2/11 We start with college students; a group that over-indexes on mental health challenges.
In the U.S., 37% report moderate-to-severe depression, 33% anxiety, and 58% loneliness.
They’re also heavy media users.
Depressed? Anxious? Lonely?
What if mental health doesn’t just result from media use, but shapes how we choose media?
In a new preprint, Valerie Klein, @gongxuanjun.bsky.social @aeden.bsky.social and I and I test this using a computational decision-making model: doi.org/10.21203/rs....
🧵Thread
Hi, I personally would be interested but I am not sure rule-wise. Our institution might have some strict rules over this. Would you send me a cv so that I can ask our staff?
Thank you, Richard!!!! :D
Stories that
I want to thank my excellent collaborators; this project is impossible without their tremendous and constructive inputs and guidance.
@aeden.bsky.social @fhopp.bsky.social @annawolfe.bsky.social @mattgrizz.bsky.social
Our project practices open science practices that the dataset and analytical codes are all available:
github.com/jasongong11/...
This project started with a puzzling question a few years ago: Why was the last season of Game of Thrones so bad? Our research offers a potential answer to this question: the loss of character focalization and breakdown of modular structure hinder audiences' engagement with the stories.
Our work supports the Graph Learning Theory, suggesting that people process and memorize the external environment (language, social actors, events) regulated by principles of graph theory.
Stories with an efficient structure and better at managing complexity in their organization of characters, events, and plots (closely connected characters, modular communities, and focalization on characters) tend to facilitate comprehension and engagement with the story, therefore.
Across two datasets, including more than 10,000 novels and 1,000 movie screenplays, we found that stories with a narrative network that has a lower average shortest path length, lower clustering, and higher modularity tend to be more successful (higher popularity and ratings).
Enjoying Stranger Things during the holiday season? Have you thought about why some stories are more successful than others? Our new preprint investigates this question by studying the character networks in the narratives:
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Cover for the book "Creating Communication and Media Research Labs: A Blueprint for Success". Edited by Chad Edwards, Autumn Edwards, and Patric R. Spence. Published by Palgrave Pivot.
🧵 What does it take to build a small, scrappy, and successful communication neuroscience lab? Our lab, @gongxuanjun.bsky.social, @rachaelkee.bsky.social, Allyson Snyder, Ziyu Zhao, and I put out heads together to answer this question. Here's what we came up with: link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...
🆕 New open neuroimaging dataset released!
I’m happy to share that our Naturalistic Neuroimaging Database (NNDb3T+) is now publicly available! NNDb3T+ captures rich, multimodal brain activity in a naturalistic setting with 40 participants and over 160 hours of scanning!
Our tenured positions in Journalism and Communication Science are still open. Please share widely!
We’re hiring! 🎓
Join us at Texas A&M Communication & Journalism as a tenured Associate Professor in communication interventions. Join us in building a vibrant Communication & Media Science Division!
🔗 apply.interfolio.com/173348
Congrats!!!! 🎉🎉🎉 Go Aggies!
After 22 years of school, I am now the kind of doctor that isn't particularly handy in a medical emergency - but will talk your ear off about kids and tech.
But really, a huge thank you to the family, friends, and teachers who nurtured and supported me along the way.
Next stop is Columbus Ohio!
Absolutely looks amazing! Hope I was there!
A digital-style conference schedule designed to look like a terminal window with a black background and green text. The heading reads “#ica25.” The main body of the image shows the lab’s conference presentations, and their date and location and time. Friday, June 13 12:00 – 1:15 PM • Mt. Blue Sky (Grand Convention Center 2) The Negativity Bias for News: A Computational Neuroimaging Investigation Authors: Jason Gong, Rachael Kee, Allyson Snyder, Ziyu Zhao, Ezgi Ulusoy, Elizabeth Riggs, Sophia Sarieva, Valerie Klein, Jason Coronel, Allison Eden, Amber Boydstun, Richard Huskey The Negativity Bias for News: A Value-Based Decision-Making Study Authors: Jason Gong, Ezgi Ulusoy, Elizabeth Riggs, Rachael Kee, Ziyu Zhao, Jason Coronel, Allison Eden, Amber Boydstun, Richard Huskey Sunday, June 15 3:00 – 4:15 PM • Mineral D (Regency 3) Individual Curiosity Modulates Structured and Directed Exploration in Sequential Book Selection Authors: Jason Gong, Richard Huskey, Cuihua Shen, Erie Boorman A green label to the right of the title reads “TOP PAPER.” In the bottom-right corner is a pixelated green logo for the Cognitive Communication Science Lab (CCS Lab), which features a stylized brain and the lab acronym. The design mimics terminal coding aesthetics.
Headed to #ica25? So are we! The CCS Lab is sharing 3 projects—including a Top Paper—on how we choose what to watch, read & click
We use computational modeling & neuroimaging to study how curiosity, value & emotion influence media choice
Talks by @rachaelkee.bsky.social & @gongxuanjun.bsky.social
Thanks for the promotion! 🎉🎉 Super excited to meet and talk with you at Davis!
Photo of speaker
Event extraction model of character interactions
Narrative network on Harry Potter
@gongxuanjun.bsky.social giving a wonderful talk on narrative impact & success (w @richardhuskey.bsky.social & @aeden.bsky.social) by using narrative structural models of networked characters & events to model popularity of a novel at #CommHorizons2025
"I think a good curiosity is a balanced curiosity," says @gongxuanjun.bsky.social.
I really appreciated that curiosity philosophy in our conversation about curiosity and media selection. (You're going to love his cats....)
Listen here: lynnborton.com/2025/04/17/p...
"This #evaluation system based on #curiosity is different from how people evaluate normal things,” says @gongxuanjun.bsky.social.
How we choose media to manage our moods, why sequence matters, & what draws us to that next book. Conundrum: explore or exploit?
lynnborton.com/2025/04/17/p...
Were it not for #academicsky #academicchatter, I might not have found @gongxuanjun.bsky.social.
Hurrah for facilitating the research-to-realworld pipeline & linking audio producers with people who expand our understanding of ourselves. Thanks, @bsky.app!
#curiosity #choosetobecurious
Thank you Lynn! Excited and looking forward!
I would like to thank my PhD advisor @richardhuskey.bsky.social, for his extraordinary guidance, support, and suggestions!
I also would like to thank my dissertation committee members Cuihua (Cindy) Shen and Erie Boorman for their suggestions, contributions and inputs.
Check our work and read our preprints! 😃
Happy reading!
4. Computational models (Gaussian regression model and Upper Confidence Bound Model) can predict future reading choices by readers’ previous reads and ratings.
5. People with high curiosity personality tend to make more exploratory reads and feel more enjoyable from exploratory reads.
2. Readers tend to read more and more similar and high rating books over time.
3. When readers explore unfamiliar books, they tend to choose books that are associated with high uncertainty (unpopular books or high variance in book ratings)
