Question: what have you researched in the last few years?

Luna Munoz answered on 18 Mar 2011:

Hi microsoftman and jome! Some of the cool things that I’ve looked at are the emotions that are associated with a cold and uncaring behavioural style. The reason why I’m looking at this is to try to find at what age people who run prevention programmes can step in to help.

A study that came before mine showed that an area of the brain called the amygdala was involved in not having concern for other people. But one of my recent studies suggests that more than just this area is involved. I found that children who are cold and uncaring have trouble with knowing whether someone is displaying fear through their body language, which does not use the amygdala. Instead, it probably involves the motor areas of the brain. If you play football and you watch someone in a game, the same areas of the brain that they are using are being activated in your brain. So, my study suggests that some children might not feel fear and so they cannot identify it in other people. We will need to work with these children very early in their childhood to see if we can help them to be able to know other people’s emotions better.

In the last year, I have found that parents can make a difference in children’s behaviour by getting involved with their children (which won [co-winner] me the Neville Butler Memorial Prize), so I will next look at how parents can make a difference in children’s emotional understanding.