Eric Anderson, PhD

Faculty Scientist I

Research Interests

  • Affective science in health care
  • Perception and decision-making
  • Psychophysiology

Dr. Anderson is an experimental psychologist at CIPHR. He completed a PhD in psychology at Northeastern University with a focus on affective science. He then completed a postdoc at Tufts University at the Center for Applied Brain and Cognitive Science.

Dr. Anderson’s previous research focused on how affective beliefs influence perception. He is currently interested in understanding how affect and emotions influence perception, decisions, and behavior in health relevant contexts. In particular, what are the emotional dynamics people experience when faced with serious illness and death? How do emotions in this context influence their health care decisions and overall wellbeing? Dr. Anderson’s other interdisciplinary collaborations include studying whether therapy dogs reduce physiological distress, perception in anxiety disorders, and the affective impact of urban design. In addition to traditional laboratory methods, he uses wearable sensors to measure physiological responses outside the laboratory. He is an advocate of open, reproducible science.

More details available at: https://ericmranderson.wordpress.com

Anderson, E. C., Wormwood, J., Feldman, L., & Quigley, K. S. (2019). Vegetarians ’ and omnivores ’ affective and physiological responses to images of food. Food Quality and Preference, 71, 96–105.

Strout, T. D., Hillen, M., Gutheil, C., Anderson, E., Hutchinson, R., Ward, H., … Han, P. K. J. (2018). Tolerance of uncertainty: A systematic review of health and healthcare-related outcomes. Patient Education and Counseling, 101(9), 1518–1537.

Anderson, E. C., & Barrett, L. F. (2016). Affective beliefs influence the experience of eating meat. PLoS ONE, 11(8), 1–16.

Anderson, E. C., Dryman, M., Worthington, J., Hoge, E., Fischer, L. E., Pollack, M., … Simon, N. M. (2013). Smiles may go unseen in generalized social anxiety disorder: Evidence from binocular rivalry for reduced visual consciousness of positive facial expressions. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 27, 619–626.

Anderson, E. C., Siegel, E. H., White, D., & Barrett, L. F. (2012). Out of sight but not out of mind: Unseen affective faces influence evaluations and social impressions. Emotion, 12(6), 1210–1221.

Anderson, E. C., Siegel, E. H., & Barrett, L. F. (2011). What you feel influences what you see: The role of affective feelings in resolving binocular rivalry. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(4), 856–860.

Anderson, E. C., Siegel, E. H., Bliss-Moreau, E., & Barrett, L. F. (2011). The visual impact of gossip. Science, 332(6036), 1446–1448.