‘Advanced Technology Lets HSE University Make Discoveries of Worldwide Importance’

The first instalment of HSE University's Age-Mates features an interview with Oksana Zinchenko, Associate Professor of the School of Psychology at the Faculty of Social Sciences, HSE University. In her interview, she speaks about research at HSE, why young researchers choose HSE University, and who an ‘HSE Person’ is.

After graduating from Moscow State University with a degree in clinical psychology, you went on to pursue a doctoral degree at HSE University and defended your PhD thesis. What was your thesis about?

We studied the mechanism of maintaining social norms, both behavioural and neural. We tried to figure out which parts of the brain are key in order for a person to carry out third-party punishment. This is when an individual observes a violation of social norms without being directly harmed by said violation, but nevertheless wants to invest their time and resources into serving the cause of strengthening social norms. My research was aimed at understanding which parts of the brain are activated in this case and how. What happens if we make those parts of the brain even more active? Or suppress their activity? How would that change an individual’s behaviour? This would help us reconstruct the causal relations between brain activity and people’s behaviour.

We didn't try to focus our research on subjective experiences. We focused less on the emotional side of people’s decision making, and more on the neurobiological mechanisms.

What life situations usually make people behave this way?

We used situations that were close to laboratory experiments, rather than field cases, where people can observe direct violations of social norms or read descriptions of other people's offences. We analysed neuroeconomic paradigms, with participants involved in an economic game situation. Suppose one participant has to divide game points between himself and another participant. The person can do this in several different ways. For instance, they can divide equally, thus showing a tendency towards the norm of fairness and the norm of equality. Alternatively, they can break this norm and keep some or all of those points for themselves. Our subjects—witnesses whose budgets were not affected by the violations of the social norm—had to assess whether they were willing to sacrifice their own budget in order to fine the violator.

We also applied brain-imaging techniques to understand how the witness’ brains work in this situation.

Why did you decide to do your thesis at HSE University?

When I was choosing a university to continue my research as a post-graduate student, HSE University already had the Centre for Neuroeconomics and Cognitive Research, headed by Anna Shestakova. Vasily Klyucharev was working there at the time. I was familiar with his work, and I was interested in joining the Centre to transform and narrow down my previous research into decision making under uncertainty to the field of social decisions.

How did you cooperate with your colleagues?

At the beginning, we worked closely with both the Centre for Neuroeconomics and other departments. For example, we worked with colleagues from the International Laboratory for Experimental and Behavioural Economics led by Alexey Belyanin. We met and discussed designs and key hypotheses to base our experiments on. We did a lot of methodological work to get the project off the ground. But, of course, we were mutually interested in the topic. From the early stages, when the Centre for Neuroeconomics was founded, until now, when the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience was opened, there were several HSE laboratories and centres focusing on this field. These laboratories and centres later became part of the Institute. Moreover, we continue to equip the Institute with the most advanced technology. For example, we have some devices and instruments that are unique not just in Russia, but in the world.

Interest in cognitive social neurobiology emerged in the 1990s. It is a young field; the discipline was formed in the 1950s. Not long ago, it was not technically possible to create a separate discipline devoted to the neurobiological fundamentals of social decisions and let a whole laboratory study this area. Some questions were solved by social psychologists or sociologists. However, as time has gone on, our technical capabilities have expanded and we have gained more knowledge about how the brain works when making social decisions. Our task is to explain and partly predict how individuals behave in their communications with other groups and other people. I think the key to the wide expansion of research in social neurobiology has been the question of why a person’s behaviour depends entirely on whether they belong to a certain group or act on their own.

Your recent article focused on a meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. How does this relate to your main studies?

Meta-analysis is a specific method of data processing that allows us to do the following. Suppose 10–15 laboratories around the world study the same or a similar paradigm investigating the phenomenon we're interested in. Suppose these are the same social norms or social punishments. There is of course some variation in what attitudes and what interests the participants bring with them into the experiment and how these participants are additionally stimulated. There is also some variation as to whether specific modifications of the paradigm were used in specific cases, with the scientists paying attention to certain personality traits and measuring the level of altruism in the participants. There are some other cognitive parameters in addition to using the same or similar paradigm. As a result, the 10–15 laboratories present papers publish single data on a group study in an experiment, and based on that we get data on brain activity, how it works when a person is solving that particular task and making that particular social decision. However, because of the above-mentioned discrepancies in the way these studies were conducted in each of the laboratories, we cannot say with 100% certainty that at the level of simple generalization there is activity in this particular part of the brain. We can assume with some degree of probability that, yes, activity in this area is one of the most important in terms of making social decisions. While with meta-analysis, we can take the data that these laboratories have published, process it as an additional pool of data using the same techniques that are used to analyse single data, and develop a map showing which activity, with a level of certainty, statistical significance, and more stringent evaluation criteria, came to the foreground in each of these studies. And by doing so, we can get a better indication of which map of activity we can consider important and meaningful to explain a particular phenomenon.

You have been to many workshops in different countries. How do international approaches differ from Russian ones?

Some workshops dedicated to a group of data analysis methods lasted up to a week. This was the case in Finland. Several different forms of training were usually used there, which allowed us to get acquainted with a completely new topic, but from different perspectives. Even though the general topic was formulated as an attempt for us to start with the basics and work our way towards the practical application of a group of methods, the forms of training could be quite different. We listened to reports by renowned researchers who had actively used those methods. Some of the researchers actually created those methods. Group discussions and the small-group method were used to analyse articles and present them to a larger group in order to understand in detail how each method works—to teach others and teach yourself the additional information components related to that method. There were also game-based learning activities: how in a simple presentation—even reduced to a single sentence—we could explain, for example, the mechanism of the effect of magnetic stimulation on the human brain.

One of the winning presentations was as follows. Magnetic stimulation involves using protocols that inhibit the activity of some part of the brain. By temporarily turning off part of the brain, we can see how behaviour changes and draw conclusions based on that. The students took a large fitness ball and played out a scene. One person squatted down. A ball was thrown overhead, forcing the person to sink even lower. The person kicked the ball back and his partner threw it back at him so that he would always return to a lower position than in the conditional norm. That was a visual presentation of what we know about the TMS protocol for studying brain reactions and related behavioural changes. In my teaching practice, I try to combine different approaches. For example, I even try to combine students into different groups so that they can use each of their backgrounds, give their own examples and explanations, and ask additional questions. It works. When design students begin to notice how our visual perception works, what patterns there are, and this overlaps with how they were taught to work with the materials and develop some concepts, they gain certain insights. One of them being how to use such data in their main specialisation.

What is an ‘HSE University person’? What are they like, how are they different from others?

Speaking about researchers who work at the university, an HSE person is, in my opinion, a young researcher who gets to know the cutting-edge research of leading foreign laboratories and who actively uses the most advanced development methods in their research and academic practice.

Do you feel supported by HSE University as a community?

Yes. It was during my postgraduate studies at HSE University and my subsequent professional career that I managed to make friends with colleagues, some of whom did not even work in the same research group or on related projects. However, it was through the constant exchange of information—as part of research seminars, journal clubs, and discussions of their research and extracurricular issues—that I have managed to make these friendships, which I am very proud of.

How does HSE University’s infrastructure make it easier and more convenient for researchers to work here?

The HSE postgraduate school offers some really important programmes that encourage and support young researchers, allowing them to carry out and complete their research on time. There is an advanced doctoral programme. The students who study there are able to begin preparing materials that will form part of their theses from an earlier stage of their studies. This makes the teaching and research process more efficient. There is also the HSE Academic Fund Programme to encourage young researchers and young teachers. As for postgraduate studies, I would highlight the 'New Researchers' programme. The programme offers seminars and events that make it possible for students to collaborate with specialists from other fields and departments to carry out joint projects. Students can also benefit from financial support to help them focus on research for their theses.

What would you like to wish HSE University on its 30th anniversary?

I hope that HSE University continues to develop international collaborations and to support activities that allow it to interact with foreign scholars and invite them as guest professors and leading researchers in HSE laboratories. Additional administrative streamlining of the process would also help research activities to progress at a faster pace. Also, HSE University should develop more extensive communication links between postgraduate schools and places like the Academic Writing Centre. The Centre holds a large number of events devoted to better understanding the existing rules for preparing publications, explaining how to build scientific vocabulary for oral or written presentations of one’s research, and communicating with reviewers when working on a publication. This is a very large swath of information that young researchers might be familiar with, but which can only be completely understood with experience. However, it is easier to overcome these pitfalls at early stages with support from your peers. I think this would be very helpful and would give students a bigger advantage.