Patricia Christian

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Social Perception Lab at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet. My academic background combines cognitive neuroscience and clinical psychology. During my PhD in Systemic Neurosciences at LMU Munich, I investigated the neural mechanisms underlying social decision-making, metacognition, and social cognition, while also working in clinical research and training as a psychotherapist.

My research combines experimental neuroscience and clinical perspectives to better understand how the brain supports social cognition. To address these questions, I use a range of methods including EEG, fMRI, eye-tracking, non-invasive brain stimulation, and clinical research approaches.

My research focuses on the cognitive and neural processes involved in perceiving and interpreting subtle social cues. In everyday interactions, we are constantly exposed to dynamic social signals—such as gaze direction, facial expressions, and body posture—that shape how we understand others' mental states, a process known as mentalizing. I am particularly interested in more implicit, automatic, and spontaneous forms of mentalizing—processes that often occur outside of conscious awareness but play a critical role in supporting efficient social understanding and interaction.

My work aims to identify the neurocognitive processes and brain regions that underlie our ability to construct others’ attention and their mental states efficiently. In addition, I investigate how these mechanisms contribute not only to representing others' mental states but also to our capacity to monitor our understanding of the world, commonly referred to as metacognition. A further goal of my research is to understand how these processes may be altered in neuropsychiatric conditions, such as autism and social anxiety disorder, that are characterized by difficulties in interpreting social cues and constructing representations of others’ attention and intentions. 

I have been involved in teaching and supervision since 2019, including during my PhD at LMU Munich and since 2023 at Karolinska Institutet. I have supervised Bachelor’s and Master’s students, and two Bachelor’s theses I supervised received the John-Aurell Prize for Best Bachelor’s Thesis in 2024 at KI. Since 2025, I co-supervised PhD students.

My teaching experience includes lectures and courses in biological psychology, cognitive neuroscience and clinical psychology.

In addition, since 2021, I have contributed to interdisciplinary teaching outside Karolinska Institutet, including giving workshops on the psychology of climate communication for both academic and industry audiences, being part of a network for climate communication.