Neuroscientists from HSE University Learn to Predict Human Behaviour by Their Facial Expressions
Willingness to donate to charity is written all over the face.
Researchers at the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience at HSE University are using automatic emotion recognition technologies to study charitable behaviour. In an experiment, scientists presented 45 participants with photographs of dogs in need and invited them to make donations to support these animals. Emotional reactions to the images were determined through facial activity using the FaceReader program. It turned out that the stronger the participants felt sadness and anger, the more money they were willing to donate to charity funds, regardless of their personal financial well-being. The study was published in the journal Heliyon.
The research was supported by a mega-grant from the Russian government as part of the national project ‘Science and Universities.’
Charitable behaviour is a complex psychological process with motives that are not fully understood. Emotional state is one of the key factors influencing the willingness to give one's resources to another. However, the question of how specific emotions are related to donations remains a subject of debate, as previous studies on this topic have yielded conflicting results.
One of the main reasons is methodological limitations in data collection. Most studies on charitable behaviour use subjective methods: volunteers themselves report their emotions and how they affect donations. However, participants do not always understand their feelings or are not willing to speak about them openly. Moreover, depending on the direction of charitable activity (helping sick people, helping animals, supporting environmental initiatives, and others), the same emotions can differently influence the willingness to donate. Therefore, to develop effective charity advertising, it is important to have objective data on the influence of emotions on the willingness to donate, taking into account the goals of fundraising.
Researchers Anna Shepelenko, Vladimir Kosonogov, and Anna Shestakova from the HSE Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience were the first in the world to use an automatic emotion recognition program to evaluate the effectiveness of charity appeals. In the experiment, scientists used FaceReader to record the facial expressions of volunteers while viewing photos of dogs in various conditions, including homeless, domestic, sick, healthy, adult, and puppies. Participants were given 320 rubles, which they could fully or partially donate to the animal aid fund during the experiment. The remaining amount could be kept for themselves.
Dogs were specifically chosen for the study because society's attitude towards them is ambiguous: they can be perceived as both victims and threats. In these conditions, charity appeals can evoke contradictory or hidden emotions that are difficult to detect through surveys or focus groups but can be recognised by facial expressions.
Co-author of the study, Junior Research Fellow at the Centre for Cognition & Decision Making at the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, HSE University
Currently, affective computing is still in the early stages of its development and is not widely used in the industry. However, in the coming years, its widespread implementation in various business and scientific fields can be expected. Technologies like FaceReader are already being used for diagnosing mental disorders, improving the quality of online education, assessing customer satisfaction, and in some other areas. Our study clearly shows the prospects of using affective computing to predict the effectiveness of social advertising, creating a basis for further research and practical application.
The main results of the study showed that people are inclined to donate more when charity appeals provoke unpleasant emotions in them. In particular, participants gave larger amounts to animals whose images evoked sadness and anger. These results are confirmed by both self-reports of emotions and affective computing data.
At the same time, for some other emotions, researchers found differences between survey data and FaceReader data. According to self-reports, surprise, disgust, and fear also contributed to increased donations, but FaceReader data did not confirm this. According to the authors, these differences may have arisen due to the timing of emotion recording: the program analysed reactions during the first presentation of pictures and immediately before the donation decision, whereas self-reports were made after a second viewing of the images. This time gap could have changed participants' perception of their emotions.
Additionally, the formulation of questions about specific emotions could have caused cognitive biases and influenced respondents' answers so that they indicated not only the emotions they experienced but also those they considered appropriate depending on the context of the image. Based on this, researchers conclude that affective computing complements self-report data, allowing for a more accurate identification of emotions at the moment of decision-making and reducing the influence of experimental procedures or cognitive biases on research results.
It is noteworthy that donations were associated with the individual perception of the value of money: the higher the subjective significance of the reward for participating in the experiment (320 rubles), the less willing participants were to donate to charity, while their personal level of financial well-being did not affect the amount of donations. This data clarifies the results of earlier publications, which showed contradictions regarding the relationship between financial well-being and the willingness to make donations.
Co-author of the study, Junior Research Fellow at the Centre for Cognition & Decision Making at the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, HSE University
This study contributes to the understanding of charitable behaviour, and we hope that the obtained results will be useful for non-profit organisations. At the same time, it is important to note some limitations: our results do not take into account the long-term impact of charity advertising on the audience.
Indeed, unpleasant emotions can increase the amount of donations during initial contact, but regularly repeated negative charity appeals can provoke empathy fatigue or avoidance—people may simply exclude such messages from their information field. Thus, to further study the impact of emotions on charity, longitudinal studies should be conducted, in which changes in donors' behaviour can be registered over several months or even years.
See also:
Using Two Cryptocurrencies Enhances Volatility Forecasting
Researchers from the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences have found that Bitcoin price volatility can be effectively predicted using Ethereum, the second-most popular cryptocurrency. Incorporating Ethereum into a predictive model reduces the forecast error to 23%, outperforming neural networks and other complex algorithms. The article has been published in Applied Econometrics.
Administrative Staff Are Crucial to University Efficiency—But Only in Teaching-Oriented Institutions
An international team of researchers, including scholars from HSE University, has analysed how the number of non-academic staff affects a university’s performance. The study found that the outcome depends on the institution’s profile: in research universities, the share of administrative and support staff has no effect on efficiency, whereas in teaching-oriented universities, there is a positive correlation. The findings have been published in Applied Economics.
Physicists at HSE University Reveal How Vortices Behave in Two-Dimensional Turbulence
Researchers from the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the HSE University's Faculty of Physics have discovered how external forces affect the behaviour of turbulent flows. The scientists showed that even a small external torque can stabilise the system and extend the lifetime of large vortices. These findings may improve the accuracy of models of atmospheric and oceanic circulation. The paper has been published in Physics of Fluids.
Solvent Instead of Toxic Reagents: Chemists Develop Environmentally Friendly Method for Synthesising Aniline Derivatives
An international team of researchers, including chemists from HSE University and the A.N. Nesmeyanov Institute of Organoelement Compounds of the Russian Academy of Sciences (INEOS RAS), has developed a new method for synthesising aniline derivatives—compounds widely used in the production of medicines, dyes, and electronic materials. Instead of relying on toxic and expensive reagents, they proposed using tetrahydrofuran, which can be derived from renewable raw materials. The reaction was carried out in the presence of readily available cobalt salts and syngas. This approach reduces hazardous waste and simplifies the production process, making it more environmentally friendly. The study has been published in ChemSusChem.
How Colour Affects Pricing: Why Art Collectors Pay More for Blue
Economists from HSE University, St Petersburg State University, and the University of Florida have found which colours in abstract paintings increase their market value. An analysis of thousands of canvases sold at auctions revealed that buyers place a higher value on blue and favour bright, saturated palettes, while showing less appreciation for traditional colour schemes. The article has been published in Information Systems Frontiers.
New Method for Describing Graphene Simplifies Analysis of Nanomaterials
An international team, including scientists from HSE University, has proposed a new mathematical method to analyse the structure of graphene. The scientists demonstrated that the characteristics of a graphene lattice can be represented using a three-step random walk model of a particle. This approach allows the lattice to be described more quickly and without cumbersome calculations. The study has been published in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical.
Scientists Have Modelled Supercapacitor Operation at Molecular and Ionic Level
HSE scientists used supercomputer simulations to study the behaviour of ions and water molecules inside the nanopores of a supercapacitor. The results showed that even a very small amount of water alters the charge distribution inside the nanopores and influences the device’s energy storage capacity. This approach makes it possible to predict how supercapacitors behave under different electrolyte compositions and humidity conditions. The paper has been published in Electrochimica Acta. The study was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (RSF).
Designing an Accurate Reading Skills Test: Why Parallel Texts are Important in Dyslexia Diagnosis
Researchers from the HSE Centre for Language and Brain have developed a tool for accurately assessing reading skills in adults with reading impairments. It can be used, for instance, before and after sessions with a language therapist. The tool includes two texts that differ in content but are equal in complexity: participants were observed to read them at the same speed, make a similar number of errors, and understand the content to the same degree. Such parallel texts will enable more accurate diagnosis of dyslexia and better monitoring of the effectiveness of interventions aimed at addressing it. The paper has been published in Educational Studies.
Internal Clock: How Heart Rate and Emotions Shape Our Perception of Time
Our perception of time depends on heart rate—this is the conclusion reached by neuroscientists at HSE University. In their experiment, volunteers watched short videos designed to evoke specific emotions and estimated each video's duration, while researchers recorded their heart activity using ECG. The study found that the slower a participant's heart rate, the shorter they perceived the video to be—especially when watching unpleasant content. The study has been published in Frontiers in Psychology.
Scientists Identify Personality Traits That Help Schoolchildren Succeed Academically
Economists from HSE University and the Southern Federal University have found that personality traits such as conscientiousness and open-mindedness help schoolchildren improve their academic performance. The study, conducted across seven countries, was the first large-scale international analysis of the impact of character traits on the academic achievement of 10 and 15-year-olds. The findings have been published in the International Journal of Educational Research.