Dr Francesca Carbone

Francesca completed her PhD at the University of Naples "L'Orientale" where she studied the processing of emotions conveyed through prosody and semantics. Following this, Francesca took up a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Laboratoire Parole et Langage (CNRS, Aix-Marseille University) where she worked on two main projects: the first one investigating the physiological and aerodynamics mechanisms underlying speech production; the second one investigating how facial expressions of emotion mediate the perception of emotional prosody. Finally, she took a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Kent to work on a project investigating the cognitive effects of watching film in children and adults.  

Francesca has two main current research interests. The first is understanding the behavioural, cognitive, and psychophysiological effects of exposure to artistic media in both children and adults. The second is investigating the linguistic, cognitive, and social mechanisms underlying emotional communication across different age groups, with a particular focus on adolescents and adults. 

In the 2026/27 academic year, Dr Carbone is the module convenor for the Final Year Project modules PSYC6006/ PSYC6016/PSYC6026/PSYC6036 and PSYC6021. She supervises students on the BSc Final Year Project module (PSYC6006) and serves as an MSc dissertation supervisor.

She lectures on the BSc modules Brain and Cognition (PSYC5003), Advanced Developmental Psychology (PSYC6017) and The Science of Imagination (PSYC6014). She also lectures on the MSc module Understanding Children with Additional Needs (PSYC8540).

Current PhD supervision
Adam Simcox (2nd supervisor); Topic: emotional engagement with fictional narrative horror media.