This page contains numerous files that are frequently requested for media use. High-resolution version of the images may be downloaded by right-clicking the images and choosing “Save images as”. All items may be used freely for non-commercial and educational purposes. For other types of use, please contact us first and we will point you towards the copyright holder. The original publications may be downloaded from our Publications page.
Videos
Lauri Nummenmaa – Introduction
Introductory video of the PI by Academy of Finland (in Finnish, subtitles in English).
Mapping emotions in the body
Coverage of our work on the bodily maps of emotions by American Museum of Natural history. High-resolution version of the original body map may be downloaded here, a Finnish version is available for download here.
Käsky (The Commandment)
This video shows brain activation from 104 subjects and eye movement recordings from 28 subjects watching a scene from the Finnish drama film “Käsky” (the commandment). Hot colours in the brain image indicate increased activation. In the right panel red disks show gaze position for each viewer, and the heatmap shows the mean focus of gaze, that is, the region where most viewers are currently looking at. Note how the eyes are almost uniformly fixated on the text and faces shown in the initial scenes. This synchronisation breaks down while landscapes are shown, and re-emerges during the intense combat scenes. The video was created by Severi Santavirta from the Emotion lab.
Functional organization of social perception in the brain
This video shows brain activation while viewing social interaction in videos. The data were acquired using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while the subjects viewed a medley of short video clips with varying social content. The brain activity shown on right is an average of the 97 subjects and is time-locked with the movie contents on the left. These data were used for generating a high-dimensional model of the principles of social information processing in the brain. Note that fMRI can measure brain activation with about 1-second timescale, whereas true neuronal timescale is in the rank of milliseconds so the focus is on slow phasic changes. The video was created by Severi Santavirta from the Emotion Lab, you can read the corresponding article by Severi and colleagues here.
Total-body positron emission tomography
This video shows the Turku PET Centre’s crown jewel in action. The data have been acquired with the Siemens Biograph Vision total-body PET scanner. The image shows the distribution of radiolabeled water in the body, which reveals blood flow through the vessels. Note how the highest signal comes heart, and how the arm where the radiotracer was injected has also high concentration of tracer. Video done in collaboration with prof. Juhani Knuuti.
The Goal Factory
Dopamine is a neurochemical centrally involved in motivation, motor control and emotions. In this video Tuulia Malen from Emotion Lab tells why the science behind brain’s dopamine system is critical for clinical science, and shows what PET imaging has revealed about the dopamine receptors. For those who can read Finnish, do also check out Tuulia’s blog post about motivation and inspiration here.
The compassionate brain
Humans are born to connect with each other. Endogenous opioids are neurotransmitters that govern pleasure and pain but also social motivation. In this video Jinglu Chen from Emotion Lab tells about the brain circuits supporting empathy, helping and altruism, and describes how PET imaging has helped us to unravel the neuromolecular basis of social connections in humans.
What interests us in art?
Visual art is a culturally universal and an omnipresent phenomenon, yet the affective and cognitive mechanisms underlying aesthetic experiences remain poorly understood. We have recently developed a method for mapping “affective topographies” in visual art pieces that reveal the regions that human observers find most interesting while viewing art. The summary images below show sample interest maps from 55 subjects viewing famous Finnish paintings. The liking and beauty scores are based on a separate sample of 500 respondents.
The video below shows animated eye movements while 20 subjects have viewed the paintings for 5 seconds each. Music: Jean Sibelius: Karelia Suite: Alla Marcia.
Far Beyond The Brain
How can less be more? It’s impossible – more is more! YNGWIE MALMSTEEN is the world’s fastest guitarist, and Emotion Lab’s official honorary philosopher. To bay our tribute to the Swedish guitar wizard, we have measured brain activity from 100 subjects listening to Yngwie’s masterpiece “Far beyond the Sun”. The video below show brain activity while listening to Yngwie shred, as quantified as inter-subject phase coherence. See also the original publication in here
Eyes of Terror
Video showing eye movements from 28 viewers watching a scene from the horror movie “The Conjuring 2”. Red disks show gaze position for each viewer, and the heatmap shows the mean focus of gaze, that is, the region where most viewers are currently looking at
The Cinematic Brain
Video showing how the brain parses the social world during cinema viewing. The video was created by Emotion Lab ex-post-doc Juha Lahnakoski, you may view the original scientific paper based one the results here.
Emotions synchronize brains across individuals
Video highlighting main results for Nummenmaa et al (2012 PNAS); shows how brain activity becomes synchronized across inividuals exposed to unpleasant emotional content. The video was created by Emotion Lab ex-post-doc Enrico Glerean. Movie (The Godfather by Francis Ford Coppola) © Paramount pictures.
Maps of Subjective Feelings
This study mapped the presentation of 100 different feelings in the body. The figure below shows the mean sensation map for each feeling. A high-resolution version is available for download here. If you wish to translate the figure to another language, there’s a version without the labels available too; click here to download. Lay summary of the study (in English and in Finnish) can be accessed from the links below.
Kokemusmaailman kartta
Cartography of consciousness
The vide below shows animated version of each feeling. The video is CC-licensed and is also available in Finnish, Japanese, Spanish, and Italian. The video was created by Emotion Lab ex-post-doc Enrico Glerean.
Animated bodily maps of emotions
Main figure from Nummenmaa et al 2014 PNAS; shows bodily regions where different emotions are felt in adults.
Seek and Destroy
Both children, adolescents and adults enjoy playing video games although they do not have immediate survival function. This video shows sample gameplay from our study where we demonstrated consistent activity in the brain’s reward circuit while winning in a competitive first-person video game playing.
Animated Human Erogenous Zones
This video (Nummenmaa et al 2016 Arch Sex Behav) reveals topography of human erogenous zones whose touching feels arousing while masturbating or having sex with a partner. The video starts by showing all the erogenous zones, and proceeds towards showing only the most erogenous areas. Yellow regions have the highest and red regions the lowest capacity for triggering arousal. Regions without overlaid colouring lack erogenous capacity completely. Please note – YouTube has censored the scientific data from minors, so you’ll have to login to YouTube to view the video. You can view a still image result from the same study if you scroll further down on the page.
Images
Bodily maps of emotions
Topographical organization of human emotions in the body from Nummenmaa et al (2014 PNAS). The data are based on self-reports of 400 adults. A version with Finnish labels can be downloaded here and an unlabelled version for translations is available here.
Bodily maps of emotions across child development
Main figure from Hietanen et al (2015 Developmental Science); shows bodily regions where different emotions are felt in children and adolescents.
Human Erogenous Zones
Main figure from Nummenmaa et al 2016 (Arch Sex Behav) shows the topography of human erogenous zones while having sex with a partner and when masturbating. Yellow regions have the highest and red regions the lowest capacity for triggering arousal. Regions without overlaid colouring lack erogenous capacity completely. The data are based on reports from 700 adults.
Social touch zones
Main figure from Suvilehto et al 2015 PNAS; shows bodily regions where different memembers of one’s social networks may touch them.
Obesity and brain
Main results from Karlsson et al (2015 Mol Psych) showing how obesity lowers endogenous opioid system tone, which, however, recovers following weight loss.
