TY - JOUR A1 - Diemer, Julia A1 - Alpers, Georg W. A1 - Peperkorn, Henrik M. A1 - Shiban, Youssef A1 - Mühlberger, Andreas T1 - The impact of perception and presence on emotional reactions: a review of research in virtual reality JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Virtual reality (VR) has made its way into mainstream psychological research in the last two decades. This technology, with its unique ability to simulate complex, real situations and contexts, offers researchers unprecedented opportunities to investigate human behavior in well controlled designs in the laboratory. One important application of VR is the investigation of pathological processes in mental disorders, especially anxiety disorders. Research on the processes underlying threat perception, fear, and exposure therapy has shed light on more general aspects of the relation between perception and emotion. Being by its nature virtual, i.e., simulation of reality, VR strongly relies on the adequate selection of specific perceptual cues to activate emotions. Emotional experiences in turn are related to presence, another important concept in VR, which describes the user's sense of being in a VR environment. This paper summarizes current research into perception of fear cues, emotion, and presence, aiming at the identification of the most relevant aspects of emotional experience in VR and their mutual relations. A special focus lies on a series of recent experiments designed to test the relative contribution of perception and conceptual information on fear in VR. This strand of research capitalizes on the dissociation between perception (bottom up input) and conceptual information (top-down input) that is possible in VR. Further, we review the factors that have so far been recognized to influence presence, with emotions (e.g., fear) being the most relevant in the context of clinical psychology. Recent research has highlighted the mutual influence of presence and fear in VR, but has also traced the limits of our current understanding of this relationship. In this paper, the crucial role of perception on eliciting emotional reactions is highlighted, and the role of arousal as a basic dimension of emotional experience is discussed. An interoceptive attribution model of presence is suggested as a first step toward an integrative framework for emotion research in VR. Gaps in the current literature and future directions are outlined. KW - exposure therapy KW - flight phobics KW - environments KW - virtual reality KW - anxiety KW - presence KW - emotion KW - fear KW - perception KW - anxiety disorders KW - presence questionnaire KW - public speaking KW - spider phobia KW - social phobia KW - immersion Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-144200 VL - 6 IS - 26 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gerdes, Antje B. M. A1 - Wieser, Matthias J. A1 - Alpers, Georg W. T1 - Emotional pictures and sounds: a review of multimodal interactions of emotion cues in multiple domains JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - In everyday life, multiple sensory channels jointly trigger emotional experiences and one channel may alter processing in another channel. For example, seeing an emotional facial expression and hearing the voice's emotional tone will jointly create the emotional experience. This example, where auditory and visual input is related to social communication, has gained considerable attention by researchers. However, interactions of visual and auditory emotional information are not limited to social communication but can extend to much broader contexts including human, animal, and environmental cues. In this article, we review current research on audiovisual emotion processing beyond face-voice stimuli to develop a broader perspective on multimodal interactions in emotion processing. We argue that current concepts of multimodality should be extended in considering an ecologically valid variety of stimuli in audiovisual emotion processing. Therefore, we provide an overview of studies in which emotional sounds and interactions with complex pictures of scenes were investigated. In addition to behavioral studies, we focus on neuroimaging, electro- and peripher-physiological findings. Furthermore, we integrate these findings and identify similarities or differences. We conclude with suggestions for future research. KW - emotional sounds KW - auditory stimuli KW - facial expressions KW - human brain KW - multisensory integration KW - multimodal emotion processing KW - emotional pictures KW - audiovisual interactions KW - emotional scene stimuli KW - visual stimuli KW - social anxiety KW - human amygdala KW - attention capture KW - relevance detection KW - audiovisual integration Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-114548 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gerdes, Antje B. M. A1 - Wieser, Matthias J. A1 - Mühlberger, Andreas A1 - Weyers, Peter A1 - Alpers, Georg W. A1 - Plichta, Michael M. A1 - Breuer, Felix A1 - Pauli, Paul T1 - Brain activations to emotional pictures are differentially associated with valence and arousal ratings N2 - Several studies have investigated the neural responses triggered by emotional pictures, but the specificity of the involved structures such as the amygdala or the ventral striatum is still under debate. Furthermore, only few studies examined the association of stimuli’s valence and arousal and the underlying brain responses. Therefore, we investigated brain responses with functional magnetic resonance imaging of 17 healthy participants to pleasant and unpleasant affective pictures and afterwards assessed ratings of valence and arousal. As expected, unpleasant pictures strongly activated the right and left amygdala, the right hippocampus, and the medial occipital lobe, whereas pleasant pictures elicited significant activations in left occipital regions, and in parts of the medial temporal lobe. The direct comparison of unpleasant and pleasant pictures, which were comparable in arousal clearly indicated stronger amygdala activation in response to the unpleasant pictures. Most important, correlational analyses revealed on the one hand that the arousal of unpleasant pictures was significantly associated with activations in the right amygdala and the left caudate body. On the other hand, valence of pleasant pictures was significantly correlated with activations in the right caudate head, extending to the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These findings support the notion that the amygdala is primarily involved in processing of unpleasant stimuli, particularly to more arousing unpleasant stimuli. Reward-related structures like the caudate and NAcc primarily respond to pleasant stimuli, the stronger the more positive the valence of these stimuli is. KW - Psychologie KW - emotional pictures KW - amygdala KW - caudate KW - valence KW - arousal Y1 - 2010 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-68153 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Peperkorn, Henrik M. A1 - Diemer, Julia E. A1 - Alpers, Georg W. A1 - Mühlberger, Andreas T1 - Representation of Patients' Hand Modulates Fear Reactions of Patients with Spider Phobia in Virtual Reality JF - frontiers in Psychology N2 - Embodiment (i.e., the involvement of a bodily representation) is thought to be relevant in emotional experiences. Virtual reality (VR) is a capable means of activating phobic fear in patients. The representation of the patient’s body (e.g., the right hand) in VR enhances immersion and increases presence, but its effect on phobic fear is still unknown. We analyzed the influence of the presentation of the participant’s hand in VR on presence and fear responses in 32 women with spider phobia and 32 matched controls. Participants sat in front of a table with an acrylic glass container within reaching distance. During the experiment this setup was concealed by a head-mounted display (HMD). The VR scenario presented via HMD showed the same setup, i.e., a table with an acrylic glass container. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups. In one group, fear responses were triggered by fear-relevant visual input in VR (virtual spider in the virtual acrylic glass container), while information about a real but unseen neutral control animal (living snake in the acrylic glass container) was given. The second group received fear-relevant information of the real but unseen situation (living spider in the acrylic glass container), but visual input was kept neutral VR (virtual snake in the virtual acrylic glass container). Participants were instructed to touch the acrylic glass container with their right hand in 20 consecutive trials. Visibility of the hand was varied randomly in a within-subjects design. We found for all participants that visibility of the participant’s hand increased presence independently of the fear trigger. However, in patients, the influence of the virtual hand on fear depended on the fear trigger. When fear was triggered perceptually, i.e., by a virtual spider, the virtual hand increased fear. When fear was triggered by information about a real spider, the virtual hand had no effect on fear. Our results shed light on the significance of different fear triggers (visual, conceptual) in interaction with body representations. KW - virtual reality KW - presence KW - immersion KW - perception KW - fear KW - specific phobia Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165307 VL - 7 IS - 268 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rayner, Christopher A1 - Coleman, Jonathan R. I. A1 - Purves, Kirstin L. A1 - Hodsoll, John A1 - Goldsmith, Kimberley A1 - Alpers, Georg W. A1 - Andersson, Evelyn A1 - Arolt, Volker A1 - Boberg, Julia A1 - Bögels, Susan A1 - Creswell, Cathy A1 - Cooper, Peter A1 - Curtis, Charles A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Domschke, Katharina A1 - El Alaoui, Samir A1 - Fehm, Lydia A1 - Fydrich, Thomas A1 - Gerlach, Alexander L. A1 - Grocholewski, Anja A1 - Hahlweg, Kurt A1 - Hamm, Alfons A1 - Hedman, Erik A1 - Heiervang, Einar R. A1 - Hudson, Jennifer L. A1 - Jöhren, Peter A1 - Keers, Robert A1 - Kircher, Tilo A1 - Lang, Thomas A1 - Lavebratt, Catharina A1 - Lee, Sang-hyuck A1 - Lester, Kathryn J. A1 - Lindefors, Nils A1 - Margraf, Jürgen A1 - Nauta, Maaike A1 - Pané-Farré, Christiane A. A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Rapee, Ronald M. A1 - Reif, Andreas A1 - Rief, Winfried A1 - Roberts, Susanna A1 - Schalling, Martin A1 - Schneider, Silvia A1 - Silverman, Wendy K. A1 - Ströhle, Andreas A1 - Teismann, Tobias A1 - Thastum, Mikael A1 - Wannemüller, Andre A1 - Weber, Heike A1 - Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich A1 - Wolf, Christiane A1 - Rück, Christian A1 - Breen, Gerome A1 - Eley, Thalia C. T1 - A genome-wide association meta-analysis of prognostic outcomes following cognitive behavioural therapy in individuals with anxiety and depressive disorders JF - Translational Psychiatry N2 - Major depressive disorder and the anxiety disorders are highly prevalent, disabling and moderately heritable. Depression and anxiety are also highly comorbid and have a strong genetic correlation (r(g) approximate to 1). Cognitive behavioural therapy is a leading evidence-based treatment but has variable outcomes. Currently, there are no strong predictors of outcome. Therapygenetics research aims to identify genetic predictors of prognosis following therapy. We performed genome-wide association meta-analyses of symptoms following cognitive behavioural therapy in adults with anxiety disorders (n = 972), adults with major depressive disorder (n = 832) and children with anxiety disorders (n = 920; meta-analysis n = 2724). We (h(SNP)(2)) and polygenic scoring was used to examine genetic associations between therapy outcomes and psychopathology, personality and estimated the variance in therapy outcomes that could be explained by common genetic variants learning. No single nucleotide polymorphisms were strongly associated with treatment outcomes. No significant estimate of h(SNP)(2) could be obtained, suggesting the heritability of therapy outcome is smaller than our analysis was powered to detect. Polygenic scoring failed to detect genetic overlap between therapy outcome and psychopathology, personality or learning. This study is the largest therapygenetics study to date. Results are consistent with previous, similarly powered genome-wide association studies of complex traits. KW - Human behaviour KW - Personalized medicine KW - Prognostic markers KW - Psychiatric disorders Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-225048 VL - 9 IS - 150 ER -