In this symposium, we present four studies that highlight the multifaceted nature of socio-emotional functioning, a key factor in interpersonal relationships, mental health, and overall well-being. By integrating physiological markers, neural correlates, and behavioral measures, we shed light on how attentional, affective, and cognitive factors shape emotional experiences across diverse contexts.

The first talk by Janna Teigeler (Würzburg) employs a novel gaze-controlled approach-avoidance paradigm, in which fixating on or averting one’s gaze from emotional stimuli alters their salience. Although participants took longer to avoid than to approach, no consistent affect-congruency effects emerged, indicating complex underlying mechanisms in gaze-based emotion regulation. The second talk by Alexander Lischke (Hamburg) underscores the potential of vagally-mediated heart rate variability as a sensitive biomarker for emotion recognition, with higher variability linked to enhanced detection of nuanced expressions in both adult and child faces. Turning to trust and decision-making, the third talk by Kilian Stenzel (Marburg) demonstrates that facial trustworthiness robustly influences trust choices, with EEG measures revealing persistent neural differences when encountering trustworthy versus untrustworthy faces—even when feedback contradicts appearance. Lastly, the fourth talk by Annika Conrad (Dresden) explores empathy and theory of mind as predictors of post-traumatic stress symptoms following indirect trauma exposure. Preliminary results from a trauma film paradigm and neuroimaging point to distinct socio-affective and socio-cognitive pathways that may heighten vulnerability to trauma-related disorders.

Together, these studies underscore the importance of integrating physiological markers, neural correlates, and behavioral measures to advance our understanding of socio-emotional processes.

Approach and avoidance tendencies are fundamental mechanisms of behavior control. They shape our interactions with the environment and socio-emotional processing by determining whom to engage with or withdraw from. These tendencies manifest not only in goal-directed actions but also in visual attention, as motivationally relevant stimuli—such as rewarding or threatening cues—receive prioritized processing. This study examined whether typical congruency effects observed in approach-avoidance tasks also emerge when gaze behavior itself serves as the operationalization of approach and avoidance.

Using a novel gaze-controlled approach-avoidance paradigm, we tested behavioral tendencies in 55 subjects (78% female, 20% male, 2% diverse). Participants were instructed to either fixate on (approach) or look away from (avoid) positive and negative IAPS images as well as emotional facial expressions (happy vs. disgusted), which appeared in peripheral vision. Fixating on a stimulus caused it to enlarge, while looking away reduced its size. We hypothesized preferential execution of affect-congruent responses—e.g., faster fixations and longer dwell times on happy faces and quicker avoidance of disgusted faces—compared to affect-incongruent responses. Results indicated that first-fixation latencies were significantly longer for avoidance than approach reactions and were shorter for facial stimuli, suggesting that social stimuli are prioritized over non-social ones. However, no consistent latency differences emerged between congruent and incongruent trials. Dwell time analyses showed congruency effects specific to social stimuli but not IAPS images. These mixed findings suggest that gaze-based approach and avoidance behaviors may be influenced by additional cognitive and emotional factors beyond simple valence-congruency effects.

During social interactions, we often have to make inferences about the intentions, thoughts and feelings of other individuals. Using these inferences as a guideline allows us to establish and maintain social relationships with these individuals.

Due to the importance of social inferences for the establishment and maintenance of social relationships, the interest in biomarkers indicating the success or failure of such inferences has steadily been increasing. Vagally-mediated heartrate variability has been proposed to be a promising biomarker for social inferences, especially in the context of face processing.

Although inter-individual differences in vagally-mediated heartrate variability have already been shown to be associated with inter-individual differences in emotion recognition, these associations have exclusively been studied during the processing of adult faces. Whether similar associations emerge during the processing of child faces remains unclear. To resolve this issue, we presented adult and child faces showing complex emotional expressions to adults whose vagally mediated heartrate variability had been recorded during a resting state period. By comparing inter-individual differences in emotion recognition performance with inter-individual differences in vagally-mediated heartrate variability, we were able to demonstrate that inter-individual increases in vagally-mediated heartrate variability were positively associated with inter-individual increases in emotion recognition accuracy during the processing of adult and child faces.

Our findings further support the notion that inter-individual differences in vagally-mediated heartrate variability have the potential to serve as a biomarker for inter-individual differences in emotion recognition accuracy.

Despite the well-known impact of trustees’ facial properties on trustors’ investments, the neural processes underlying the trustors’ judgments of trustees’ trustworthiness remain ambiguous. Thus, we investigated the effect of facial trustworthiness and partner feedback on trust decisions and electrocortical correlates.

Therefore, we recorded trust choices and EEG of 124 subjects playing the Trust Game with partners having either trustworthy or untrustworthy faces (three blocks of 40 trials). Facial, and behavioral trustworthiness were randomly associated. Each face only appeared once. In each trial, subjects saw a face before making a trust or distrust decision. Subsequently, they received outcome feedback for themselves and their partner simultaneously. Although outcomes after distrust choices were fixed, they received feedback indicating the hypothetical outcomes as if they had trusted.

Trustworthy faces elicited more trust choices. This was preceded by more pronounced ERP amplitudes of the EPN, P3a, P3b, and less pronounced amplitudes of the FRN in response to untrustworthy faces. Despite the lack of association between facial, and behavioral trustworthiness, subjects did not adjust their trust decision behavior across blocks. Significant ERP differences between trustworthy and untrustworthy faces were not attenuated across blocks. After trust choices, negative feedback led to more pronounced FRN, which was reversed after a distrust choice.

This suggests that facial trustworthiness alters neural processing by inducing a positivity from the EPN to the late P3b shaping trust behavior robustly. FRN to feedback rather indicates an evaluation of the subject’s actual gain instead of the partner’s trustworthiness.

People are increasingly exposed to traumatic events, such as wars and environmental disasters. Simply witnessing these events may trigger post-traumatic stress symptoms. Mechanisms underlying witnessed trauma could include the ability to empathize with others’ suffering or to adopt their perspective (theory of mind). However, it remains unclear whether empathy, theory of mind, or their underlying brain activity contribute to symptom development following trauma exposure. To identify individuals at risk, it is crucial to examine these socio-affective and socio-cognitive mechanisms involved in post-traumatic stress symptom development.

This multicenter study explores the role of empathy and theory of mind in the risk of symptom development after witnessing trauma. Data were collected using a trauma analog model (the Trauma Film Paradigm), psychophysiological measures, an experimental task assessing empathy and theory of mind (EmpaToM), and an e-diary tracking symptoms during the week following the laboratory visit. A subset of participants also underwent magnetic resonance imaging during both the Trauma Film Paradigm and EmpaToM. Hypotheses are preregistered (https://osf.io/r9486).

We present the preliminary analysis of data from N = 114 female participants. Regression models will be applied to predict symptom development based on empathy- and theory of mind-related brain activity and self-reported measures.

The results will help identify key mechanisms involved in the impact of witnessing traumatic events. In particular, differentiating between socio-affective and socio-cognitive pathways could improve our understanding of who is most at risk for developing symptoms after trauma exposure. This distinction could ultimately inform the development of preventive measures for trauma-related disorders.