@article{KirschKitzmannKunde2021, author = {Kirsch, Wladimir and Kitzmann, Tim and Kunde, Wilfried}, title = {Action affects perception through modulation of attention}, series = {Attention, Perception \& Psychophysics}, volume = {83}, journal = {Attention, Perception \& Psychophysics}, number = {5}, issn = {1943-393X}, doi = {10.3758/s13414-021-02277-2}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-273176}, pages = {2320-2330}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The present study explored the origin of perceptual changes repeatedly observed in the context of actions. In Experiment 1, participants tried to hit a circular target with a stylus movement under restricted feedback conditions. We measured the perception of target size during action planning and observed larger estimates for larger movement distances. In Experiment 2, we then tested the hypothesis that this action specific influence on perception is due to changes in the allocation of spatial attention. For this purpose, we replaced the hitting task by conditions of focused and distributed attention and measured the perception of the former target stimulus. The results revealed changes in the perceived stimulus size very similar to those observed in Experiment 1. These results indicate that action's effects on perception root in changes of spatial attention.}, language = {en} } @article{AndreattaPauli2015, author = {Andreatta, Marta and Pauli, Paul}, title = {Appetitive vs. aversive conditioning in humans}, series = {Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience}, volume = {9}, journal = {Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience}, number = {128}, doi = {10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00128}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-148614}, year = {2015}, abstract = {In classical conditioning, an initially neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus, CS) becomes associated with a biologically salient event (unconditioned stimulus, US), which might be pain (aversive conditioning) or food (appetitive conditioning). After a few associations, the CS is able to initiate either defensive or consummatory responses, respectively. Contrary to aversive conditioning, appetitive conditioning is rarely investigated in humans, although its importance for normal and pathological behaviors (e.g., obesity, addiction) is undeniable. The present study intents to translate animal findings on appetitive conditioning to humans using food as an US. Thirty-three participants were investigated between 8 and 10 am without breakfast in order to assure that they felt hungry. During two acquisition phases, one geometrical shape (avCS+) predicted an aversive US (painful electric shock), another shape (appCS+) predicted an appetitive US (chocolate or salty pretzel according to the participants' preference), and a third shape (CS) predicted neither US. In a extinction phase, these three shapes plus a novel shape (NEW) were presented again without US delivery. Valence and arousal ratings as well as startle and skin conductance (SCR) responses were collected as learning indices. We found successful aversive and appetitive conditioning. On the one hand, the avCS+ was rated as more negative and more arousing than the CS and induced startle potentiation and enhanced SCR. On the other hand, the appCS+ was rated more positive than the CS and induced startle attenuation and larger SCR. In summary, we successfully confirmed animal findings in (hungry) humans by demonstrating appetitive learning and normal aversive learning.}, language = {en} } @article{TopolinskiStrack2015, author = {Topolinski, Sascha and Strack, Fritz}, title = {Corrugator activity confirms immediate negative affect in surprise}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {6}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, number = {134}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00134}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-144068}, year = {2015}, abstract = {The emotion of surprise entails a complex of immediate responses, such as cognitive interruption, attention allocation to, and more systematic processing of the surprising stimulus. All these processes serve the ultimate function to increase processing depth and thus cognitively master the surprising stimulus. The present account introduces phasic negative affect as the underlying mechanism responsible for this switch in operating mode. Surprising stimuli are schema discrepant and thus entail cognitive disfluency, which elicits immediate negative affect. This affect in turn works like a phasic cognitive tuning switching the current processing mode from more automatic and heuristic to more systematic and reflective processing. Directly testing the initial elicitation of negative affect by surprising events, the present experiment presented high and low surprising neutral trivia statements to N = 28 participants while assessing their spontaneous facial expressions via facial electromyography. High compared to low surprising trivia elicited higher corrugator activity, indicative of negative affect and mental effort, while leaving zygomaticus (positive affect) and frontalis (cultural surprise expression) activity unaffected. Future research shall investigate the mediating role of negative affect in eliciting surprise-related outcomes.}, language = {en} } @unpublished{BrychHaendel2020, author = {Brych, Mareike and H{\"a}ndel, Barbara}, title = {Disentangling top-down and bottom-up influences on blinks in the visual and auditory domain}, series = {International Journal of Psychophysiology}, journal = {International Journal of Psychophysiology}, issn = {1872-7697}, doi = {10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2020.11.002}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-246590}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Sensory input as well as cognitive factors can drive the modulation of blinking. Our aim was to dissociate sensory driven bottom-up from cognitive top-down influences on blinking behavior and compare these influences between the auditory and the visual domain. Using an oddball paradigm, we found a significant pre-stimulus decrease in blink probability for visual input compared to auditory input. Sensory input further led to an early post-stimulus blink increase in both modalities if a task demanded attention to the input. Only visual input caused a pronounced early increase without a task. In case of a target or the omission of a stimulus (as compared to standard input), an additional late increase in blink rate was found in the auditory and visual domain. This suggests that blink modulation must be based on the interpretation of the input, but does not need any sensory input at all to occur. Our results show a complex modulation of blinking based on top-down factors such as prediction and attention in addition to sensory-based influences. The magnitude of the modulation is mainly influenced by general attentional demands, while the latency of this modulation allows to dissociate general from specific top-down influences that are independent of the sensory domain.}, language = {en} } @article{SchwarzWeller2023, author = {Schwarz, Katharina A. and Weller, Lisa}, title = {Distracted to a fault: attention, actions, and time perception}, series = {Attention, Perception, \& Psychophysics}, volume = {85}, journal = {Attention, Perception, \& Psychophysics}, number = {2}, doi = {10.3758/s13414-022-02632-x}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-324936}, pages = {301-314}, year = {2023}, abstract = {In the last years, it has become general consensus that actions change our time perception. Performing an action to elicit a specific event seems to lead to a systematic underestimation of the interval between action and effect, a phenomenon termed temporal (or previously intentional) binding. Temporal binding has been closely associated with sense of agency, our perceived control over our actions and our environment, and because of its robust behavioral effects has indeed been widely utilized as an implicit correlate of sense of agency. The most robust and clear temporal binding effects are typically found via Libet clock paradigms. In the present study, we investigate a crucial methodological confound in these paradigms that provides an alternative explanation for temporal binding effects: a redirection of attentional resources in two-event sequences (as in classical operant conditions) versus singular events (as in classical baseline conditions). Our results indicate that binding effects in Libet clock paradigms may be based to a large degree on such attentional processes, irrespective of intention or action-effect sequences. Thus, these findings challenge many of the previously drawn conclusions and interpretations with regard to actions and time perception.}, language = {en} } @article{HoltfrerichSchwarzSprengeretal.2016, author = {Holtfrerich, Sarah K. C. and Schwarz, Katharina A. and Sprenger, Christian and Reimers, Luise and Diekhof, Esther K.}, title = {Endogenous Testosterone and Exogenous Oxytocin Modulate Attentional Processing of Infant Faces}, series = {PLoS ONE}, volume = {11}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, number = {11}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0166617}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-166783}, pages = {e0166617}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Evidence indicates that hormones modulate the intensity of maternal care. Oxytocin is known for its positive influence on maternal behavior and its important role for childbirth. In contrast, testosterone promotes egocentric choices and reduces empathy. Further, testosterone decreases during parenthood which could be an adaptation to increased parental investment. The present study investigated the interaction between testosterone and oxytocin in attentional control and their influence on attention to baby schema in women. Higher endogenous testosterone was expected to decrease selective attention to child portraits in a face-in-the-crowd-paradigm, while oxytocin was expected to counteract this effect. As predicted, women with higher salivary testosterone were slower in orienting attention to infant targets in the context of adult distractors. Interestingly, reaction times to infant and adult stimuli decreased after oxytocin administration, but only in women with high endogenous testosterone. These results suggest that oxytocin may counteract the adverse effects of testosterone on a central aspect of social behavior and maternal caretaking.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Gerdes2008, author = {Gerdes, Antje B. M.}, title = {Preferential Processing of Phobic Cues : Attention and Perception in Spider Phobic Patients}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-28684}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2008}, abstract = {Cognitive views of the psychopathology of anxiety propose that attentional biases toward threatening information play a substantial role in the disorders' etiology and maintenance. For healthy subjects, converging evidence show that threatening stimuli attract attention and lead to enhanced activation in visual processing areas. It is assumed that this preferential processing of threat occurs at a preattentive level and is followed by fast attentional engagement. High-anxious individuals show augmented tendencies to selectively attend toward fear-relevant cues (Mathews, 1990) and exhibit elevated neural processing of threatening cues compared to non-anxious individuals (Dilger et al., 2003). Regarding attentional biases in high-anxious subjects, it remains unanswered up to now whether initial engagement of attention toward threat or difficulties to disengage from threat is an underlying mechanism. Furthermore, little is known whether the preferential (attentive) processing of threatening cues does influence perceptional outcomes of anxious subjects. In order to directly study separate components of attentional bias the first study of this dissertation was a combined reaction time and eye-tracking experiment. Twenty one spider phobic patients and 21 control participants were instructed to search for a neutral target while ignoring task-irrelevant abrupt-onset distractor circles which contained either a small picture of a spider (phobic), a flower (non-phobic, but similar to spiders in shape), a mushroom (non-phobic, and not similar to spiders in shape), or small circles with no picture. As expected, patients' reaction times to targets were longer on trials with spider distractors. However, analyses of eye movements revealed that this was not due to attentional capture by spider distractors; patients more often fixated on all distractors with pictures. Instead, reaction times were delayed by longer fixation durations on spider distractors. This result does not support automatic capture of attention by phobic cues but suggests that phobic patients fail to disengage attention from spiders. To assess whether preferential processing of phobic cues differentially affects visual perception in phobic patients compared to healthy controls, the second study of this dissertation used a binocular rivalry paradigm, where two incompatible pictures were presented to each eye. These pictures cannot be merged to a meaningful percept and temporarily, one picture predominates in conscious perception whereas the other is suppressed. 23 spider phobic patients and 20 non-anxious control participants were shown standardized pictures of spiders or flowers, each paired with a neutral pattern under conditions of binocular rivalry. Their task was to continuously indicate the predominant percept by key presses. Analyses show that spider phobic patients perceived the spider picture more often and longer as dominant compared to non-anxious control participants. Thus, predominance of phobic cues in binocular rivalry provides evidence that preferential processing of fear-relevant cues in the visual system actually leads to superior perception. In combination both studies support the notion that phobic patients process phobic cues preferentially within the visual system resulting in enhanced attention and perception. At early stages of visual processing, this is mainly reflected by delayed attentional disengagement and across time, preferential processing leads to improved perception of threat cues.}, subject = {Phobie}, language = {en} } @article{RitzEnlowSchulzetal.2012, author = {Ritz, Thomas and Enlow, Michelle Bosquet and Schulz, Stefan M. and Kitts, Robert and Staudenmayer, John and Wright, Rosalind J.}, title = {Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia as an Index of Vagal Activity during Stress in Infants: Respiratory Influences and Their Control}, series = {PLoS One}, volume = {7}, journal = {PLoS One}, number = {12}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0052729}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-135396}, pages = {e52729}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is related to cardiac vagal outflow and the respiratory pattern. Prior infant studies have not systematically examined respiration rate and tidal volume influences on infant RSA or the extent to which infants' breathing is too fast to extract a valid RSA. We therefore monitored cardiac activity, respiration, and physical activity in 23 six-month old infants during a standardized laboratory stressor protocol. On average, 12.6\% (range 0-58.2\%) of analyzed breaths were too short for RSA extraction. Higher respiration rate was associated with lower RSA amplitude in most infants, and lower tidal volume was associated with lower RSA amplitude in some infants. RSA amplitude corrected for respiration rate and tidal volume influences showed theoretically expected strong reductions during stress, whereas performance of uncorrected RSA was less consistent. We conclude that stress-induced changes of peak-valley RSA and effects of variations in breathing patterns on RSA can be determined for a representative percentage of infant breaths. As expected, breathing substantially affects infant RSA and needs to be considered in studies of infant psychophysiology.}, language = {en} } @article{ErlbeckKueblerKotchoubeyetal.2014, author = {Erlbeck, Helena and K{\"u}bler, Andrea and Kotchoubey, Boris and Veser, Sandra}, title = {Task instructions modulate the attentional mode affecting the auditory MMN and the semantic N400}, series = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, volume = {8}, journal = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, number = {654}, doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2014.00654}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-115553}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been proven to be a useful tool to complement clinical assessment and to detect residual cognitive functions in patients with disorders of consciousness. These ERPs are of ten recorded using passive or unspecific instructions. Patient data obtained this way are then compared to data from healthy participants, which are usually recorded using active instructions. The present study investigates the effect of attentive modulations and particularly the effect of activevs. passive instruction on the ERP components mismatch negativity (MMN) and N400. A sample of 18 healthy participants listened to three auditory paradigms: anoddball, aword priming, and a sentence paradigm. Each paradigm was presented three times with different instructions: ignoring auditory stimuli, passive listening, and focused attention on the auditory stimuli. After each task, the participants indicated their subjective effort. The N400 decreased from the focused task to the passive task, and was extinct in the ignore task. The MMN exhibited higher amplitudes in the focused and passive task compared to the ignore task. The data indicate an effect of attention on the supratemporal component of the MMN. Subjective effort was equally high in the passive and focused tasks but reduced in the ignore task. We conclude that passive listening during EEG recording is stressful and attenuates ERPs, which renders the interpretation of the results obtained in such conditions difficult.}, language = {en} } @article{GressmannJanczyk2016, author = {Gressmann, Marcel and Janczyk, Markus}, title = {The (Un)Clear Effects of Invalid Retro-Cues}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {7}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, number = {244}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00244}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165296}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Studies with the retro-cue paradigm have shown that validly cueing objects in visual working memory long after encoding can still benefit performance on subsequent change detection tasks. With regard to the effects of invalid cues, the literature is less clear. Some studies reported costs, others did not. We here revisit two recent studies that made interesting suggestions concerning invalid retro-cues: One study suggested that costs only occur for larger set sizes, and another study suggested that inclusion of invalid retro-cues diminishes the retro-cue benefit. New data from one experiment and a reanalysis of published data are provided to address these conclusions. The new data clearly show costs (and benefits) that were independent of set size, and the reanalysis suggests no influence of the inclusion of invalid retro-cues on the retro-cue benefit. Thus, previous interpretations may be taken with some caution at present.}, language = {en} }