Publications – USC Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory

My Baby Versus the World: Fathers’ Neural Processing of Own-Infant, Unfamiliar-Infant, and Romantic Partner Stimuli.

Newsome, P., Vaccaro, A., Cardenas, S., Valen, N., Waizman, Y., Aviv, E., Leon, G., Kaplan, J.T., & Saxbe, D. (2025). My Baby Versus the World: Fathers’ Neural Processing of Own-Infant, Unfamiliar-Infant, and Romantic Partner Stimuli. Human Brain Mapping.

Parents activate brain regions linked with social cognition, reward processing, and emotion when viewing their own infant. Neural responses to own-infant stimuli may be driven by familiarity, self-relevance, or by the unique features of infant faces. The current study sought to clarify these distinctions in first-time fathers by contrasting video stimuli of their infant, an unfamiliar infant, and their pregnant partner.

2025, fathers, fMRI, self

journal article

Individual differences in aesthetic experience point to the role of body awareness in political orientation.

Christov-Moore, L., Schoeller, F., Vaccaro, A., Iacoboni, M., Kaplan, J.T., & Reggente, N. (2025). Individual differences in aesthetic experience point to the role of body awareness in political orientation. Political Psychology.

2025, chills, political orientation

journal article

Mind wandering during creative incubation periods predicts increases in creative performance in a writing task.

McDaniel, C., Habibi, H., & Kaplan, J.T. (2025). Mind wandering during creative incubation periods predicts increases in creative performance in a writing task. Scientific Reports.

2025, creativity, mind-wandering

journal article

Targeting Audiences’ Moral Values Shapes Misinformation Sharing.

Abdurahman, S, Reimer, N.K., Golazizian, P., Baek, E., Shen, Y., Trager, J., Lulla, R., Kaplan, J.T., Parkinson, C., & Dehghani, M. (2025). Targeting Audiences’ Moral Values Shapes Misinformation Sharing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. doi: 10.1037/xge0001714

Does aligning misinformation content with individuals’ core moral values facilitate its spread?

2025, belief, misinformation, moral values

journal article

First-Person Spoken Narratives Elicit Consistent Event Structures in the Angular Gyrus

Wu, H., Vaccaro, A.G., Kaplan J.T. (2025). First-Person Spoken Narratives Elicit Consistent Event Structures in the Angular Gyrus. Cortex.

2025, event segmentation, fMRI, HMM

journal article

Brain activity associated with emotion regulation predicts individual differences in working memory ability.

Horner, S, Lulla, R., Wu, H., Shaktivel, S., Vaccaro, A., Herschel, E., Christov-Moore, L., McDaniel, C., Kaplan, J.T.†, & Greening, S.† (2025). Brain activity associated with emotion regulation predicts individual differences in working memory ability. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience. doi: 10.3758/s13415-024-01232-6

2025, emotion, emotion regulation, fMRI

journal article

Music-evoked nostalgia activates default mode and reward networks across the lifespan.

Hennessy, S., Kaplan, J.T., & Habibi A. (2025). Music-evoked nostalgia activates default mode and reward networks across the lifespan. Human Brain Mapping. doi: 10.1002/hbm.7018

2025, fMRI, music, nostalgia

journal article

Kung, H-T., Cui, S., Kaplan, J.T., Joshi, A., Leahy, R.M., Nayak, K.S., & Haldar, J.P.

Kung, H-T., Cui, S., Kaplan, J.T., Joshi, A., Leahy, R.M., Nayak, K.S., & Haldar, J.P. (2024). Diffusion tensor brain imaging at 0.55T: A feasibility study. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine,92(4). doi: 10.1002/mrm.30156

2024, MRI

journal article

Neural patterns associated with mixed valence feelings differ in consistency and predictability throughout the brain.

Vaccaro AG, Wu, H, Iyer R, Shakthivel, S, Christie, N, Damasio, A., Kaplan J.T. (2024). Neural patterns associated with mixed valence feelings differ in consistency and predictability throughout the brain. Cerebral Cortex, 34(4). doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhae122

2024, fMRI, mixed emotions

journal article

Preventing antisocial robots: a pathway to artificial empathy.

Christov-Moore, L., Reggente, N., Vaccaro, A., Schoeller, F., Pluimer, B., Douglas, P. K., Iacoboni, M., & Kaplan, J. T. (2023). Preventing antisocial robots: a pathway to artificial empathy. Science Robotics.

Given the accelerating powers of artificial intelligence (AI), we must equip artificial agents and robots with empathy to prevent harmful and irreversible decisions. Current approaches to artificial empathy focus on its cognitive or performative processes, overlooking affect, and thus promote sociopathic behaviors. Artificially vulnerable, fully empathic AI is necessary to prevent sociopathic robots and protect human welfare.

2023, artificial intelligence, empathy