Image of the lab logo with the text Motivation and Cognition Neuroscience Lab

Research at the University of Chicago

  1. Jadyn S. Park, Kruthi Gollapudi, Jin Ke, Matthias Nau, Ioannis Pappas & Yuan Chang Leong (2025). Emotional arousal enhances narrative memories through functional integration of large-scale brain networks. Nature Human Behaviour. Article |Preprint | Code
  2. Hongkai Mao, Yuan Chang Leong, Yutong Jiang, Alex Koch, William J. Brady & Joshua Conrad Jackson (submitted). Differentiation Drives the Erosion of Positivity on Social Media. PsyArXiv. Preprint | Code
  3. Hayoung Song, Qihong Lu, Tan T. Nguyen, Janice Chen, Yuan Chang Leong, Monica D. Rosenberg, ShiNung Ching & Jeffrey M Zacks (submitted). A neural network with episodic memory learns causal relationships between narrative events. bioRxiv. Preprint | Code
  4. Jin Ke, Taylor A. Chamberlain, Hayoung Song, Anna Corriveau, Ziwei Zhang, Taysha Martinez, Laura Sams, Marvin M. Chun, Yuan Chang Leong & Monica D. Rosenberg (submitted). Ongoing thoughts at rest reflect functional brain organization and behavior. bioRxiv. Preprint | Code
  5. Yizhou Lyu, Dennis Combs, Dawn Neumann & Yuan Chang Leong (submitted). Automated scoring of the Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire using fine-tuned large language models. arXiv. Preprint | Tutorial
  6. Qianyi He & Yuan Chang Leong. A Multimodal Seq2Seq Transformer for Predicting Brain Responses to Naturalistic Stimuli. arXiv Preprint | Code
  7. Curtis Puryear, William J. Brady, Joshua Conrad Jackson, Yuan Chang Leong & Nour Sami Kteily (submitted). Rising Moralization in Social Media Discourse. PsyArXiv. Preprint | Code
  8. Marine Yumeng Wang, Kristine Hocker, Alfred Chao, Xiaohan (Hannah) Guo, Amanda Seccia, Marc Berman, Susan Goldin-Meadow & Yuan Chang Leong (submitted). Gesture-based instruction enhances neural synchrony and predicts children’s mathematical learning. PsyArXiv. Preprint | Code
  9. Hayoung Song, Jin Ke, Rhea Madhogarhia, Yuan Chang Leong & Monica D. Rosenberg (submitted). Cortical reinstatement of causally related events sparks narrative insights by updating neural representation patterns. bioRxiv. Preprint
  10. Ren Calabro, Kannon Bhattacharyya, Wilma Bainbridge & Yuan Chang Leong (2025). Humans and convolutional neural networks prioritize similar visual features in intuitive physics judgments. Proceedings of the 47th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Article | PDF | Code
  11. Haena Kim, Ian C Ballard & Yuan Chang Leong (2025). A neurocomputational account of motivated seeing. Trends in Cognitive Science. Article
  12. Shan Gao, Ryleigh Nash, Shannon Burns & Yuan Chang Leong (2025). Predicting whole-brain neural dynamics from prefrontal cortex fNIRS signal during movie-watching. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Article | Preprint | Code
  13. Jean Decety & Yuan Chang Leong (2025). Social neuroscience. In Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske, Eli J. Finkel & Wendy B. Mendes (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (6th ed.). Situational Press. Article
  14. Jin Ke, Hayoung Song, Monica D. Rosenberg & Yuan Chang Leong (2025). Dynamic brain connectivity predicts emotional arousal during naturalistic movie-watching. PLOS Computational Biology. Article | Preprint | Code
  15. Haena Kim, Alicia Liu & Yuan Chang Leong (2025). Desirability biases perceptual decisions in the aversive domain. Emotion. Article | Preprint | Code
  16. Qiongwen Cao, Michael S. Cohen, Akram Bakkour, Yuan Chang Leong & Jean Decety (2025). Moral conviction interacts with metacognitive ability in modulating neural activity during sociopolitical decision-making. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience. Article | Preprint
  17. Begüm G. Babür, Yuan Chang Leong, Chelsey X. Pan & Leor M. Hackel (2024). Neural responses to social rejection reflect dissociable learning about relational value and reward. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Article
  18. Yizhou Lyu*, Zishan Su*, Dawn Neumann, Kimberly L. Meidenbauer & Yuan Chang Leong (2024). Hostile attribution bias shapes neural synchrony in the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex during ambiguous social narratives. Journal of Neuroscience. Article | Preprint | Code | SSD News
  19. Michael S. Cohen, Yuan Chang Leong, Keven Ruby, Robert A. Pape & Jean Decety (2024). Intersubject correlations in reward and mentalizing brain circuits separately predict persuasiveness of two types of ISIS video propaganda. Scientific Reports. Article | Code
  20. Nakwon Rim, Marc G. Berman & Yuan Chang Leong (2023). Moral consensus and divergence in partisan language use. arXiv:2310.09618. Preprint
  21. Ren Calabro, Yizhou Lyu, Yuan Chang Leong (2023). Trial-by-trial fluctuations in amygdala activity track motivational enhancement of desirable sensory evidence during perceptual decision-making. Cerebral Cortex. Article | Preprint | SI
  22. Jin Ke, Yuan Chang Leong (2022). A connectome-based predictive model of affective experience during naturalistic viewing. In Proceedings of the Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience. Article | PDF
  23. Rosa Rossi-Goldthorpe, Yuan Chang Leong, Pantelis Leptourgos, Philip Corlett (2021). Paranoia, self-deception and overconfidence. PLoS Computational Biology. Article | Code/Data
  24. Yuan Chang Leong, Roma Dziembaj, Mark D’Esposito (2021). Pupil-linked arousal biases evidence accumulation towards desirable percepts during perceptual decision-making. Psychological Science. Article | Preprint | SI | Code/Data 
  25. Samuel Nastase, Yun-Fei Liu, Hanna Hillman, Asieh Zadbood, Liat Hasenfratz, Neggin Keshavarzian, Janice Chen, Christopher J. Honey, Yaara Yeshurun, Mor Regev, Mai Nguyen, Claire H.C. Chang, Christopher Baldassano, Olga Lositsky, Erez Simony, Michael A. Chow, Yuan Chang Leong, Paula P. Brooks, Emily Micciche, Gina Choe, Ariel Goldstein, Tamara Vanderwal, Yaroslav O. Halchenko, Kenneth A. Norman, Uri Hasson (2021). The “Narratives” fMRI dataset for evaluating models of naturalistic language comprehension. Scientific Data. Article | Preprint

Research Prior to the University of Chicago

  1. Yuan Chang Leong, Janice Chen, Robb Willer, Jamil Zaki (2020). Conservative and liberal attitudes drive polarized neural responses to political content. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Article | Preprint | SI | Code/Data
  2. Yuan Chang Leong, Brent L Hughes, Yiyu Wang, Jamil Zaki (2019). Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying motivated seeing. Nature Human Behavior. Article | PDF | SI | Code/Data | Commentary
  3. Yuan Chang Leong, Jamil Zaki (2018). Unrealistic optimism in advice taking: A computational account. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Article | PDF | SI | Code/Data
  4. Sylvia Morelli*, Yuan Chang Leong*, Ryan Carlson, Monica Kullar, Jamil Zaki (2018). Neural detection of socially valued community members. Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences. Article | PDF | SI | Code/Data
  5. Yuan Chang Leong*, Angela Radulescu*, Reka Daniel, Vivian DeWoskin, Yael Niv (2017). Dynamic interaction between reinforcement learning and attention in multidimensional environments. Neuron. Article | PDF | SI | Commentary
  6. Asieh Zadbood, Janice Chen, Yuan Chang Leong, Kenneth A Norman, Uri Hasson (2017). How we transmit memories to other brains: Constructing shared neural representations via communication. Cerebral Cortex. Article | PDF
  7. Janice Chen*, Yuan Chang Leong*, Christopher J Honey, Chung H Yong, Kenneth A Norman, Uri Hasson (2017). Shared memories reveal shared structure in neural activity across individuals. Nature Neuroscience. Article | PDF | SI | Commentary
  8. Natalia Velez, Yuan Chang Leong, Chelsey Pan, Hyowon Gweon (2016). Learning and making novel predictions about others’ preferences. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. PDF
  9. Yael Niv, Reka Daniel, Andra Geana, Samuel J Gershman, Yuan Chang Leong, Angela Radulescu, Robert C Wilson (2015). Reinforcement learning in multidimensional environments relies on attention mechanisms. Journal of Neuroscience. Article | PDF | Commentary
  10. Yuan Chang Leong, Yael Niv (2013). Human reinforcement learning processes act on learned attentionally-filtered representations of the world. 1st Multidisciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making. PDF
  11. Philip Johnson-Laird, Olivia E Kang, Yuan Chang Leong (2012). On musical dissonance. Music Perception. Article | PDF