It all started with emotions: Namely, with us - the Affective Neuro Lab team - becoming increasingly annoyed that psychological research tends to gather dust in chaotic Dropbox folders or old school library archives rather than being presented in an exciting and vivid way to large groups of people. But instead of sitting around with a ‘grumpy cat’ face, we decided to create a day full of lively and breathtaking presentations, interesting posters and funny science slams.

Our very first Pscience Day took place on the 10th of June at the Center for Chemistry and Biomedicine (CCB) in Innsbruck. Starting with a keynote lecture on the value of non-instrumental information by our keynote Speaker, Prof. Stefan Bode, we celebrated psychological research with 12 talks, 23 poster presentations, and 5 contributions to the science slam.

Elisa Lancini won the poster presentation with her brilliant poster on a systematic review and meta-analysis of CSF and PET biomarkers for noradrenergic dysfunction in neurodegenerative disease. Hannah Strauß held a refreshing talk on the GEMS-INN: A novel databse of music excerpts profiled for nuanced emotional effects - and won first place in the Blitztalk session. The highlight of the day was the Science Slam. Anna Uhlmann and Stephanie Krämer took home the trophy with their fun presentation on the effect of meditation on emotion regulation.

We are proud to announce the winners of each category as follows:

Poster presentations:

(1) Elisa Lancini

(2) Corinna Eber

(3) Yeo-Jin Yi

(4) Maximilian Dick

(5) Jana Kesenheimer

Talks

(1) Hannah Strauß

(2) Mareike Ludwig

(3) Julia Vigl

(4) Benjamin Stampfer

(5) Lennart Seizer

Science Slam

(1) Anna Uhlmann & Stephanie Krämer

(2) Peer-Ole Jacobsen

(3) Mirna Hajric

(4) Sebastian Brauner

(5) Fouad Bou Zeineddine

Thanks to our generous sponsors, all winners received prizes such as a voucher for a trip to Nordkette, restaurant vouchers or special guest tickets for local bars.

To introduce people to psychological research in a fun and casual way, to let your inner entertainer out and make new contacts with interested researchers - this is science in action.

We are grateful for your support, whether you sponsored us or you joined the Pscience Day as a contributor or a guest. Last but not least, we would like to emphasize that Stefan came all the way from London (kindly supported by BritInn); big thank you for that.

What a great day.

Hope to see you all next year!