Lennart Högman Assistant Professor

My teaching spans cognitive neuroscience, emotion research, perception, social psychology, and applied domains such as psychotherapy, elite performance, music, and art. Across these areas, I focus on how embodied, affective, and relational processes shape human experience, learning, and professional practice. A central theme in my teaching is the integration of neural mechanisms, psychological processes, and real-time interpersonal interaction. Rather than treating these levels separately, I aim to show how brain, body, and social context dynamically interact in shaping perception, emotion, and meaning-making.

In cognitive neuroscience and emotion research, I teach the neural foundations of affect regulation, social cognition, and perception, including predictive processing, plasticity, and multimodal integration. Students are encouraged to critically examine different methodological approaches—ranging from behavioral and self-report measures to physiological and multimodal interaction data—and to reflect on how empirical findings can be meaningfully interpreted within broader theoretical frameworks. I place particular emphasis on connecting laboratory findings to lived experience and professional contexts such as psychotherapy, education, and leadership.

My teaching in social psychology and interpersonal processes explores trust, alliance, mentalizing, authority, and relational dynamics in dyadic and group settings. Here, I integrate classical social psychological theory with contemporary interaction research, highlighting how relational phenomena emerge through embodied coordination and communicative practice. This perspective also informs my engagement with elite sport and performance psychology, where I examine executive functions, emotional regulation under stress, cognitive flexibility, and interpersonal dynamics in high-performance environments.

In addition, I draw on research in music and art to explore aesthetic perception, emotional expression, and embodied experience. These domains provide powerful illustrations of how affect, perception, and synchrony operate beyond explicit verbal communication and how shared experience can emerge through coordinated activity.

Overall, my pedagogical approach is research-driven and integrative. I aim to foster conceptual clarity, methodological awareness, and interdisciplinary thinking. Students are encouraged to move beyond static models toward a process-oriented understanding of human interaction, where cognition, emotion, and embodiment are understood as dynamically intertwined in real time.

I am presently working in several research projects:

(1) Stockholm University. - Let’s talk about non-verbal communication: Investigation of interpersonal psychotherapeutic interactions and their effect on treatment outcomes using AI and time series analysis.. Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation.

https://www.su.se/english/research/research-catalogue/research-projects/0/lets-talk-about-non-verbal-communication

https://maw.wallenberg.org/en/project/studies-non-verbal-communication-psychotherapy

(2) University of Oslo & Stockholm University. . The Nordic Psychotherapy Training Study (NORTRAS): Training better clinical psychologists – New methods based on machine learning, AI, and deliberate practice .

https://www.sv.uio.no/psi/english/research/projects/nortras/index.html

(3) KI and Stockholm University. Stockholm’s Project for Forensic Psychiatry (SPRÄTT)

https://www.su.se/english/research/research-catalogue/research-projects/3/stockholms-project-for-forensic-psychiatry-spratt

Peer–reviewed journalartiklar (senaste åren)

• Döllinger, L., Letellier, I., Högman, L., Laukka, P., Fischer, H., & Hau, S. (2023). Trainee psychotherapists’ emotion recognition accuracy during 1.5 years of psychotherapy education compared to a control group: No improvement after psychotherapy training. PeerJ, 11, e16235.
• Döllinger, L., Högman, L., Laukka, P., Fischer, H., & Hau, S. (2023). Trainee psychotherapists’ emotion recognition accuracy improves after training: Emotion recognition training as a tool for psychotherapy education. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1188634.
• Gerhardsson, A., Högman, L., & Fischer, H. (2015). Viewing distance matters to perceived intensity of facial expressions. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, Article 1499.
• Högman, L., Gavalova, G., Laukka, P., Kristiansson, M., Källman, M. V., Fischer, H., & Johansson, A. G. M. (2023). Cognition, prior aggression, and psychopathic traits in relation to impaired multimodal emotion recognition in psychotic spectrum disorders. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, 1111896.
• Högman, L., Kristiansson, M., Fischer, H., & Johansson, A. G. (2020). Impaired facial emotion perception of briefly presented double masked stimuli in violent offenders with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Schizophrenia Research: Cognition, 19, 100163.
• Johansson, A. G. M., Källman, M., Högman, L., Kristiansson, M., Fischer, H., & Bölte, S. (2020). Psychotically driven aggression is associated with greater mentalizing challenges in psychotic spectrum disorders. BMC Psychiatry, 20, Article 396.
• Lundgren, T., Högman, L., Näslund, M., & Parling, T. (2016). Preliminary investigation of executive functions in elite ice hockey players. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 10(1), 1–14

Artistic Research

Wessel, G., Högman, L., Klarén, U., & Lindhé, R. (2008). Slutrapport: Visuella världar 2: 2003–2008 (Report). Konstfack. https://konstfack.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A399802&dswid=3137

Preprint

Samuels, T. J., Rugolon, F., Hau, S., & Högman, L. (2025). Deception detection in dyadic exchanges using multimodal machine learning: A study on a Swedish cohort. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.21429Conference / övrigt researcherade rapporter

Döllinger, L., Högman, L., Bänziger, T., Laukka, P., & Fischer, H. (2019). The effectiveness of a dynamic multimodal emotion recognition accuracy training program. Conference paper.

Döllinger, L., Högman, L., Spejare, A., Manzouri, A., & Hau, S. (2019). Effectively training emotion recognition accuracy: The evaluation of two systematic training programs. Conference paper.