Biography

PhD student in psychology/social neuroscience at the Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit in Vienna, Austria, investigating why and how we understand and share emotions of other individuals around us.

Interests

  • Everything open science
  • Social and physical pain
  • Empathy and shared representations
  • Prosocial behavior and social decision-making
  • Placebo effects
  • Interoception
  • Autism Spectrum Disorder

Education

  • PhD in Psychology, since 2017

    University of Vienna

  • MSc in Psychology, 2017

    University of Vienna

  • BSc in Psychology, 2014

    University of Vienna

Research

How do we empathize with another person in pain? And what role does our own pain perception play?

My research focuses on the behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying shared representations between first-hand and empathy for pain, specializing on a manipulation of first-hand pain through placebo analgesia. Generally, I aim for a deeper understanding of these processes by combining fMRI, physiology (ECG, SCR) and behavioral experiments.

Another's pain in my somatosensory brain

In this project I am interested in what is actually shared when we see others in pain and what role sensory-discriminative pain processing plays in this regard.

Another's pain in my social brain

This project investigates the transfer of placebo analgesia to effort-based prosocial decision-making in the domain of pain avoidance.

Other projects

I further investigate the effect of placebo analgesia on interoceptive abilities, psychological differences between placebo responders and non-responders as well as self-other distinction and emotional egocentricity in autism.

Publications

Hartmann, H. (2018). Social Interactions in Autism. Cognitive Empathy, Egocentricity and Social Pain. Springer.

DOI

Hartmann, H. (2018). Therapeutische Maßnahmen bei Autismus-Spektrum-Störungen. In: Praxisbuch Autismus (5. Auflage). Elsevier.

DOI

Preregistrations

Another’s Pain in my Social Brain: The Effects of Placebo (Empathy) Analgesia on Social Behavior (OSF)
The Effects of Placebo Analgesia on Interoceptive Abilities (OSF)
Another’s Pain in my Brain: Clarifying the Specificity of the Effects of Placebo Analgesia on First-Hand and Empathy for Pain (OSF)

Scientific Outreach

Pint of Science

Pint of Science brings scientists to share their latest research with you! I am part of 2020's “Beautiful Mind” event manager team to organize three exciting evenings all about neuroscience! More info on the website and on twitter!

Brainhero

Brain Hero is a Neurofeedback game that is being developed by the startup MyMind to improve concentration levels and relaxation capabilities in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Science-based brain fitness for everyone! Check out the website!

Every Little Thing Podcast

I was so lucky to be part of the episode “Ever Felt Someone’s Pain… In Your Butt?” by Every Little Thing. Learn all about vicarious pain and how we can feel someone else's pain in our own body. A great episode together with amazing researchers such as Stuart Derbyshire, Natalie Bowling, Melita Giummarra, Marina López-Solà, Bridget Rubenking, Jamie Ward, Scott Vrana, and Jamil Zaki. Listen to it here!

Long Night of Research

Together with my PhD colleagues, I organized a booth all about research in psychology and social neuroscience in 2018. This year, we are back with many cool experiments to try out: Have you ever experienced the rubberhand illusion? How do we investigate something called affective touch? Can we put awake dog into an MR-scanner? And can you match all brains to their corresponding species? More info here!

Contact