@article{BoecklerRennertRaettig2021, author = {B{\"o}ckler, Anne and Rennert, Annika and Raettig, Tim}, title = {Stranger, Lover, Friend?}, series = {Social Psychology}, volume = {52}, journal = {Social Psychology}, number = {3}, issn = {1864-9335}, doi = {10.1027/1864-9335/a000446}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-238721}, pages = {173-184}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Social exclusion, even from minimal game-based interactions, induces negative consequences. We investigated whether the nature of the relationship with the excluder modulates the effects of ostracism. Participants played a virtual ball-tossing game with a stranger and a friend (friend condition) or a stranger and their romantic partner (partner condition) while being fully included, fully excluded, excluded only by the stranger, or excluded only by their close other. Replicating previous findings, full exclusion impaired participants' basic-need satisfaction and relationship evaluation most severely. While the degree of exclusion mattered, the relationship to the excluder did not: Classic null hypothesis testing and Bayesian statistics showed no modulation of ostracism effects depending on whether participants were excluded by a stranger, a friend, or their partner.}, language = {en} } @article{WittkowskiScheuchenpflug2021, author = {Wittkowski, Joachim and Scheuchenpflug, Rainer}, title = {Evidence on the Conceptual Distinctness of Normal Grief From Depression}, series = {European Journal of Health Psychology}, volume = {28}, journal = {European Journal of Health Psychology}, number = {3}, issn = {2512-8442}, doi = {10.1027/2512-8442/a000077}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-236531}, pages = {101-110}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Background: The distinctness of grief from depression has been the subject of a long scholarly debate, even influencing definitions of diagnostic criteria. Aims: This study aims at clarifying the issue by a multifaceted analysis of data from a large German sample. Method: A community sample of 406 bereaved persons answered the Wuerzburg Grief Inventory (WGI), a multidimensional grief questionnaire designed to measure normal grief in the German language, and the General Depression Scale - Short Version (GDS-S), a self-report depression scale. Data were analyzed by factor analysis to identify structural (dis-)similarities of the constructs, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to identify the influence of the factors relationship to the deceased, type of death, and time since loss on grief measures and depression scores. Results: Factor analysis clustered items referring to grief-related impairments and depression into one factor, items referring to other dimensions of grief on separate factors, however. Relationship to the deceased influenced the grief measures impairments and nearness to the deceased, but not depression scores if controlled for impairments. Type of death showed specific effects on grief scores, but not on depression scores. Time since loss influenced grief scores, but not depression scores. Limitations: The analysis is based on a self-selected community sample of grieving persons, self-report measures, and in part, on cross-sectional data. Conclusion: Factor analysis and objective data show a clear distinction of dimensions of grief and depression. The human experience of grief contains a sense of nearness to the lost person, feelings of guilt, and positive aspects of the loss experience in addition to components resembling depression.}, language = {en} } @article{WannagatWaizeneggerNiedling2021, author = {Wannagat, Wienke and Waizenegger, Gesine and Niedling, Gerhild}, title = {Coherence formation during narrative text processing: a comparison between auditory and audiovisual text presentation in 9- to 12-year-old children}, series = {Cognitive Processing}, volume = {22}, journal = {Cognitive Processing}, issn = {1612-4782}, doi = {10.1007/s10339-020-01008-z}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-235744}, pages = {299-310}, year = {2021}, abstract = {In an experiment with 114 children aged 9-12 years, we compared the ability to establish local and global coherence of narrative texts between auditory and audiovisual (auditory text and pictures) presentation. The participants listened to a series of short narrative texts, in each of which a protagonist pursued a goal. Following each text, we collected the response time to a query word that was either associated with a near or a distant causal antecedent of the final sentence. Analysis of these response times indicated that audiovisual presentation has advantages over auditory presentation for accessing information relevant for establishing both local and global coherence, but there are indications that this effect may be slightly more pronounced for global coherence.}, language = {en} } @article{CaoChenHaendel2020, author = {Cao, Liyu and Chen, Xinyu and Haendel, Barbara F.}, title = {Overground Walking Decreases Alpha Activity and Entrains Eye Movements in Humans}, series = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, volume = {14}, journal = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, issn = {1662-5161}, doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2020.561755}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-219872}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Experiments in animal models have shown that running increases neuronal activity in early visual areas in light as well as in darkness. This suggests that visual processing is influenced by locomotion independent of visual input. Combining mobile electroencephalography, motion- and eye-tracking, we investigated the influence of overground free walking on cortical alpha activity (~10 Hz) and eye movements in healthy humans. Alpha activity has been considered a valuable marker of inhibition of sensory processing and shown to negatively correlate with neuronal firing rates. We found that walking led to a decrease in alpha activity over occipital cortex compared to standing. This decrease was present during walking in darkness as well as during light. Importantly, eye movements could not explain the change in alpha activity. Nevertheless, we found that walking and eye related movements were linked. While the blink rate increased with increasing walking speed independent of light or darkness, saccade rate was only significantly linked to walking speed in the light. Pupil size, on the other hand, was larger during darkness than during light, but only showed a modulation by walking in darkness. Analyzing the effect of walking with respect to the stride cycle, we further found that blinks and saccades preferentially occurred during the double support phase of walking. Alpha power, as shown previously, was lower during the swing phase than during the double support phase. We however could exclude the possibility that the alpha modulation was introduced by a walking movement induced change in electrode impedance. Overall, our work indicates that the human visual system is influenced by the current locomotion state of the body. This influence affects eye movement pattern as well as neuronal activity in sensory areas and might form part of an implicit strategy to optimally extract sensory information during locomotion.}, language = {en} } @article{WertgenRichter2020, author = {Wertgen, Andreas G. and Richter, Tobias}, title = {Source credibility modulates the validation of implausible information}, series = {Memory \& Cognition}, volume = {48}, journal = {Memory \& Cognition}, issn = {0090-502X}, doi = {10.3758/s13421-020-01067-9}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-234825}, pages = {1359-1375}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Validation of text information as a general mechanism for detecting inconsistent or false information is an integral part of text comprehension. This study examined how the credibility of the information source affects validation processes. Two experiments investigated combined effects of source credibility and plausibility of information during validation with explicit (ratings) and implicit (reading times) measurements. Participants read short stories with a high-credible versus low-credible person that stated a consistent or inconsistent assertion with general world knowledge. Ratings of plausibility and ratings of source credibility were lower when a credible source stated a world-knowledge inconsistent assertion compared with a low-credible source. Reading times on target sentences and on spillover sentences were slower when a credible source stated an assertion inconsistent with world knowledge compared with a low-credible source, suggesting that source information modulated the validation of implausible information. These results show that source credibility modulates validation and suggest a bidirectional relationship of perceived plausibility and source credibility in the reading process.}, language = {en} } @article{GesellNiklasSchmiedeleretal.2020, author = {Gesell, Nathalie and Niklas, Frank and Schmiedeler, Sandra and Segerer, Robin}, title = {Mindfulness and romantic relationship outcomes: the mediating role of conflict resolution styles and closeness}, series = {Mindfulness}, volume = {11}, journal = {Mindfulness}, issn = {1868-8527}, doi = {10.1007/s12671-020-01449-9}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-235080}, pages = {2314-2324}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Objectives The association of mindfulness and romantic relationship outcomes such as partnership quality and satisfaction is well-established; however, the mechanisms of action are not yet clear. The current study tested conflict resolution styles and closeness as possible mediating factors. We hypothesized that trait mindfulness would increase the use of constructive conflict resolution styles (positive problem solving), decrease the use of destructive styles (conflict engagement, withdrawal, and compliance), and promote feelings of closeness between partners, which in turn would predict positive relationship outcomes (namely partnership quality, partnership satisfaction, and sexual satisfaction). Methods A total of 209 individuals (86\% German, 76\% female, mean age = 32 years) living in a relationship (31\% married) participated in an online questionnaire. Results Mediation analyses revealed that positive problem solving mediated the association between mindfulness and partnership quality with b = .09 (95\% CI = .03-.17), mindfulness and partnership satisfaction with b = .07 (95\% CI = .02-.13), and mindfulness and sexual satisfaction with b = .04 (95\% CI = .00-.10). Furthermore, a mediating role of withdrawal and closeness was shown for individual relationship outcomes. Conclusions Findings suggest that more positive problem solving, less withdrawal, and more closeness are mechanisms by which mindfulness is associated with positive relationship outcomes. The results of our study thus broaden our understanding of the processes that underlie fulfilling romantic relationships and, in turn, underline the positive effects of mindfulness.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Rinn2023, author = {Rinn, Robin}, title = {The Subjective Construction of Wealth and the Perception of Wealthy People. The Role of the Social Sample, Social Comparisons, and Mental Representations}, doi = {10.25972/OPUS-32789}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-327894}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Although the concept of wealth is a topic that ancient philosophers have dealt with, relatively little attention is paid to it in psychology. This work sheds light on cognitive processes on how individuals derive a judgment about whether someone is rich and whether certain cues serve as subjective indicators of wealth. Based on three chapters that describe K = 11 observational and experimental studies (N = 2,315), three research questions shall be answered: First, to what extent do individuals differ when defining wealth? Secondly, are there universal cues of wealth that individuals use to identify rich people? And if yes, in what sense do these cues depend on the situation or context? Furthermore, it will be asked whether there are situational boundaries under which those cues do not apply. The present research shows that individuals differ in defining wealth and that they take their personal life circumstances and situational cues into account to define wealth. Moreover, evidence for a coherent wealth cue model was found that describes cues that are used by individuals to identify the rich (i.e., particularly wealthy people), whereby the validity of these cues depends on several contextual (e.g., cultural) factors. Lastly, it was found that by isolating individual wealth cues and looking at core mental representations of these cues, they may not be perceived as indicative for rich people anymore. The conclusions reported here set a foundation for further research on the perceptions of wealth which may be particularly relevant for the political discourse}, subject = {Milieu}, language = {en} } @article{TeichmuellerBastRittneretal.2022, author = {Teichm{\"u}ller, K. and Bast, L. and Rittner, H. L. and Kindl, G.}, title = {Chronische Schmerzen im Seniorenalter vor dem Hintergrund der COVID-19-Pandemie}, series = {Der Schmerz}, volume = {36}, journal = {Der Schmerz}, doi = {10.1007/s00482-022-00663-9}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-346778}, pages = {429-436}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Hintergrund Internationale Studien belegen negative Auswirkungen der COVID-19-Pandemie auf Stimmung und Stresslevel befragter Personen. Auch konnten Zusammenh{\"a}nge zwischen der Pandemie und h{\"o}heren Schmerzst{\"a}rken sowie st{\"a}rkerer schmerzbedingter Beeintr{\"a}chtigung nachgewiesen werden. Die Studienlage dazu, ob {\"a}ltere Menschen besser oder schlechter mit der Pandemie und ihren Auswirkungen umgehen k{\"o}nnen als j{\"u}ngere Personen, ist aber uneindeutig. Methodik Seit einigen Jahren bietet das Universit{\"a}tsklinikum W{\"u}rzburg ein multimodales Schmerztherapieprogramm f{\"u}r SeniorInnen an. F{\"u}r die vorliegende Arbeit wurden retrospektiv klinische Routinedaten zum Zeitpunkt des interdisziplin{\"a}ren multimodalen Assessments von n = 75 TeilnehmerInnen in den Jahren 2018 und 2019 mit denen von n = 42 Patientinnen w{\"a}hrend der COVID-19-Pandemie 2020-2021 verglichen. Wir untersuchten Schmerz, psychische Belastung und k{\"o}rperliches Funktionsniveau mithilfe des Deutschen Schmerzfragebogens, klinischer Diagnostik und geriatrischer Funktionstests. Ergebnisse Die beiden Teilstichproben unterschieden sich nicht in demografischen Merkmalen. Bez{\"u}glich Schmerzintensit{\"a}t und Beeintr{\"a}chtigung sowie der psychischen Belastung fanden sich ebenfalls keine signifikanten Unterschiede. Lediglich die Anzahl der schmerzbedingt beeintr{\"a}chtigten Tage war vor Corona signifikant h{\"o}her. Die geriatrischen Funktionstests zeigten signifikant bessere Werte w{\"a}hrend der Pandemie an. Diskussion Die vorliegenden Daten zeigen keine Verschlechterung von Schmerz und k{\"o}rperlichem sowie psychischem Wohlbefinden bei SeniorInnen vor dem Hintergrund der Pandemie. Weitere Studien sollten die m{\"o}glichen Gr{\"u}nde daf{\"u}r untersuchen. Diese k{\"o}nnten in einer h{\"o}heren Resilienz der SeniorInnen basierend auf ihrer Lebenserfahrung, finanziellen Sicherheit oder einer geringeren Ver{\"a}nderung des Lebensalltags liegen.}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Cronje2024, author = {Cronj{\´e}, Johrine}, title = {Trust towards Virtual Humans in Immersive Virtual Reality and Influencing Factors}, doi = {10.25972/OPUS-34814}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-348143}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2024}, abstract = {Virtual humans (VHs) hold immense potential for collaboration in social virtual reality (VR). As VR technology advances, it's vital to assess the psychological effects on VH trust and user privacy to build meaningful social interactions in VR. In social VR, users must be able to trust the VHs they interact with as they navigate through socio-cultural activities. The evaluation of trustworthiness in VHs profoundly impacts interaction quality and user willingness to engage. Conversely, untrustworthy VHs can harm user experiences, privacy, and VR engagement. To address this, we conducted immersive VR studies, exploring how psychological factors influence user's VH trust evaluation under various psychological conditions. This research is pivotal for developing strategies to enhance user privacy, establish secure VR environments, and create a foundation of trust that supports immersive socio-cultural experiences in VR. To date, there are no established interpersonal trust measurement tools specifically for VHs in VR. In study 1 (the familiarity study) of the current thesis the VR-adjusted version of the social conditioned place preference paradigm (SCPP) by Kiser et al., (2022) was identified as a potential trust measurement tool. We tested whether the familiarity of a VH influenced trust as measured with the SCPP paradigm and other self-defined outcome measures, in a Computer Augmented Virtual Environment (CAVE). The CAVE is a VR system that combines immersive VR with real-world elements. It consists of a room-sized space where the walls are used as projection screens to display virtual scenes and objects. In this within - subject design (n = 20), half of the participants were familiarized with one VH and tasked to explore and interact in a realistic looking virtual art museum environment. The participant's evaluation of the VH's trustworthiness was measured as well as their subsequent trust behaviours. Results revealed no significant differences in the evaluation of the VH's trustworthiness nor any behavioural differences between conditions. The findings of the impact of a VH's familiarity on trust is inconclusive due to the major limitations of the paradigm. We concluded that the SCPP paradigm needs further validation and the proposed proxies of trust need to be re-evaluated. The findings were considered in the following study. The virtual maze paradigm design of Hale, (2018) was identified as a potential trust measurement tool, however several limitations are associated with its use to measure trust in VR. In study 2 (a validation study), improvements were made to the virtual maze paradigm of Hale, (2018) and a variant of this paradigm was implemented. We conducted a validation study with 70 participants in a between-subject design with VH trustworthiness as the between-subject factor. Participants wore a head-mounted display (HMD), to deliver an immersive VR experience. In our version of the virtual maze, it was the task of the users (the trustors) to navigate through a maze in VR, where they could interact with a VH (the trustee). They could choose to ask for advice and follow the advice from the VH if they wanted to. The number of times participants asked and followed advice and the time it took to respond to the given advice served as behavioural proxies/measures of trust. The two conditions (trustworthy vs. untrustworthy) did not differ in the content of the advice but in the appearance, tone of voice and engagement of the trustees (allegedly an avatar controlled by other participants). Results indicated that the experimental manipulation was successful, as participants rated the VH as more trustworthy in the trustworthy condition compared with the VH in the untrustworthy condition. Importantly, this manipulation affected the trust behaviour of participants, who, in the trustworthy condition, asked for advice and followed advice more often, indicating that the paradigm is sensitive to differences in VH's trustworthiness. Thus, our paradigm can be used to measure differences in interpersonal trust towards VHs and may serve as a valuable research tool for researchers who study trust in VR. Therefore, study 2 fills the gap in the literature, for an interpersonal trust measurement tool specifically for VHs in VR. Two experimental studies, with a sample size of 50 participants each, utilized the virtual maze paradigm where participants entered 12 rooms under different conditions. We examined the influence of cognitive load (CL) on trust towards VH in VR in study 3 (Cognitive load study), and the influence of emotional affect (Emotional affect study) on trust towards VH in VR in study 4 (EA study). In both studies, we assessed participant's evaluation of a VH's trustworthiness, along with three behavioural indicators of trust in the maze task: 1) frequency of advice asked, 2) frequency of advice followed, and 3) the time taken by participants to execute the received advice. In study 3, the CL was manipulated with the auditory 1-back task in the high cognitive load condition (HCL). In study 4, the Autobiographical Emotional Memory Task (AEMT) was used to manipulate the EA of participants in the negative emotional affect (NEA) condition. As an additional manipulation, while participants were immersed in VR, they were exposed to 12 negative pictures and sounds that was presented simultaneously to strengthen the initial manipulation. The manipulation of the within-subject factors (CL and EA) was successful in both studies, as significant differences between conditions were observed in both studies (higher CL in the HCL condition and a more negative EA in the NEA condition). However, only CL influenced participant's evaluation of the VH's trustworthiness. The VH were evaluated as significantly more trustworthy after the HCL condition. Despite the difference in trust evaluation, there was no difference in advice asking or following. Participants in study 4 asked and followed advice due to their trust in the VH and asked and followed advice equally often in both conditions. Importantly, significant differences were observed in the participants response times in both studies. In study 3 during the HCL condition participants followed advice quicker. The order in which the conditions were presented influenced the experience of CL. Participants experienced higher levels of CL and responded to advice significantly faster when low cognitive load (LCL) was presented as the first condition compared with LCL as the second condition. In study 4 participants in the NEA condition followed advice slower similar to the findings of study 3. The order in which the conditions were presented had a significant effect on the EA. Participants asked and followed advice less when the NEA condition was presented first compared with when it is presented second. Possible explanations for the findings are discussed in the thesis. Overall, this thesis offers a novel tool for trust measurement (the virtual maze paradigm) and contributes to understanding the role of psychological factors in trust towards virtual humans in virtual reality.}, subject = {Virtuelle Realit{\"a}t}, language = {en} } @article{HausmanKubik2023, author = {Hausman, Hannah and Kubik, Veit}, title = {Delayed metacomprehension judgments do not directly improve learning from texts}, series = {Journal of Intelligence}, volume = {11}, journal = {Journal of Intelligence}, number = {7}, issn = {2079-3200}, doi = {10.3390/jintelligence11070150}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-323361}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Making judgments of learning (JOLs) after studying can directly improve learning. This JOL reactivity has been shown for simple materials but has scarcely been investigated with educationally relevant materials such as expository texts. The few existing studies have not yet reported any consistent gains in text comprehension due to providing JOLs. In the present study, we hypothesized that increasing the chances of covert retrieval attempts when making JOLs after each of five to-be-studied text passages would produce comprehension benefits at 1 week compared to restudy. In a between-subjects design, we manipulated both whether participants (N = 210) were instructed to covertly retrieve the texts, and whether they made delayed target-absent JOLs. The results indicated that delayed, target-absent JOLs did not improve text comprehension after 1 week, regardless of whether prior instructions to engage in covert retrieval were provided. Based on the two-stage model of JOLs, we reasoned that participants' retrieval attempts during metacomprehension judgments were either insufficient (i.e., due to a quick familiarity assessment) or were ineffective (e.g., due to low retrieval success).}, language = {en} } @book{SmithPasqualiniMachtEllgring2024, author = {Smith Pasqualini, Marcia and Macht, Michael and Ellgring, Heiner}, title = {Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for People with Parkinson's Disease and Caregivers : A Guide for Mental Health Professionals}, publisher = {W{\"u}rzburg University Press}, address = {W{\"u}rzburg}, isbn = {978-3-95826-226-3}, doi = {10.25972/WUP-978-3-95826-227-0}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-345196}, publisher = {W{\"u}rzburg University Press}, pages = {xii, 344}, year = {2024}, abstract = {The need for mental health support within the Parkinson's disease (PD) community has never been greater, yet many practitioners lack the knowledge or experience to address the unique challenges associated with PD. This book serves as a practical guide for mental health professionals to assist individuals with PD and caregivers through the use of cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques, with the goal of enhancing their well-being and quality of life. The book includes a review of information about PD and mental health, and four structured group programs designed to address issues that are common in people with PD and caregivers: • Coping with stress and illness • Communicating about PD • Emotional expression in PD • Interventions for caregivers The programs presented in this book can be utilized as they are, personalized for individual use, or adapted for research protocols. Additionally, the information can serve as a valuable resource for people with PD and their family members, who can learn about PD and be introduced to evidence-based strategies that can be used conjointly with professionals to improve their experience of living with PD.}, subject = {Parkinson-Krankheit}, language = {en} } @article{HilgerHaegeZedleretal.2023, author = {Hilger, Kirsten and H{\"a}ge, Anne-Sophie and Zedler, Christina and Jost, Michael and Pauli, Paul}, title = {Virtual reality to understand pain-associated approach behaviour: a proof-of-concept study}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {13}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-023-40789-z}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-357817}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Pain-associated approach and avoidance behaviours are critically involved in the development and maintenance of chronic pain. Empirical research suggests a key role of operant learning mechanisms, and first experimental paradigms were developed for their investigation within a controlled laboratory setting. We introduce a new Virtual Reality paradigm to the study of pain-related behaviour and investigate pain experiences on multiple dimensions. The paradigm evaluates the effects of three-tiered heat-pain stimuli applied contingent versus non-contingent with three types of arm movements in naturalistic virtual sceneries. Behaviour, self-reported pain-related fear, pain expectancy and electrodermal activity were assessed in 42 healthy participants during an acquisition phase (contingent movement-pain association) and a modification phase (no contingent movement-pain association). Pain-associated approach behaviour, as measured by arm movements followed by a severe heat stimulus, quickly decreased in-line with the arm movement-pain contingency. Slower effects were observed in fear of movement-related pain and pain expectancy ratings. During the subsequent modification phase, the removal of the pain contingencies modified all three indices. In both phases, skin conductance responses resemble the pattern observed for approach behaviour, while skin conductance levels equal the pattern observed for the self-ratings. Our findings highlight a fast reduction in approach behaviour in the face of acute pain and inform about accompanying psychological and physiological processes. We discuss strength and limitations of our paradigm for future investigations with the ultimate goal of gaining a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms involved in chronic pain development, maintenance, and its therapy.}, language = {en} } @article{HuesteggePieczykolanKoch2023, author = {Huestegge, Lynn and Pieczykolan, Aleks and Koch, Iring}, title = {A Gestalt account of human behavior is supported by evidence from switching between single and dual actions}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {13}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-023-47788-0}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-357862}, year = {2023}, abstract = {The question of how behavior is represented in the mind lies at the core of psychology as the science of mind and behavior. While a long-standing research tradition has established two opposing fundamental views of perceptual representation, Structuralism and Gestalt psychology, we test both accounts with respect to action representation: Are multiple actions (characterizing human behavior in general) represented as the sum of their component actions (Structuralist view) or holistically (Gestalt view)? Using a single-/dual-response switch paradigm, we analyzed switches between dual ([A + B]) and single ([A], [B]) responses across different effector systems and revealed comparable performance in partial repetitions and full switches of behavioral requirements (e.g., in [A + B] → [A] vs. [B] → [A], or [A] → [A + B] vs. [B] → [A + B]), but only when the presence of dimensional overlap between responses allows for Gestalt formation. This evidence for a Gestalt view of behavior in our paradigm challenges some fundamental assumptions in current (tacitly Structuralist) action control theories (in particular the idea that all actions are represented compositionally with reference to their components), provides a novel explanatory angle for understanding complex, highly synchronized human behavior (e.g., dance), and delimitates the degree to which complex behavior can be analyzed in terms of its basic components.}, language = {en} } @article{KirschKunde2023, author = {Kirsch, Wladimir and Kunde, Wilfried}, title = {Human perception of spatial frequency varies with stimulus orientation and location in the visual field}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {13}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-023-44673-8}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-357888}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Neuroanatomical variations across the visual field of human observers go along with corresponding variations of the perceived coarseness of visual stimuli. Here we show that horizontal gratings are perceived as having lower spatial frequency than vertical gratings when occurring along the horizontal meridian of the visual field, whereas gratings occurring along the vertical meridian show the exact opposite effect. This finding indicates a new peculiarity of processes operating along the cardinal axes of the visual field.}, language = {en} } @article{ScheinerSeisKleindienstetal.2023, author = {Scheiner, Christin and Seis, Christian and Kleindienst, Nikolaus and Buerger, Arne}, title = {Psychopathology, protective factors, and COVID-19 among adolescents: a structural equation model}, series = {International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health}, volume = {20}, journal = {International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health}, number = {3}, issn = {1660-4601}, doi = {10.3390/ijerph20032493}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-304475}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019 and the associated restrictions, mental health in children and adolescents has been increasingly discussed in the media. Negative impacts of the pandemic, including a sharp increase in psychopathology and, consequently, reduced quality of life, appear to have particularly affected children and young people, who may be especially vulnerable to the adverse effects of isolation. Nevertheless, many children and adolescents have managed to cope well with the restrictions, without deterioration of their mental health. The present study therefore explored the links between COVID-19 infection (in oneself or a family member, as well as the death of a family member due to the virus), protective factors such as self-efficacy, resilience, self-esteem, and health-related quality of life, and measures of psychopathology such as depression scores, internalizing/externalizing problems, emotion dysregulation, and victimization. For this purpose, we examined data from 2129 adolescents (mean age = 12.31, SD = 0.67; 51\% male; 6\% born outside of Germany) using a structural equation model. We found medium to high loadings of the manifest variables with the latent variables (COVID-19, protective factors, and psychopathology). Protective factors showed a significant negative correlation with psychopathology. However, COVID-19 had a weak connection with psychopathology in our sample. External pandemic-related factors (e.g., restrictions) and their interaction with existing psychopathology or individual protective factors appear to have a greater influence on young people's mental health than the impact of the virus per se. Sociopolitical efforts should be undertaken to foster prevention and promote individual resilience, especially in adolescence.}, language = {en} } @article{KirschKunde2023, author = {Kirsch, Wladimir and Kunde, Wilfried}, title = {Changes in body perception following virtual object manipulation are accompanied by changes of the internal reference scale}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {13}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-023-34311-8}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-357876}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Changes in body perception often arise when observers are confronted with related yet discrepant multisensory signals. Some of these effects are interpreted as outcomes of sensory integration of various signals, whereas related biases are ascribed to learning-dependent recalibration of coding individual signals. The present study explored whether the same sensorimotor experience entails changes in body perception that are indicative of multisensory integration and those that indicate recalibration. Participants enclosed visual objects by a pair of visual cursors controlled by finger movements. Then either they judged their perceived finger posture (indicating multisensory integration) or they produced a certain finger posture (indicating recalibration). An experimental variation of the size of the visual object resulted in systematic and opposite biases of the perceived and produced finger distances. This pattern of results is consistent with the assumption that multisensory integration and recalibration had a common origin in the task we used.}, language = {en} } @article{LawitschkaBrunmairBaueretal.2021, author = {Lawitschka, Anita and Brunmair, Matthias and Bauer, Dorothea and Zubarovskaya, Natalia and Felder-Puig, Rosemarie and Strahm, Brigitte and Bader, Peter and Strauss, Gabriele and Albert, Michael and Luettichau, Irene von and Greinix, Hildegard and Wolff, Daniel and Peters, Christina}, title = {Psychometric properties of the Activities Scale for Kids-performance after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in adolescents and children}, series = {Wiener klinische Wochenschrift}, volume = {133}, journal = {Wiener klinische Wochenschrift}, number = {1-2}, doi = {10.1007/s00508-020-01641-w}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-281100}, pages = {41-51}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Background The psychometric properties of an instrument, the Activity Scale for Kids-performance (ASKp), were assessed which was proposed to capture physical functioning after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Additionally, this multicenter observational prospective study investigated the influence of clinical correlates focusing on chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD). Methods Patient-reported ASKp, clinician-reported Karnofsky/Lansky status (KPS/PSS), patient characteristics and cGVHD details were assessed of 55 patients with a median age of 12 years at baseline after day +100 post-HSCT and every 3 months during the next 18 months. The psychometric properties were evaluated and ASKp and KPS/PSS status was compared using ANOVAS and multiple regression models. Results The German version of the ASKp showed good psychometric properties except for ceiling effects. Discrimination ability of the ASKp was good regarding the need for devices but failed to predict cGVHD patients. Both the ASKp and the KPS/PSS were associated with patients after adoptive cell therapy being in need for devices, suffering from overlap cGVHD and from steroid side effects but not with patients' age and gender. In contrast to the KPS/PSS the ASKp only showed significant differences after merging moderate and severe cGHVD patients when comparing them to No-cGVHD (F = 4.050; p = 0.049), being outperformed by the KPS/PSS (F = 20.082; p < 0.001). Conclusion The ASKp showed no clear advantages compared to KPS/PSS even though economical and patients' effort was higher. Further application range may be limited through ceiling effects. Both should be taken into consideration. Therefore, the results may not support the usage of ASKp after HSCT and rather suggest KPS/PSS, both patient and clinician reported.}, language = {en} } @article{KuhnScharfenortSchuemannetal.2016, author = {Kuhn, Manuel and Scharfenort, Robert and Sch{\"u}mann, Dirk and Schiele, Miriam A. and M{\"u}nsterk{\"o}tter, Anna L. and Deckert, J{\"u}rgen and Domschke, Katharina and Haaker, Jan and Kalisch, Raffael and Pauli, Paul and Reif, Andreas and Romanos, Marcel and Zwanzger, Peter and Lonsdorf, Tina B.}, title = {Mismatch or allostatic load? Timing of life adversity differentially shapes gray matter volume and anxious temperament}, series = {Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience}, volume = {11}, journal = {Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience}, number = {4}, doi = {10.1093/scan/nsv137}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189645}, pages = {537-547}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Traditionally, adversity was defined as the accumulation of environmental events (allostatic load). Recently however, a mismatch between the early and the later (adult) environment (mismatch) has been hypothesized to be critical for disease development, a hypothesis that has not yet been tested explicitly in humans. We explored the impact of timing of life adversity (childhood and past year) on anxiety and depression levels (N = 833) and brain morphology (N = 129). Both remote (childhood) and proximal (recent) adversities were differentially mirrored in morphometric changes in areas critically involved in emotional processing (i.e. amygdala/hippocampus, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, respectively). The effect of adversity on affect acted in an additive way with no evidence for interactions (mismatch). Structural equation modeling demonstrated a direct effect of adversity on morphometric estimates and anxiety/depression without evidence of brain morphology functioning as a mediator. Our results highlight that adversity manifests as pronounced changes in brain morphometric and affective temperament even though these seem to represent distinct mechanistic pathways. A major goal of future studies should be to define critical time periods for the impact of adversity and strategies for intervening to prevent or reverse the effects of adverse childhood life experiences.}, language = {en} } @article{HeinGamerGalletal.2021, author = {Hein, Grit and Gamer, Matthias and Gall, Dominik and Gr{\"u}ndahl, Marthe and Domschke, Katharina and Andreatta, Marta and Wieser, Matthias J. and Pauli, Paul}, title = {Social cognitive factors outweigh negative emotionality in predicting COVID-19 related safety behaviors}, series = {Preventive Medicine Reports}, volume = {24}, journal = {Preventive Medicine Reports}, doi = {10.1016/j.pmedr.2021.101559}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-265008}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Emotion-motivation models propose that behaviors, including health behaviors, should be predicted by the same variables that also predict negative affect since emotional reactions should induce a motivation to avoid threatening situations. In contrast, social cognitive models propose that safety behaviors are predicted by a different set of variables that mainly reflect cognitive and socio-structural aspects. Here, we directly tested these opposing hypotheses in young adults (N = 4134) in the context of COVID-19-related safety behaviors to prevent infections. In each participant, we collected measures of negative affect as well as cognitive and socio-structural variables during the lockdown in the first infection wave in Germany. We found a negative effect of the pandemic on emotional responses. However, this was not the main predictor for young adults' willingness to comply with COVID-19-related safety measures. Instead, individual differences in compliance were mainly predicted by cognitive and socio-structural variables. These results were confirmed in an independent data set. This study shows that individuals scoring high on negative affect during the pandemic are not necessarily more likely to comply with safety regulations. Instead, political measures should focus on cognitive interventions and the societal relevance of the health issue. These findings provide important insights into the basis of health-related concerns and feelings as well as behavioral adaptations.}, language = {en} } @article{StegmannAndreattaPaulietal.2021, author = {Stegmann, Yannik and Andreatta, Marta and Pauli, Paul and Wieser, Matthias J.}, title = {Associative learning shapes visual discrimination in a web-based classical conditioning task}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {11}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, number = {1}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-021-95200-6}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260480}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Threat detection plays a vital role in adapting behavior to changing environments. A fundamental function to improve threat detection is learning to differentiate between stimuli predicting danger and safety. Accordingly, aversive learning should lead to enhanced sensory discrimination of danger and safety cues. However, studies investigating the psychophysics of visual and auditory perception after aversive learning show divergent findings, and both enhanced and impaired discrimination after aversive learning have been reported. Therefore, the aim of this web-based study is to examine the impact of aversive learning on a continuous measure of visual discrimination. To this end, 205 participants underwent a differential fear conditioning paradigm before and after completing a visual discrimination task using differently oriented grating stimuli. Participants saw either unpleasant or neutral pictures as unconditioned stimuli (US). Results demonstrated sharpened visual discrimination for the US-associated stimulus (CS+), but not for the unpaired conditioned stimuli (CS-). Importantly, this finding was irrespective of the US's valence. These findings suggest that associative learning results in increased stimulus salience, which facilitates perceptual discrimination in order to prioritize attentional deployment.}, language = {en} } @article{WeissPaeleckeHewig2021, author = {Weiß, Martin and Paelecke, Marko and Hewig, Johannes}, title = {In Your Face(t) — Personality Traits Interact With Prototypical Personality Faces in Economic Decision Making}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {12}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2021.652506}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-237051}, year = {2021}, abstract = {In everyday life, assumptions about our peers' as well as our own personality shape social interactions. We investigated whether self-rated personality and inferences drawn from partners' faces influence economic decisions. Participants (N = 285) played the trust game in the role of the trustor as well as the ultimatum game in the role of the proposer and interacted with trustees and receivers represented by prototypical personality faces. Participants also evaluated both their own traits and the personality of the faces. In the trust game, trustees represented by faces rated higher on agreeableness yielded higher transferred amounts. This effect was more pronounced for trustors low on dispositional trust, whereas trustors high on dispositional trust did not relate their decisions to the faces. Trustees represented by faces rated higher on conscientiousness yielded higher transferred amounts only for trustors high on dispositional anxiety. In the ultimatum game, receivers represented by faces rated higher on conscientiousness yielded lower offers only for proposers high on dispositional assertiveness. These results extend previous findings on the inferences drawn from facial features and the influence of personality on decision making. They highlight the importance of considering the personality of both interaction partner, as well as potential interactions of players' traits.}, language = {en} } @article{EderMitschkeGollwitzer2020, author = {Eder, Andreas B. and Mitschke, Vanessa and Gollwitzer, Mario}, title = {What stops revenge taking? Effects of observed emotional reactions on revenge seeking}, series = {Aggressive Behavior}, volume = {46}, journal = {Aggressive Behavior}, number = {4}, doi = {10.1002/ab.21890}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-214686}, pages = {305 -- 316}, year = {2020}, abstract = {What reaction stops revenge taking? Four experiments (total N = 191) examined this question where the victim of an interpersonal transgression could observe the offender's reaction (anger, sadness, pain, or calm) to a retributive noise punishment. We compared the punishment intensity selected by the participant before and after seeing the offender's reaction. Seeing the opponent in pain reduced subsequent punishment most strongly, while displays of sadness and verbal indications of suffering had no appeasing effect. Expression of anger about a retributive punishment did not increase revenge seeking relative to a calm reaction, even when the anger response was disambiguated as being angry with the punisher. It is concluded that the expression of pain is the most effective emotional display for the reduction of retaliatory aggression. The findings are discussed in light of recent research on reactive aggression and retributive justice.}, language = {en} } @article{HaspertWieserPaulietal.2020, author = {Haspert, Valentina and Wieser, Matthias J. and Pauli, Paul and Reicherts, Philipp}, title = {Acceptance-Based Emotion Regulation Reduces Subjective and Physiological Pain Responses}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {11}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01514}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-207220}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Acceptance-based regulation of pain, which focuses on the allowing of pain and pain related thoughts and emotions, was found to modulate pain. However, results so far are inconsistent regarding different pain modalities and indices. Moreover, studies so far often lack a suitable control condition, focus on behavioral pain measures rather than physiological correlates, and often use between-subject designs, which potentially impede the evaluation of the effectiveness of the strategies. Therefore, we investigated whether acceptance-based strategies can reduce subjective and physiological markers of acute pain in comparison to a control condition in a within-subject design. To this end, participants (N = 30) completed 24 trials comprising 10 s of heat pain stimulation. Each trial started with a cue instructing participants to welcome and experience pain (acceptance trials) or to react to the pain as it is without employing any regulation strategies (control trials). In addition to pain intensity and unpleasantness ratings, heart rate (HR) and skin conductance (SC) were recorded. Results showed significantly decreased pain intensity and unpleasantness ratings for acceptance compared to control trials. Additionally, HR was significantly lower during acceptance compared to control trials, whereas SC revealed no significant differences. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of acceptance-based strategies in reducing subjective and physiological pain responses relative to a control condition, even after short training. Therefore, the systematic investigation of acceptance in different pain modalities in healthy and chronic pain patients is warranted.}, language = {en} } @article{KaethnerBaderPauli2019, author = {K{\"a}thner, Ivo and Bader, Thomas and Pauli, Paul}, title = {Heat pain modulation with virtual water during a virtual hand illusion}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {9}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-019-55407-0}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-202221}, pages = {19137}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Immersive virtual reality is a powerful method to modify the environment and thereby influence experience. The present study used a virtual hand illusion and context manipulation in immersive virtual reality to examine top-down modulation of pain. Participants received painful heat stimuli on their forearm and placed an embodied virtual hand (co-located with their real one) under a virtual water tap, which dispensed virtual water under different experimental conditions. We aimed to induce a temperature illusion by a red, blue or white light suggesting warm, cold or no virtual water. In addition, the sense of agency was manipulated by allowing participants to have high or low control over the virtual hand's movements. Most participants experienced a thermal sensation in response to the virtual water and associated the blue and red light with cool/cold or warm/hot temperatures, respectively. Importantly, the blue light condition reduced and the red light condition increased pain intensity and unpleasantness, both compared to the control condition. The control manipulation influenced the sense of agency, but did not influence pain ratings. The large effects revealed in our study suggest that context effects within an embodied setting in an immersive virtual environment should be considered within VR based pain therapy.}, language = {en} } @article{WiemerRaunerStegmannetal.2021, author = {Wiemer, Julian and Rauner, Milena M. and Stegmann, Yannik and Pauli, Paul}, title = {Reappraising fear: is up-regulation more efficient than down-regulation?}, series = {Motivation and Emotion}, volume = {45}, journal = {Motivation and Emotion}, number = {2}, issn = {1573-6644}, doi = {10.1007/s11031-021-09871-9}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-269187}, pages = {221-234}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Catastrophizing thoughts may contribute to the development of anxiety, but functional emotion regulation may help to improve treatment. No study so far directly compared up- and down-regulation of fear by cognitive reappraisal. Here, healthy individuals took part in a cued fear experiment, in which multiple pictures of faces were paired twice with an unpleasant scream or presented as safety stimuli. Participants (N = 47) were asked (within-subjects) to down-regulate, to up-regulate and to maintain their natural emotional response. Valence and arousal ratings indicated successful up- and down-regulation of the emotional experience, while heart rate and pupil dilation increased during up-regulation, but showed no reduction in down-regulation. State and trait anxiety correlated with evaluations of safety but not threat stimuli, which supports the role of deficient safety learning in anxiety. Reappraisal did not modulate this effect. In conclusion, this study reveals evidence for up-regulation effects in fear, which might be even more efficient than down-regulation on a physiological level and highlights the importance of catastrophizing thoughts for the maintenance of fear and anxiety.}, language = {en} } @article{AcqualagnaBotrelVidaurreetal.2016, author = {Acqualagna, Laura and Botrel, Loic and Vidaurre, Carmen and K{\"u}bler, Andrea and Blankertz, Benjamin}, title = {Large-Scale Assessment of a Fully Automatic Co-Adaptive Motor Imagery-Based Brain Computer Interface}, series = {PLoS ONE}, volume = {11}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, number = {2}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0148886}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-167230}, pages = {e0148886}, year = {2016}, abstract = {In the last years Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology has benefited from the development of sophisticated machine leaning methods that let the user operate the BCI after a few trials of calibration. One remarkable example is the recent development of co-adaptive techniques that proved to extend the use of BCIs also to people not able to achieve successful control with the standard BCI procedure. Especially for BCIs based on the modulation of the Sensorimotor Rhythm (SMR) these improvements are essential, since a not negligible percentage of users is unable to operate SMR-BCIs efficiently. In this study we evaluated for the first time a fully automatic co-adaptive BCI system on a large scale. A pool of 168 participants naive to BCIs operated the co-adaptive SMR-BCI in one single session. Different psychological interventions were performed prior the BCI session in order to investigate how motor coordination training and relaxation could influence BCI performance. A neurophysiological indicator based on the Power Spectral Density (PSD) was extracted by the recording of few minutes of resting state brain activity and tested as predictor of BCI performances. Results show that high accuracies in operating the BCI could be reached by the majority of the participants before the end of the session. BCI performances could be significantly predicted by the neurophysiological indicator, consolidating the validity of the model previously developed. Anyway, we still found about 22\% of users with performance significantly lower than the threshold of efficient BCI control at the end of the session. Being the inter-subject variability still the major problem of BCI technology, we pointed out crucial issues for those who did not achieve sufficient control. Finally, we propose valid developments to move a step forward to the applicability of the promising co-adaptive methods.}, language = {en} } @article{MatuzBirbaumerHautzingeretal., author = {Matuz, Tamara and Birbaumer, Niels and Hautzinger, Martin and K{\"u}bler, Andrea}, title = {Psychosocial adjustment to ALS: a longitudinal study}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {6}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, number = {1197}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01197}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-190208}, abstract = {For the current study the Lazarian stress-coping theory and the appendant model of psychosocial adjustment to chronic illness and disabilities (Pakenham, 1999) has shaped the foundation for identifying determinants of adjustment to ALS. We aimed to investigate the evolution of psychosocial adjustment to ALS and to determine its long-term predictors. A longitudinal study design with four measurement time points was therefore, used to assess patients' quality of life, depression, and stress-coping model related aspects, such as illness characteristics, social support, cognitive appraisals, and coping strategies during a period of 2 years. Regression analyses revealed that 55\% of the variance of severity of depressive symptoms and 47\% of the variance in quality of life at T2 was accounted for by all the T1 predictor variables taken together. On the level of individual contributions, protective buffering, and appraisal of own coping potential accounted for a significant percentage in the variance in severity of depressive symptoms, whereas problem management coping strategies explained variance in quality of life scores. Illness characteristics at T2 did not explain any variance of both adjustment outcomes. Overall, the pattern of the longitudinal results indicated stable depressive symptoms and quality of life indices reflecting a successful adjustment to the disease across four measurement time points during a period of about two years. Empirical evidence is provided for the predictive value of social support, cognitive appraisals, and coping strategies, but not illness parameters such as severity and duration for adaptation to ALS. The current study contributes to a better conceptualization of adjustment, allowing us to provide evidence-based support beyond medical and physical intervention for people with ALS.}, language = {en} } @article{SteinbornHuestegge2017, author = {Steinborn, Michael B. and Huestegge, Lynn}, title = {Phone conversation while processing information: chronometric analysis of load effects in everyday-media multitasking}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {8}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, number = {896}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00896}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-158253}, year = {2017}, abstract = {This is a pilot study that examined the effect of cell-phone conversation on cognition using a continuous multitasking paradigm. Current theorizing argues that phone conversation affects behavior (e.g., driving) by interfering at a level of cognitive processes (not peripheral activity) and by implying an attentional-failure account. Within the framework of an intermittent spare-utilized capacity threading model, we examined the effect of aspects of (secondary-task) phone conversation on (primary-task) continuous arithmetic performance, asking whether phone use makes components of automatic and controlled information-processing (i.e., easy vs. hard mental arithmetic) run more slowly, or alternatively, makes processing run less reliably albeit with the same processing speed. The results can be summarized as follows: While neither expecting a text message nor expecting an impending phone call had any detrimental effects on performance, active phone conversation was clearly detrimental to primary-task performance. Crucially, the decrement imposed by secondary-task (conversation) was not due to a constant slowdown but is better be characterized by an occasional breakdown of information processing, which differentially affected automatic and controlled components of primary-task processing. In conclusion, these findings support the notion that phone conversation makes individuals not constantly slower but more vulnerable to commit attention failure, and in this way, hampers stability of (primary-task) information processing.}, language = {en} } @article{MadanBayerGameretal.2018, author = {Madan, Christopher R. and Bayer, Janine and Gamer, Matthias and Lonsdorf, Tina B. and Sommer, Tobias}, title = {Visual Complexity and Affect: Ratings Reflect More Than Meets the Eye}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {8}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, number = {2368}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02368}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-190015}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Pictorial stimuli can vary on many dimensions, several aspects of which are captured by the term 'visual complexity.' Visual complexity can be described as, "a picture of a few objects, colors, or structures would be less complex than a very colorful picture of many objects that is composed of several components." Prior studies have reported a relationship between affect and visual complexity, where complex pictures are rated as more pleasant and arousing. However, a relationship in the opposite direction, an effect of affect on visual complexity, is also possible; emotional arousal and valence are known to influence selective attention and visual processing. In a series of experiments, we found that ratings of visual complexity correlated with affective ratings, and independently also with computational measures of visual complexity. These computational measures did not correlate with affect, suggesting that complexity ratings are separately related to distinct factors. We investigated the relationship between affect and ratings of visual complexity, finding an 'arousal-complexity bias' to be a robust phenomenon. Moreover, we found this bias could be attenuated when explicitly indicated but did not correlate with inter-individual difference measures of affective processing, and was largely unrelated to cognitive and eyetracking measures. Taken together, the arousal-complexity bias seems to be caused by a relationship between arousal and visual processing as it has been described for the greater vividness of arousing pictures. The described arousal-complexity bias is also of relevance from an experimental perspective because visual complexity is often considered a variable to control for when using pictorial stimuli.}, language = {en} } @article{WolffWeikampBatinic2018, author = {Wolff, Hans-Georg and Weikamp, Julia G. and Batinic, Bernad}, title = {Implicit Motives as Determinants of Networking Behaviors}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {9}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, number = {411}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00411}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189954}, year = {2018}, abstract = {In today's world of work, networking behaviors are an important and viable strategy to enhance success in work and career domains. Concerning personality as an antecedent of networking behaviors, prior studies have exclusively relied on trait perspectives that focus on how people feel, think, and act. Adopting a motivational perspective on personality, we enlarge this focus and argue that beyond traits predominantly tapping social content, motives shed further light on instrumental aspects of networking - or why people network. We use McClelland's implicit motives framework of need for power (nPow), need for achievement (nAch), and need for affiliation (nAff) to examine instrumental determinants of networking. Using a facet theoretical approach to networking behaviors, we predict differential relations of these three motives with facets of (1) internal vs. external networking and (2) building, maintaining, and using contacts. We conducted an online study, in which we temporally separate measures (N = 539 employed individuals) to examine our hypotheses. Using multivariate latent regression, we show that nAch is related to networking in general. In line with theoretical differences between networking facets, we find that nAff is positively related to building contacts, whereas nPow is positively related to using internal contacts. In sum, this study shows that networking is not only driven by social factors (i.e., nAff), but instead the achievement motive is the most important driver of networking behaviors.}, language = {en} } @article{HuesteggeHerbortGoschetal.2019, author = {Huestegge, Lynn and Herbort, Oliver and Gosch, Nora and Kunde, Wilfried and Pieczykolan, Aleks}, title = {Free-choice saccades and their underlying determinants: explorations of high-level voluntary oculomotor control}, series = {Journal of Vision}, volume = {19}, journal = {Journal of Vision}, number = {3}, doi = {10.1167/19.3.14}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-201493}, pages = {14}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Models of eye-movement control distinguish between different control levels, ranging from automatic (bottom-up, stimulus-driven selection) and automatized (based on well-learned routines) to voluntary (top-down, goal-driven selection, e.g., based on instructions). However, one type of voluntary control has yet only been examined in the manual and not in the oculomotor domain, namely free-choice selection among arbitrary targets, that is, targets that are of equal interest from both a bottom-up and top-down processing perspective. Here, we ask which features of targets (identity- or location-related) are used to determine such oculomotor free-choice behavior. In two experiments, participants executed a saccade to one of four peripheral targets in three different choice conditions: unconstrained free choice, constrained free choice based on target identity (color), and constrained free choice based on target location. The analysis of choice frequencies revealed that unconstrained free-choice selection closely resembled constrained choice based on target location. The results suggest that free-choice oculomotor control is mainly guided by spatial (location-based) target characteristics. We explain these results by assuming that participants tend to avoid less parsimonious recoding of target-identity representations into spatial codes, the latter being a necessary prerequisite to configure oculomotor commands.}, language = {en} } @article{RoeslerEndGamer2017, author = {R{\"o}sler, Lara and End, Albert and Gamer, Matthias}, title = {Orienting towards social features in naturalistic scenes is reflexive}, series = {PLoS ONE}, volume = {12}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, number = {7}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0182037}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-170586}, pages = {e0182037}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Saliency-based models of visual attention postulate that, when a scene is freely viewed, attention is predominantly allocated to those elements that stand out in terms of their physical properties. However, eye-tracking studies have shown that saliency models fail to predict gaze behavior accurately when social information is included in an image. Notably, gaze pattern analyses revealed that depictions of human beings are heavily prioritized independent of their low-level physical saliency. What remains unknown, however, is whether the prioritization of such social features is a reflexive or a voluntary process. To investigate the early stages of social attention in more detail, participants viewed photographs of naturalistic scenes with and without social features (i.e., human heads or bodies) for 200 ms while their eye movements were being recorded. We observed significantly more first eye movements to regions containing social features than would be expected from a chance level distribution of saccades. Additionally, a generalized linear mixed model analysis revealed that the social content of a region better predicted first saccade direction than its saliency suggesting that social features partially override the impact of low-level physical saliency on gaze patterns. Given the brief image presentation time that precluded visual exploration, our results provide compelling evidence for a reflexive component in social attention. Moreover, the present study emphasizes the importance of considering social influences for a more coherent understanding of human attentional selection.}, language = {en} } @article{ZuernStrack2017, author = {Z{\"u}rn, Michael and Strack, Fritz}, title = {When More Is Better - Consumption Priming Decreases Responders' Rejections in the Ultimatum Game}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {8}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, number = {2226}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02226}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189989}, year = {2017}, abstract = {During the past decades, economic theories of rational choice have been exposed to outcomes that were severe challenges to their claim of universal validity. For example, traditional theories cannot account for refusals to cooperate if cooperation would result in higher payoffs. A prominent illustration are responders' rejections of positive but unequal payoffs in the Ultimatum Game. To accommodate this anomaly in a rational framework one needs to assume both a preference for higher payoffs and a preference for equal payoffs. The current set of studies shows that the relative weight of these preference components depends on external conditions and that consumption priming may decrease responders' rejections of unequal payoffs. Specifically, we demonstrate that increasing the accessibility of consumption-related information accentuates the preference for higher payoffs. Furthermore, consumption priming increased responders' reaction times for unequal payoffs which suggests an increased conflict between both preference components. While these results may also be integrated into existing social preference models, we try to identify some basic psychological processes underlying economic decision making. Going beyond the Ultimatum Game, we propose that a distinction between comparative and deductive evaluations may provide a more general framework to account for various anomalies in behavioral economics.}, language = {en} } @article{WinterKernGalletal.2021, author = {Winter, Carla and Kern, Florian and Gall, Dominik and Latoschik, Marc Erich and Pauli, Paul and K{\"a}thner, Ivo}, title = {Immersive virtual reality during gait rehabilitation increases walking speed and motivation: a usability evaluation with healthy participants and individuals with multiple sclerosis and stroke}, series = {Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation}, volume = {18}, journal = {Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation}, number = {1}, issn = {1743-0003}, doi = {10.1186/s12984-021-00848-w}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-258698}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Background: The rehabilitation of gait disorders in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and stroke is often based on conventional treadmill training. Virtual reality (VR)-based treadmill training can increase motivation and improve therapy outcomes. The present study evaluated an immersive virtual reality application (using a head-mounted display, HMD) for gait rehabilitation with patients to (1) demonstrate its feasibility and acceptance and to (2) compare its short-term effects to a semi-immersive presentation (using a monitor) and a conventional treadmill training without VR to assess the usability of both systems and estimate the effects on walking speed and motivation. Methods: In a within-subjects study design, 36 healthy participants and 14 persons with MS or stroke participated in each of the three experimental conditions (VR via HMD, VR via monitor, treadmill training without VR). Results: For both groups, the walking speed in the HMD condition was higher than in treadmill training without VR and in the monitor condition. Healthy participants reported a higher motivation after the HMD condition as compared with the other conditions. Importantly, no side effects in the sense of simulator sickness occurred and usability ratings were high. No increases in heart rate were observed following the VR conditions. Presence ratings were higher for the HMD condition compared with the monitor condition for both user groups. Most of the healthy study participants (89\%) and patients (71\%) preferred the HMD-based training among the three conditions and most patients could imagine using it more frequently. Conclusions For the first time, the present study evaluated the usability of an immersive VR system for gait rehabilitation in a direct comparison with a semi-immersive system and a conventional training without VR with healthy participants and patients. The study demonstrated the feasibility of combining a treadmill training with immersive VR. Due to its high usability and low side effects, it might be particularly suited for patients to improve training motivation and training outcome e. g. the walking speed compared with treadmill training using no or only semi-immersive VR. Immersive VR systems still require specific technical setup procedures. This should be taken into account for specific clinical use-cases during a cost-benefit assessment.}, language = {en} } @article{SuchotzkiMayGamer2020, author = {Suchotzki, Kristina and May, Heidi and Gamer, Matthias}, title = {No effect of moderate alcohol intake on the detection of concealed identity information in the laboratory}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {10}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-020-76811-x}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-231208}, year = {2020}, abstract = {The Concealed Information Test (CIT) enables the detection of certain (e.g., crime-relevant or personal) information, even if participants aim to conceal their knowledge. The current preregistered study investigated whether previously observed impairing effects of alcohol intoxication on participants' performance in a reaction time CIT (RT CIT) field study also translate to a laboratory environment. In contrast to the previous study of Suchotzki and Gamer (Sci Rep 8:7825, 2018) in which alcohol consumption was voluntary and self-administered, the current study used a randomized assignment of participants to either an alcohol group (n=88; receiving a drink with 3 cl alcohol) or a sober control group (n=89; receiving a drink with just some alcohol drops to hide group assignment). After drink administration, participants completed an RT CIT, in which they were instructed to hide knowledge of their own identity. Blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was estimated via breath alcohol ratio. In contrast to the previous field study, results revealed no differences in CIT-performance between intoxicated and sober participants. Aside from questioning the robustness of the result of the previous field study, our results also point to a number of interesting theoretical explanations for the discrepancy between both results, which are elaborated in the discussion.}, language = {en} } @article{StrackPauliWeyers, author = {Strack, Fritz and Pauli, Paul and Weyers, Peter}, title = {Editorial: Emotion and Behavior}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {7}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, number = {313}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00313}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-190177}, abstract = {No abstract available.}, language = {en} } @article{LiesnerHinzKunde2021, author = {Liesner, Marvin and Hinz, Nina-Alisa and Kunde, Wilfried}, title = {How Action Shapes Body Ownership Momentarily and Throughout the Lifespan}, series = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, volume = {15}, journal = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, issn = {1662-5161}, doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2021.697810}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-241869}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Objects which a human agent controls by efferent activities (such as real or virtual tools) can be perceived by the agent as belonging to his or her body. This suggests that what an agent counts as "body" is plastic, depending on what she or he controls. Yet there are possible limitations for such momentary plasticity. One of these limitations is that sensations stemming from the body (e.g., proprioception) and sensations stemming from objects outside the body (e.g., vision) are not integrated if they do not sufficiently "match". What "matches" and what does not is conceivably determined by long-term experience with the perceptual changes that body movements typically produce. Children have accumulated less sensorimotor experience than adults have. Consequently, they express higher flexibility to integrate body-internal and body-external signals, independent of their "match" as suggested by rubber hand illusion studies. However, children's motor performance in tool use is more affected by mismatching body-internal and body-external action effects than that of adults, possibly because of less developed means to overcome such mismatches. We review research on perception-action interactions, multisensory integration, and developmental psychology to build bridges between these research fields. By doing so, we account for the flexibility of the sense of body ownership for actively controlled events and its development through ontogeny. This gives us the opportunity to validate the suggested mechanisms for generating ownership by investigating their effects in still developing and incomplete stages in children. We suggest testable predictions for future studies investigating both body ownership and motor skills throughout the lifespan.}, language = {en} } @article{NeszmelyiWellerKundeetal.2022, author = {Neszm{\´e}lyi, Bence and Weller, Lisa and Kunde, Wilfried and Pfister, Roland}, title = {Social action effects: representing predicted partner responses in social interactions}, series = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, volume = {16}, journal = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, issn = {1662-5161}, doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2022.837495}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-276609}, year = {2022}, abstract = {The sociomotor framework outlines a possible role of social action effects on human action control, suggesting that anticipated partner reactions are a major cue to represent, select, and initiate own body movements. Here, we review studies that elucidate the actual content of social action representations and that explore factors that can distinguish action control processes involving social and inanimate action effects. Specifically, we address two hypotheses on how the social context can influence effect-based action control: first, by providing unique social features such as body-related, anatomical codes, and second, by orienting attention towards any relevant feature dimensions of the action effects. The reviewed empirical work presents a surprisingly mixed picture: while there is indirect evidence for both accounts, previous studies that directly addressed the anatomical account showed no signs of the involvement of genuinely social features in sociomotor action control. Furthermore, several studies show evidence against the differentiation of social and non-social action effect processing, portraying sociomotor action representations as remarkably non-social. A focus on enhancing the social experience in future studies should, therefore, complement the current database to establish whether such settings give rise to the hypothesized influence of social context.}, language = {en} } @article{PfisterKlaffehnKalckertetal.2021, author = {Pfister, Robert and Klaffehn, Annika L. and Kalckert, Andreas and Kunde, Winfried and Dignath, David}, title = {How to lose a hand: Sensory updating drives disembodiment}, series = {Psychonomic Bulletin \& Review}, volume = {28}, journal = {Psychonomic Bulletin \& Review}, issn = {1069-9384}, doi = {10.3758/s13423-020-01854-0}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-235195}, pages = {827-833}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Body representations are readily expanded based on sensorimotor experience. A dynamic view of body representations, however, holds that these representations cannot only be expanded but that they can also be narrowed down by disembodying elements of the body representation that are no longer warranted. Here we induced illusory ownership in terms of a moving rubber hand illusion and studied the maintenance of this illusion across different conditions. We observed ownership experience to decrease gradually unless participants continued to receive confirmatory multisensory input. Moreover, a single instance of multisensory mismatch - a hammer striking the rubber hand but not the real hand - triggered substantial and immediate disembodiment. Together, these findings support and extend previous theoretical efforts to model body representations through basic mechanisms of multisensory integration. They further support an updating model suggesting that embodied entities fade from the body representation if they are not refreshed continuously.}, language = {en} } @article{SuchotzkiKakavandGamer2019, author = {Suchotzki, Kristina and Kakavand, Aileen and Gamer, Matthias}, title = {Validity of the reaction time concealed information test in a prison sample}, series = {Frontiers in Psychiatry}, volume = {9}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychiatry}, number = {745}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00745}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-177714}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Detecting whether a suspect possesses incriminating (e.g., crime-related) information can provide valuable decision aids in court. To this means, the Concealed Information Test (CIT) has been developed and is currently applied on a regular basis in Japan. But whereas research has revealed a high validity of the CIT in student and normal populations, research investigating its validity in forensic samples in scarce. This applies even more to the reaction time-based CIT (RT-CIT), where no such research is available so far. The current study tested the application of the RT-CIT for an imaginary mock crime scenario both in a sample of prisoners (n = 27) and a matched control group (n = 25). Results revealed a high validity of the RT-CIT for discriminating between crime-related and crime-unrelated information, visible in medium to very high effect sizes for error rates and reaction times. Interestingly, in accordance with theories that criminal offenders may have worse response inhibition capacities and that response inhibition plays a crucial role in the RT-CIT, CIT-effects in the error rates were even elevated in the prisoners compared to the control group. No support for this hypothesis could, however, be found in reaction time CIT-effects. Also, performance in a standard Stroop task, that was conducted to measure executive functioning, did not differ between both groups and no correlation was found between Stroop task performance and performance in the RT-CIT. Despite frequently raised concerns that the RT-CIT may not be applicable in non-student and forensic populations, our results thereby do suggest that such a use may be possible and that effects seem to be quite large. Future research should build up on these findings by increasing the realism of the crime and interrogation situation and by further investigating the replicability and the theoretical substantiation of increased effects in non-student and forensic samples.}, language = {en} } @article{HommersGoers2016, author = {Hommers, Wilfried and G{\"o}rs, Marijke}, title = {Information integration of Kohlbergian thoughts about consensual sex}, series = {Universitas Psychologica}, volume = {15}, journal = {Universitas Psychologica}, number = {3}, doi = {10.11144/Javeriana.upsy15-3.iikt}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-168487}, year = {2016}, abstract = {The unification of two major approaches to moral judgment is the purpose of the present approach. Kohlberg's well-known stage theory assumes a sequence of discrete stages that underlie all moral judgment. Stage theory recognizes the problem of integrating considerations but gives no way to solve such integration, even with information from any one stage. And, of course, the stage concept denies any significant integration from different stages. Thus, research on moral judgment needs to study the integration problem which can be tested within Anderson's theory of information integration. The main purpose of the present study was to extend this unificationist approach to the issue of sexual morality. A novel task presents information from two very different stages. The results showed that in contrast to discreteness the stage informers were positively correlated in punishment judgments of both genders about consensual sex of juveniles. Furthermore, the subjects integrated considerations from those very different stages also in contrast to the hypothesis that only a single stage was operative at any time.}, language = {en} } @article{KrishnaPeter2018, author = {Krishna, Anand and Peter, Sebastian M.}, title = {Questionable research practices in student final theses - prevalence, attitudes, and the role of the supervisor's perceived attitudes}, series = {PLoS ONE}, volume = {13}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, number = {8}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0203470}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-177296}, pages = {e0203470}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Although questionable research practices (QRPs) and p-hacking have received attention in recent years, little research has focused on their prevalence and acceptance in students. Students are the researchers of the future and will represent the field in the future. Therefore, they should not be learning to use and accept QRPs, which would reduce their ability to produce and evaluate meaningful research. 207 psychology students and fresh graduates provided self-report data on the prevalence and predictors of QRPs. Attitudes towards QRPs, belief that significant results constitute better science or lead to better grades, motivation, and stress levels were predictors. Furthermore, we assessed perceived supervisor attitudes towards QRPs as an important predictive factor. The results were in line with estimates of QRP prevalence from academia. The best predictor of QRP use was students' QRP attitudes. Perceived supervisor attitudes exerted both a direct and indirect effect via student attitudes. Motivation to write a good thesis was a protective factor, whereas stress had no effect. Students in this sample did not subscribe to beliefs that significant results were better for science or their grades. Such beliefs further did not impact QRP attitudes or use in this sample. Finally, students engaged in more QRPs pertaining to reporting and analysis than those pertaining to study design. We conclude that supervisors have an important function in shaping students' attitudes towards QRPs and can improve their research practices by motivating them well. Furthermore, this research provides some impetus towards identifying predictors of QRP use in academia.}, language = {en} } @article{StoeckelEsserGameretal.2016, author = {Stoeckel, M. Cornelia and Esser, Roland W. and Gamer, Matthias and B{\"u}chel, Christian and von Leupoldt, Andreas}, title = {Brain Responses during the Anticipation of Dyspnea}, series = {Neural Plasticity}, volume = {2016}, journal = {Neural Plasticity}, number = {6434987}, doi = {10.1155/2016/6434987}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-166238}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Dyspnea is common in many cardiorespiratory diseases. Already the anticipation of this aversive symptom elicits fear in many patients resulting in unfavorable health behaviors such as activity avoidance and sedentary lifestyle. This study investigated brain mechanisms underlying these anticipatory processes. We induced dyspnea using resistive-load breathing in healthy subjects during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Blocks of severe and mild dyspnea alternated, each preceded by anticipation periods. Severe dyspnea activated a network of sensorimotor, cerebellar, and limbic areas. The left insular, parietal opercular, and cerebellar cortices showed increased activation already during dyspnea anticipation. Left insular and parietal opercular cortex showed increased connectivity with right insular and anterior cingulate cortex when severe dyspnea was anticipated, while the cerebellum showed increased connectivity with the amygdala. Notably, insular activation during dyspnea perception was positively correlated with midbrain activation during anticipation. Moreover, anticipatory fear was positively correlated with anticipatory activation in right insular and anterior cingulate cortex. The results demonstrate that dyspnea anticipation activates brain areas involved in dyspnea perception. The involvement of emotion-related areas such as insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and amygdala during dyspnea anticipation most likely reflects anticipatory fear and might underlie the development of unfavorable health behaviors in patients suffering from dyspnea.}, language = {en} } @article{WirthFoersterKundeetal.2020, author = {Wirth, Robert and Foerster, Anna and Kunde, Wilfried and Pfister, Roland}, title = {Design choices: Empirical recommendations for designing two-dimensional finger-tracking experiments}, series = {Behavior Research Methods}, volume = {52}, journal = {Behavior Research Methods}, doi = {10.3758/s13428-020-01409-0}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-235569}, pages = {2394-2416}, year = {2020}, abstract = {The continuous tracking of mouse or finger movements has become an increasingly popular research method for investigating cognitive and motivational processes such as decision-making, action-planning, and executive functions. In the present paper, we evaluate and discuss how apparently trivial design choices of researchers may impact participants' behavior and, consequently, a study's results. We first provide a thorough comparison of mouse- and finger-tracking setups on the basis of a Simon task. We then vary a comprehensive set of design factors, including spatial layout, movement extent, time of stimulus onset, size of the target areas, and hit detection in a finger-tracking variant of this task. We explore the impact of these variations on a broad spectrum of movement parameters that are typically used to describe movement trajectories. Based on our findings, we suggest several recommendations for best practice that avoid some of the pitfalls of the methodology. Keeping these recommendations in mind will allow for informed decisions when planning and conducting future tracking experiments.}, language = {en} } @article{MuthWirthKunde2021, author = {Muth, Felicitas V. and Wirth, Robert and Kunde, Winfried}, title = {Temporal binding past the Libet clock: testing design factors for an auditory timer}, series = {Behavior Research Methods}, volume = {53}, journal = {Behavior Research Methods}, number = {3}, doi = {10.3758/s13428-020-01474-5}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-234922}, pages = {1322-1341}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Voluntary actions and causally linked sensory stimuli are perceived to be shifted towards each other in time. This so-called temporal binding is commonly assessed in paradigms using the Libet Clock. In such experiments, participants have to estimate the timing of actions performed or ensuing sensory stimuli (usually tones) by means of a rotating clock hand presented on a screen. The aforementioned task setup is however ill-suited for many conceivable setups, especially when they involve visual effects. To address this shortcoming, the line of research presented here establishes an alternative measure for temporal binding by using a sequence of timed sounds. This method uses an auditory timer, a sequence of letters presented during task execution, which serve as anchors for temporal judgments. In four experiments, we manipulated four design factors of this auditory timer, namely interval length, interval filling, sequence predictability, and sequence length, to determine the most effective and economic method for measuring temporal binding with an auditory timer.}, language = {en} } @article{SchneiderHuestegge2019, author = {Schneider, Norbert and Huestegge, Lynn}, title = {Interaction of oculomotor and manual behavior: evidence from simulated driving in an approach-avoidance steering task}, series = {Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications}, volume = {4}, journal = {Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications}, doi = {10.1186/s41235-019-0170-7}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-200419}, pages = {19}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Background While the coordination of oculomotor and manual behavior is essential for driving a car, surprisingly little is known about this interaction, especially in situations requiring a quick steering reaction. In the present study, we analyzed oculomotor gaze and manual steering behavior in approach and avoidance tasks. Three task blocks were implemented within a dynamic simulated driving environment requiring the driver either to steer away from/toward a visual stimulus or to switch between both tasks. Results Task blocks requiring task switches were associated with higher manual response times and increased error rates. Manual response times did not significantly differ depending on whether drivers had to steer away from vs toward a stimulus, whereas oculomotor response times and gaze pattern variability were increased when drivers had to steer away from a stimulus compared to steering toward a stimulus. Conclusion The increased manual response times and error rates in mixed tasks indicate performance costs associated with cognitive flexibility, while the increased oculomotor response times and gaze pattern variability indicate a parsimonious cross-modal action control strategy (avoiding stimulus fixation prior to steering away from it) for the avoidance scenario. Several discrepancies between these results and typical eye-hand interaction patterns in basic laboratory research suggest that the specific goals and complex perceptual affordances associated with driving a vehicle strongly shape cross-modal control of behavior.}, language = {en} } @article{KirschmannLenhardSuggate2021, author = {Kirschmann, Nicole and Lenhard, Wolfgang and Suggate, Sebastian}, title = {Influences from working memory, word and sentence reading on passage comprehension and teacher ratings}, series = {Journal of Research in Reading}, volume = {44}, journal = {Journal of Research in Reading}, number = {4}, doi = {10.1111/1467-9817.12373}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-258043}, pages = {817-836}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Reading fluency is a major determinant of reading comprehension but depends on moderating factors such as auditory working memory (AWM), word recognition and sentence reading skills. We investigated how word and sentence reading skills relate to reading comprehension differentially across the first 6 years of schooling and tested which reading variable best predicted teacher judgements. We conducted our research in a rather transparent language, namely, German, drawing on two different data sets. The first was derived from the normative sample of a reading comprehension test (ELFE-II), including 2056 first to sixth graders with readings tests at the word, sentence and text level. The second sample included 114 students from second to fourth grade. The latter completed a series of tests that measured word and sentence reading fluency, pseudoword reading, AWM, reading comprehension, self-concept and teacher ratings. We analysed the data via hierarchical regression analyses to predict reading comprehension and teacher judgements. The impact of reading fluency was strongest in second and third grade, afterwards superseded by sentence comprehension. AWM significantly contributed to reading comprehension independently of reading fluency, whereas basic decoding skills disappeared after considering fluency. Students' AWM and reading comprehension predicted teacher judgements on reading fluency. Reading comprehension judgements depended both on the students' self-concept and reading comprehension. Our results underline that the role of word reading accuracy for reading comprehension quickly diminishes during elementary school and that teachers base their assessments mainly on the current reading comprehension skill.}, language = {en} } @article{CaoSteinbornKundeetal.2020, author = {Cao, Liyu and Steinborn, Michael and Kunde, Wilfried and Haendel, Barbara}, title = {Action force modulates action binding: evidence for a multisensory information integration explanation}, series = {Experimental Brain Research}, volume = {238}, journal = {Experimental Brain Research}, issn = {0014-4819}, doi = {10.1007/s00221-020-05861-4}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-232534}, pages = {2019-2029}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Action binding refers to the observation that the perceived time of an action (e.g., a keypress) is shifted towards the distal sensory feedback (usually a sound) triggered by that action. Surprisingly, the role of somatosensory feedback for this phe-nomenon has been largely ignored. We fill this gap by showing that the somatosensory feedback, indexed by keypress peak force, is functional in judging keypress time. Specifically, the strength of somatosensory feedback is positively correlated with reported keypress time when the keypress is not associated with an auditory feedback and negatively correlated when the keypress triggers an auditory feedback. The result is consistent with the view that the reported keypress time is shaped by sensory information from different modalities. Moreover, individual differences in action binding can be explained by a sensory information weighting between somatosensory and auditory feedback. At the group level, increasing the strength of somatosensory feedback can decrease action binding to a level not being detected statistically. Therefore, a multisensory information integration account (between somatosensory and auditory inputs) explains action binding at both a group level and an individual level.}, language = {en} } @article{WallmannSperlichBippBuckschetal.2017, author = {Wallmann-Sperlich, Birgit and Bipp, Tanja and Bucksch, Jens and Froboese, Ingo}, title = {Who uses height-adjustable desks? - Sociodemographic, health-related, and psycho-social variables of regular users}, series = {International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity}, volume = {14}, journal = {International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity}, number = {26}, doi = {10.1186/s12966-017-0480-4}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-157888}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Background: Sit-to-stand height-adjustable desks (HAD) may promote workplace standing, as long as workers use them on a regular basis. The aim of this study was to investigate (i) how common HAD in German desk-based workers are, and how frequently HADs are used, (ii) to identify sociodemographic, health-related, and psycho-social variables of workday sitting including having a HAD, and (iii) to analyse sociodemographic, health-related, and psycho-social variables of users and non-users of HADs. Methods: A cross-sectional sample of 680 participants (51.9\% men; 41.0 ± 13.1 years) in a desk-based occupation was interviewed by telephone about their occupational sitting and standing proportions, having and usage of a HAD, and answered questions concerning psycho-social variables of occupational sitting. The proportion of workday sitting was calculated for participants having an HAD (n = 108) and not-having an HAD (n = 573), as well as for regular users of HAD (n = 54), and irregular/non-users of HAD (n = 54). Linear regressions were conducted to calculate associations between socio-demographic, health-related, psychosocial variables and having/not having an HAD, and the proportion of workday sitting. Logistic regressions were executed to examine the association of mentioned variables and participants' usage of HADs. Results: Sixteen percent report that they have an HAD, and 50\% of these report regular use of HAD. Having an HAD is not a correlate of the proportion of workday sitting. Further analysis restricted to participants having available a HAD highlights that only the 'perceived advantages of sitting less' was significantly associated with HAD use in the fully adjusted model (OR 1.75 [1.09; 2.81], p < 0.05). Conclusions: The present findings indicate that accompanying behavioral action while providing an HAD is promising to increase the regular usage of HAD. Hence, future research needs to address the specificity of behavioral actions in order to enhance regular HAD use, and needs to give more fundamental insights into these associations.}, language = {en} } @article{ShibanDiemerMuelleretal.2017, author = {Shiban, Youssef and Diemer, Julia and M{\"u}ller, Jana and Br{\"u}tting-Schick, Johanna and Pauli, Paul and M{\"u}hlberger, Andreas}, title = {Diaphragmatic breathing during virtual reality exposure therapy for aviophobia: functional coping strategy or avoidance behavior? A pilot study}, series = {BMC Psychiatry}, volume = {17}, journal = {BMC Psychiatry}, doi = {10.1186/s12888-016-1181-2}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-181007}, pages = {10}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Background: Although there is solid evidence for the efficacy of in vivo and virtual reality (VR) exposure therapy for a specific phobia, there is a significant debate over whether techniques promoting distraction or relaxation have impairing or enhancing effects on treatment outcome. In the present pilot study, we investigated the effect of diaphragmatic breathing (DB) as a relaxation technique during VR exposure treatment. Method: Twenty-nine patients with aviophobia were randomly assigned to VR exposure treatment either with or without diaphragmatic breathing (six cycles per minute). Subjective fear ratings, heart rate and skin conductance were assessed as indicators of fear during both the exposure and the test session one week later. Results: The group that experienced VR exposure combined with diaphragmatic breathing showed a higher tendency to effectively overcome the fear of flying. Psychophysiological measures of fear decreased and self-efficacy increased in both groups with no significant difference between the groups. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that diaphragmatic breathing during VR exposure does not interfere with the treatment outcome and may even enhance treatment effects of VR exposure therapy for aviophobic patients.}, language = {en} } @article{FoersterPfisterReussetal.2017, author = {Foerster, Anna and Pfister, Roland and Reuss, Heiko and Kunde, Wilfried}, title = {Commentary: Feeling the Conflict: The Crucial Role of Conflict Experience in Adaptation}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {8}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, number = {1405}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01405}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-190032}, year = {2017}, abstract = {A commentary on: Feeling the Conflict: The Crucial Role of Conflict Experience in Adaptationby Desender, K., Van Opstal, F., and Van den Bussche, E. (2014). Psychol. Sci. 25, 675-683. doi:10.1177/0956797613511468 Conflict adaptation in masked priming has recently been proposed to rely not on successful conflictresolution but rather on conflict experience (Desender et al., 2014). We re-assessed this proposal ina direct replication and also tested a potential confound due toconflict strength. The data supported this alternative view, but also failed to replicate basic conflict adaptation effects of the original studydespite considerable power.}, language = {en} } @article{Kirsch2021, author = {Kirsch, Wladimir}, title = {On the relevance of task instructions for the influence of action on perception}, series = {Attention, Perception \& Psychophysics}, volume = {83}, journal = {Attention, Perception \& Psychophysics}, number = {6}, issn = {1943-393X}, doi = {10.3758/s13414-021-02309-x}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-273185}, pages = {2625-2633}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The present study explored how task instructions mediate the impact of action on perception. Participants saw a target object while performing finger movements. Then either the size of the target or the size of the adopted finger postures was judged. The target judgment was attracted by the adopted finger posture indicating sensory integration of body-related and visual signals. The magnitude of integration, however, depended on how the task was initially described. It was substantially larger when the experimental instructions indicated that finger movements and the target object relate to the same event than when they suggested that they are unrelated. This outcome highlights the role of causal inference processes in the emergence of action specific influences in perception.}, language = {en} } @article{RuboGamer2018, author = {Rubo, Marius and Gamer, Matthias}, title = {Social content and emotional valence modulate gaze fixations in dynamic scenes}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {8}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-018-22127-w}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-227106}, pages = {3804, 1-11}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Previous research has shown that low-level visual features (i.e., low-level visual saliency) as well as socially relevant information predict gaze allocation in free viewing conditions. However, these studies mainly used static and highly controlled stimulus material, thus revealing little about the robustness of attentional processes across diverging situations. Secondly, the influence of affective stimulus characteristics on visual exploration patterns remains poorly understood. Participants in the present study freely viewed a set of naturalistic, contextually rich video clips from a variety of settings that were capable of eliciting different moods. Using recordings of eye movements, we quantified to what degree social information, emotional valence and low-level visual features influenced gaze allocation using generalized linear mixed models. We found substantial and similarly large regression weights for low-level saliency and social information, affirming the importance of both predictor classes under ecologically more valid dynamic stimulation conditions. Differences in predictor strength between individuals were large and highly stable across videos. Additionally, low-level saliency was less important for fixation selection in videos containing persons than in videos not containing persons, and less important for videos perceived as negative. We discuss the generalizability of these findings and the feasibility of applying this research paradigm to patient groups.}, language = {en} } @article{SchieleZieglerKollertetal.2018, author = {Schiele, Miriam A. and Ziegler, Christiane and Kollert, Leonie and Katzorke, Andrea and Schartner, Christoph and Busch, Yasmin and Gromer, Daniel and Reif, Andreas and Pauli, Paul and Deckert, J{\"u}rgen and Herrmann, Martin J. and Domschke, Katharina}, title = {Plasticity of Functional MAOA Gene Methylation in Acrophobia}, series = {International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology}, volume = {21}, journal = {International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology}, number = {9}, doi = {10.1093/ijnp/pyy050}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-228571}, pages = {822-827}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Epigenetic mechanisms have been proposed to mediate fear extinction in animal models. Here, MAOA methylation was analyzed via direct sequencing of sodium bisulfite-treated DNA extracted from blood cells before and after a 2-week exposure therapy in a sample of n = 28 female patients with acrophobia as well as in n = 28 matched healthy female controls. Clinical response was measured using the Acrophobia Questionnaire and the Attitude Towards Heights Questionnaire. The functional relevance of altered MAOA methylation was investigated by luciferase-based reporter gene assays. MAOA methylation was found to be significantly decreased in patients with acrophobia compared with healthy controls. Furthermore, MAOA methylation levels were shown to significantly increase after treatment and correlate with treatment response as reflected by decreasing Acrophobia Questionnaire/Attitude Towards Heights Questionnaire scores. Functional analyses revealed decreased reporter gene activity in presence of methylated compared with unmethylated pCpGfree_MAOA reporter gene vector constructs. The present proof-of-concept psychotherapy-epigenetic study for the first time suggests functional MAOA methylation changes as a potential epigenetic correlate of treatment response in acrophobia and fosters further investigation into the notion of epigenetic mechanisms underlying fear extinction.}, language = {en} } @article{TrafimowAmrheinAreshenkoffetal.2018, author = {Trafimow, David and Amrhein, Valentin and Areshenkoff, Corson N. and Barrera-Causil, Carlos J. and Beh, Eric J. and Bilgi{\c{c}}, Yusuf K. and Bono, Roser and Bradley, Michael T. and Briggs, William M. and Cepeda-Freyre, H{\´e}ctor A. and Chaigneau, Sergio E. and Ciocca, Daniel R. and Correa, Juan C. and Cousineau, Denis and de Boer, Michiel R. and Dhar, Subhra S. and Dolgov, Igor and G{\´o}mez-Benito, Juana and Grendar, Marian and Grice, James W. and Guerrero-Gimenez, Martin E. and Guti{\´e}rrez, Andr{\´e}s and Huedo-Medina, Tania B. and Jaffe, Klaus and Janyan, Armina and Karimnezhad, Ali and Korner-Nievergelt, Fr{\"a}nzi and Kosugi, Koji and Lachmair, Martin and Ledesma, Rub{\´e}n D. and Limongi, Roberto and Liuzza, Marco T. and Lombardo, Rosaria and Marks, Michael J. and Meinlschmidt, Gunther and Nalborczyk, Ladislas and Nguyen, Hung T. and Ospina, Raydonal and Perezgonzalez, Jose D. and Pfister, Roland and Rahona, Juan J. and Rodr{\´i}guez-Medina, David A. and Rom{\~a}o, Xavier and Ruiz-Fern{\´a}ndez, Susana and Suarez, Isabel and Tegethoff, Marion and Tejo, Mauricio and van de Schoot, Rens and Vankov, Ivan I. and Velasco-Forero, Santiago and Wang, Tonghui and Yamada, Yuki and Zoppino, Felipe C. M. and Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando}, title = {Manipulating the Alpha Level Cannot Cure Significance Testing}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {9}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, number = {699}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00699}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189973}, year = {2018}, abstract = {We argue that making accept/reject decisions on scientific hypotheses, including a recent call for changing the canonical alpha level from p = 0.05 to p = 0.005, is deleterious for the finding of new discoveries and the progress of science. Given that blanket and variable alpha levels both are problematic, it is sensible to dispense with significance testing altogether. There are alternatives that address study design and sample size much more directly than significance testing does; but none of the statistical tools should be taken as the new magic method giving clear-cut mechanical answers. Inference should not be based on single studies at all, but on cumulative evidence from multiple independent studies. When evaluating the strength of the evidence, we should consider, for example, auxiliary assumptions, the strength of the experimental design, and implications for applications. To boil all this down to a binary decision based on a p-value threshold of 0.05, 0.01, 0.005, or anything else, is not acceptable.}, 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{WallmannSperlichHoffmannSaldittetal.2019, author = {Wallmann-Sperlich, Birgit and Hoffmann, Sophie and Salditt, Anne and Bipp, Tanja and Froboese, Ingo}, title = {Moving to an "active" biophilic designed office workplace: a pilot study about the effects on sitting time and sitting habits of office-based workers}, series = {International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health}, volume = {16}, journal = {International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health}, number = {9}, issn = {1660-4601}, doi = {10.3390/ijerph16091559}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-197371}, pages = {1559}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Promising initial insights show that offices designed to permit physical activity (PA) may reduce workplace sitting time. Biophilic approaches are intended to introduce natural surroundings into the workplace, and preliminary data show positive effects on stress reduction and elevated productivity within the workplace. The primary aim of this pilot study was to analyze changes in workplace sitting time and self-reported habit strength concerning uninterrupted sitting and PA during work, when relocating from a traditional office setting to "active" biophilic-designed surroundings. The secondary aim was to assess possible changes in work-associated factors such as satisfaction with the office environment, work engagement, and work performance, among office staff. In a pre-post designed field study, we collected data through an online survey on health behavior at work. Twelve participants completed the survey before (one-month pre-relocation, T1) and twice after the office relocation (three months (T2) and seven months post-relocation (T3)). Standing time per day during office hours increased from T1 to T3 by about 40 min per day (p < 0.01). Other outcomes remained unaltered. The results suggest that changing office surroundings to an active-permissive biophilic design increased standing time during working hours. Future larger-scale controlled studies are warranted to investigate the influence of office design on sitting time and work-associated factors during working hours in depth.}, language = {en} } @article{KirschUllrichKunde2016, author = {Kirsch, Wladimir and Ullrich, Benjamin and Kunde, Wilfried}, title = {Are Effects of Action on Perception Real? Evidence from Transformed Movements}, series = {PLoS ONE}, volume = {11}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, number = {12}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0167993}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-178574}, year = {2016}, abstract = {It has been argued that several reported non-visual influences on perception cannot be truly perceptual. If they were, they should affect the perception of target objects and reference objects used to express perceptual judgments, and thus cancel each other out. This reasoning presumes that non-visual manipulations impact target objects and comparison objects equally. In the present study we show that equalizing a body-related manipulation between target objects and reference objects essentially abolishes the impact of that manipulation so as it should do when that manipulation actually altered perception. Moreover, the manipulation has an impact on judgements when applied to only the target object but not to the reference object, and that impact reverses when only applied to the reference object but not to the target object. A perceptual explanation predicts this reversal, whereas explanations in terms of post-perceptual response biases or demand effects do not. Altogether these results suggest that body-related influences on perception cannot as a whole be attributed to extra-perceptual factors.}, language = {en} } @article{DuekingTaflerWallmannSperlichetal.2020, author = {D{\"u}king, Peter and Tafler, Marie and Wallmann-Sperlich, Birgit and Sperlich, Billy and Kleih, Sonja}, title = {Behavior Change Techniques in Wrist-Worn Wearables to Promote Physical Activity: Content Analysis}, series = {JMIR Mhealth and Uhealth}, volume = {8}, journal = {JMIR Mhealth and Uhealth}, number = {11}, doi = {10.2196/20820}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-230556}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Background: Decreasing levels of physical activity (PA) increase the incidences of noncommunicable diseases, obesity, and mortality. To counteract these developments, interventions aiming to increase PA are urgently needed. Mobile health (mHealth) solutions such as wearable sensors (wearables) may assist with an improvement in PA. Objective: The aim of this study is to examine which behavior change techniques (BCTs) are incorporated in currently available commercial high-end wearables that target users' PA behavior. Methods: The BCTs incorporated in 5 different high-end wearables (Apple Watch Series 3, Garmin V{\´i}voactive 3, Fitbit Versa, Xiaomi Amazfit Stratos 2, and Polar M600) were assessed by 2 researchers using the BCT Taxonomy version 1 (BCTTv1). Effectiveness of the incorporated BCTs in promoting PA behavior was assessed by a content analysis of the existing literature. Results: The most common BCTs were goal setting (behavior), action planning, review behavior goal(s), discrepancy between current behavior and goal, feedback on behavior, self-monitoring of behavior, and biofeedback. Fitbit Versa, Garmin V{\´i}voactive 3, Apple Watch Series 3, Polar M600, and Xiaomi Amazfit Stratos 2 incorporated 17, 16, 12, 11, and 11 BCTs, respectively, which are proven to effectively promote PA. Conclusions: Wearables employ different numbers and combinations of BCTs, which might impact their effectiveness in improving PA. To promote PA by employing wearables, we encourage researchers to develop a taxonomy specifically designed to assess BCTs incorporated in wearables. We also encourage manufacturers to customize BCTs based on the targeted populations.}, language = {en} } @article{LischkeHerpertzBergeretal.2017, author = {Lischke, Alexander and Herpertz, Sabine C. and Berger, Christoph and Domes, Gregor and Gamer, Matthias}, title = {Divergent effects of oxytocin on (para-)limbic reactivity to emotional and neutral scenes in females with and without borderline personality disorder}, series = {Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience}, volume = {12}, journal = {Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience}, number = {11}, doi = {10.1093/scan/nsx107}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-173309}, pages = {1783-1792}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients' hypersensitivity for emotionally relevant stimuli has been suggested be due to abnormal activity and connectivity in (para-)limbic and prefrontal brain regions during stimulus processing. The neuropeptide oxytocin has been shown to modulate activity and functional connectivity in these brain regions, thereby optimizing the processing of emotional and neutral stimuli. To investigate whether oxytocin would be capable of attenuating BPD patients' hypersensitivity for such stimuli, we recorded brain activity and gaze behavior during the processing of complex scenes in 51 females with and 48 without BPD after intranasal application of either oxytocin or placebo. We found divergent effects of oxytocin on BPD and healthy control (HC) participants' (para-)limbic reactivity to emotional and neutral scenes: Oxytocin decreased amygdala and insula reactivity in BPD participants but increased it in HC participants, indicating an oxytocin-induced normalization of amygdala and insula activity during scene processing. In addition, oxytocin normalized the abnormal coupling between amygdala activity and gaze behavior across all scenes in BPD participants. Overall, these findings suggest that oxytocin may be capable of attenuating BPD patients' hypersensitivity for complex scenes, irrespective of their valence.}, language = {en} } @article{RuboGamer2021, author = {Rubo, Marius and Gamer, Matthias}, title = {Stronger reactivity to social gaze in virtual reality compared to a classical laboratory environment}, series = {British Journal of Psychology}, volume = {112}, journal = {British Journal of Psychology}, number = {1}, doi = {10.1111/bjop.12453}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-215972}, pages = {301 -- 314}, year = {2021}, abstract = {People show a robust tendency to gaze at other human beings when viewing images or videos, but were also found to relatively avoid gaze at others in several real-world situations. This discrepancy, along with theoretical considerations, spawned doubts about the appropriateness of classical laboratory-based experimental paradigms in social attention research. Several researchers instead suggested the use of immersive virtual scenarios in eliciting and measuring naturalistic attentional patterns, but the field, struggling with methodological challenges, still needs to establish the advantages of this approach. Here, we show using eye-tracking in a complex social scenario displayed in virtual reality that participants show enhanced attention towards the face of an avatar at near distance and demonstrate an increased reactivity towards her social gaze as compared to participants who viewed the same scene on a computer monitor. The present study suggests that reactive virtual agents observed in immersive virtual reality can elicit natural modes of information processing and can help to conduct ecologically more valid experiments while maintaining high experimental control.}, language = {en} } @article{SegerWannagatNieding2021, author = {Seger, Benedikt T. and Wannagat, Wienke and Nieding, Gerhild}, title = {Children's surface, textbase, and situation model representations of written and illustrated written narrative text}, series = {Reading and Writing}, volume = {34}, journal = {Reading and Writing}, number = {6}, issn = {1573-0905}, doi = {10.1007/s11145-020-10118-1}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-269813}, pages = {1415-1440}, year = {2021}, abstract = {According to the tripartite model of text representation (van Dijk \& Kintsch, 1983), readers form representations of the text surface and textbase, and construct a situation model. In this study, an experiment was conducted to investigate whether these levels of representation would be affected by adding illustrations to narrative text and whether the order of text and illustrations would make a difference. Students aged between 7 and 13 years (N = 146) read 12 narrative texts, 4 of them with illustrations presented before their corresponding sentences, 4 with illustrations presented after, and 4 without any illustration. A sentence recognition task was used to assess the accuracy for text surface, textbase, and situation model. For the text surface and situation model, neither the presence of illustrations nor the order of text and illustrations influenced accuracy. However, the textbase was negatively affected by illustrations when they followed their corresponding sentences. We suggest that illustrations can initiate model inspection after situation model construction (Schnotz, 2014), a process that can make substantial changes to the textbase representation.}, language = {en} } @article{ZetzlRennerPittigetal.2021, author = {Zetzl, Teresa and Renner, Agnes and Pittig, Andre and Jentschke, Elisabeth and Roch, Carmen and van Oorschot, Birgitt}, title = {Yoga effectively reduces fatigue and symptoms of depression in patients with different types of cancer}, series = {Supportive Care in Cancer}, volume = {29}, journal = {Supportive Care in Cancer}, issn = {0941-4355}, doi = {10.1007/s00520-020-05794-2}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-235415}, pages = {2973-2982}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Purpose Examine the effects of an 8-week yoga therapy on fatigue in patients with different types of cancer. Methods A total of 173 cancer patients suffering from mild to severe fatigue were randomly allocated to yoga intervention (n = 84) (IG) versus waitlist control group (CG) (n = 88). Yoga therapy consisted of eight weekly sessions with 60 min each. The primary outcome was self-reported fatigue symptoms. Secondary outcomes were symptoms of depression and quality of life (QoL). Data were assessed using questionnaires before (T0) and after yoga therapy for IG versus waiting period for CG (T1). Results A stronger reduction of general fatigue (P = .033), physical fatigue (P = .048), and depression (P < .001) as well as a stronger increase in QoL (P = .002) was found for patients who attended 7 or 8 sessions compared with controls. Within the yoga group, both higher attendance rate and lower T0-fatigue were significant predictors of lower T1-fatigue (P ≤ .001). Exploratory results revealed that women with breast cancer report a higher reduction of fatigue than women with other types of cancer (P = .016) after yoga therapy. Conclusion The findings support the assumption that yoga therapy is useful to reduce cancer-related fatigue, especially for the physical aspects of fatigue. Women with breast cancer seem to benefit most, and higher attendance rate results in greater reduction of fatigue. Trial registration German Clinical Trials Register DRKS00016034}, language = {en} } @article{HerbortKrauseKunde2021, author = {Herbort, Oliver and Krause, Lisa-Marie and Kunde, Wilfried}, title = {Perspective determines the production and interpretation of pointing gestures}, series = {Psychonomic Bulletin \& Review}, volume = {28}, journal = {Psychonomic Bulletin \& Review}, issn = {1069-9384}, doi = {10.3758/s13423-020-01823-7}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-235293}, pages = {641-648}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Pointing is a ubiquitous means of communication. Nevertheless, observers systematically misinterpret the location indicated by pointers. We examined whether these misunderstandings result from the typically different viewpoints of pointers and observers. Participants either pointed themselves or interpreted points while assuming the pointer's or a typical observer perspective in a virtual reality environment. The perspective had a strong effect on the relationship between pointing gestures and referents, whereas the task had only a minor influence. This suggests that misunderstandings between pointers and observers primarily result from their typically different viewpoints.}, language = {en} } @article{RodriguesWeissMusseletal.2022, author = {Rodrigues, Johannes and Weiß, Martin and Mussel, Patrick and Hewig, Johannes}, title = {On second thought … the influence of a second stage in the ultimatum game on decision behavior, electro-cortical correlates and their trait interrelation}, series = {Psychophysiology}, volume = {59}, journal = {Psychophysiology}, number = {7}, doi = {10.1111/psyp.14023}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-318983}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Previous EEG research only investigated one stage ultimatum games (UGs). We investigated the influence of a second bargaining stage in an UG concerning behavioral responses, electro-cortical correlates and their moderations by the traits altruism, anger, anxiety, and greed in 92 participants. We found that an additional stage led to more rejection in the 2-stage UG (2SUG) and that increasing offers in the second stage compared to the first stage led to more acceptance. The FRN during a trial was linked to expectance evaluation concerning the fairness of the offers, while midfrontal theta was a marker for the needed cognitive control to overcome the respective default behavioral pattern. The FRN responses to unfair offers were more negative for either low or high altruism in the UG, while high trait anxiety led to more negative FRN responses in the first stage of 2SUG, indicating higher sensitivity to unfairness. Accordingly, the mean FRN response, representing the trait-like general electrocortical reactivity to unfairness, predicted rejection in the first stage of 2SUG. Additionally, we found that high trait anger led to more rejections for unfair offer in 2SUG in general, while trait altruism led to more rejection of unimproving unfair offers in the second stage of 2SUG. In contrast, trait anxiety led to more acceptance in the second stage of 2SUG, while trait greed even led to more acceptance if the offer was worse than in the stage before. These findings suggest, that 2SUG creates a trait activation situation compared to the UG.}, language = {en} } @article{HaberstumpfForsterLeinweberetal.2022, author = {Haberstumpf, Sophia and Forster, Andr{\´e} and Leinweber, Jonas and Rauskolb, Stefanie and Hewig, Johannes and Sendtner, Michael and Lauer, Martin and Polak, Thomas and Deckert, J{\"u}rgen and Herrmann, Martin J.}, title = {Measurement invariance testing of longitudinal neuropsychiatric test scores distinguishes pathological from normative cognitive decline and highlights its potential in early detection research}, series = {Journal of Neuropsychology}, volume = {16}, journal = {Journal of Neuropsychology}, number = {2}, doi = {10.1111/jnp.12269}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-318932}, pages = {324 -- 352}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Objective Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a growing challenge worldwide, which is why the search for early-onset predictors must be focused as soon as possible. Longitudinal studies that investigate courses of neuropsychological and other variables screen for such predictors correlated to mild cognitive impairment (MCI). However, one often neglected issue in analyses of such studies is measurement invariance (MI), which is often assumed but not tested for. This study uses the absence of MI (non-MI) and latent factor scores instead of composite variables to assess properties of cognitive domains, compensation mechanisms, and their predictability to establish a method for a more comprehensive understanding of pathological cognitive decline. Methods An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and a set of increasingly restricted confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were conducted to find latent factors, compared them with the composite approach, and to test for longitudinal (partial-)MI in a neuropsychiatric test battery, consisting of 14 test variables. A total of 330 elderly (mean age: 73.78 ± 1.52 years at baseline) were analyzed two times (3 years apart). Results EFA revealed a four-factor model representing declarative memory, attention, working memory, and visual-spatial processing. Based on CFA, an accurate model was estimated across both measurement timepoints. Partial non-MI was found for parameters such as loadings, test- and latent factor intercepts as well as latent factor variances. The latent factor approach was preferable to the composite approach. Conclusion The overall assessment of non-MI latent factors may pose a possible target for this field of research. Hence, the non-MI of variances indicated variables that are especially suited for the prediction of pathological cognitive decline, while non-MI of intercepts indicated general aging-related decline. As a result, the sole assessment of MI may help distinguish pathological from normative aging processes and additionally may reveal compensatory neuropsychological mechanisms.}, language = {en} } @article{WeissRodriguesHewig2022, author = {Weiß, Martin and Rodrigues, Johannes and Hewig, Johannes}, title = {Big Five personality factors in relation to coping with contact restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic: a small sample study}, series = {Social Sciences}, volume = {11}, journal = {Social Sciences}, number = {10}, issn = {2076-0760}, doi = {10.3390/socsci11100466}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-290556}, year = {2022}, abstract = {To slow down the spread of the SARS-Cov-2 virus, countries worldwide severely restricted public and social life. In addition to the physical threat posed by the viral disease (COVID-19), the pandemic also has implications for psychological well-being. Using a small sample (N = 51), we examined how Big Five personality traits relate to coping with contact restrictions during three consecutive weeks in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. We showed that extraversion was associated with suffering from severe contact restrictions and with benefiting from their relaxation. Individuals with high neuroticism did not show a change in their relatively poor coping with the restrictions over time, whereas conscientious individuals seemed to experience no discomfort and even positive feelings during the period of contact restrictions. Our results support the assumption that neuroticism is a vulnerability factor in relation to psychological wellbeing but also show an influence of contact restrictions on extraverted individuals.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Forster2023, author = {Forster, Andr{\´e}}, title = {Targeting Temporally Stable Vulnerability Factors in the Prediction of Long-Term Courses of Depression: Diagnostic Considerations and Therapeutic Protocols Based on Transcranial Ultrasonic Neuromodulation of Endophenotypes}, doi = {10.25972/OPUS-27906}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-279065}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Depressive disorders represent one of the main sources for the loss of healthy years of life. One of the reasons for this circumstance is the recurrent course of these disorders, which can be interrupted by current therapeutic approaches, especially in the shortterm, but seem to be maintained at least in part in the long-term. Subsequently, on one hand, this thesis deals with methodological measurement issues in the longitudinal prediction of depressive courses. On the other hand, it addresses two currently discussed neuroscience-based treatment approaches, which are investigated experimentally in a basic-psychological manner and reviewed in the light of their potential to translate results to the application in patient care. These two approaches each address potential mechanisms that may negatively impact long-term disease trajectories: First, stable endophenotypes for vulnerability factors that could regain control over the organism and reactivate maladaptive experiences, or behaviors with increasing temporal distance from therapeutic methods are focused on. In the studies presented, these were influenced by a recently rediscovered method of neuromodulation (transcranial low-intensity focused ultrasound) which is discussed in light of its unique capability to address even deepest, subcortical regions at a high spatial resolution. Lastly, as a second approach, an experimental design for the use of reconsolidation interference is presented, which could provide a first insight into the applicability of corresponding protocols in the field of depressive disorders and thus contribute to the modification, instead of inhibition, of already mentioned endophenotypes. In sum, methodological considerations for monitoring and predicting long-term courses of depression are deducted before two approaches are discussed that could potentially exert positive influences on the recurrent nature of depressive symptoms on their own, in combination with each other, or as augmentation for existing therapeutic procedures.}, subject = {Depression}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Breil2023, author = {Breil, Christina}, title = {Look at me and I will feel you: eye contact and social understandig}, doi = {10.25972/OPUS-27802}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-278021}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2023}, abstract = {One of the features that defines humans as extraordinarily social beings is their striking susceptibility to the gaze of others. The research reported in this dissertation was undertaken to advance our understanding of the role of gaze cues in low-level attentional and higher-order cognitive processes. In particular, effects of gaze were examined with regard to three aspects of human cognition: (1) social attention, (2) social interaction and (3) social understanding. Chapter 1 consists of three manuscripts that investigate the boundary conditions of attention capture by direct gaze and how gaze direction is integrated with facial context information. Manuscript 1 and 2 suggest two necessary requirements for attention capture by direct gaze: a meaningful holistic facial context and sharp foveal vision, respectively. Manuscript 3 shows approach/avoidance-congruency effects between gaze direction and emotion expression on attention. Chapter 2 of this dissertation explores the role of gaze in more naturalistic social scenarios. Manuscript 4 demonstrates that gaze behavior during a conversation shapes our perception of another person. Manuscript 5 builds on these findings by showing that these perceptions define our willingness to act in a prosocial way towards our interaction partner. Finally, chapter 3 adopts a broader perspective on social cognition research with a special focus on methodological aspects. Manuscript 6 is a review highlighting the significance of methodological aspects in social cognition research and stressing the importance of sophisticated decisions on task and stimulus materials. Manuscript 7 introduces a new instrument for the assessment of social understanding in adolescents. Initial application in a young sample group indicates that an understanding of another person's mental states is a capacity that is still developing throughout adolescence. Both manuscripts of this final chapter include eye tracking data that suggest a relationship between gaze behavior and social understanding, a finding that further emphasizes the complex and multifaceted nature of social cognition. I conclude from the findings of this dissertation that research can benefit from adopting a broad view in terms of methodological as well as temporal aspects in order to capture human social cognition in its entirety.}, subject = {Blick}, language = {en} } @article{HaufNiedingSeger2020, author = {Hauf, Juliane E. K. and Nieding, Gerhild and Seger, Benedikt T.}, title = {The development of dynamic perceptual simulations during sentence comprehension}, series = {Cognitive Processing}, volume = {21}, journal = {Cognitive Processing}, number = {2}, doi = {10.1007/s10339-020-00959-7}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-283665}, pages = {197-208}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Based on an embodied account of language comprehension, this study investigated the dynamic characteristics of children and adults' perceptual simulations during sentence comprehension, using a novel paradigm to assess the perceptual simulation of objects moving up and down a vertical axis. The participants comprised adults (N = 40) and 6-, 8-, and 10-year-old children (N = 116). After listening in experimental trials to sentences implying that objects moved upward or downward, the participants were shown pictures and had to decide as quickly as possible whether the objects depicted had been mentioned in the sentences. The target pictures moved either up or down and then stopped in the middle of the screen. All age groups' reaction times were found to be shorter when the objects moved in the directions that the sentences implied. Age exerted no developmental effect on reaction times. The findings suggest that dynamic perceptual simulations are fundamental to language comprehension in text recipients aged 6 and older.}, language = {en} } @misc{HaufNiedingSeger2021, author = {Hauf, Juliane E. K. and Nieding, Gerhild and Seger, Benedikt T.}, title = {Correction to: The development of dynamic perceptual simulations during sentence comprehension}, series = {Cognitive Processing}, volume = {22}, journal = {Cognitive Processing}, number = {4}, doi = {10.1007/s10339-021-01027-4}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-352611}, pages = {731}, year = {2021}, abstract = {No abstract available.}, language = {en} } @article{LandmannBreilHuesteggeetal.2024, author = {Landmann, Eva and Breil, Christina and Huestegge, Lynn and B{\"o}ckler, Anne}, title = {The semantics of gaze in person perception: a novel qualitative-quantitative approach}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {14}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, number = {1}, issn = {2045-2322}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-024-51331-0}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-361413}, year = {2024}, abstract = {Interpreting gaze behavior is essential in evaluating interaction partners, yet the 'semantics of gaze' in dynamic interactions are still poorly understood. We aimed to comprehensively investigate effects of gaze behavior patterns in different conversation contexts, using a two-step, qualitative-quantitative procedure. Participants watched video clips of single persons listening to autobiographic narrations by another (invisible) person. The listener's gaze behavior was manipulated in terms of gaze direction, frequency and direction of gaze shifts, and blink frequency; emotional context was manipulated through the valence of the narration (neutral/negative). In Experiment 1 (qualitative-exploratory), participants freely described which states and traits they attributed to the listener in each condition, allowing us to identify relevant aspects of person perception and to construct distinct rating scales that were implemented in Experiment 2 (quantitative-confirmatory). Results revealed systematic and differential meanings ascribed to the listener's gaze behavior. For example, rapid blinking and fast gaze shifts were rated more negatively (e.g., restless and unnatural) than slower gaze behavior; downward gaze was evaluated more favorably (e.g., empathetic) than other gaze aversion types, especially in the emotionally negative context. Overall, our study contributes to a more systematic understanding of flexible gaze semantics in social interaction.}, language = {en} } @article{JuGanRinnetal.2022, author = {Ju, Qianqian and Gan, Yiqun and Rinn, Robin and Duan, Yanping and Lippke, Sonia}, title = {Health Status Stability of Patients in a Medical Rehabilitation Program: What Are the Roles of Time, Physical Fitness Level, and Self-efficacy?}, series = {International Journal of Behavioral Medicine}, volume = {29}, journal = {International Journal of Behavioral Medicine}, number = {5}, issn = {1070-5503}, doi = {10.1007/s12529-021-10046-6}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-308445}, pages = {624-637}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Background Individuals' physical and mental health, as well as their chances of returning to work after their ability to work is damaged, can be addressed by medical rehabilitation. Aim This study investigated the developmental trends of mental and physical health among patients in medical rehabilitation and the roles of self-efficacy and physical fitness in the development of mental and physical health. Design A longitudinal design that included four time-point measurements across 15 months. Setting A medical rehabilitation center in Germany. Population Participants included 201 patients who were recruited from a medical rehabilitation center. Methods To objectively measure physical fitness (lung functioning), oxygen reabsorption at anaerobic threshold (VO2AT) was used, along with several self-report scales. Results We found a nonlinear change in mental health among medical rehabilitation patients. The results underscored the importance of medical rehabilitation for patients' mental health over time. In addition, patients' physical health was stable over time. The initial level of physical fitness (VO2AT) positively predicted their mental health and kept the trend more stable. Self-efficacy appeared to have a positive relationship with mental health after rehabilitation treatment. Conclusions This study revealed a nonlinear change in mental health among medical rehabilitation patients. Self-efficacy was positively related to mental health, and the initial level of physical fitness positively predicted the level of mental health after rehabilitation treatment. Clinical Rehabilitation More attention could be given to physical capacity and self-efficacy for improving and maintaining rehabilitants' mental health.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Menne2020, author = {Menne, Isabelle M.}, title = {Facing Social Robots - Emotional Reactions towards Social Robots}, edition = {1. Auflage}, publisher = {W{\"u}rzburg University Press}, address = {W{\"u}rzburg}, isbn = {978-3-95826-120-4}, doi = {10.25972/WUP-978-3-95826-121-1}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-187131}, school = {W{\"u}rzburg University Press}, pages = {XXIV, 201}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Ein Army Colonel empfindet Mitleid mit einem Roboter, der versuchsweise Landminen entsch{\"a}rft und deklariert den Test als inhuman (Garreau, 2007). Roboter bekommen milit{\"a}rische Bef{\"o}rderungen, Beerdigungen und Ehrenmedaillen (Garreau, 2007; Carpenter, 2013). Ein Schildkr{\"o}tenroboter wird entwickelt, um Kindern beizubringen, Roboter gut zu behandeln (Ackermann, 2018). Der humanoide Roboter Sophia wurde erst k{\"u}rzlich Saudi-Arabischer Staatsb{\"u}rger und es gibt bereits Debatten, ob Roboter Rechte bekommen sollen (Delcker, 2018). Diese und {\"a}hnliche Entwicklungen zeigen schon jetzt die Bedeutsamkeit von Robotern und die emotionale Wirkung die diese ausl{\"o}sen. Dennoch scheinen sich diese emotionalen Reaktionen auf einer anderen Ebene abzuspielen, gemessen an Kommentaren in Internetforen. Dort ist oftmals die Rede davon, wieso jemand {\"u}berhaupt emotional auf einen Roboter reagieren kann. Tats{\"a}chlich ist es, rein rational gesehen, schwierig zu erkl{\"a}ren, warum Menschen mit einer leblosen (‚mindless') Maschine mitf{\"u}hlen sollten. Und dennoch zeugen nicht nur oben genannte Berichte, sondern auch erste wissenschaftliche Studien (z.B. Rosenthal- von der P{\"u}tten et al., 2013) von dem emotionalen Einfluss den Roboter auf Menschen haben k{\"o}nnen. Trotz der Bedeutsamkeit der Erforschung emotionaler Reaktionen auf Roboter existieren bislang wenige wissenschaftliche Studien hierzu. Tats{\"a}chlich identifizierten Kappas, Krumhuber und K{\"u}ster (2013) die systematische Analyse und Evaluation sozialer Reaktionen auf Roboter als eine der gr{\"o}ßten Herausforderungen der affektiven Mensch-Roboter Interaktion. Nach Scherer (2001; 2005) bestehen Emotionen aus der Koordination und Synchronisation verschiedener Komponenten, die miteinander verkn{\"u}pft sind. Motorischer Ausdruck (Mimik), subjektives Erleben, Handlungstendenzen, physiologische und kognitive Komponenten geh{\"o}ren hierzu. Um eine Emotion vollst{\"a}ndig zu erfassen, m{\"u}ssten all diese Komponenten gemessen werden, jedoch wurde eine solch umfassende Analyse bisher noch nie durchgef{\"u}hrt (Scherer, 2005). Haupts{\"a}chlich werden Frageb{\"o}gen eingesetzt (vgl. Bethel \& Murphy, 2010), die allerdings meist nur das subjektive Erleben abfragen. Bakeman und Gottman (1997) geben sogar an, dass nur etwa 8\% der psychologischen Forschung auf Verhaltensdaten basiert, obwohl die Psychologie traditionell als das ‚Studium von Psyche und Verhalten' (American Psychological Association, 2018) definiert wird. Die Messung anderer Emotionskomponenten ist selten. Zudem sind Frageb{\"o}gen mit einer Reihe von Nachteilen behaftet (Austin, Deary, Gibson, McGregor, Dent, 1998; Fan et al., 2006; Wilcox, 2011). Bethel und Murphy (2010) als auch Arkin und Moshkina (2015) pl{\"a}dieren f{\"u}r einen Multi-Methodenansatz um ein umfassenderes Verst{\"a}ndnis von affektiven Prozessen in der Mensch-Roboter Interaktion zu erlangen. Das Hauptziel der vorliegenden Dissertation ist es daher, mithilfe eines Multi-Methodenansatzes verschiedene Komponenten von Emotionen (motorischer Ausdruck, subjektive Gef{\"u}hlskomponente, Handlungstendenzen) zu erfassen und so zu einem vollst{\"a}ndigeren und tiefgreifenderem Bild emotionaler Prozesse auf Roboter beizutragen. Um dieses Ziel zu erreichen, wurden drei experimentelle Studien mit insgesamt 491 Teilnehmern durchgef{\"u}hrt. Mit unterschiedlichen Ebenen der „apparent reality" (Frijda, 2007) sowie Macht / Kontrolle {\"u}ber die Situation (vgl. Scherer \& Ellgring, 2007) wurde untersucht, inwiefern sich Intensit{\"a}t und Qualit{\"a}t emotionaler Reaktionen auf Roboter {\"a}ndern und welche weiteren Faktoren (Aussehen des Roboters, emotionale Expressivit{\"a}t des Roboters, Behandlung des Roboters, Autorit{\"a}tsstatus des Roboters) Einfluss aus{\"u}ben. Experiment 1 basierte auf Videos, die verschiedene Arten von Robotern (tier{\"a}hnlich, anthropomorph, maschinenartig), die entweder emotional expressiv waren oder nicht (an / aus) in verschiedenen Situationen (freundliche Behandlung des Roboters vs. Misshandlung) zeigten. Frageb{\"o}gen {\"u}ber selbstberichtete Gef{\"u}hle und die motorisch-expressive Komponente von Emotionen: Mimik (vgl. Scherer, 2005) wurden analysiert. Das Facial Action Coding System (Ekman, Friesen, \& Hager, 2002), die umfassendste und am weitesten verbreitete Methode zur objektiven Untersuchung von Mimik, wurde hierf{\"u}r verwendet. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass die Probanden Gesichtsausdr{\"u}cke (Action Unit [AU] 12 und AUs, die mit positiven Emotionen assoziiert sind, sowie AU 4 und AUs, die mit negativen Emotionen assoziiert sind) sowie selbstberichtete Gef{\"u}hle in {\"U}bereinstimmung mit der Valenz der in den Videos gezeigten Behandlung zeigten. Bei emotional expressiven Robotern konnten st{\"a}rkere emotionale Reaktionen beobachtet werden als bei nicht-expressiven Robotern. Der tier{\"a}hnliche Roboter Pleo erfuhr in der Misshandlungs-Bedingung am meisten Mitleid, Empathie, negative Gef{\"u}hle und Traurigkeit, gefolgt vom anthropomorphen Roboter Reeti und am wenigsten f{\"u}r den maschinenartigen Roboter Roomba. Roomba wurde am meisten Antipathie zugeschrieben. Die Ergebnisse kn{\"u}pfen an fr{\"u}here Forschungen an (z.B. Krach et al., 2008; Menne \& Schwab, 2018; Riek et al., 2009; Rosenthal-von der P{\"u}tten et al., 2013) und zeigen das Potenzial der Mimik f{\"u}r eine nat{\"u}rliche Mensch-Roboter Interaktion. Experiment 2 und Experiment 3 {\"u}bertrugen die klassischen Experimente von Milgram (1963; 1974) zum Thema Gehorsam in den Kontext der Mensch-Roboter Interaktion. Die Gehorsamkeitsstudien von Milgram wurden als sehr geeignet erachtet, um das Ausmaß der Empathie gegen{\"u}ber einem Roboter im Verh{\"a}ltnis zum Gehorsam gegen{\"u}ber einem Roboter zu untersuchen. Experiment 2 unterschied sich von Experiment 3 in der Ebene der „apparent reality" (Frijda, 2007): in Anlehnung an Milgram (1963) wurde eine rein text-basierte Studie (Experiment 2) einer live Mensch-Roboter Interaktion (Experiment 3) gegen{\"u}bergestellt. W{\"a}hrend die abh{\"a}ngigen Variablen von Experiment 2 aus den Selbstberichten emotionaler Gef{\"u}hle sowie Einsch{\"a}tzungen des hypothetischen Verhaltens bestand, erfasste Experiment 3 subjektive Gef{\"u}hle sowie reales Verhalten (Reaktionszeit: Dauer des Z{\"o}gerns; Gehorsamkeitsrate; Anzahl der Proteste; Mimik) der Teilnehmer. Beide Experimente untersuchten den Einfluss der Faktoren „Autorit{\"a}tsstatus" (hoch / niedrig) des Roboters, der die Befehle erteilt (Nao) und die emotionale Expressivit{\"a}t (an / aus) des Roboters, der die Strafen erh{\"a}lt (Pleo). Die subjektiven Gef{\"u}hle der Teilnehmer aus Experiment 2 unterschieden sich zwischen den Gruppen nicht. Dar{\"u}ber hinaus gaben nur wenige Teilnehmer (20.2\%) an, dass sie den „Opfer"-Roboter definitiv bestrafen w{\"u}rden. Ein {\"a}hnliches Ergebnis fand auch Milgram (1963). Das reale Verhalten von Versuchsteilnehmern in Milgrams' Labor-Experiment unterschied sich jedoch von Einsch{\"a}tzungen hypothetischen Verhaltens von Teilnehmern, denen Milgram das Experiment nur beschrieben hatte. Ebenso lassen Kommentare von Teilnehmern aus Experiment 2 darauf schließen, dass das beschriebene Szenario m{\"o}glicherweise als fiktiv eingestuft wurde und Einsch{\"a}tzungen von hypothetischem Verhalten daher kein realistisches Bild realen Verhaltens gegen{\"u}ber Roboter in einer live Interaktion zeichnen k{\"o}nnen. Daher wurde ein weiteres Experiment (Experiment 3) mit einer Live Interaktion mit einem Roboter als Autorit{\"a}tsfigur (hoher Autorit{\"a}tsstatus vs. niedriger) und einem weiteren Roboter als „Opfer" (emotional expressiv vs. nicht expressiv) durchgef{\"u}hrt. Es wurden Gruppenunterschiede in Frageb{\"o}gen {\"u}ber emotionale Reaktionen gefunden. Dem emotional expressiven Roboter wurde mehr Empathie entgegengebracht und es wurde mehr Freude und weniger Antipathie berichtet als gegen{\"u}ber einem nicht-expressiven Roboter. Außerdem konnten Gesichtsausdr{\"u}cke beobachtet werden, die mit negativen Emotionen assoziiert sind w{\"a}hrend Probanden Nao's Befehl ausf{\"u}hrten und Pleo bestraften. Obwohl Probanden tendenziell l{\"a}nger z{\"o}gerten, wenn sie einen emotional expressiven Roboter bestrafen sollten und der Befehl von einem Roboter mit niedrigem Autorit{\"a}tsstatus kam, wurde dieser Unterschied nicht signifikant. Zudem waren alle bis auf einen Probanden gehorsam und bestraften Pleo, wie vom Nao Roboter befohlen. Dieses Ergebnis steht in starkem Gegensatz zu dem selbstberichteten hypothetischen Verhalten der Teilnehmer aus Experiment 2 und unterst{\"u}tzt die Annahme, dass die Einsch{\"a}tzungen von hypothetischem Verhalten in einem Mensch-Roboter-Gehorsamkeitsszenario nicht zuverl{\"a}ssig sind f{\"u}r echtes Verhalten in einer live Mensch-Roboter Interaktion. Situative Variablen, wie z.B. der Gehorsam gegen{\"u}ber Autorit{\"a}ten, sogar gegen{\"u}ber einem Roboter, scheinen st{\"a}rker zu sein als Empathie f{\"u}r einen Roboter. Dieser Befund kn{\"u}pft an andere Studien an (z.B. Bartneck \& Hu, 2008; Geiskkovitch et al., 2016; Menne, 2017; Slater et al., 2006), er{\"o}ffnet neue Erkenntnisse zum Einfluss von Robotern, zeigt aber auch auf, dass die Wahl einer Methode um Empathie f{\"u}r einen Roboter zu evozieren eine nicht triviale Angelegenheit ist (vgl. Geiskkovitch et al., 2016; vgl. Milgram, 1965). Insgesamt st{\"u}tzen die Ergebnisse die Annahme, dass die emotionalen Reaktionen auf Roboter tiefgreifend sind und sich sowohl auf der subjektiven Ebene als auch in der motorischen Komponente zeigen. Menschen reagieren emotional auf einen Roboter, der emotional expressiv ist und eher weniger wie eine Maschine aussieht. Sie empfinden Empathie und negative Gef{\"u}hle, wenn ein Roboter misshandelt wird und diese emotionalen Reaktionen spiegeln sich in der Mimik. Dar{\"u}ber hinaus unterscheiden sich die Einsch{\"a}tzungen von Menschen {\"u}ber ihr eigenes hypothetisches Verhalten von ihrem tats{\"a}chlichen Verhalten, weshalb videobasierte oder live Interaktionen zur Analyse realer Verhaltensreaktionen empfohlen wird. Die Ankunft sozialer Roboter in der Gesellschaft f{\"u}hrt zu nie dagewesenen Fragen und diese Dissertation liefert einen ersten Schritt zum Verst{\"a}ndnis dieser neuen Herausforderungen.}, subject = {Roboter}, language = {en} } @article{MockeWellerFringsetal.2020, author = {Mocke, Viola and Weller, Lisa and Frings, Christian and Rothermund, Klaus and Kunde, Wilfried}, title = {Task relevance determines binding of effect features in action planning}, series = {Attention, Perception, \& Psychophysics}, volume = {82}, journal = {Attention, Perception, \& Psychophysics}, issn = {1943-3921}, doi = {10.3758/s13414-020-02123-x}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-231906}, pages = {3811-3831}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Action planning can be construed as the temporary binding of features of perceptual action effects. While previous research demonstrated binding for task-relevant, body-related effect features, the role of task-irrelevant or environment-related effect features in action planning is less clear. Here, we studied whether task-relevance or body-relatedness determines feature binding in action planning. Participants planned an action A, but before executing it initiated an intermediate action B. Each action relied on a body-related effect feature (index vs. middle finger movement) and an environment-related effect feature (cursor movement towards vs. away from a reference object). In Experiments 1 and 2, both effects were task-relevant. Performance in action B suffered from partial feature overlap with action A compared to full feature repetition or alternation, which is in line with binding of both features while planning action A. Importantly, this cost disappeared when all features were available but only body-related features were task-relevant (Experiment 3). When only the environment-related effect of action A was known in advance, action B benefitted when it aimed at the same (vs. a different) environment-related effect (Experiment 4). Consequently, the present results support the idea that task relevance determines whether binding of body-related and environment-related effect features takes place while the pre-activation of environment-related features without binding them primes feature-overlapping actions.}, language = {en} } @article{MuraliHaendel2022, author = {Murali, Supriya and H{\"a}ndel, Barbara}, title = {Motor restrictions impair divergent thinking during walking and during sitting}, series = {Psychological Research}, volume = {86}, journal = {Psychological Research}, number = {7}, issn = {1430-2772}, doi = {10.1007/s00426-021-01636-w}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-267722}, pages = {2144-2157}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Creativity, specifically divergent thinking, has been shown to benefit from unrestrained walking. Despite these findings, it is not clear if it is the lack of restriction that leads to the improvement. Our goal was to explore the effects of motor restrictions on divergent thinking for different movement states. In addition, we assessed whether spontaneous eye blinks, which are linked to motor execution, also predict performance. In experiment 1, we compared the performance in Guilford's alternate uses task (AUT) during walking vs. sitting, and analysed eye blink rates during both conditions. We found that AUT scores were higher during walking than sitting. Albeit eye blinks differed significantly between movement conditions (walking vs. sitting) and task phase (baseline vs. thinking vs. responding), they did not correlate with task performance. In experiment 2 and 3, participants either walked freely or in a restricted path, or sat freely or fixated on a screen. When the factor restriction was explicitly modulated, the effect of walking was reduced, while restriction showed a significant influence on the fluency scores. Importantly, we found a significant correlation between the rate of eye blinks and creativity scores between subjects, depending on the restriction condition. Our study shows a movement state-independent effect of restriction on divergent thinking. In other words, similar to unrestrained walking, unrestrained sitting also improves divergent thinking. Importantly, we discuss a mechanistic explanation of the effect of restriction on divergent thinking based on the increased size of the focus of attention and the consequent bias towards flexibility.}, language = {en} } @article{KozlikNeumannLozo2015, author = {Kozlik, Julia and Neumann, Roland and Lozo, Ljubica}, title = {Contrasting motivational orientation and evaluative coding accounts: on the need to differentiate the effectors of approach/avoidance responses}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {6}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, number = {563}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00563}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-143192}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Several emotion theorists suggest that valenced stimuli automatically trigger motivational orientations and thereby facilitate corresponding behavior. Positive stimuli were thought to activate approach motivational circuits which in turn primed approach-related behavioral tendencies whereas negative stimuli were supposed to activate avoidance motivational circuits so that avoidance-related behavioral tendencies were primed (motivational orientation account). However, recent research suggests that typically observed affective stimulus response compatibility phenomena might be entirely explained in terms of theories accounting for mechanisms of general action control instead of assuming motivational orientations to mediate the effects (evaluative coding account). In what follows, we explore to what extent this notion is applicable. We present literature suggesting that evaluative coding mechanisms indeed influence a wide variety of affective stimulus response compatibility phenomena. However, the evaluative coding account does not seem to be sufficient to explain affective S-R compatibility effects. Instead, several studies provide clear evidence in favor of the motivational orientation account that seems to operate independently of evaluative coding mechanisms. Implications for theoretical developments and future research designs are discussed.}, language = {en} } @article{KlaffehnSellmannKirschetal.2021, author = {Klaffehn, Annika L. and Sellmann, Florian B. and Kirsch, Wladimir and Kunde, Wilfried and Pfister, Roland}, title = {Temporal binding as multisensory integration: Manipulating perceptual certainty of actions and their effects}, series = {Attention, Perception \& Psychophysics}, volume = {83}, journal = {Attention, Perception \& Psychophysics}, number = {8}, issn = {1943-393X}, doi = {10.3758/s13414-021-02314-0}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-273195}, pages = {3135-3145}, year = {2021}, abstract = {It has been proposed that statistical integration of multisensory cues may be a suitable framework to explain temporal binding, that is, the finding that causally related events such as an action and its effect are perceived to be shifted towards each other in time. A multisensory approach to temporal binding construes actions and effects as individual sensory signals, which are each perceived with a specific temporal precision. When they are integrated into one multimodal event, like an action-effect chain, the extent to which they affect this event's perception depends on their relative reliability. We test whether this assumption holds true in a temporal binding task by manipulating certainty of actions and effects. Two experiments suggest that a relatively uncertain sensory signal in such action-effect sequences is shifted more towards its counterpart than a relatively certain one. This was especially pronounced for temporal binding of the action towards its effect but could also be shown for effect binding. Other conceptual approaches to temporal binding cannot easily explain these results, and the study therefore adds to the growing body of evidence endorsing a multisensory approach to temporal binding.}, language = {en} } @article{BertiVosselGamer2017, author = {Berti, Stefan and Vossel, Gerhard and Gamer, Matthias}, title = {The orienting response in healthy aging: Novelty P3 indicates no general decline but reduced efficacy for fast stimulation rates}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {8}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01780}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-173651}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Automatic orienting to unexpected changes in the environment is a pre-requisite for adaptive behavior. One prominent mechanism of automatic attentional control is the Orienting Response (OR). Despite the fundamental significance of the OR in everyday life, only little is known about how the OR is affected by healthy aging. We tested this question in two age groups (19-38 and 55-72 years) and measured skin-conductance responses (SCRs) and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to novels (i.e., short environmental sounds presented only once in the experiment; 10\% of the trials) compared to standard sounds (600 Hz sinusoidal tones with 200 ms duration; 90\% of the trials). Novel and standard stimuli were presented in four conditions differing in the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) with a mean ISI of either 10, 3, 1, or 0.5 s (blocked presentation). In both age groups, pronounced SCRs were elicited by novels in the 10 s ISI condition, suggesting the elicitation of stable ORs. These effects were accompanied by pronounced N1 and frontal P3 amplitudes in the ERP, suggesting that automatic novelty processing and orientation of attention are effective in both age groups. Furthermore, the SCR and ERP effects declined with decreasing ISI length. In addition, differences between the two groups were observable with the fastest presentation rates (i.e., 1 and 0.5 s ISI length). The most prominent difference was a shift of the peak of the frontal positivity from around 300 to 200 ms in the 19-38 years group while in the 55-72 years group the amplitude of the frontal P3 decreased linearly with decreasing ISI length. Taken together, this pattern of results does not suggest a general decline in processing efficacy with healthy aging. At least with very rare changes (here, the novels in the 10 s ISI condition) the OR is as effective in healthy older adults as in younger adults. With faster presentation rates, however, the efficacy of the OR decreases. This seems to result in a switch from novelty to deviant processing in younger adults, but less so in the group of older adults.}, language = {en} } @article{SchererFallerFriedrichetal.2015, author = {Scherer, Reinhold and Faller, Josef and Friedrich, Elisabeth V. C. and Opisso, Eloy and Costa, Ursula and K{\"u}bler, Andrea and M{\"u}ller-Putz, Gernot R.}, title = {Individually Adapted Imagery Improves Brain-Computer Interface Performance in End-Users with Disability}, series = {PLoS ONE}, volume = {10}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, number = {5}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0123727}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-143021}, pages = {e0123727}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) translate oscillatory electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns into action. Different mental activities modulate spontaneous EEG rhythms in various ways. Non-stationarity and inherent variability of EEG signals, however, make reliable recognition of modulated EEG patterns challenging. Able-bodied individuals who use a BCI for the first time achieve - on average - binary classification performance of about 75\%. Performance in users with central nervous system (CNS) tissue damage is typically lower. User training generally enhances reliability of EEG pattern generation and thus also robustness of pattern recognition. In this study, we investigated the impact of mental tasks on binary classification performance in BCI users with central nervous system (CNS) tissue damage such as persons with stroke or spinal cord injury (SCI). Motor imagery (MI), that is the kinesthetic imagination of movement (e.g. squeezing a rubber ball with the right hand), is the "gold standard" and mainly used to modulate EEG patterns. Based on our recent results in able-bodied users, we hypothesized that pair- wise combination of "brain-teaser" (e.g. mental subtraction and mental word association) and "dynamic imagery" (e. g. hand and feet MI) tasks significantly increases classification performance of induced EEG patterns in the selected end-user group. Within- day (How stable is the classification within a day?) and between-day (How well does a model trained on day one perform on unseen data of day two?) analysis of variability of mental task pair classification in nine individuals confirmed the hypothesis. We found that the use of the classical MI task pair hand vs. feed leads to significantly lower classification accuracy - in average up to 15\% less - in most users with stroke or SCI. User-specific selection of task pairs was again essential to enhance performance. We expect that the gained evidence will significantly contribute to make imagery-based BCI technology become accessible to a larger population of users including individuals with special needs due to CNS damage.}, language = {en} } @article{TopolinskiZuernSchneider2015, author = {Topolinski, Sascha and Z{\"u}rn, Michael and Schneider, Iris K.}, title = {What's in and what's out in branding? A novel articulation effect for brand names}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {6}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, number = {585}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00585}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-143036}, year = {2015}, abstract = {The present approach exploits the biomechanical connection between articulation and ingestion-related mouth movements to introduce a novel psychological principle of brand name design. We constructed brand names for diverse products with consonantal stricture spots either from the front to the rear of the mouth, thus inwards (e.g., BODIKA), or from the rear to the front, thus outwards (e.g., KODIBA). These muscle dynamics resemble the oral kinematics during either ingestion (inwards), which feels positive, or expectoration (outwards), which feels negative. In 7 experiments (total N = 1261), participants liked products with inward names more than products with outward names (Experiment 1), reported higher purchase intentions (Experiment 2), and higher willingness-to-pay (Experiments 3a-3c, 4, 5), with the price gain amounting to 4-13\% of the average estimated product value. These effects occurred across English and German language, under silent reading, for both edible and non-edible products, and even in the presence of a much stronger price determinant, namely fair-trade production (Experiment 5).}, language = {en} } @article{SchindlerRichterMar2021, author = {Schindler, Julia and Richter, Tobias and Mar, Raymond}, title = {Does generation benefit learning for narrative and expository texts? A direct replication attempt}, series = {Applied Cognitive Psychology}, volume = {35}, journal = {Applied Cognitive Psychology}, number = {2}, doi = {10.1002/acp.3781}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-224496}, pages = {559 -- 564}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Generated information is better recognized and recalled than information that is read. This so-called generation effect has been replicated several times for different types of material, including texts. Perhaps the most influential demonstration was by McDaniel et al. (1986, Journal of Memory and Language, 25, 645-656; henceforth MEDC). This group tested whether the generation effect occurs only if the generation task stimulates cognitive processes not already stimulated by the text. Numerous studies, however, report difficulties replicating this text by generation-task interaction, which suggests that the effect might only be found under conditions closer to the original method of MEDC. To test this assumption, we will closely replicate MEDC's Experiment 2 in German and English-speaking samples. Replicating the effect would suggest that it can be reproduced, at least under limited conditions, which will provide the necessary foundation for future investigations into the boundary conditions of this effect, with an eye towards its utility in applied contexts.}, language = {en} } @article{ZetzlPittigRenneretal.2021, author = {Zetzl, Teresa and Pittig, Andre and Renner, Agnes and van Oorschott, Birgitt and Jentschke, Elisabeth}, title = {Yoga therapy to reduce fatigue in cancer: effects of reminder e-mails and long-term efficacy}, series = {Supportive Care in Cancer}, volume = {29}, journal = {Supportive Care in Cancer}, number = {12}, issn = {1433-7339}, doi = {10.1007/s00520-021-06345-z}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-268415}, pages = {7725-7735}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Objective To examine the efficacy of reminder e-mails to continue yoga therapy on practice frequency and fatigue in cancer patients and long-term effects of yoga on fatigue, depression, and quality of life. Methology One hundred two cancer patients who completed an 8-week yoga therapy were randomly allocated to two groups: reminder (N = 51) vs. no-reminder group (N = 51). After completing yoga therapy, the reminder group received weekly e-mails for 24 weeks, which reminded them of practicing yoga, whereas the no-reminder group did not. Primary outcomes were fatigue and practice frequency, and long-term outcomes were fatigue, depression, and quality of life. Data were assessed using questionnaires after yoga therapy (T1) and 6 months after completing yoga therapy (T2). Result A significantly stronger reduction of general (p = 0.038, d = 0.42) and emotional fatigue (p = 0.004, d = 0.59) and a higher increase of practice frequency (p = 0.015, d = 0.52) between T1 and T2 were found for the reminder group compared to the no-reminder group. In the mediation model, practice frequency as a mediator partially explained the changes in emotional fatigue (indirect effect B =  - 0.10). Long-term effects of yoga therapy regarding fatigue, depression, and quality of life were found (F > 7.46, p < 0.001, d > 0.54). Conclusion Weekly reminder e-mails after yoga therapy can positively affect general and emotional fatigue and help cancer patients with fatigue establish a regular yoga practice at home. However, higher practice frequency did not lead to higher physical or cognitive fatigue improvement, suggesting other factors that mediate efficacy on physical or cognitive fatigue, such as mindfulness or side effects of therapy.}, language = {en} } @article{MitschkeEder2021, author = {Mitschke, Vanessa and Eder, Andreas B.}, title = {Facing the enemy: Spontaneous facial reactions towards suffering opponents}, series = {Psychophysiology}, volume = {58}, journal = {Psychophysiology}, number = {8}, doi = {10.1111/psyp.13835}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-259672}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The suffering of an opponent is an important social affective cue that modulates how aggressive interactions progress. To investigate the affective consequences of opponent suffering on a revenge seeking individual, two experiments (total N = 82) recorded facial muscle activity while participants observed the reaction of a provoking opponent to a (retaliatory) sound punishment in a laboratory aggression task. Opponents reacted via prerecorded videos either with facial displays of pain, sadness, or neutrality. Results indicate that participants enjoyed seeing the provocateur suffer: indexed by a coordinated muscle response featuring an increase in zygomaticus major (and orbicularis oculi muscle) activation accompanied by a decrease in corrugator supercilii activation. This positive facial reaction was only shown while a provoking opponent expressed pain. Expressions of sadness, and administration of sound blasts to nonprovoking opponents, did not modulate facial activity. Overall, the results suggest that revenge-seeking individuals enjoy observing the offender suffer, which could represent schadenfreude or satisfaction of having succeeded in the retaliation goal.}, language = {en} } @article{HerzogAndreattaSchneideretal.2021, author = {Herzog, Katharina and Andreatta, Marta and Schneider, Kristina and Schiele, Miriam A. and Domschke, Katharina and Romanos, Marcel and Deckert, J{\"u}rgen and Pauli, Paul}, title = {Reducing Generalization of Conditioned Fear: Beneficial Impact of Fear Relevance and Feedback in Discrimination Training}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {12}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2021.665711}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-239970}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Anxiety patients over-generalize fear, possibly because of an incapacity to discriminate threat and safety signals. Discrimination trainings are promising approaches for reducing such fear over-generalization. Here we investigated the efficacy of a fear-relevant vs. a fear-irrelevant discrimination training on fear generalization and whether the effects are increased with feedback during training. Eighty participants underwent two fear acquisition blocks, during which one face (conditioned stimulus, CS+), but not another face (CS-), was associated with a female scream (unconditioned stimulus, US). During two generalization blocks, both CSs plus four morphs (generalization stimuli, GS1-GS4) were presented. Between these generalization blocks, half of the participants underwent a fear-relevant discrimination training (discrimination between CS+ and the other faces) with or without feedback and the other half a fear-irrelevant discrimination training (discrimination between the width of lines) with or without feedback. US expectancy, arousal, valence ratings, and skin conductance responses (SCR) indicated successful fear acquisition. Importantly, fear-relevant vs. fear-irrelevant discrimination trainings and feedback vs. no feedback reduced generalization as reflected in US expectancy ratings independently from one another. No effects of training condition were found for arousal and valence ratings or SCR. In summary, this is a first indication that fear-relevant discrimination training and feedback can improve the discrimination between threat and safety signals in healthy individuals, at least for learning-related evaluations, but not evaluations of valence or (physiological) arousal.}, language = {en} } @article{GromerMadeiraGastetal.2018, author = {Gromer, Daniel and Madeira, Oct{\´a}via and Gast, Philipp and Nehfischer, Markus and Jost, Michael and M{\"u}ller, Mathias and M{\"u}hlberger, Andreas and Pauli, Paul}, title = {Height Simulation in a Virtual Reality CAVE System: Validity of Fear Responses and Effects of an Immersion Manipulation}, series = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, volume = {12}, journal = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, number = {372}, issn = {1662-5161}, doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2018.00372}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-196113}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Acrophobia is characterized by intense fear in height situations. Virtual reality (VR) can be used to trigger such phobic fear, and VR exposure therapy (VRET) has proven effective for treatment of phobias, although it remains important to further elucidate factors that modulate and mediate the fear responses triggered in VR. The present study assessed verbal and behavioral fear responses triggered by a height simulation in a 5-sided cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE) with visual and acoustic simulation and further investigated how fear responses are modulated by immersion, i.e., an additional wind simulation, and presence, i.e., the feeling to be present in the VE. Results revealed a high validity for the CAVE and VE in provoking height related self-reported fear and avoidance behavior in accordance with a trait measure of acrophobic fear. Increasing immersion significantly increased fear responses in high height anxious (HHA) participants, but did not affect presence. Nevertheless, presence was found to be an important predictor of fear responses. We conclude that a CAVE system can be used to elicit valid fear responses, which might be further enhanced by immersion manipulations independent from presence. These results may help to improve VRET efficacy and its transfer to real situations.}, language = {en} } @article{KleihDahmsBotrelKuebler2021, author = {Kleih-Dahms, Sonja Christina and Botrel, Loic and K{\"u}bler, Andrea}, title = {The influence of motivation and emotion on sensorimotor rhythm-based brain-computer interface performance}, series = {Psychophysiology}, volume = {58}, journal = {Psychophysiology}, number = {8}, doi = {10.1111/psyp.13832}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-259664}, year = {2021}, abstract = {While decades of research have investigated and technically improved brain-computer interface (BCI)-controlled applications, relatively little is known about the psychological aspects of brain-computer interfacing. In 35 healthy students, we investigated whether extrinsic motivation manipulated via monetary reward and emotional state manipulated via video and music would influence behavioral and psychophysiological measures of performance with a sensorimotor rhythm (SMR)-based BCI. We found increased task-related brain activity in extrinsically motivated (rewarded) as compared with nonmotivated participants but no clear effect of emotional state manipulation. Our experiment investigated the short-term effect of motivation and emotion manipulation in a group of young healthy subjects, and thus, the significance for patients in the locked-in state, who may be in need of a BCI, remains to be investigated.}, language = {en} } @article{WalzMuehlbergerPauli2016, author = {Walz, Nora and M{\"u}hlberger, Andreas and Pauli, Paul}, title = {A human open field test reveals thigmotaxis related to agoraphobic fear}, series = {Biological Psychiatry}, volume = {80}, journal = {Biological Psychiatry}, number = {5}, doi = {10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.12.016}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-187607}, pages = {390-397}, year = {2016}, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Thigmotaxis refers to a specific behavior of animals (i.e., to stay close to walls when exploring an open space). Such behavior can be assessed with the open field test (OFT), which is a well-established indicator of animal fear. The detection of similar open field behavior in humans may verify the translational validity of this paradigm. Enhanced thigmotaxis related to anxiety may suggest the relevance of such behavior for anxiety disorders, especially agoraphobia. METHODS: A global positioning system was used to analyze the behavior of 16 patients with agoraphobia and 18 healthy individuals with a risk for agoraphobia (i.e., high anxiety sensitivity) during a human OFT and compare it with appropriate control groups (n = 16 and n = 19). We also tracked 17 patients with agoraphobia and 17 control participants during a city walk that involved walking through an open market square. RESULTS: Our human OFT triggered thigmotaxis in participants; patients with agoraphobia and participants with high anxiety sensitivity exhibited enhanced thigmotaxis. This behavior was evident in increased movement lengths along the wall of the natural open field and fewer entries into the center of the field despite normal movement speed and length. Furthermore, participants avoided passing through the market square during the city walk, indicating again that thigmotaxis is related to agoraphobia. CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to our knowledge to verify the translational validity of the OFT and to reveal that thigmotaxis, an evolutionarily adaptive behavior shown by most species, is related to agoraphobia, a pathologic fear of open spaces, and anxiety sensitivity, a risk factor for agoraphobia.}, language = {en} } @article{PfisterFringsMoeller2019, author = {Pfister, Roland and Frings, Christian and Moeller, Birte}, title = {The Role of Congruency for Distractor-Response Binding: A Caveat}, series = {Advances in Cognitive Psychologe}, volume = {15}, journal = {Advances in Cognitive Psychologe}, number = {2}, doi = {10.5709/acp-0262-1}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-200265}, pages = {127-132}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Responding in the presence of stimuli leads to an integration of stimulus features and response features into event fles, which can later be retrieved to assist action control. This integration mechanism is not limited to target stimuli, but can also include distractors (distractor-response binding). A recurring research question is which factors determine whether or not distractors are integrated. One suggested candidate factor is target-distractor congruency: Distractor-response binding effects were reported to be stronger for congruent than for incongruent target-distractor pairs. Here, we discuss a general problem with including the factor of congruency in typical analyses used to study distractor-based binding effects. Integrating this factor leads to a confound that may explain any differences between distractor-response binding effects of congruent and incongruent distractors with a simple congruency effect. Simulation data confrmed this argument. We propose to interpret previous data cautiously and discuss potential avenues to circumvent this problem in the future.}, language = {en} } @article{SeibelVolmer2021, author = {Seibel, Sebastian and Volmer, Judith}, title = {A Diary Study on Anticipated Leisure Time, Morning Recovery, and Employees' Work Engagement}, series = {International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health}, volume = {18}, journal = {International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health}, number = {18}, issn = {1660-4601}, doi = {10.3390/ijerph18189436}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-246090}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Recovery during yesterday's leisure time is beneficial for morning recovery, and morning recovery fosters employees' work engagement, a positive, motivational state associated with job performance. We extended existing research by assuming that both, morning recovery (considered a resource) and anticipated leisure time (considered an anticipated resource gain), relate to work engagement. Anticipated leisure time comprises two constructs: general anticipation of leisure time, which refers to employees' cognitive evaluation of their entire upcoming leisure time, and pleasant anticipation of a planned leisure activity, which describes a positive affective reaction because of one specific, upcoming leisure activity. We suggested that employees with high pleasant anticipation generate more thoughts of a planned leisure activity (ToPLA), which may distract them from their work, reducing their work engagement. A diary study over five days showed that morning recovery and general anticipation of leisure time were positively related to work engagement. Furthermore, employees with higher pleasant anticipation of a planned leisure activity reported more ToPLA. In contrast to our expectations, neither pleasant anticipation nor ToPLA was related to work engagement. In sum, this study introduced anticipated leisure time as a novel antecedent of work engagement and demonstrated that anticipated resource gains are important for high work engagement.}, language = {en} } @article{LiesnerKunde2020, author = {Liesner, Marvin and Kunde, Wilfried}, title = {Suppression of mutually incompatible proprioceptive and visual action effects in tool use}, series = {PLoS One}, volume = {15}, journal = {PLoS One}, number = {11}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0242327}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-231250}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Movements of a tool typically diverge from the movements of the hand manipulating that tool, such as when operating a pivotal lever where tool and hand move in opposite directions. Previous studies suggest that humans are often unaware of the position or movements of their effective body part (mostly the hand) in such situations. It has been suggested that this might be due to a "haptic neglect" of bodily sensations to decrease the interference of representations of body and tool movements. However, in principle this interference could also be decreased by neglecting sensations regarding the tool and focusing instead on body movements. While in most tool use situations the tool-related action effects are task-relevant and thus suppression of body-related rather than tool-related sensations is more beneficial for successful goal achievement, we manipulated this task-relevance in a controlled experiment. The results showed that visual, tool-related effect representations can be suppressed just as proprioceptive, body-related ones in situations where effect representations interfere, given that task-relevance of body-related effects is increased relative to tool-related ones.}, language = {en} } @article{FarmerStrzelczykFinisguerraetal.2021, author = {Farmer, Adam D. and Strzelczyk, Adam and Finisguerra, Alessandra and Gourine, Alexander V. and Gharabaghi, Alireza and Hasan, Alkomiet and Burger, Andreas M. and Jaramillo, Andr{\´e}s M. and Mertens, Ann and Majid, Arshad and Verkuil, Bart and Badran, Bashar W. and Ventura-Bort, Carlos and Gaul, Charly and Beste, Christian and Warren, Christopher M. and Quintana, Daniel S. and H{\"a}mmerer, Dorothea and Freri, Elena and Frangos, Eleni and Tobaldini, Eleonora and Kaniusas, Eugenijus and Rosenow, Felix and Capone, Fioravante and Panetsos, Fivos and Ackland, Gareth L. and Kaithwas, Gaurav and O'Leary, Georgia H. and Genheimer, Hannah and Jacobs, Heidi I. L. and Van Diest, Ilse and Schoenen, Jean and Redgrave, Jessica and Fang, Jiliang and Deuchars, Jim and Sz{\´e}les, Jozsef C. and Thayer, Julian F. and More, Kaushik and Vonck, Kristl and Steenbergen, Laura and Vianna, Lauro C. and McTeague, Lisa M. and Ludwig, Mareike and Veldhuizen, Maria G. and De Couck, Marijke and Casazza, Marina and Keute, Marius and Bikson, Marom and Andreatta, Marta and D'Agostini, Martina and Weymar, Mathias and Betts, Matthew and Prigge, Matthias and Kaess, Michael and Roden, Michael and Thai, Michelle and Schuster, Nathaniel M. and Montano, Nicola and Hansen, Niels and Kroemer, Nils B. and Rong, Peijing and Fischer, Rico and Howland, Robert H. and Sclocco, Roberta and Sellaro, Roberta and Garcia, Ronald G. and Bauer, Sebastian and Gancheva, Sofiya and Stavrakis, Stavros and Kampusch, Stefan and Deuchars, Susan A. and Wehner, Sven and Laborde, Sylvain and Usichenko, Taras and Polak, Thomas and Zaehle, Tino and Borges, Uirassu and Teckentrup, Vanessa and Jandackova, Vera K. and Napadow, Vitaly and Koenig, Julian}, title = {International Consensus Based Review and Recommendations for Minimum Reporting Standards in Research on Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (Version 2020)}, series = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, volume = {14}, journal = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience}, issn = {1662-5161}, doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2020.568051}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-234346}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation(VNS) and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice.}, language = {en} } @article{ZyberajSeibelSchowalteretal.2022, author = {Zyberaj, Jetmir and Seibel, Sebastian and Schowalter, Annika F. and P{\"o}tz, Lennart and Richter-Killenberg, Stefanie and Volmer, Judith}, title = {Developing sustainable careers during a pandemic: the role of psychological capital and career adaptability}, series = {Sustainability}, volume = {14}, journal = {Sustainability}, number = {5}, issn = {2071-1050}, doi = {10.3390/su14053105}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-267286}, year = {2022}, abstract = {The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has not only had negative effects on employees' health, but also on their prospects to gain and maintain employment. Using a longitudinal research design with two measurement points, we investigated the ramifications of various psychological and organizational resources on employees' careers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, in a sample of German employees (N = 305), we investigated the role of psychological capital (PsyCap) for four career-related outcomes: career satisfaction, career engagement, coping with changes in career due to COVID-19, and career-related COVID-19 worries. We also employed leader-member exchange (LMX) as a moderator and career adaptability as a mediating variable in these relationships. Results from path analyses revealed a positive association between PsyCap and career satisfaction and career coping. Furthermore, PsyCap was indirectly related to career engagement through career adaptability. However, moderation analysis showed no moderating role of LMX on the link between PsyCap and career adaptability. Our study contributes to the systematic research concerning the role of psychological and organizational resources for employees' careers and well-being, especially for crisis contexts.}, language = {en} } @article{KiserGromerPaulietal.2022, author = {Kiser, Dominik P. and Gromer, Daniel and Pauli, Paul and Hilger, Kirsten}, title = {A virtual reality social conditioned place preference paradigm for humans: Does trait social anxiety affect approach and avoidance of virtual agents?}, series = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, volume = {3}, journal = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, issn = {2673-4192}, doi = {10.3389/frvir.2022.916575}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-293564}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Approach and avoidance of positive and negative social cues are fundamental to prevent isolation and ensure survival. High trait social anxiety is characterized by an avoidance of social situations and extensive avoidance is a risk factor for the development of social anxiety disorder (SAD). Therefore, experimental methods to assess social avoidance behavior in humans are essential. The social conditioned place preference (SCPP) paradigm is a well-established experimental paradigm in animal research that is used to objectively investigate social approach-avoidance mechanisms. We retranslated this paradigm for human research using virtual reality. To this end, 58 healthy adults were exposed to either a happy- or angry-looking virtual agent in a specific room, and the effects of this encounter on dwell time as well as evaluation of this room in a later test without an agent were examined. We did not observe a general SCPP effect on dwell time or ratings but discovered a moderation by trait social anxiety, in which participants with higher trait social anxiety spent less time in the room in which the angry agent was present before, suggesting that higher levels of trait social anxiety foster conditioned social avoidance. However, further studies are needed to verify this observation and substantiate an association with social anxiety disorder. We discussed the strengths, limitations, and technical implications of our paradigm for future investigations to more comprehensively understand the mechanisms involved in social anxiety and facilitate the development of new personalized treatment approaches by using virtual reality.}, language = {en} } @article{ThieleRichterHilger2023, author = {Thiele, Jonas A. and Richter, Aylin and Hilger, Kirsten}, title = {Multimodal brain signal complexity predicts human intelligence}, series = {eNeuro}, volume = {10}, journal = {eNeuro}, number = {2}, doi = {10.1523/ENEURO.0345-22.2022}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-312949}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Spontaneous brain activity builds the foundation for human cognitive processing during external demands. Neuroimaging studies based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) identified specific characteristics of spontaneous (intrinsic) brain dynamics to be associated with individual differences in general cognitive ability, i.e., intelligence. However, fMRI research is inherently limited by low temporal resolution, thus, preventing conclusions about neural fluctuations within the range of milliseconds. Here, we used resting-state electroencephalographical (EEG) recordings from 144 healthy adults to test whether individual differences in intelligence (Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices scores) can be predicted from the complexity of temporally highly resolved intrinsic brain signals. We compared different operationalizations of brain signal complexity (multiscale entropy, Shannon entropy, Fuzzy entropy, and specific characteristics of microstates) regarding their relation to intelligence. The results indicate that associations between brain signal complexity measures and intelligence are of small effect sizes (r ∼ 0.20) and vary across different spatial and temporal scales. Specifically, higher intelligence scores were associated with lower complexity in local aspects of neural processing, and less activity in task-negative brain regions belonging to the default-mode network. Finally, we combined multiple measures of brain signal complexity to show that individual intelligence scores can be significantly predicted with a multimodal model within the sample (10-fold cross-validation) as well as in an independent sample (external replication, N = 57). In sum, our results highlight the temporal and spatial dependency of associations between intelligence and intrinsic brain dynamics, proposing multimodal approaches as promising means for future neuroscientific research on complex human traits.}, language = {en} } @article{GrappEllKiermeieretal.2022, author = {Grapp, Miriam and Ell, Johanna and Kiermeier, Senta and Haun, Markus W. and K{\"u}bler, Andrea and Friederich, Hans-Christoph and Maatouk, Imad}, title = {Feasibility study of a self-guided internet-based intervention for family caregivers of patients with cancer (OAse)}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {12}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-022-21157-9}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-300537}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Despite high levels of distress, family caregivers of patients with cancer rarely seek psychosocial support and Internet-based interventions (IBIs) are a promising approach to reduce some access barriers. Therefore, we developed a self-guided IBI for family caregivers of patients with cancer (OAse), which, in addition to patients' spouses, also addresses other family members (e.g., adult children, parents). This study aimed to determine the feasibility of OAse (recruitment, dropout, adherence, participant satisfaction). Secondary outcomes were caregivers' self-efficacy, emotional state, and supportive care needs. N = 41 family caregivers participated in the study (female: 65\%), mostly spouses (71\%), followed by children (20\%), parents (7\%), and friends (2\%). Recruitment (47\%), retention (68\%), and adherence rates (76\% completed at least 4 of 6 lessons) support the feasibility of OAse. Overall, the results showed a high degree of overall participant satisfaction (96\%). There were no significant pre-post differences in secondary outcome criteria, but a trend toward improvement in managing difficult interactions/emotions (p = .06) and depression/anxiety (p = .06). Although the efficacy of the intervention remains to be investigated, our results suggest that OAse can be well implemented in caregivers' daily lives and has the potential to improve family caregivers' coping strategies.}, language = {en} } @article{PostemaHoogmanAmbrosinoetal.2021, author = {Postema, Merel C. and Hoogman, Martine and Ambrosino, Sara and Asherson, Philip and Banaschewski, Tobias and Bandeira, Cibele E. and Baranov, Alexandr and Bau, Claiton H.D. and Baumeister, Sarah and Baur-Streubel, Ramona and Bellgrove, Mark A. and Biederman, Joseph and Bralten, Janita and Brandeis, Daniel and Brem, Silvia and Buitelaar, Jan K. and Busatto, Geraldo F. and Castellanos, Francisco X. and Cercignani, Mara and Chaim-Avancini, Tiffany M. and Chantiluke, Kaylita C. and Christakou, Anastasia and Coghill, David and Conzelmann, Annette and Cubillo, Ana I. and Cupertino, Renata B. and de Zeeuw, Patrick and Doyle, Alysa E. and Durston, Sarah and Earl, Eric A. and Epstein, Jeffery N. and Ethofer, Thomas and Fair, Damien A. and Fallgatter, Andreas J. and Faraone, Stephen V. and Frodl, Thomas and Gabel, Matt C. and Gogberashvili, Tinatin and Grevet, Eugenio H. and Haavik, Jan and Harrison, Neil A. and Hartman, Catharina A. and Heslenfeld, Dirk J. and Hoekstra, Pieter J. and Hohmann, Sarah and H{\o}vik, Marie F. and Jernigan, Terry L. and Kardatzki, Bernd and Karkashadze, Georgii and Kelly, Clare and Kohls, Gregor and Konrad, Kerstin and Kuntsi, Jonna and Lazaro, Luisa and Lera-Miguel, Sara and Lesch, Klaus-Peter and Louza, Mario R. and Lundervold, Astri J. and Malpas, Charles B and Mattos, Paulo and McCarthy, Hazel and Namazova-Baranova, Leyla and Nicolau, Rosa and Nigg, Joel T. and Novotny, Stephanie E. and Oberwelland Weiss, Eileen and O'Gorman Tuura, Ruth L. and Oosterlaan, Jaap and Oranje, Bob and Paloyelis, Yannis and Pauli, Paul and Picon, Felipe A. and Plessen, Kerstin J. and Ramos-Quiroga, J. Antoni and Reif, Andreas and Reneman, Liesbeth and Rosa, Pedro G.P. and Rubia, Katya and Schrantee, Anouk and Schweren, Lizanne J.S. and Seitz, Jochen and Shaw, Philip and Silk, Tim J. and Skokauskas, Norbert and Soliva Vila, Juan C. and Stevens, Michael C. and Sudre, Gustavo and Tamm, Leanne and Tovar-Moll, Fernanda and van Erp, Theo G.M. and Vance, Alasdair and Vilarroya, Oscar and Vives-Gilabert, Yolanda and von Polier, Georg G. and Walitza, Susanne and Yoncheva, Yuliya N. and Zanetti, Marcus V. and Ziegler, Georg C. and Glahn, David C. and Jahanshad, Neda and Medland, Sarah E. and Thompson, Paul M. and Fisher, Simon E. and Franke, Barbara and Francks, Clyde}, title = {Analysis of structural brain asymmetries in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in 39 datasets}, series = {Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry}, volume = {62}, journal = {Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry}, number = {10}, doi = {10.1111/jcpp.13396}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-239968}, pages = {1202 -- 1219}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Objective Some studies have suggested alterations of structural brain asymmetry in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but findings have been contradictory and based on small samples. Here, we performed the largest ever analysis of brain left-right asymmetry in ADHD, using 39 datasets of the ENIGMA consortium. Methods We analyzed asymmetry of subcortical and cerebral cortical structures in up to 1,933 people with ADHD and 1,829 unaffected controls. Asymmetry Indexes (AIs) were calculated per participant for each bilaterally paired measure, and linear mixed effects modeling was applied separately in children, adolescents, adults, and the total sample, to test exhaustively for potential associations of ADHD with structural brain asymmetries. Results There was no evidence for altered caudate nucleus asymmetry in ADHD, in contrast to prior literature. In children, there was less rightward asymmetry of the total hemispheric surface area compared to controls (t = 2.1, p = .04). Lower rightward asymmetry of medial orbitofrontal cortex surface area in ADHD (t = 2.7, p = .01) was similar to a recent finding for autism spectrum disorder. There were also some differences in cortical thickness asymmetry across age groups. In adults with ADHD, globus pallidus asymmetry was altered compared to those without ADHD. However, all effects were small (Cohen's d from -0.18 to 0.18) and would not survive study-wide correction for multiple testing. Conclusion Prior studies of altered structural brain asymmetry in ADHD were likely underpowered to detect the small effects reported here. Altered structural asymmetry is unlikely to provide a useful biomarker for ADHD, but may provide neurobiological insights into the trait.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Mitschke2023, author = {Mitschke, Vanessa}, title = {Facing Enemies. Modulation of Revenge Interactions based on Opponent State Indicators of Suffering}, doi = {10.25972/OPUS-29938}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-299389}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Research on revenge often treats vengeful acts as singular one-way experiences, an approach which fails to account for the social nature and functions of revenge. This dissertation aims to integrate emotional punishment reactions into dynamic revenge sequences to investigate the affective and cognitive consequences of revenge within a social interaction. Exacting revenge can evoke intense affective consequences, from feelings of guilt to the genuine enjoyment of the suffering of others. In Chapter 2, affective responses towards suffering opponents and the regulation of aggression based on the appraisal of distinct suffering indicators were investigated. Results indicate that the observation of opponent pain evokes positive affect (measured via facial muscle contractions during the observation), which is followed by a downregulation of subsequent punishment. Both, positive affective reactions and the downregulation of punishment, were only observed following pain and not sadness expressions. Empathic distress, indexed by negative affective reactions, was only present following the observation of pain in non-provoking opponents. Showcasing the modulation of empathy related processes due to provocation and competition. In Chapter 3, a significant escalation of punishment, when being confronted with Schadenfreude, was observed. Results are interpreted as supporting the assumption that opponent monitoring processes inform subsequent action selection. The observation of opponent smiles led to imitation behavior (facial mimicry), which was partially attenuated due to previous provocation. The different functions of smile mimicry in the context of the aggressive competitive setting are discussed as containing simulation aspects (to aid in opponent understanding) and as a potential mirroring of dominance gestures, to avoid submission. In an additional series of studies, which are presented in Chapter 4, changes in memory of opponent faces following vengeful encounters were measured. Based on provocation, and punishment outcomes (pain \& anger), face memory was distorted, resulting in more positive representations of opponents that expressed pain. These results are discussed as evidence of the impact of outcome appraisals in the formation of opponent representations and are theorized to aid empathy avoidance in future interactions. The comparison of desired and observed opponent states, is theorized to result in appraisals of the punishment outcomes, which evoke affective states, inform the action selection of subsequent punishments, and are integrated into the representation of the opponent in memory. Overall, the results indicate that suffering cues that are congruent with the chosen punishment action are appraised as positive, evoking an increase in positive affect. The emergence of positive affect during the observation of successful aggressive actions supports recent theories about the chronification of aggressive behavior based on reinforcement learning. To allow positive affect to emerge, affective empathic responses, such as distress, are theorized to be suppressed to facilitate the goal attainment process. The suffering of the opponent constitutes the proximate goal during revenge taking, which highlights the importance of a theoretical differentiation of proximate and ultimate goals in revenge to allow for a deeper understanding of the underlying motives of complex revenge behavior.}, subject = {Aggression}, language = {en} } @article{SchumannSteinbornKuertenetal., author = {Schumann, Frank and Steinborn, Michael B. and K{\"u}rten, Jens and Cao, Liyu and H{\"a}ndel, Barbara Friederike and Huestegge, Lynn}, title = {Restoration of attention by rest in a multitasking world: theory, methodology, and empirical evidence}, series = {Frontiers in Psychology}, volume = {13}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2022.867978}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-267913}, abstract = {In this work, we evaluate the status of both theory and empirical evidence in the field of experimental rest-break research based on a framework that combines mental-chronometry and psychometric-measurement theory. To this end, we (1) provide a taxonomy of rest breaks according to which empirical studies can be classified (e.g., by differentiating between long, short, and micro-rest breaks based on context and temporal properties). Then, we (2) evaluate the theorizing in both the basic and applied fields of research and explain how popular concepts (e.g., ego depletion model, opportunity cost theory, attention restoration theory, action readiness, etc.) relate to each other in contemporary theoretical debates. Here, we highlight differences between all these models in the light of two symbolic categories, termed the resource-based and satiation-based model, including aspects related to the dynamics and the control (strategic or non-strategic) mechanisms at work. Based on a critical assessment of existing methodological and theoretical approaches, we finally (3) provide a set of guidelines for both theory building and future empirical approaches to the experimental study of rest breaks. We conclude that a psychometrically advanced and theoretically focused research of rest and recovery has the potential to finally provide a sound scientific basis to eventually mitigate the adverse effects of ever increasing task demands on performance and well-being in a multitasking world at work and leisure.}, language = {en} } @article{RodriguesZiebellMuelleretal.2022, author = {Rodrigues, Johannes and Ziebell, Philipp and M{\"u}ller, Mathias and Hewig, Johannes}, title = {Standardizing continuous data classifications in a virtual T-maze using two-layer feedforward networks}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {12}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, number = {1}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-022-17013-5}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-301096}, year = {2022}, abstract = {There continues to be difficulties when it comes to replication of studies in the field of Psychology. In part, this may be caused by insufficiently standardized analysis methods that may be subject to state dependent variations in performance. In this work, we show how to easily adapt the two-layer feedforward neural network architecture provided by Huang1 to a behavioral classification problem as well as a physiological classification problem which would not be solvable in a standardized way using classical regression or "simple rule" approaches. In addition, we provide an example for a new research paradigm along with this standardized analysis method. This paradigm as well as the analysis method can be adjusted to any necessary modification or applied to other paradigms or research questions. Hence, we wanted to show that two-layer feedforward neural networks can be used to increase standardization as well as replicability and illustrate this with examples based on a virtual T-maze paradigm\(^{2-5}\) including free virtual movement via joystick and advanced physiological data signal processing.}, language = {en} }