Bianca Hatin

I completed my PhD in Experimental and Applied Psychology (focus in cognitive neuroscience) at the University of Regina in Canada in 2017. I also worked as a Sessional Lecturer at the University of Regina and Campion College intermittently from 2013-2018, and as Special Projects Administrator for the University of Regina President's Office from 2015-2018.

In September 2018 I joined the School of Media, Culture and Society as a Lecturer in Psychology.

Broadly speaking, my research focuses on functional laterality of the human brain, with particular emphasis on visuospatial attention and emotion. I am especially interested in how individual differences in laterality can influence the way we perceive and interact with our environments, creating differing behavioural asymmetries. These behavioural asymmetries can be expressed in any number of situations, including the greater display of (and attention to) emotion on one side of the face, the tendency to collide into more objects on one side of space when completing a navigational task, and the preference for certain attributes (e.g., brightness, beauty, emotional content) to be positioned on particular sides of paintings and advertisements.

Some of the current papers and projects I am working on include:

• How visuospatial and emotional information is presented in comic book covers, and how this relates to known asymmetries in brain functions;

• How participant’s perceptions of artwork can be predicted by their individual patterns of visuospatial attention;

• Where certain artistic elements are placed within paintings, and how this relates to known lateralised functions of the human brain;

• How well people with different levels of emotional intelligence can suppress irrelevant emotional information in order to make a decision;

• How experiencing stress (as indicated by heart rate, blood pressure, salivary cortisol levels, and self-report) while witnessing a crime affects participants’ ability to later identify the perpetrator and bystanders;

• Whether, and how, behavioural asymmetries in navigation relate to asymmetries in visuospatial attention.

I would like to investigate the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying emotion and spatial behavioural asymmetries; examine the role of laterality in aesthetics and the creation of art and media; and explore developmental and cultural influences on behavioural asymmetries.

In the future I plan to incorporate various technologies into my research methods (e.g., eye tracking and tDCS) to further investigate the functional, and perhaps structural, bases of individual differences in laterality, and how this relates to behaviour.

For student projects I am especially interested in helping you explore how people, animals, or objects are positioned in space/presented in art and images (e.g., cats and dogs in art, faces on money, models in advertisements). The project would ideally tie back to visuospatial processing, and/or emotional perception or expression.

I would like to collaborate with ASD-related organistations to explore laterality, emotion abilities and visuospatial processing over the lifespan.

I would also be interested in collaborating with art galleries or other creative agencies that have an interest in incorporating neuropsychology into their work. 

Salivary ensyme immunoassay for certain sex and stress hormones -- examining how circulating hormone concentrations relate to human behaviour.