SCAN Unit

SCAN Unit

@scanunit.bsky.social

Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, est. 2010, led by @ClausLamm and based at @univienna | Curated by @lukasmayrhofer

1.3K followers1.2K following130 posts

SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

Our colleague @maxsteininger.bsky.social successfully defended his dissertation last week and has now officially earned his PhD 🎉🎓 His dissertation examined how nature exposure🌲affects acute stress 🤯 and pain ⚡. Here's an overview of the studies he published on this topic during his PhD:

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SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

Huge congrats to - now - Dr. Max. We’re thrilled he’s part of our team and grateful we could support him in reaching this milestone and advancing his research. We hope that we will hear more of you in the future ♥️

SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

Our colleague @maxsteininger.bsky.social successfully defended his dissertation last week and has now officially earned his PhD 🎉🎓 His dissertation examined how nature exposure🌲affects acute stress 🤯 and pain ⚡. Here's an overview of the studies he published on this topic during his PhD:

SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

🗞️ A Meta-analysis of 62 studies (21 countries, n=4,439) found nature exposure reduced self‑reported pain (SMD≈0.53). Effects were smaller with matched controls and larger for multisensory interventions, though there was a moderate–high bias in studies. doi.org/10.1038/s44220-025-00569-2

doi.orgNature exposure reduces self-reported pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis - Nature Mental HealthThe authors conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 62 studies, including more than 4,400 participants across 21 countries, to investigate the effects of nature exposure on self-reported pa...
SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

To celebrate Julia and Boryana’s visit from their international fellowships, we took the opportunity to tee off with a round of mini‑golf ⛳. @clauslamm.bsky.social took the lead at the final hole with a spectacular hole-in-one - congrats and thanks to everybody that joined 🥇🤝

SCAN Unit reposted

Ronald Sladky
@sweetneuron.bsky.social

Can loneliness affect how we learn whom to trust as we age? In our new fMRI study, we looked at how people learn to play the repeated trust game. We think there is a link between age, loneliness & dopamine function that impairs social learning - a vicious circle maybe? www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

SCAN Unit reposted

Ekaterina (Katja) Pronizius
@epronizius.bsky.social

I am so proud and honored that our paper received this award. @scanunit.bsky.social :)

Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS)@improvingpsych.org

Congratulations to the project “The Advantage of Big Team Science: Lessons Learned From Cognitive Science,” which received🏆2026 SIPS commendation! It offers a synthesis of strategies for successfully navigating the BTS landscape, including logistical, ethical, and epistemological challenges.

SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

🚨 New paper from our group: Across 164 participants, we find that virtual nature is retrospectively perceived as helpful in dealing with an acute stressor, but does not change immediate psychological, autonomic, or hormonal responses to it, suggesting a disconnect in recalled and immediate reactions

Max Steininger@maxsteininger.bsky.social

We ran a registered randomized controlled study with 164 participants to test whether virtual nature before or after an acute stress task affects stress reactivity and subsequent recovery. Participants retrospectively said that nature helped them prepare for and recover from the stressor BUT… (1/4)

sciencedirect.comsciencedirect.com
SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

We had a great time at #ESCAN2026 last week and met a lot of amazing people. Here is our recap 🤓 - 1 symposium organized 👩‍🏫 - 7 talks held 🎙️ - 7 posters presented 🖼️ - group night train ride to Rome 🚂 - social gatherings each night🍻 - joining the first session with too little sleep 🥲

SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

Our former colleague @magdalenaboch.bsky.social is hiring a postdoc for her new comparative neuroscience lab at @univie.ac.at. Highly recommended position 🤓

Magdalena Boch 🏳️‍🌈🇪🇺🇦🇹@magdalenaboch.bsky.social

(1/2) Hiring! 🤸🧠🐩 Postdoc position in my new group @univie.ac.at & Messerli Research Institute on the neuro-cognitive foundations and evolution of sociality across humans, dogs, and other carnivorans. 📍 Vienna 📅 Application deadline: 26 July 2026 ℹ️ shortifyme.co/p3NjN

SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

How will three groups of psychologists perform in an escape room? By assessing each other's arousal or debating whether frustration is a state or a trait? We recently conducted this bold introspective case study. Preliminary results suggest all groups did great. Thanks to everyone who joined 🤓

SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

🚨 Psyched to share our first paper in JEnvPsy, led by the brillliant @jonasnitschke.bsky.social! We find that trust in science + climate-specific worry (not general worry) together predict support for climate policies. So don’t just worry, worry specifically and take action 🤓

SCAN Unit reposted

Ekaterina (Katja) Pronizius
@epronizius.bsky.social

New paper🎈: Lessons Learned from Big Team Science Projects in Cognitive Science in @collabrapsychology.bsky.social online.ucpress.edu/collabra/art... We share practical, experience-based strategies for running large-scale collaborations - from project structure to ethics, funding, & AI use.

online.ucpress.eduThe Advantage of Big Team Science: Lessons Learned From Cognitive ScienceThe credibility revolution in psychology and related sciences contributed to the adoption of large-scale research initiatives known as Big Team Science (BTS). BTS has made significant advances in addr...
SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

Here's our résumé of the ÖGP-Tagung in Salzburg last week: - 4 great talks 🤓 - 3 beautiful posters 🖼️ - First place at the poster award - congrats @lauragschw.bsky.social 🥳🥇 - Met many amazing people 🤝 - Gorgeous snowy mountain peaks 🏔️ - Left mountain hikes for next time tho 🥾

SCAN Unit reposted

Ekaterina (Katja) Pronizius
@epronizius.bsky.social

Besuchen Sie unsere Station, um Antworten auf diese & andere Fragen gemeinsam zu finden: Wo zieht unser Gehirn die Grenze zwischen mir und dir? Wie kann Empathie auch auf die Natur & die Umwelt übertragen werden? langenachtderforschung.at/station/5657 Wir freuen uns auf Sie! @scanunit.bsky.social

langenachtderforschung.atWo zieht unser Gehirn die Grenze zwischen mir und dir? - #LNF26 Lange Nacht der ForschungDie vorgestellten Forschungsthemen behandeln Wahrnehmung, Empathie und soziale Interaktion. Besucher:innen entdecken spielerisch, wie das Gehirn eigene und fremde Gefühle unterscheidet, Emotionen erke...
Universität Wien / University of Vienna@univie.ac.at

📣 Save the date: Lange Nacht der Forschung an der Uni Wien! 📅: 24.04.2026, 17:00 - 23:00 Uhr 📍: über 100 Stationen an 5 Standorten: Hauptgebäude, Fakultät für Chemie, Fakultät für Physik, Sternwarte & Biologiezentrum Das gesamte Programm der Uni Wien im Überblick: ⤵️ www.univie.ac.at/lange-nacht-...

SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

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 🤞

SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

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 👇

Max Steininger@maxsteininger.bsky.social

Our preregistered systematic review & meta-analysis published in Nature Mental Health shows that nature exposure is linked to small-to-moderate reductions in self-reported pain (SMD = .53; N = 4,439). But high heterogeneity and moderate-to-high risk of bias call for a cautious interpretation (1/5)

nature.comNature exposure reduces self-reported pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis - Nature Mental HealthThe authors conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 62 studies, including more than 4,400 participants across 21 countries, to investigate the effects of nature exposure on self-reported pa...
SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

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 ✨

SCAN Unit reposted

StressLab UniVienna
@stresslabvienna.bsky.social

We 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.

markusforamitti.bsky.social@markusforamitti.bsky.social

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...

nature.comSocietal crises disrupt long-term increases in stress, negativity, and simplicity in US Billboard song lyrics from 1973 to 2023 - Scientific ReportsScientific Reports - Societal crises disrupt long-term increases in stress, negativity, and simplicity in US Billboard song lyrics from 1973 to 2023
SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

🚨 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 👇🏼

Boryana Todorova@todorova.bsky.social

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

nature.comEffort and time costs influence motivational asymmetries in self-benefitting vs pro-environmental decisions - Communications PsychologyPeople are less willing to incur time and effort costs for the environment than for themselves, with computational modeling revealing nonlinear discounting of time and effort linked to support for cos...

SCAN Unit reposted

Boryana Todorova
@todorova.bsky.social

🎉 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

doi.orgPsychological interventions that decrease psychological distance or challenge system justification increase motivation to exert effort to mitigate climate change - Communications PsychologyPro-environmental actions often require effort. Participants were less motivated to help the climate than a food charity, but two interventions removed this bias. Computational modelling linked climat...
SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

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 🤓

Pause @ Real Scientists DE@realscientists.de

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

SCAN Unit reposted

Ekaterina (Katja) Pronizius
@epronizius.bsky.social

New 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...

doi.orgInvestigating object orientation effects across 18 languages - Current PsychologyMental simulation theories of language comprehension propose that people automatically create mental representations of objects mentioned in sentences. Mental representation is often measured with the...
SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

See below to read a short story from our member @lauragschw.bsky.social describing her research - really cool way to communicate science!

Science & Fiction@scienceandfiction.net

🎲 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...

SCAN Unit reposted

Universität Wien / University of Vienna
@univie.ac.at

Happy #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. 🧠 ⤵️

youtube.com🐕 How Dog Brains Help Us Understand Ourselves | University of ViennaYouTube video by Universität Wien
Universität Wien / University of Vienna@univie.ac.at

Dogs usually ought to stay away from scientific measuring devices – unless, of course, they are part of the #research team. We accompany psychologist & neuroscientist @magdalenaboch.bsky.social & Kalea into the lab. There, they want to identify the regions of the 🧠 that shape our social #behavior. ⤵️

rudolphina.univie.ac.atSocial behaviours: How similar are humans and dogs?Dogs usually ought to stay away from scientific measuring devices – unless, of course, they are part of the research team. In the video, we accompany psychologist and neuroscientist Magdalena Boch and Kalea the dog into the lab. The researchers there aim to identify the brain regions that shape our social behaviour.
SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

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 🎉

Jay Van Bavel, PhD@jayvanbavel.bsky.social

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/...

SCAN Unit
@scanunit.bsky.social

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 🤝

Claudia Massaccesi@clamassaccesi.bsky.social

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)

nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.comNYAS PublicationsProtecting others from harm is critical for societal well-being but is often effortful. We examined how individuals choose to exert physical effort to reduce their and another person's pain. Results ....

SCAN Unit reposted

Boryana Todorova
@todorova.bsky.social

🧠🌍 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-...

planetaryhealthalliance.orgNext Gen Speaker Series - Boryana Todorova - Planetary Health AllianceBoryana Todorova is a Visiting Researcher at the Net Zero Observatory, University of Queensland, and a member of the Neuro Climate Working Group. Her research examines the two-way relationship between...