Human Affective Neuroscience Lab

AT SUNGKYUNKWAN UNIVERSITY

Welcome!

Welcome to the Human Affective Neuroscience (HumAN) lab! We are located at Sungkyunkwan University, in the heart of Seoul, South Korea. The overarching goal of our research is to understand the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms that underpin how we experience our own emotions and evaluate the emotions of others. ​ 

At the HumAN lab, we examine how different aspects of affective information are encoded, manipulated, and integrated in the brain. We also investigate individual differences in such processes on both behavioral and neural levels, and their implications for mental health. We combine experimental psychology, functional neuroimaging (fMRI), and computational tools to answer research questions pertaining to affective science. ​

Updates & Announcements

Mar 23, 2024

Dr. Kim is the recipient of the Early Career Award from the Social & Affective Neuroscience Society! [read more

Feb 13, 2024

Wonyoung's latest paper has been accepted to be published in Psychological Medicine! We show that an adaptative-to-maladaptive gradient of emotion regulation tendencies are embedded in the functional-structural hybrid connectome. [read more

Jan. 30, 2024

We welcome Bokyeong as one of the latest to be accepted to the Combined Bachelors & Masters program! 

Jan. 16, 2024

Dr. Kim's collaborative work with Dr. Andy Chen at NTU is published in Brain Imaging and Behavior. [read more

Nov. 21, 2023

Dr. Kim was awarded the Sungkyun Research Fund, which will support our research project entitled, Decoding depressive symptoms with computer vision-based analysis of facial muscle dynamics.

Sep. 27, 2023

Seohyun, Lian and Jihye are Team New-ro Jeans, who will enter the 6th SKKU Co-Deep Learning Project program!

Sep. 20, 2023

Hayoung is the recipient of the honorary award from the SKKU Graduate Student Research Paper Awards! [read more]

Sep. 2, 2023

Dr. Kim's collaborative work linking real-world emotional reactivity, happiness, and corticolimbic circuits is accepted for publication at SCAN.

Aug. 27, 2023

Hayoung's first preprint is available at bioRxiv! Using movie-watching fMRI, Hayoung explored how our brain responds to characters with contrasting narrative roles. [read more]

Aug. 17, 2023

Congrats to Dr. Kim for receiving the SKKU Teaching Award! [read more]

Aug. 6, 2023

Congrats to Chaebin, whose first author paper has been accepted for publication at Brain Research Bulletin! Chaebin proposes a novel method to assess cortical thickness topography and uses it to predict generalized anxiety symptoms in adolescents. [read more]

Aug. 5, 2023

In what would be the HumAN lab's biggest news yet, Nayoung and Wonyoung are a married couple! The newlyweds are heading to Atlanta where Wonyoung will start his PhD at Emory, in Philip Kragel's lab. We will miss having you two around!

Jul. 31, 2023

Results from an international collaboration with Dr. Andy Chen at NTU are available at bioRxiv. We show that state anxiety influences multivariate activation patterns in the human extrastriate cortex in response to emotionally-charged images. [read more

Jul. 27, 2023

Congrats to Sujin, whose first author paper has been accepted for publication at SCAN! Sujin shows evidence that grittier teens' brains are characterized by similar functional connectome architecture. [read more

Jul. 19, 2023

Seohyeon, Seohyun and Bokyoung brought home the grand prize from the 2023-1 SKKU Co-Deep Learning Project competition. Our lab continues the winning streak - that's three grand prizes and two 1st prizes in five competitions! [read more

Jul. 05, 2023

Our paper in which we argue against the proposition that surprise is not an emotion has been published in the July issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science. [read more]

Jun 23, 2023

Congrats to Yujin, who will become a graduate student this fall in the Master's program in Cognitive Science at the University of Vienna! 

Jun 22, 2023

Dr. Kim has joined the editorial team at the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience as a Consulting Editor. [read more

May 25, 2023

Seohyeon has been selected to participate in the 2023 IBS CNIR Summer School! [read more

May 12, 2023

Our graduate students once again have been selected to receive support from the SKKU Cluster/Lab Mentoring program. 

Apr. 30, 2023

Wonyoung's paper has been nominated as one of the four finalists for the 2023 SANS Innovation Award!


Apr. 13, 2023

Bokyeong is our newest lab member! She joins the HumAN lab as an undergraduate RA. [read more]

Apr. 3, 2023

Seohyeon & Seohyun teamed up and was selected to represent our lab as the Dynamic Duo in the SKKU Co-Deep Learning Project program. [read more]

We Are Attending

May. 23-24, 2024

Korean Society for Cognitive Science

Presenters: Dr. Kim

Seoul, South Korea

Jun. 23-27, 2024

Organization for Human Brain Mapping

Presenters: E-Young

Seoul, South Korea

Apr. 10-13, 2024

Social Affective Neuroscience Society 

Presenters: Chaebin, Sujin, Hayoung

Toronto, Canada

Feb. 1-3, 2024

Korean Society for Cognitive & Biological Psychology 

Presenters: Seohyun with Lian, Jihye, Nahyeon

Seoul, South Korea

Nov. 24, 2023

Department of Psychology, Yonsei University

Presenters: Dr. Kim 

Seoul, South Korea

Nov. 9, 2023

Department of Psychology, Lingnan University

Presenters: Dr. Kim 

Hong Kong

Nov. 8-10, 2023

Developmental Affective Neuroscience Symposium

Presenters: Sujin, Chaebin

Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Nov. 2, 2023

Interdisciplinary Program in Neurosciences, Seoul National University

Presenters: Dr. Kim 

Seoul, South Korea

Oct. 20, 2023

Korean Clinical Psychology Association (KCPA) 

Presenters: Dr. Kim 

*virtual conference

Oct. 11, 2023

School of Digital Humanities and Computational Social Sciences, KAIST

Presenters: Dr. Kim

Daejeon, South Korea

Sep. 20, 2023

Department of Brain Sciences, DGIST

Presenters: Dr. Kim

Daegu, South Korea

Apr. 27-29, 2023

Social & Affective Neuroscience Society

Presenters: Sujin, Chaebin

Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Feb. 16-17, 2023

Korean Society for Cognitive & Biological Psychology 

Presenters: Nayoung, Sumin (with Yujin, Lian, Seohyun)

Seoul, South Korea

May. 26-29, 2022

Association for Psychological Science (APS) 

Presenters: Wonyoung (with Kyuli, Nayoung)

Chicago, IL, USA

Apr. 14-16, 2022

Korean Clinical Psychology Association (KCPA) 

Presenters: Dr. Kim 

*virtual conference due to COVID-19 pandemic

Mar. 30-Apr. 2, 2022

Society for Affective Science (SAS) 

Presenters: Nayoung, Kyuli, Wonyoung

*virtual conference due to COVID-19 pandemic



Invited Speakers & Guests

Sep. 8, 2023

Dr. Alan L. F. Lee [lab]

Dr. Yi Huang [lab

Department of Psychology, Lingnan University

Aug. 9, 2023

Dr. Leehyun Yoon [lab]

Department of Psychology & Center for Vital Longevity, University of Texas at Dallas

Aug. 4, 2022

Dr. Youngbin Kwak [lab]

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Jul. 27, 2022

Dr. Pilyoung Kim [lab]

Department of Psychology, University of Denver

Jul. 6, 2022

Dr. Ain Chung [lab]

Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST

Aug. 13, 2021

Dr. Pyungwon Kang 

Department of Economics, University of Zurich

Feb. 1, 2021

Dr. Juyoen Hur [lab]

Department of Psychology, Yonsei University