The main research interests of Sandra C. Soares focus on understanding how different emotions, such as fear and disgust, impact behavior, psychophysiology and neural processing.

Using a multi-sensory (mainly visual and olfactory emotion-inducing stimuli) and multi-method approach, she attempts to promote a broader understanding of the aforementioned phenomena. More specifically, she studies how these processes interact with cognitive functions such as attention and memory, drawing on evolutionary theories, and combines these experimental cognitive approaches in basic and applied settings (e.g., with clinical disorders such as psychotic disorders, autism, social anxiety disorders and phobias). Finally, her research aims to take an interdisciplinary approach, with strong collaborations with experts in computer science, in order to promote more personalized and preventive systems in mental health practices.

Main publications

Barros, F., & Soares, S. C. (2020). Giving meaning to the social world in autism spectrum disorders: Olfaction as a missing piece of the puzzle? Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 116, 239-250. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.06.008

Gomes, N., Soares, S. C., Silva, S., & Silva, C. F. (2018). Mind the Snake: Fear Detection Relies on Low Spatial Frequencies. Emotion, 18(6), 886-895. doi: 10.1037/emo0000391

Soares, S. C., Brás, S., Cruz, T., Magalhães, T., Marques, B., Dantas, C., Fernandes, N. & Fernandes, J. M. (2018). The Feasibility of an Augment Reality System to Study the Psychophysiological Correlates of Fear-Related Responses. Brain and Behavior, e(9): e01084. doi:10.1002/brb3.1084

Soares, S. C., Maior, R. S., Isbell, L. A., Tomaz, C., & Nishijo, H. (2017). Fast detector/first responder: Interactions between the superior colliculus-pulvinar pathway and stimuli relevant to primates. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 11:67. doi:10.3389/fnins.2017.00067

Ferreira, J., Brás, S, Silva, C. F., & Soares, S. C. (2017). An Automatic Classifier of Emotions Build from Entropy of Noise. Psychophysiology. 54(4), 620-627. doi:10.1111/psyp.12808