Tomomi Fujimura has joined CoPAN as a guest researcher!

The CoPAN laboratory welcomes visiting researcher Tomomi Fujimura, an associate professor from Doshisha University, who will, with support from a JSPS grant, join the lab for a collaborative project on emotional mimicry across cultures this spring.

Dr. Fujimura specializes in cognitive and psychophysiological approaches to social interaction. Her visit marks a continuation of growing academic exchange between Japan and the CoPAN lab. During her stay, Fujimura will lead a new electromyography (EMG) study investigating how people unconsciously mimic emotional expressions—such as smiling or sadness—when interacting with others. By recording subtle facial muscle activity, the project aims to compare patterns of emotional mimicry between Dutch and Japanese participants, shedding light on universal mechanisms and culturally specific dynamics of social communication. Emotional mimicry is often automatic, but it is also shaped by social norms. “By comparing responses across cultures, we can better understand how emotion expression and perception are tuned by context. And by joining the CoPAN lab, I hope to get deeper evolutionary insights”. The project will use high-resolution EMG to capture micro-level muscle activations that are not always visible to the naked eye.