Understanding science with emotions Israeli-German project investigates how emotions and information processing are linked

Whether on YouTube, Instagram or via AI chatbots, we are increasingly encountering information about health, vaccinations or nutrition on the internet. But how intensely do we engage with this scientific content? This is where researchers from Technische Universität Braunschweig, Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel come in. Their joint project “Harnessing Emotion: Enhancing Deliberative Engagement with Science on Social Media and through GenAI” is investigating how emotions influence our engagement with scientific information. The project is funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture (MWK) and the Volkswagen Foundation with around 466,000 euros.

In everyday life, we are often confronted with information on scientific topics without consciously searching for it: For example, we come across posts on social networks about healthy eating, vaccinations or disease prevention, or we ask AI chatbots like Chat-GPT. However, the fact that we find scientific information does not mean that we analyse it intensively and critically.

On the contrary, psychological research shows that people tend to process information superficially, especially when it appeals to their emotions – by arousing curiosity or focusing on a controversy. But there is also some evidence that emotions are not all bad when it comes to thinking about science. In fact, emotions can sometimes help us engage more deeply with a topic and deepen our knowledge about it. The project “Harnessing Emotion: Enhancing Deliberative Engagement with Science on Social Media and through GenAI” takes a fresh look at this issue, bringing together expertise from Israel and Lower Saxony.

Investigating emotional reactions

To better understand the links between emotions and information processing, the project will conduct a series of studies using different methods to investigate people’s emotional responses to scientific information. “We ask people to say out loud what they are feeling and thinking as they read health-related posts on social media. We also record their facial expressions to measure their emotions. The depth of information processing is made measurable through eye movements,” says Dr Friederike Hendriks, head of project at TU Braunschweig.

The aim of the project is not only to explain how emotions can influence the depth of engagement with scientific information that people encounter on social media or through AI chatbots. The scientists also want to develop a training programme that shows how an AI chatbot can be used as an information provider, but also as a supportive coach and partner in the critical evaluation of scientific information. In this way, the team hopes to encourage people to engage more effectively with health issues online.

Project data

The project “Harnessing Emotion: Enhancing Deliberative Engagement with Science on Social Media and through GenAI” is funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture (MWK) and the Volkswagen Foundation with 465,900 euros as part of the zukunft.niedersachsen programme. Of this, €199,300 will go to TU Braunschweig. Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel are also involved in the project.

In total, the MWK and the Volkswagen Foundation are providing four million euros in funding for eight outstanding research projects in the humanities and social sciences, which are being carried out jointly by scientists from universities and research institutions in Lower Saxony and Israel.