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 academic year 2025/26, Dr Carbone is the module convenor for Understanding Children and Adolescents with Additional Needs (PSYC8540). She supervises students on BSc Final Year Project modules (PSYC6006 and PSYC6021) and is an MSc dissertation supervisor. She lectures on BSc modules in Advanced Developmental Psychology (PSYC6017) and Brain and Cognition (PSYC5003). 

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