-lab study with contributions from our head @clauslamm.bsky.social & others in our group got published in Nature Climate Change 🎉 It's about how support for climate change policies is shaped by extreme weather events: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/2
- In case you don't want to read the full paper - it also got covered by several news outlets, including Der Standard and the New York Times: 🗞️ www.derstandard.at/story/300000... www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/c... 2/2
- Reposted by SCAN UnitSave the date: Nach Hannover, Köln und Mainz findet das nächste Open Science Festival im deutschsprachigen Raum erstmals in Österreich statt – und zwar am 8. und 9. September am Campus der Universität Wien @univie.ac.at. osfestival2025.univie.ac.at #osfestival2025 #openscience #opensciencefestival
- Reposted by SCAN UnitClosing Rreflection. This June, I chaired #SIPS2025 in Budapest 🇭🇺, celebrating 10y of @improvingpsych.org. It was a vibrant & inspiring meeting. We hosted workshops, hackathons, lightning talks, & unconferences on topics from AI & theory building to radical transparency, detecting data fabrication.
- One week left to apply for our open phd position 👇
- Are you passionate about neuroimaging methods and would like to work with us? 🚨 4-year PhD position on methods development in the new Cluster of Neuronal Circuits in Health and Disease (coe.univie.ac.at) and the role of GABA in the amygdala and other brain areas 🧠 Details: shorturl.at/EcI2W Pls 🔁
- Proud of our new PhD student @lukasmayrhofer.bsky.social for delivering a great talk at #ICEP2025 on work he did during his master’s 👏
- Awesome talk by @lukasmayrhofer.bsky.social on how the emergence of radical climate activists (Last Generation) impacted portayals of moderate activists (Fridays for Future) 🤩👏 See also our preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...
- Reposted by SCAN UnitNew paper! When encountering a novel and unfamiliar situation, what mechanisms underly our ability to search and retrieve relevant past experiences? We answer this question by taking first-principles approach – allowing us to bridge between a wide range of previous models (1/16)
- Check out this new preprint led by our newest lab member @lukasmayrhofer.bsky.social It's about how disruptive climate protests shaped attitudes towards moderate activists in German news media 👇
- One month into my phd and my first preprint is out - at this pace I'll be done by the end of the year, right? 🥳 "Radical climate protests shaped portrayals of moderate activists and reader attitudes in German news media" Read here or the🧵: osf.io/preprints/ps... 1/7
- Are you passionate about neuroimaging methods and would like to work with us? 🚨 4-year PhD position on methods development in the new Cluster of Neuronal Circuits in Health and Disease (coe.univie.ac.at) and the role of GABA in the amygdala and other brain areas 🧠 Details: shorturl.at/EcI2W Pls 🔁
- Reposted by SCAN UnitI am grateful to UCLouvain and H. Bukowski for supporting my research over the past year. Now, it's time to return home. In June, I will be teaching at IES Abroad and in July starting my postdoctoral position at the Universität Wien / @scanunit.bsky.social. I'm curious to see what lies ahead.
- Reposted by SCAN UnitHow many researchers does it take to change the cooling fluid of the heat pain stimulator? 😅 (Answer: Three who learn by doing and one taking the picture) Love our little #TeamEmpathy at the Bingellab @sfb-trr-289.bsky.social preparing two really cool new studies ❤️ #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky
- Check out this exciting new preprint on predicting climate change intervention success involving several current and former scannies 🤩👇🏼
- 🧵New preprint! Can experts accurately predict real-world effectiveness of 11 climate change interventions? We ran a preregistered forecasting study with 862 participants and compared their predictions to real-world outcomes from 6,954 Americans. What we found surprised us. osf.io/preprints/ps...
- 🚨New paper alert! In a large collaboration, we investigated how well do 19 individual and nation-level factors predict climate change beliefs, policy support and climate-relevant behaviors 🌎 Led by our @todorova.bsky.social
- 🌍 So excited to share our new paper “Machine learning identified key individual and nation-level factors predicting climate-relevant beliefs and behaviors”, just out in npj Climate Action! 🔗 Fully Open Access: rdcu.be/ele9s 1/
- Reposted by SCAN Unit📣In case you're still interesting in joining the Heat & Cognition Manylabs🔥🧠 , we are now running the task tournament. Collaborators can suggest tasks, scales, and items to be included in the project! Deadline to submit is May 11th! More info at: heatandmind.wordpress.com
- Only 1 week left to apply for our open PhD position! 🧠 ‼️ Deadline: May 18th
- 🚨 Come work with us! 3-year fully funded PhD position in Social and Cognitive Neuroscience @univie.ac.at @clauslamm.bsky.social to join our project investigating prosocial behavior under uncertainty. More info: shorturl.at/1fnb2 Please share widely 🔁
- 🚨 Come work with us! 3-year fully funded PhD position in Social and Cognitive Neuroscience @univie.ac.at @clauslamm.bsky.social to join our project investigating prosocial behavior under uncertainty. More info: shorturl.at/1fnb2 Please share widely 🔁
- Possibility to contribute with your own ideas, excellent research infrastructure, supportive work environment, supervision and mentoring 🤗
- 🚨 New paper from the lab! We explore how climate action can support our neurocogntive health and how neuroscience can be used to better understand and stimulate climate action 💪🏼🌍🌱 Win-win for both people & our planet 🤗
- 🧠🌍 Thrilled to share our latest paper, just out in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences: "Neuroscience and climate action: intersecting pathways for brain and planetary health" Read here (OA!): www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 1/
- In SCAN-Unit, wir untersuchen die neuronalen Grundlagen von Empathie, Altruismus, und umweltbewusstem Verhalten. Unser Ziel ist, diese Phänomene besser zu verstehen, um sie damit gesellschaftlich breit und besser fördern zu können. 1/2 #IchForscheGernInWien #TopForschungWien #Wien
- Für die Forschung sind die Zeiten vielerorts schwieriger geworden. In Wien wurden die Bedingungen stetig besser. Wir sind überzeugt, dass dieser Trend anhält, die Unterstützung dafür stark bleibt und werden unseren Teil dazu beitragen. Wir leben und forschen gern in Wien!2/2 @clauslamm.bsky.social
- Reposted by SCAN UnitMentoring in Action: WEAVE Interns Lead a Guest Lecture! Anna Kulesza and Maximilian Hechl, who are doing their internship with us in the WEAVE project, gave a guest lecture to the IES exchange students. self-other.univie.ac.at/detailansich... @selfknowingothers.bsky.social @scanunit.bsky.social
- Reposted by SCAN UnitFür die Forschung sind die Zeiten in vielen Ländern schwieriger und finsterer geworden. Hier in #Wien erforsche ich unter guten Bedingungen für Wissenschaft und Forschung die Mechanismen depressiver Symptome und ihren Zusammenhang mit Stress und Sexualhormonen. (1/2)
- In unsere Forschung untersuchen wir die neuronalen Grundlagen von Empathie, Altruismus, und umweltbewusstem Verhalten. Unser Ziel ist, diese Phänomene besser zu verstehen, um sie damit gesellschaftlich breit und besser fördern zu können. 1/2 #IchForscheGernInWien #TopForschungWien #Wien
- Für die Forschung sind die Zeiten vielerorts schwieriger geworden. In Wien wurden die Bedingungen stetig besser. Ich bin überzeugt, dass dieser Trend anhält, die Unterstützung dafür stark bleibt und werde meinen Teil dazu beitragen. Ich lebe und forsche gerne in Wien! 2/2 #IchForscheGernInWien
- 🔎 We are looking for collaborators for our new manylabs looking at the effects of extreme heat on human cognition and well-being across the globe 🌍 See below for more information and sign up if you’re interested 👇🏼
- 🌍 We are launching a new #ManyLabs!!! Join the Heat & Cognition project! We're studying how extreme heat affects human thinking, social behavior & well-being — globally. Contribute & co-author: 🔗 Info: heatandmind.wordpress.com 📋 Sign up: www.soscisurvey.de/HeatandCogni... #EnvironmentalPsychology
- Thrilled to share our newest paper, led by the brilliant @maxsteininger.bsky.social 🤩 We show that virtual nature exposure reduces the neural responses to pain! 🧠⚡️ See below for a 🧵
- Can nature relieve pain 🌳🧠⚡️? Our latest preregistered neuroimaging study, now out in Nature Communications, suggests it can. We find that virtual nature exposure reduces both subjective and neural pain responses, even when compared to matched control environments. A 🧵 1/6 doi.org/10.1038/s414...
- We had such a great time at the environmental psychology and neuroscience meeting with @envpsyvienna.bsky.social and our Geneva friends from the Consumer and Sustainable Behavior Lab 🌎 🧠 It was a pleasure!
- Inspiring & fun 2 days lie behind us. 🧠🌱💡 We had a joint #EnvironmentalPsychology meeting with the @scanunit.bsky.social at @univie.ac.at & the Consumer Decision and Sustainable Behavior Lab coming all the way from Geneva. 🚆
- Congratulations to our @todorova.bsky.social for receiving the Marietta-Blau Fellowship 🎉
- We realized we took no group pictures last year 🫣… So at the first lab outing of the year we took a dozen! 😁⛸️❄️ Special thanks for our @biancaaschuster.bsky.social for organizing 🤍
- Check out this new preprint from our lab 👇🏼🤩
- New preprint from my postdoc work @scanunit.bsky.social osf.io/preprints/ps... “Avoiding pain to others motivates effortful prosocial behavior reducing prosocial apathy” w/ @clauslamm.bsky.social @lei-zhang.bsky.social @silanilab.bsky.social
- Reposted by SCAN UnitBussi Baba Wien, Moin Hamburg! After almost 5 years of postdoc at the @scanunit.bsky.social it is with a mixture of gratitude and excitement that I am starting my new position as a permanent researcher at the Medical School Hamburg, in a collegial and dynamic environment.
