TY - JOUR A1 - Kleih, Sonja C. A1 - Kübler, Andrea T1 - Empathy, motivation, and P300-BCI performance JF - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience N2 - Motivation moderately influences brain–computer interface (BCI) performance in healthy subjects when monetary reward is used to manipulate extrinsic motivation. However, the motivation of severely paralyzed patients, who are potentially in need for BCI, could mainly be internal and thus, an intrinsic motivator may be more powerful. Also healthy subjects who participate in BCI studies could be internally motivated as they may wish to contribute to research and thus extrinsic motivation by monetary reward would be less important than the content of the study. In this respect, motivation could be defined as “motivation-to-help.” The aim of this study was to investigate, whether subjects with high motivation for helping and who are highly empathic would perform better with a BCI controlled by event-related potentials (P300-BCI). We included N = 20 healthy young participants naïve to BCI and grouped them according to their motivation for participating in a BCI study in a low and highly motivated group. Motivation was further manipulated with interesting or boring presentations about BCI and the possibility to help patients. Motivation for helping did neither influence BCI performance nor the P300 amplitude. Post hoc, subjects were re-grouped according to their ability for perspective taking. We found significantly higher P300 amplitudes on parietal electrodes in participants with a low ability for perspective taking and therefore, lower empathy, as compared to participants with higher empathy. The lack of an effect of motivation on BCI performance contradicts previous findings and thus, requires further investigation. We speculate that subjects with higher empathy who are good perspective takers with regards to patients in potential need of BCI, may be more emotionally involved and therefore, less able to allocate attention on the BCI task at hand. KW - psychological variables KW - empathy KW - motivation KW - brain–computer interface KW - ERP KW - P300 Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-130559 VL - 7 IS - 642 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Andreatta, Marta A1 - Mühlberger, Andreas A1 - Glotzbach-Schoon, Evelyn A1 - Pauli, Paul T1 - Pain predictability reverses valence ratings of a relief-associated stimulus JF - Front in Systems Neuroscience N2 - Relief from pain is positively valenced and entails reward-like properties. Notably, stimuli that became associated with pain relief elicit reward-like implicit responses too, but are explicitly evaluated by humans as aversive. Since the unpredictability of pain makes pain more aversive, this study examined the hypotheses that the predictability of pain also modulates the valence of relief-associated stimuli. In two studies, we presented one conditioned stimulus \((_{FORWARD}CS+)\) before a painful unconditioned stimulus (US), another stimulus \((_{BACKWARD}CS+)\) after the painful US, and a third stimulus (CS−) was never associated with the US. In Study 1, \(_{FORWARD}CS+\) predicted half of the USs while the other half was delivered unwarned and followed by \(_{BACKWARD}CS+\). In Study 2, all USs were predicted by \(_{FORWARD}CS+\) and followed by \(_{BACKWARD}CS+\). In Study 1 both \(_{FORWARD}CS+\) and \(_{BACKWARD}CS+\) were rated as negatively valenced and high arousing after conditioning, while \(_{BACKWARD}CS+\) in Study 2 acquired positive valence and low arousal. Startle amplitude was significantly attenuated to \(_{BACKWARD}CS+\) compared to \(_{FORWARD}CS+\) in Study 2, but did not differ among CSs in Study 1. In summary, predictability of aversive events reverses the explicit valence of a relief-associated stimulus. KW - threat unpredictability KW - implicit and explicit responses KW - forward conditioning KW - backward conditioning KW - pain relief Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-129275 VL - 7 IS - 53 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schwarz, Katharina A. A1 - Wieser, Matthias J. A1 - Gerdes, Antje B. M. A1 - Mühlberger, Andreas A1 - Pauli, Paul T1 - Why are you looking like that? How the context influences evaluation and processing of human faces JF - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience N2 - Perception and evaluation of facial expressions are known to be heavily modulated by emotional features of contextual information. Such contextual effects, however, might also be driven by non-emotional aspects of contextual information, an interaction of emotional and non-emotional factors, and by the observers’ inherent traits. Therefore, we sought to assess whether contextual information about self-reference in addition to information about valence influences the evaluation and neural processing of neutral faces. Furthermore, we investigated whether social anxiety moderates these effects. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, participants viewed neutral facial expressions preceded by a contextual sentence conveying either positive or negative evaluations about the participant or about somebody else. Contextual influences were reflected in rating and fMRI measures, with strong effects of self-reference on brain activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and right fusiform gyrus. Additionally, social anxiety strongly affected the response to faces conveying negative, self-related evaluations as revealed by the participants’ rating patterns and brain activity in cortical midline structures and regions of interest in the left and right middle frontal gyrus. These results suggest that face perception and processing are highly individual processes influenced by emotional and non-emotional aspects of contextual information and further modulated by individual personality traits. KW - social anxiety KW - facial expression KW - context KW - self-reference Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-132126 VL - 8 IS - 4 ER - TY - THES A1 - Sollfrank, Teresa T1 - Feedback efficiency and training effects during alpha band modulation over the sensorimotor cortex T1 - Die Wirksamkeit von Feedback und Trainingseffekten während der Alphaband Modulation über dem menschlichen sensomotorischen Cortex N2 - Neural oscillations can be measured by electroencephalography (EEG) and these oscillations can be characterized by their frequency, amplitude and phase. The mechanistic properties of neural oscillations and their synchronization are able to explain various aspects of many cognitive functions such as motor control, memory, attention, information transfer across brain regions, segmentation of the sensory input and perception (Arnal and Giraud, 2012). The alpha band frequency is the dominant oscillation in the human brain. This oscillatory activity is found in the scalp EEG at frequencies around 8-13 Hz in all healthy adults (Makeig et al., 2002) and considerable interest has been generated in exploring EEG alpha oscillations with regard to their role in cognitive (Klimesch et al., 1993; Hanselmayr et al., 2005), sensorimotor (Birbaumer, 2006; Sauseng et al., 2009) and physiological (Lehmann, 1971; Niedermeyer, 1997; Kiyatkin, 2010) aspects of human life. The ability to voluntarily regulate the alpha amplitude can be learned with neurofeedback training and offers the possibility to control a brain-computer interface (BCI), a muscle independent interaction channel. BCI research is predominantly focused on the signal processing, the classification and the algorithms necessary to translate brain signals into control commands than on the person interacting with the technical system. The end-user must be properly trained to be able to successfully use the BCI and factors such as task instructions, training, and especially feedback can therefore play an important role in learning to control a BCI (Neumann and Kübler, 2003; Pfurtscheller et al., 2006, 2007; Allison and Neuper, 2010; Friedrich et al., 2012; Kaufmann et al., 2013; Lotte et al., 2013). The main purpose of this thesis was to investigate how end-users can efficiently be trained to perform alpha band modulation recorded over their sensorimotor cortex. The herein presented work comprises three studies with healthy participants and participants with schizophrenia focusing on the effects of feedback and training time on cortical activation patterns and performance. In the first study, the application of a realistic visual feedback to support end-users in developing a concrete feeling of kinesthetic motor imagery was tested in 2D and 3D visualization modality during a single training session. Participants were able to elicit the typical event-related desynchronisation responses over sensorimotor cortex in both conditions but the most significant decrease in the alpha band power was obtained following the three-dimensional realistic visualization. The second study strengthen the hypothesis that an enriched visual feedback with information about the quality of the input signal supports an easier approach for motor imagery based BCI control and can help to enhance performance. Significantly better performance levels were measurable during five online training sessions in the groups with enriched feedback as compared to a conventional simple visual feedback group, without significant differences in performance between the unimodal (visual) and multimodal (auditory–visual) feedback modality. Furthermore, the last study, in which people with schizophrenia participated in multiple sessions with simple feedback, demonstrated that these patients can learn to voluntarily regulate their alpha band. Compared to the healthy group they required longer training times and could not achieve performance levels as high as the control group. Nonetheless, alpha neurofeedback training lead to a constant increase of the alpha resting power across all 20 training session. To date only little is known about the effects of feedback and training time on BCI performance and cortical activation patterns. The presented work contributes to the evidence that healthy individuals can benefit from enriched feedback: A realistic presentation can support participants in getting a concrete feeling of motor imagery and enriched feedback, which instructs participants about the quality of their input signal can give support while learning to control the BCI. This thesis demonstrates that people with schizophrenia can learn to gain control of their alpha oscillations recorded over the sensorimotor cortex when participating in sufficient training sessions. In conclusion, this thesis improved current motor imagery BCI feedback protocols and enhanced our understanding of the interplay between feedback and BCI performance. N2 - Die Wirksamkeit von Feedback und Trainingseffekten während der Alphaband Modulation über dem menschlichen sensomotorischen Cortex KW - Neurofeedback KW - Gehirn-Computer-Schnittstelle KW - Brain-computer interface KW - Übung KW - Alpha Neurofeedback KW - EEG Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-131769 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Rico A1 - Plessow, Franziska A1 - Kiesel, Andrea T1 - The effects of alerting signals in masked priming JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Alerting signals often serve to reduce temporal uncertainty by predicting the time of stimulus onset. The resulting response time benefits have often been explained by facilitated translation of stimulus codes into response codes on the basis of established stimulus-response (S-R) links. In paradigms of masked S-R priming alerting signals also modulate response activation processes triggered by subliminally presented prime stimuli. In the present study we tested whether facilitation of visuo-motor translation processes due to alerting signals critically depends on established S-R links. Alerting signals resulted in significantly enhanced masked priming effects for masked prime stimuli that included and that did not include established S-R links fi.e., target vs. novel primes). Yet, the alerting-priming interaction was more pronounced for target than for novel primes. These results suggest that effects of alerting signals on masked priming are especially evident when S-R links between prime and target exist. At the same time, an alerting-priming interaction also for novel primes suggests that alerting signals also facilitate stimulus-response translation processes when masked prime stimuli provide action-trigger conditions in terms of programmed S-R links. KW - response selection KW - visual cortex KW - temporal predictability KW - stimuli KW - primes KW - target primes KW - simon task KW - automaticity KW - performance KW - perception KW - mechanism KW - novel primes KW - action-trigger KW - masked priming KW - accessory KW - alerting signal Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-122581 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 4 IS - 448 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Meule, Adrian A1 - Kübler, Andrea A1 - Blechert, Jens T1 - Time course of electrocortical food-cue responses during cognitive regulation of craving JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - In our current obesogenic environment, exposure to visual food-cues can easily lead to craving and overeating because short-term, pleasurable effects of food intake dominate over the anticipated long-term adverse effects such as weight gain and associated health problems. Here we contrasted these two conditions during food-cue presentation while acquiring event-related potentials (ERPs) and subjective craving ratings. Female participants (n = 25) were presented with either high-calorie (HC) or low-calorie (LC) food images under instructions to imagine either immediate (NOW) or long-term effects (LATER) of consumption. On subjective ratings for HC foods, the LATER perspective reduced cravings as compared to the NOW perspective. For LC foods, by contrast, craving increased under the LATER perspective. Early ERPs (occipital N1, 150-200 ms) were sensitive to food type but not to perspective. Late ERPs (late positive potential, LPP, 350-550 ms) were larger in the HC-LATER condition than in all other conditions, possibly indicating that a cognitive focus on negative long-term consequences induced negative arousal. This enhancement for HC-LATER attenuated to the level of the LC conditions during the later slow wave (550-3000 ms), but amplitude in the HC-NOW condition was larger than in all other conditions, possibly due to a delayed appetitive response. Across all conditions, LPP amplitudes were positively correlated with self-reported emotional eating. In sum, results reveal that regulation effects are secondary to an early attentional analysis of food type and dynamically evolve over time. Adopting a long-term perspective on eating might promote a healthier food choice across a range of food types. KW - EEG KW - disorder examination questionnaire KW - eating disorder KW - emotion regulation KW - future directions KW - attention KW - brain KW - high-calorie KW - german version KW - bulimia nervosa KW - chocolate images KW - event-related potentials KW - eating KW - calorie content KW - food-cues KW - food craving KW - LPP KW - slow wave Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-122566 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 4 IS - 669 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ehrenfeld, Stephan A1 - Herbort, Oliver A1 - Butz, Martin V. T1 - Modular neuron-based body estimation: maintaining consistency over different limbs, modalities, and frames of reference JF - Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience N2 - This paper addresses the question of how the brain maintains a probabilistic body state estimate over time from a modeling perspective. The neural Modular Modality Frame (nMMF) model simulates such a body state estimation process by continuously integrating redundant, multimodal body state information sources. The body state estimate itself is distributed over separate, but bidirectionally interacting modules. nMMF compares the incoming sensory and present body state information across the interacting modules and fuses the information sources accordingly. At the same time, nMMF enforces body state estimation consistency across the modules. nMMF is able to detect conflicting sensory information and to consequently decrease the influence of implausible sensor sources on the fly. In contrast to the previously published Modular Modality Frame (MMF) model, nMMF offers a biologically plausible neural implementation based on distributed, probabilistic population codes. Besides its neural plausibility, the neural encoding has the advantage of enabling (a) additional probabilistic information flow across the separate body state estimation modules and (b) the representation of arbitrary probability distributions of a body state. The results show that the neural estimates can detect and decrease the impact of false sensory information, can propagate conflicting information across modules, and can improve overall estimation accuracy due to additional module interactions. Even bodily illusions, such as the rubber hand illusion, can be simulated with nMMF. We conclude with an outlook on the potential of modeling human data and of invoking goal-directed behavioral control. KW - information KW - posterior parietal cortex KW - hand KW - population code KW - conflicting information KW - multimodal interaction KW - probabilistic inference KW - modular body schema KW - sensor fusion KW - multisensory perception KW - fusion KW - representation KW - multisensory processing KW - see KW - implementation KW - perspective KW - multisensory integration KW - population codes Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-122253 VL - 7 IS - 148 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Meule, Adrian T1 - Are certain foods addictive? JF - Frontiers in Psychiatry N2 - A commentary on Lifestyle medicine: the importance of firmgrounding on evidence by Rippe JM. Am J Lifestyle Med (2014) doi:10.1177/ 1559827613520527 Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-120257 SN - 1664-0640 VL - 5 IS - 38 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sollfrank, Teresa A1 - Hart, Daniel A1 - Goodsell, Rachel A1 - Foster, Jonathan A1 - Tan, Tele T1 - 3D visualization of movements can amplify motor cortex activation during subsequent motor imagery JF - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience N2 - A repetitive movement practice by motor imagery (MI) can influence motor cortical excitability in the electroencephalogram (EEG). This study investigated if a realistic visualization in 3D of upper and lower limb movements can amplify motor related potentials during subsequent MI. We hypothesized that a richer sensory visualization might be more effective during instrumental conditioning, resulting in a more pronounced event related desynchronization (ERD) of the upper alpha band (10–12 Hz) over the sensorimotor cortices thereby potentially improving MI based brain-computer interface (BCI) protocols for motor rehabilitation. The results show a strong increase of the characteristic patterns of ERD of the upper alpha band components for left and right limb MI present over the sensorimotor areas in both visualization conditions. Overall, significant differences were observed as a function of visualization modality (VM; 2D vs. 3D). The largest upper alpha band power decrease was obtained during MI after a 3-dimensional visualization. In total in 12 out of 20 tasks the end-user of the 3D visualization group showed an enhanced upper alpha ERD relative to 2D VM group, with statistical significance in nine tasks.With a realistic visualization of the limb movements, we tried to increase motor cortex activation during subsequent MI. The feedback and the feedback environment should be inherently motivating and relevant for the learner and should have an appeal of novelty, real-world relevance or aesthetic value (Ryan and Deci, 2000; Merrill, 2007). Realistic visual feedback, consistent with the participant’s MI, might be helpful for accomplishing successful MI and the use of such feedback may assist in making BCI a more natural interface for MI based BCI rehabilitation. KW - 3-dimensional visualization KW - motor cortex activation KW - EEG KW - brain-computer interfaces Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-126058 VL - 9 IS - 463 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Körner, Anita A1 - Topolinski, Sascha A1 - Strack, Fritz T1 - Routes to Embodiment JF - Frontiers of Psychology N2 - Research on embodiment is rich in impressive demonstrations but somewhat poor in comprehensive explanations. Although some moderators and driving mechanisms have been identified, a comprehensive conceptual account of how bodily states or dynamics influence behavior is still missing. Here, we attempt to integrate current knowledge by describing three basic psychological mechanisms: direct state induction, which influences how humans feel or process information, unmediated by any other cognitive mechanism; modal priming, which changes the accessibility of concepts associated with a bodily state; sensorimotor simulation, which affects the ease with which congruent and incongruent actions are performed. We argue that the joint impact of these mechanisms can account for most existing embodiment effects. Additionally, we summarize empirical tests for distinguishing these mechanisms and suggest a guideline for future research about the mechanisms underlying embodiment effects. KW - priming KW - simulation KW - grounded cognition KW - embodied cognition KW - metaphors Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-125960 VL - 9 IS - 940 ER -