Research

What we do

Our Methods

Our team uses a range of experimental approaches, including:

🧠 Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) brain scanning

⚡ Electroencephalography (EEG)

📊 Survey experiments

🎲 Behavioural games

😊 Face-emotion coding

👁️ Eye-tracking

💧 Galvanic Skin Response (GSR)

🫀 Heart rate (HR)

💻 Computational text analysis

🤖 Large Language Models (LLMs)

We use these methods to explore the mind–brain–action nexus in a political context.

Our Vision

We believe good research is collective and shatters disciplinary borders.

Our work is produced in collaboration with colleagues from the social sciences, psychology, informatics, and brain imaging centres at the University of Edinburgh .

We also work closely with other universities in the United Kingdom and abroad, as well as with partners in industry.

Our Impact

We contribute to unveil what is happening in people's brains, minds, and bodies when they engage in sociopolitical processes such as:

💬 Posting comments online
🏛️ Making policy
🗳️ Voting in elections
🔗 Sharing information
🧠 Constructing opinions

We use these insights to guide public policy practice and enhance public understanding at both national and international levels 🌍.

Ongoing Projects

Migration Narratives

In cooperation with the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, we investigate how people respond to different narratives about migration.

Under the supervision of Dr Clare Llewellyn, PhD student Luke Stephens explores the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) for narrative analysis, investigating how computational tools can identify patterns and framings from political texts.

Dr Feiteng Long uses physiological data and face emotion coding to study emotional responses to immigration narratives. His research focuses on how different framings — such as Threat vs. Opportunity and Cultural vs. Economic — shape emotional reactions and public attitudes.

As part of the Our Mind undergraduate research scholarship, Arman Prangere investigates whether early life adversity correlates with more restrictive views on immigration. This relationship may be mediated through different paths, such as threat sensitivity, anxiety, or social trust.

European Identity

Under the supervision of Dr Laura Cram, PhD student Constantinos Kyritsopoulos uses survey experiments to investigate the psychological foundations of European identity. His research draws on moral foundations theory and evolutionary approaches to behaviour to explore how values shape collective identity in the European context.

Police Scotland

Dr Sara Dalzel-Job uses eye-tracking, physiological measures and face emotion coding to explore how information delivery affects officers’ physiological states in the field. Her research focuses on the impact of repeated vs. non-repeated information on emotions and recall.

Past Research

Neuropolitics of communication

We ask how, in an age of fake news and bots, citizens balance accuracy—believing what is true—with consistency—believing what aligns with their existing views. The scale and fragmentation of today’s digital media landscape raises pressing questions about how people are exposed to and engage with political information.

Our research combines fMRI, physiological and behavioural experiments, and observational big data analysis to investigate why certain messages are perceived as authoritative or authentic. We use these insights to help design information environments that foster security, legitimacy, and trust.

Llewellyn, C., Cram, L., Hill, R. L., & Favero, A. (2019). For Whom the Bell Trolls: Shifting Troll Behaviour in the Twitter Brexit Debate. Journal of Common Market Studies, 57(S1), 43–61. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12882
Moore, A., Hong, S., & Cram, L. (2021). Trust in information, political identity and the brain: An interdisciplinary fMRI study. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376(1822), 20200140. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0140
Llewellyn, C., & Cram, L. (2017). Distinguishing the wood from the trees: Contrasting collection methods to understand bias in a longitudinal Brexit Twitter dataset. In Proceedings of the Eleventh International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM) [Poster Papers] (Vol. 11, No. 1). https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v11i1.14924

Neuropolitics of Public Policy

Cram, L., Moore, A., Olivieri, V., & Suessenbach, F. (2018). Fair is fair, or is it? Territorial identity triggers influence ultimatum game behavior. Political Psychology, 40(2), 409–426. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12543

Neuropolitics of Identity

How does a sense of identity impact our ability to process information? How do implicit identity triggers or shifting contexts affect the perceived legitimacy or effectiveness of policies and political structures?

Using experimental brain imaging techniques, we investigate the foundations of social belonging and political obligation. We draw on neuroscientific insights to examine how multimodal interactions—such as vision, audition, and imagery—provoke or inhibit identity-related behaviours. We explore how these dynamics relate to feelings of societal belonging, political attachment, loyalty, disaffection, and public disengagement.

Moore, A., Hong, S., & Cram, L. (2021). Trust in information, political identity and the brain: An interdisciplinary fMRI study. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376(1822), 20200140. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0140
Cram, L., Moore, A., Olivieri, V., & Suessenbach, F. (2018). Fair is fair, or is it? Territorial identity triggers influence ultimatum game behavior. Political Psychology, 40(2), 409–426. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12543
Hong, S., Moore, A., Pernet, C., Morcom, A. M., Roberts, N., Krasoulis, A., & Cram, L. (2017). MRI study of social exclusion and national identity using a cyberball paradigm. In Proceedings of the 26th International Behavioural Neuroscience Society (IBNS). International Behavioural Neuroscience Society.