TY - JOUR A1 - Pfister, Roland A1 - Schwarz, Katharina A. A1 - Janczyk, Markus A1 - Dale, Rick A1 - Freeman, Jonathan B. T1 - Good things peak in pairs: a note on the bimodality coefficient JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - A commentary on Assessing bimodality to detect the presence of a dual cognitive process by Freeman, J. B., and Dale, R. (2013). Behav. Res. Methods 45, 83–97. doi: 10.3758/s13428-012-0225-x KW - distribution analysis KW - bimodality Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-190413 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 4 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Foerster, Anna A1 - Pfister, Roland A1 - Schmidts, Constantin A1 - Dignath, David A1 - Kunde, Wilfried T1 - Honesty saves time (and justifications) JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - A commentary on Honesty requires time (and lack of justifications) by Shalvi, S., Eldar, O., and Bereby-Meyer, Y. (2012). Psychol. Sci. 23, 1264–1270. doi: 10.1177/0956797612443835 KW - honesty Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-190451 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 4 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Meule, Adrian A1 - Vögele, Claus T1 - The psychology of eating JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - No abstract available. Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-190460 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 4 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Meule, Adrian T1 - Impulsivity and overeating: a closer look at the subscales of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - No abstract available. KW - Impulsivity KW - Overeating Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-190497 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 4 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - JOUR A1 - Halder, Sebastian A1 - Hammer, Eva Maria A1 - Kleih, Sonja Claudia A1 - Bogdan, Martin A1 - Rosenstiel, Wolfgang A1 - Birbaumer, Niels A1 - Kübler, Andrea T1 - Prediction of Auditory and Visual P300 Brain-Computer Interface Aptitude JF - PLoS ONE N2 - Objective Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) provide a non-muscular communication channel for patients with late-stage motoneuron disease (e.g., amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)) or otherwise motor impaired people and are also used for motor rehabilitation in chronic stroke. Differences in the ability to use a BCI vary from person to person and from session to session. A reliable predictor of aptitude would allow for the selection of suitable BCI paradigms. For this reason, we investigated whether P300 BCI aptitude could be predicted from a short experiment with a standard auditory oddball. Methods Forty healthy participants performed an electroencephalography (EEG) based visual and auditory P300-BCI spelling task in a single session. In addition, prior to each session an auditory oddball was presented. Features extracted from the auditory oddball were analyzed with respect to predictive power for BCI aptitude. Results Correlation between auditory oddball response and P300 BCI accuracy revealed a strong relationship between accuracy and N2 amplitude and the amplitude of a late ERP component between 400 and 600 ms. Interestingly, the P3 amplitude of the auditory oddball response was not correlated with accuracy. Conclusions Event-related potentials recorded during a standard auditory oddball session moderately predict aptitude in an audiory and highly in a visual P300 BCI. The predictor will allow for faster paradigm selection. Significance Our method will reduce strain on patients because unsuccessful training may be avoided, provided the results can be generalized to the patient population. KW - experimental design KW - acoustic signals KW - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis KW - man-computer interface KW - electroencephalography KW - event-related potentials KW - physical properties KW - vision Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-130327 VL - 8 IS - 2 ER - 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 - Mussel, Patrick A1 - Göritz, Anja S. A1 - Hewig, Johannes T1 - The value of a smile: Facial expression affects ultimatum-game responses JF - Judgment and Decision Making N2 - In social interaction, the facial expression of an opponent contains information that may influence the interaction. We asked whether facial expression affects decision-making in the ultimatum game. In this two-person game, the proposer divides a sum of money into two parts, one for each player, and then the responder decides whether to accept the offer or reject it. Rejection means that neither player gets any money. Results of a large-sample study support our hypothesis that offers from proposers with a smiling facial expression are more often accepted, compared to a neutral facial expression. Moreover, we found lower acceptance rates for offers from proposers with an angry facial expression. KW - ultimatum game KW - emotions KW - decision-making KW - facial expressions Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-129639 VL - 8 IS - 3 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Eder, Andreas B. A1 - Rothermund, Klaus A1 - De Houwer, Jan T1 - Affective Compatibility between Stimuli and Response Goals: A Primer for a New Implicit Measure of Attitudes JF - PLoS ONE N2 - We examined whether a voluntary response becomes associated with the (affective) meaning of intended response effects. Four experiments revealed that coupling a keypress with positive or negative consequences produces affective compatibility effects when the keypress has to be executed in response to positively or negatively evaluated stimulus categories. In Experiment 1, positive words were evaluated faster with a keypress that turned the words ON (versus OFF), whereas negative words were evaluated faster with a keypress that turned the words OFF (versus ON). Experiment 2 showed that this compatibility effect is reversed if an aversive tone is turned ON and OFF with keypresses. Experiment 3 revealed that keypresses acquire an affective meaning even when the association between the responses and their effects is variable and intentionally reconfigured before each trial. Experiment 4 used affective response effects to assess implicit ingroup favoritism, showing that the measure is sensitive to the valence of categories and not to the valence of exemplars. Results support the hypothesis that behavioral reactions become associated with the affective meaning of the intended response goal, which has important implications for the understanding and construction of implicit attitude measures. KW - German people KW - reaction time KW - non-verbal communication KW - social psychology KW - cognitive psychology KW - hands KW - priming (psychology) KW - social research Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-129872 VL - 8 IS - 11 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 - Kopf, Juliane A1 - Dresler, Thomas A1 - Reicherts, Philipp A1 - Herrmann, Martin J. A1 - Reif, Andreas T1 - The Effect of Emotional Content on Brain Activation and the Late Positive Potential in a Word n-back Task JF - PLoS ONE N2 - Introduction There is mounting evidence for the influence of emotional content on working memory performance. This is particularly important in light of the emotion processing that needs to take place when emotional content interferes with executive functions. In this study, we used emotional words of different valence but with similar arousal levels in an n-back task. Methods We examined the effects on activation in the prefrontal cortex by means of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and on the late positive potential (LPP). FNIRS and LPP data were examined in 30 healthy subjects. Results Behavioral results show an influence of valence on the error rate depending on the difficulty of the task: more errors were made when the valence was negative and the task difficult. Brain activation was dependent both on the difficulty of the task and on the valence: negative valence of a word diminished the increase in activation, whereas positive valence did not influence the increase in activation, while difficulty levels increased. The LPP also differentiated between the different valences, and in addition was influenced by the task difficulty, the more difficult the task, the less differentiation could be observed. Conclusions Summarized, this study shows the influence of valence on a verbal working memory task. When a word contained a negative valence, the emotional content seemed to take precedence in contrast to words containing a positive valence. Working memory and emotion processing sites seemed to overlap and compete for resources even when words are carriers of the emotional content. KW - analysis of variance KW - electrode recording KW - electroencephalography KW - emotions KW - eyes KW - near-infrared spectroscopy KW - reaction time KW - working memory Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-96687 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Platte, Petra A1 - Herbert, Cornelia A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Breslin, Paul A. S. T1 - Oral Perceptions of Fat and Taste Stimuli Are Modulated by Affect and Mood Induction JF - PLoS ONE N2 - This study examined the impact of three clinical psychological variables (non-pathological levels of depression and anxiety, as well as experimentally manipulated mood) on fat and taste perception in healthy subjects. After a baseline orosensory evaluation, ‘sad’, ‘happy’ and ‘neutral’ video clips were presented to induce corresponding moods in eighty participants. Following mood manipulation, subjects rated five different oral stimuli, appearing sweet, umami, sour, bitter, fatty, which were delivered at five different concentrations each. Depression levels were assessed with Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI) and anxiety levels were assessed via the Spielberger’s STAI-trait and state questionnaire. Overall, subjects were able to track the concentrations of the stimuli correctly, yet depression level affected taste ratings. First, depression scores were positively correlated with sucrose ratings. Second, subjects with depression scores above the sample median rated sucrose and quinine as more intense after mood induction (positive, negative and neutral). Third and most important, the group with enhanced depression scores did not rate low and high fat stimuli differently after positive or negative mood induction, whereas, during baseline or during the non-emotional neutral condition they rated the fat intensity as increasing with concentration. Consistent with others’ prior observations we also found that sweet and bitter stimuli at baseline were rated as more intense by participants with higher anxiety scores and that after positive and negative mood induction, citric acid was rated as stronger tasting compared to baseline. The observation that subjects with mild subclinical depression rated low and high fat stimuli similarly when in positive or negative mood is novel and likely has potential implications for unhealthy eating patterns. This deficit may foster unconscious eating of fatty foods in sub-clinical mildly depressed populations. KW - analysis of variance KW - anxiety KW - citric acid KW - depression KW - glutamate KW - quinine KW - sensory perception KW - sucrose Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-96421 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Glotzbach-Schoon, Evelyn A1 - Andreatta, Marta A1 - Reif, Andreas A1 - Ewald, Heike A1 - Tröger, Christian A1 - Baumann, Christian A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Mühlberger, Andreas T1 - Contextual fear conditioning in virtual reality is affected by 5HTTLPR and NPSR1 polymorphisms: effects on fear-potentiated startle JF - Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience N2 - The serotonin (5-HT) and neuropeptide S (NPS) systems are discussed as important genetic modulators of fear and sustained anxiety contributing to the etiology of anxiety disorders. Sustained anxiety is a crucial characteristic of most anxiety disorders which likely develops through contextual fear conditioning. This study investigated if and how genetic alterations of the 5-HT and the NPS systems as well as their interaction modulate contextual fear conditioning; specifically, function polymorphic variants in the genes coding for the 5-HT transporter (5HTT) and the NPS receptor (NPSR1) were studied. A large group of healthy volunteers was therefore stratified for 5HTTLPR (S+ vs. LL carriers) and NPSR1 rs324981 (T+ vs. AA carriers) polymorphisms resulting in four genotype groups (S+/T+, S+/AA, LL/T+, LL/AA) of 20 participants each. All participants underwent contextual fear conditioning and extinction using a virtual reality (VR) paradigm. During acquisition, one virtual office room (anxiety context, CXT+) was paired with an unpredictable electric stimulus (unconditioned stimulus, US), whereas another virtual office room was not paired with any US (safety context, CXT−). During extinction no US was administered. Anxiety responses were quantified by fear-potentiated startle and ratings. Most importantly, we found a gene × gene interaction on fear-potentiated startle. Only carriers of both risk alleles (S+/T+) exhibited higher startle responses in CXT+ compared to CXT−. In contrast, anxiety ratings were only influenced by the NPSR1 polymorphism with AA carriers showing higher anxiety ratings in CXT+ as compared to CXT−. Our results speak in favor of a two level account of fear conditioning with diverging effects on implicit vs. explicit fear responses. Enhanced contextual fear conditioning as reflected in potentiated startle responses may be an endophenotype for anxiety disorders. KW - 5HTTLPR KW - NPSR1 KW - gene × gene interaction KW - contextual fear conditioning KW - fear-potentiated startle Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-96516 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Herbert, Cornelia A1 - Sfärlea, Anca A1 - Blumenthal, Terry T1 - Your emotion or mine: labeling feelings alters emotional face perception—an ERP study on automatic and intentional affect labeling JF - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience N2 - Empirical evidence suggests that words are powerful regulators of emotion processing. Although a number of studies have used words as contextual cues for emotion processing, the role of what is being labeled by the words (i.e., one's own emotion as compared to the emotion expressed by the sender) is poorly understood. The present study reports results from two experiments which used ERP methodology to evaluate the impact of emotional faces and self- vs. sender-related emotional pronoun-noun pairs (e.g., my fear vs. his fear) as cues for emotional face processing. The influence of self- and sender-related cues on the processing of fearful, angry and happy faces was investigated in two contexts: an automatic (experiment 1) and intentional affect labeling task (experiment 2), along with control conditions of passive face processing. ERP patterns varied as a function of the label's reference (self vs. sender) and the intentionality of the labeling task (experiment 1 vs. experiment 2). In experiment 1, self-related labels increased the motivational relevance of the emotional faces in the time-window of the EPN component. Processing of sender-related labels improved emotion recognition specifically for fearful faces in the N170 time-window. Spontaneous processing of affective labels modulated later stages of face processing as well. Amplitudes of the late positive potential (LPP) were reduced for fearful, happy, and angry faces relative to the control condition of passive viewing. During intentional regulation (experiment 2) amplitudes of the LPP were enhanced for emotional faces when subjects used the self-related emotion labels to label their own emotion during face processing, and they rated the faces as higher in arousal than the emotional faces that had been presented in the “label sender's emotion” condition or the passive viewing condition. The present results argue in favor of a differentiated view of language-as-context for emotion processing. KW - emotion regulation KW - language-as-context KW - affect labeling KW - face processing KW - event-related brain potentials KW - social context KW - social cognition KW - perspective taking Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-97065 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kaufmann, Tobias A1 - Holz, Elisa M. A1 - Kübler, Andrea T1 - Comparison of tactile, auditory, and visual modality for brain-computer interface use: a case study with a patient in the locked-in state JF - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience N2 - This paper describes a case study with a patient in the classic locked-in state, who currently has no means of independent communication. Following a user-centered approach, we investigated event-related potentials (ERP) elicited in different modalities for use in brain-computer interface (BCI) systems. Such systems could provide her with an alternative communication channel. To investigate the most viable modality for achieving BCI based communication, classic oddball paradigms (1 rare and 1 frequent stimulus, ratio 1:5) in the visual, auditory and tactile modality were conducted (2 runs per modality). Classifiers were built on one run and tested offline on another run (and vice versa). In these paradigms, the tactile modality was clearly superior to other modalities, displaying high offline accuracy even when classification was performed on single trials only. Consequently, we tested the tactile paradigm online and the patient successfully selected targets without any error. Furthermore, we investigated use of the visual or tactile modality for different BCI systems with more than two selection options. In the visual modality, several BCI paradigms were tested offline. Neither matrix-based nor so-called gaze-independent paradigms constituted a means of control. These results may thus question the gaze-independence of current gaze-independent approaches to BCI. A tactile four-choice BCI resulted in high offline classification accuracies. Yet, online use raised various issues. Although performance was clearly above chance, practical daily life use appeared unlikely when compared to other communication approaches (e.g., partner scanning). Our results emphasize the need for user-centered design in BCI development including identification of the best stimulus modality for a particular user. Finally, the paper discusses feasibility of EEG-based BCI systems for patients in classic locked-in state and compares BCI to other AT solutions that we also tested during the study. KW - brain-computer interface KW - tactile auditory and visual modality KW - locked-in syndrome KW - user-centered design KW - end-user testing KW - assistive technology Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-97079 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Halder, Sebastian A1 - Ruf, Carolin Anne A1 - Furdea, Adrian A1 - Pasqualotto, Emanuele A1 - De Massari, Daniele A1 - van der Heiden, Linda A1 - Bogdan, Martin A1 - Rosenstiel, Wolfgang A1 - Birbaumer, Niels A1 - Kübler, Andrea A1 - Matuz, Tamara T1 - Prediction of P300 BCI Aptitude in Severe Motor Impairment JF - PLoS ONE N2 - Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) provide a non-muscular communication channel for persons with severe motor impairments. Previous studies have shown that the aptitude with which a BCI can be controlled varies from person to person. A reliable predictor of performance could facilitate selection of a suitable BCI paradigm. Eleven severely motor impaired participants performed three sessions of a P300 BCI web browsing task. Before each session auditory oddball data were collected to predict the BCI aptitude of the participants exhibited in the current session. We found a strong relationship of early positive and negative potentials around 200 ms (elicited with the auditory oddball task) with performance. The amplitude of the P2 (r = −0.77) and of the N2 (r = −0.86) had the strongest correlations. Aptitude prediction using an auditory oddball was successful. The finding that the N2 amplitude is a stronger predictor of performance than P3 amplitude was reproduced after initially showing this effect with a healthy sample of BCI users. This will reduce strain on the end-users by minimizing the time needed to find suitable paradigms and inspire new approaches to improve performance. KW - amyothropic lateral sclerosis KW - electrode potentials KW - electroencephalography KW - event-related potentials KW - functional magnetic imaging KW - human performance KW - man-computer interface KW - topography Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-97268 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Biehl, Stefanie C. A1 - Ehlis, Ann-Christine A1 - Müller, Laura D. A1 - Niklaus, Andrea A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Herrmann, Martin J. T1 - The impact of task relevance and degree of distraction on stimulus processing JF - BMC Neuroscience N2 - Background The impact of task relevance on event-related potential amplitudes of early visual processing was previously demonstrated. Study designs, however, differ greatly, not allowing simultaneous investigation of how both degree of distraction and task relevance influence processing variations. In our study, we combined different features of previous tasks. We used a modified 1-back task in which task relevant and task irrelevant stimuli were alternately presented. The task irrelevant stimuli could be from the same or from a different category as the task relevant stimuli, thereby producing high and low distracting task irrelevant stimuli. In addition, the paradigm comprised a passive viewing condition. Thus, our paradigm enabled us to compare the processing of task relevant stimuli, task irrelevant stimuli with differing degrees of distraction, and passively viewed stimuli. EEG data from twenty participants was collected and mean P100 and N170 amplitudes were analyzed. Furthermore, a potential connection of stimulus processing and symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was investigated. Results Our results show a modulation of peak N170 amplitudes by task relevance. N170 amplitudes to task relevant stimuli were significantly higher than to high distracting task irrelevant or passively viewed stimuli. In addition, amplitudes to low distracting task irrelevant stimuli were significantly higher than to high distracting stimuli. N170 amplitudes to passively viewed stimuli were not significantly different from either kind of task irrelevant stimuli. Participants with more symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsivity showed decreased N170 amplitudes across all task conditions. On a behavioral level, lower N170 enhancement efficiency was significantly correlated with false alarm responses. Conclusions Our results point to a processing enhancement of task relevant stimuli. Unlike P100 amplitudes, N170 amplitudes were strongly influenced by enhancement and enhancement efficiency seemed to have direct behavioral consequences. These findings have potential implications for models of clinical disorders affecting selective attention, especially ADHD. KW - Selective attention KW - Working memory KW - Cognitive control KW - P100 KW - N170 KW - ADHD Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-97271 UR - http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/14/107 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Halder, Sebastian A1 - Varkuti, Balint A1 - Bogdan, Martin A1 - Kübler, Andrea A1 - Rosenstiel, Wolfgang A1 - Sitaram, Ranganatha A1 - Birbaumer, Niels T1 - Prediction of brain-computer interface aptitude from individual brain structure JF - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience N2 - Objective: Brain-computer interface (BCI) provide a non-muscular communication channel for patients with impairments of the motor system. A significant number of BCI users is unable to obtain voluntary control of a BCI-system in proper time. This makes methods that can be used to determine the aptitude of a user necessary. Methods: We hypothesized that integrity and connectivity of involved white matter connections may serve as a predictor of individual BCI-performance. Therefore, we analyzed structural data from anatomical scans and DTI of motor imagery BCI-users differentiated into high and low BCI-aptitude groups based on their overall performance. Results: Using a machine learning classification method we identified discriminating structural brain trait features and correlated the best features with a continuous measure of individual BCI-performance. Prediction of the aptitude group of each participant was possible with near perfect accuracy (one error). Conclusions: Tissue volumetric analysis yielded only poor classification results. In contrast, the structural integrity and myelination quality of deep white matter structures such as the Corpus Callosum, Cingulum, and Superior Fronto-Occipital Fascicle were positively correlated with individual BCI-performance. Significance: This confirms that structural brain traits contribute to individual performance in BCI use. KW - BCI KW - motor imagery KW - aptitude KW - DTI KW - fractional anisotropy Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-96558 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Halder, Sebastian A1 - Hammer, Eva Maria A1 - Kleih, Sonja Claudia A1 - Bogdan, Martin A1 - Rosenstiel, Wolfgang A1 - Birbaumer, Nils A1 - Kübler, Andrea T1 - Prediction of Auditory and Visual P300 Brain-Computer Interface Aptitude N2 - Objective: Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) provide a non-muscular communication channel for patients with late-stage motoneuron disease (e.g., amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)) or otherwise motor impaired people and are also used for motor rehabilitation in chronic stroke. Differences in the ability to use a BCI vary from person to person and from session to session. A reliable predictor of aptitude would allow for the selection of suitable BCI paradigms. For this reason, we investigated whether P300 BCI aptitude could be predicted from a short experiment with a standard auditory oddball. Methods: Forty healthy participants performed an electroencephalography (EEG) based visual and auditory P300-BCI spelling task in a single session. In addition, prior to each session an auditory oddball was presented. Features extracted from the auditory oddball were analyzed with respect to predictive power for BCI aptitude. Results: Correlation between auditory oddball response and P300 BCI accuracy revealed a strong relationship between accuracy and N2 amplitude and the amplitude of a late ERP component between 400 and 600 ms. Interestingly, the P3 amplitude of the auditory oddball response was not correlated with accuracy. Conclusions: Event-related potentials recorded during a standard auditory oddball session moderately predict aptitude in an audiory and highly in a visual P300 BCI. The predictor will allow for faster paradigm selection. Significance: Our method will reduce strain on patients because unsuccessful training may be avoided, provided the results can be generalized to the patient population. KW - Psychologie Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-77992 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Herbert, Cornelia A1 - Kübler, Andrea A1 - Vögele, Klaus T1 - Risk for Eating Disorders Modulates Startle-Responses to Body Words N2 - Body image disturbances are core symptoms of eating disorders (EDs). Recent evidence suggests that changes in body image may occur prior to ED onset and are not restricted to in-vivo exposure (e.g. mirror image), but also evident during presentation of abstract cues such as body shape and weight-related words. In the present study startle modulation, heart rate and subjective evaluations were examined during reading of body words and neutral words in 41 student female volunteers screened for risk of EDs. The aim was to determine if responses to body words are attributable to a general negativity bias regardless of ED risk or if activated, ED relevant negative body schemas facilitate priming of defensive responses. Heart rate and word ratings differed between body words and neutral words in the whole female sample, supporting a general processing bias for body weight and shape-related concepts in young women regardless of ED risk. Startle modulation was specifically related to eating disorder symptoms, as was indicated by significant positive correlations with self-reported body dissatisfaction. These results emphasize the relevance of examining body schema representations as a function of ED risk across different levels of responding. Peripheral-physiological measures such as the startle reflex could possibly be used as predictors of females’ risk for developing EDs in the future. KW - Psychologie Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-78140 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Meule, Adrian A1 - Fath, Katharina A1 - Real, Ruben G. L. A1 - Sütterlin, Stefan A1 - Vögele, Claus A1 - Kübler, Andrea T1 - Quality of life, emotion regulation, and heart rate variability in individuals with intellectual disabilities and concomitant impaired vision JF - Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice N2 - Background Positive associations have been found between quality of life, emotion regulation strategies, and heart rate variability (HRV) in people without intellectual disabilities. However, emotion regulation and HRV have rarely been investigated in people with intellectual disabilities. Assessment of subjectively reported quality of life and emotion regulation strategies in this population is even more difficult when participants are also visually impaired. Methods Subjective and objective quality of life, emotion regulation strategies, and HRV at rest were measured in a sample of people with intellectual disabilities and concomitant impaired vision (N = 35). Heart rate was recorded during a 10 min resting period. For the assessment of quality of life and emotion regulation, custom made tactile versions of questionnaire-based instruments were used that enabled participants to grasp response categories. Results The combined use of reappraisal and suppression as emotion regulation strategies was associated with higher HRV and quality of life. HRV was associated with objective quality of life only. Emotion regulation strategies partially mediated the relationship between HRV and quality of life. Conclusions Results replicate findings about associations between quality of life, emotion regulation, and HRV and extend them to individuals with intellectual disabilities. Furthermore, this study demonstrated that quality of life and emotion regulation could be assessed in such populations even with concomitant impaired vision with modified tactile versions of established questionnaires. HRV may be used as a physiological index to evaluate physical and affective conditions in this population. KW - Quality of life KW - Emotion regulation KW - Heart rate variability KW - Cardiac autonomic regulation KW - Intellectual disability KW - Impaired vision Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-96247 UR - http://www.psywb.com/content/3/1/1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kirsch, Wladimir A1 - Herbort, Oliver A1 - Butz, Martin V. A1 - Kunde, Wilfried T1 - Influence of Motor Planning on Distance Perception within the Peripersonal Space N2 - We examined whether movement costs as defined by movement magnitude have an impact on distance perception in near space. In Experiment 1, participants were given a numerical cue regarding the amplitude of a hand movement to be carried out. Before the movement execution, the length of a visual distance had to be judged. These visual distances were judged to be larger, the larger the amplitude of the concurrently prepared hand movement was. In Experiment 2, in which numerical cues were merely memorized without concurrent movement planning, this general increase of distance with cue size was not observed. The results of these experiments indicate that visual perception of near space is specifically affected by the costs of planned hand movements. KW - Psychologie Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-75332 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Conzelmann, Annette A1 - Reif, Andreas A1 - Jacob, Christian A1 - Weyers, Peter A1 - Lesch, Klaus-Peter A1 - Lutz, Beat A1 - Pauli, Paul T1 - A polymorphism in the gene of the endocannabinoid-degrading enzyme FAAH (FAAH C385A) is associated with emotional-motivational reactivity JF - Psychopharmacology N2 - RATIONALE: The endocannabinoid (eCB) system is implicated in several psychiatric disorders. Investigating emotional-motivational dysfunctions as underlying mechanisms, a study in humans revealed that in the C385A polymorphism of the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), the degrading enzyme of the eCB anandamide (AEA), A carriers, who are characterized by increased signaling of AEA as compared to C/C carriers, exhibited reduced brain reactivity towards unpleasant faces and enhanced reactivity towards reward. However, the association of eCB system with emotional-motivational reactivity is complex and bidirectional due to upcoming compensatory processes. OBJECTIVES: Therefore, we further investigated the relationship of the FAAH polymorphism and emotional-motivational reactivity in humans. METHODS: We assessed the affect-modulated startle, and ratings of valence and arousal in response to higher arousing pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures in 67 FAAH C385A C/C carriers and 45 A carriers. RESULTS: Contrarily to the previous functional MRI study, A carriers compared to C/C carriers exhibited an increased startle potentiation and therefore emotional responsiveness towards unpleasant picture stimuli and reduced startle inhibition indicating reduced emotional reactivity in response to pleasant pictures, while both groups did not differ in ratings of arousal and valence. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings emphasize the bidirectionality and thorough examination of the eCB system's impact on emotional reactivity as a central endophenotype underlying various psychiatric disorders. KW - startle reflex KW - endocannabinoid KW - FAAH KW - genetics KW - emotion Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-126845 VL - 224 IS - 4 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Reuss, Heiko A1 - Kiesel, Andrea A1 - Kunde, Wilfried A1 - Wühr, Peter T1 - A cue from the unconscious - masked symbols prompt spatial anticipation JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Anticipating where an event will occur enables us to instantaneously respond to events that occur at the expected location. Here we investigated if such spatial anticipations can be triggered by symbolic information that participants cannot consciously see. In two experiments involving a Posner cueing task and a visual search task, a central cue informed participants about the likely location of the next target stimulus. In half of the trials, this cue was rendered invisible by pattern masking. In both experiments, visible cues led to cueing effects, that is, faster responses after valid compared to invalid cues. Importantly, even masked cues caused cueing effects, though to a lesser extent. Additionally, we analyzed effects on attention that persist from one trial to the subsequent trial. We found that spatial anticipations are able to interfere with newly formed spatial anticipations and influence orienting of attention in the subsequent trial. When the preceding cue was visible, the corresponding spatial anticipation persisted to an extent that prevented a noticeable effect of masked cues. The effects of visible cues were likewise modulated by previous spatial anticipations, but were strong enough to also exert an impact on attention themselves. Altogether, the results suggest that spatial anticipations can be formed on the basis of unconscious stimuli, but that interfering influences like still active spatial anticipations can suppress this effect. KW - masked priming KW - unconscious processing KW - anticipation KW - endogenous shifts of attention KW - spatial cueing Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-123971 VL - 3 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Meule, Adrian A1 - Kübler, Andrea T1 - The translation of substance dependence criteria to food-related behaviors: different views and interpretations. JF - Frontiers in psychiatry N2 - No abstract available. Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-123092 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sütterlin, Stefan A1 - Paap, Muirne C. S. A1 - Babic, Stana A1 - Kübler, Andrea A1 - Vögele, Claus T1 - Rumination and Age: Some Things Get Better JF - Journal of Aging Research N2 - Rumination has been defined as a mode of responding to distress that involves passively focusing one's attention on symptoms of distress without taking action. This dysfunctional response style intensifies depressed mood, impairs interpersonal problem solving, and leads to more pessimistic future perspectives and less social support. As most of these results were obtained from younger people, it remains unclear how age affects ruminative thinking. Three hundred members of the general public ranging in age from 15 to 87 years were asked about their ruminative styles using the Response Styles Questionnaire (RSQ), depression and satisfaction with life. A Mokken Scale analysis confirmed the two-factor structure of the RSQ with brooding and reflective pondering as subcomponents of rumination. Older participants (63 years and older) reported less ruminative thinking than other age groups. Life satisfaction was associated with brooding and highest for the earlier and latest life stages investigated in this study. Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-124356 VL - 2012 IS - 267327 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stippekohl, Bastian A1 - Winkler, Markus H. A1 - Walter, Bertram A1 - Kagerer, Sabine A1 - Mucha, Ronald F. A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Vaitl, Dieter A1 - Stark, Rudolf T1 - Neural Responses to Smoking Stimuli Are Influenced by Smokers' Attitudes towards Their Own Smoking Behaviour JF - PLoS One N2 - An important feature of addiction is the high drug craving that may promote the continuation of consumption. Environmental stimuli classically conditioned to drug-intake have a strong motivational power for addicts and can elicit craving. However, addicts differ in the attitudes towards their own consumption behavior: some are content with drug taking (consonant users) whereas others are discontent (dissonant users). Such differences may be important for clinical practice because the experience of dissonance might enhance the likelihood to consider treatment. This fMRI study investigated in smokers whether these different attitudes influence subjective and neural responses to smoking stimuli. Based on self-characterization, smokers were divided into consonant and dissonant smokers. These two groups were presented smoking stimuli and neutral stimuli. Former studies have suggested differences in the impact of smoking stimuli depending on the temporal stage of the smoking ritual they are associated with. Therefore, we used stimuli associated with the beginning (BEGIN-smoking-stimuli) and stimuli associated with the terminal stage (END-smoking-stimuli) of the smoking ritual as distinct stimulus categories. Stimulus ratings did not differ between both groups. Brain data showed that BEGIN-smoking-stimuli led to enhanced mesolimbic responses (amygdala, hippocampus, insula) in dissonant compared to consonant smokers. In response to END-smoking-stimuli, dissonant smokers showed reduced mesocortical responses (orbitofrontal cortex, subcallosal cortex) compared to consonant smokers. These results suggest that smoking stimuli with a high incentive value (BEGIN-smoking-stimuli) are more appetitive for dissonant than consonant smokers at least on the neural level. To the contrary, smoking stimuli with low incentive value (END-smoking-stimuli) seem to be less appetitive for dissonant smokers than consonant smokers. These differences might be one reason why dissonant smokers experience difficulties in translating their attitudes into an actual behavior change. KW - smoking habits KW - addiction KW - amygdala KW - behavioral addiction KW - addicts KW - nicotine addiction KW - drug research and development KW - drug addiction Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-124393 VL - 7 IS - 11 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ritz, Thomas A1 - Enlow, Michelle Bosquet A1 - Schulz, Stefan M. A1 - Kitts, Robert A1 - Staudenmayer, John A1 - Wright, Rosalind J. T1 - Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia as an Index of Vagal Activity during Stress in Infants: Respiratory Influences and Their Control JF - PLoS One N2 - Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is related to cardiac vagal outflow and the respiratory pattern. Prior infant studies have not systematically examined respiration rate and tidal volume influences on infant RSA or the extent to which infants' breathing is too fast to extract a valid RSA. We therefore monitored cardiac activity, respiration, and physical activity in 23 six-month old infants during a standardized laboratory stressor protocol. On average, 12.6% (range 0-58.2%) of analyzed breaths were too short for RSA extraction. Higher respiration rate was associated with lower RSA amplitude in most infants, and lower tidal volume was associated with lower RSA amplitude in some infants. RSA amplitude corrected for respiration rate and tidal volume influences showed theoretically expected strong reductions during stress, whereas performance of uncorrected RSA was less consistent. We conclude that stress-induced changes of peak-valley RSA and effects of variations in breathing patterns on RSA can be determined for a representative percentage of infant breaths. As expected, breathing substantially affects infant RSA and needs to be considered in studies of infant psychophysiology. KW - responses KW - heart-rate-variability KW - pulmonary gas-exchange KW - still-face KW - baroreflex mechanism KW - period variability KW - preterm infants KW - waking states KW - reactivity KW - attention Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-135396 VL - 7 IS - 12 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jin, Jing A1 - Allison, Brendan Z. A1 - Kaufmann, Tobias A1 - Kübler, Andrea A1 - Zhang, Yu A1 - Wang, Xingyu A1 - Cichocki, Andrzej T1 - The Changing Face of P300 BCIs: A Comparison of Stimulus Changes in a P300 BCI Involving Faces, Emotion, and Movement JF - PLoS One N2 - Background: One of the most common types of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) is called a P300 BCI, since it relies on the P300 and other event-related potentials (ERPs). In the canonical P300 BCI approach, items on a monitor flash briefly to elicit the necessary ERPs. Very recent work has shown that this approach may yield lower performance than alternate paradigms in which the items do not flash but instead change in other ways, such as moving, changing colour or changing to characters overlaid with faces. Methodology/Principal Findings: The present study sought to extend this research direction by parametrically comparing different ways to change items in a P300 BCI. Healthy subjects used a P300 BCI across six different conditions. Three conditions were similar to our prior work, providing the first direct comparison of characters flashing, moving, and changing to faces. Three new conditions also explored facial motion and emotional expression. The six conditions were compared across objective measures such as classification accuracy and bit rate as well as subjective measures such as perceived difficulty. In line with recent studies, our results indicated that the character flash condition resulted in the lowest accuracy and bit rate. All four face conditions (mean accuracy >91%) yielded significantly better performance than the flash condition (mean accuracy = 75%). Conclusions/Significance: Objective results reaffirmed that the face paradigm is superior to the canonical flash approach that has dominated P300 BCIs for over 20 years. The subjective reports indicated that the conditions that yielded better performance were not considered especially burdensome. Therefore, although further work is needed to identify which face paradigm is best, it is clear that the canonical flash approach should be replaced with a face paradigm when aiming at increasing bit rate. However, the face paradigm has to be further explored with practical applications particularly with locked-in patients. KW - ERPS KW - communication KW - TO-target interval KW - visual-evoked potentials KW - brain-computer-interface KW - recognition KW - amplitude KW - paradigm KW - systems Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-134173 VL - 7 IS - 11 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Herbert, Beate M. A1 - Muth, Eric R. A1 - Pollatos, Olga A1 - Herbert, Cornelia T1 - Interoception across Modalities: On the Relationship between Cardiac Awareness and the Sensitivity for Gastric Functions JF - PLoS One N2 - The individual sensitivity for ones internal bodily signals ("interoceptive awareness") has been shown to be of relevance for a broad range of cognitive and affective functions. Interoceptive awareness has been primarily assessed via measuring the sensitivity for ones cardiac signals ("cardiac awareness") which can be non-invasively measured by heartbeat perception tasks. It is an open question whether cardiac awareness is related to the sensitivity for other bodily, visceral functions. This study investigated the relationship between cardiac awareness and the sensitivity for gastric functions in healthy female persons by using non-invasive methods. Heartbeat perception as a measure for cardiac awareness was assessed by a heartbeat tracking task and gastric sensitivity was assessed by a water load test. Gastric myoelectrical activity was measured by electrogastrography (EGG) and subjective feelings of fullness, valence, arousal and nausea were assessed. The results show that cardiac awareness was inversely correlated with ingested water volume and with normogastric activity after water load. However, persons with good and poor cardiac awareness did not differ in their subjective ratings of fullness, nausea and affective feelings after drinking. This suggests that good heartbeat perceivers ingested less water because they subjectively felt more intense signals of fullness during this lower amount of water intake compared to poor heartbeat perceivers who ingested more water until feeling the same signs of fullness. These findings demonstrate that cardiac awareness is related to greater sensitivity for gastric functions, suggesting that there is a general sensitivity for interoceptive processes across the gastric and cardiac modality. KW - anterior insula KW - water load test KW - cephalic-vagal influences KW - emotional experience KW - heartbeat perception KW - myoelectric activity KW - cardiovascular arousal KW - dyspeptic symptoms KW - balloon distension KW - eating disorders Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-130733 VL - 7 IS - 5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Klauke, Benedikt A1 - Winter, Bernward A1 - Gajewska, Agnes A1 - Zwanzger, Peter A1 - Reif, Andreas A1 - Herrmann, Martin J. A1 - Dlugos, Andrea A1 - Warrings, Bodo A1 - Jacob, Christian A1 - Mühlberger, Andreas A1 - Arolt, Volker A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Domschke, Katharina T1 - Affect-Modulated Startle: Interactive Influence of Catechol-O-Methyltransferase Val158Met Genotype and Childhood Trauma JF - PLoS One N2 - The etiology of emotion-related disorders such as anxiety or affective disorders is considered to be complex with an interaction of biological and environmental factors. Particular evidence has accumulated for alterations in the dopaminergic and noradrenergic system - partly conferred by catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene variation - for the adenosinergic system as well as for early life trauma to constitute risk factors for those conditions. Applying a multi-level approach, in a sample of 95 healthy adults, we investigated effects of the functional COMT Val158Met polymorphism, caffeine as an adenosine A2A receptor antagonist (300 mg in a placebo-controlled intervention design) and childhood maltreatment (CTQ) as well as their interaction on the affect-modulated startle response as a neurobiologically founded defensive reflex potentially related to fear- and distress-related disorders. COMT val/val genotype significantly increased startle magnitude in response to unpleasant stimuli, while met/met homozygotes showed a blunted startle response to aversive pictures. Furthermore, significant gene-environment interaction of COMT Val158Met genotype with CTQ was discerned with more maltreatment being associated with higher startle potentiation in val/val subjects but not in met carriers. No main effect of or interaction effects with caffeine were observed. Results indicate a main as well as a GxE effect of the COMT Val158Met variant and childhood maltreatment on the affect-modulated startle reflex, supporting a complex pathogenetic model of the affect-modulated startle reflex as a basic neurobiological defensive reflex potentially related to anxiety and affective disorders. KW - COMT VAL(158)MET polymorphism KW - serotonin transporter gene KW - life events KW - community sample KW - acoustic startle KW - prepulse inhibition KW - panic disorder KW - caffeine-induced anxiety KW - fear-potentiated startle KW - posttraumatic-stress-disorder Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-132184 VL - 7 IS - 6 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gruss, L. Forest A1 - Wieser, Matthias J. A1 - Schweinberger, Stefan R. A1 - Keil, Andreas T1 - Face-evoked steady-state visual potentials: effects of presentation rate and face inversion JF - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience N2 - Face processing can be explored using electrophysiological methods. Research with event-related potentials has demonstrated the so-called face inversion effect, in which the N170 component is enhanced in amplitude and latency to inverted, compared to upright, faces. The present study explored the extent to which repetitive lower-level visual cortical engagement, reflected in flicker steady-state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs), shows similar amplitude enhancement to face inversion. We also asked if inversion-related ssVEP modulation would be dependent on the stimulation rate at which upright and inverted faces were flickered. To this end, multiple tagging frequencies were used (5, 10, 15, and 20 Hz) across two studies (n=21, n=18). Results showed that amplitude enhancement of the ssVEP for inverted faces was found solely at higher stimulation frequencies (15 and 20 Hz). By contrast, lower frequency ssVEPs did not show this inversion effect. These findings suggest that stimulation frequency affects the sensitivity of ssVEPs to face inversion. KW - N170 KW - upside-down faces KW - selective attention KW - spatial attention KW - cortex KW - perception KW - recognition KW - brain KW - FMRI KW - area Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-134399 VL - 6 IS - 316 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hommers, Wilfried A1 - Lewand, Martin A1 - Ehrmann, Dominic T1 - Testing the moral algebra of two Kohlbergian informers JF - Psícologica N2 - This paper seeks to unify two major theories of moral judgment: Kohlberg's stage theory and Anderson's moral information integration theory. Subjects were told about thoughts of actors in Kohlberg's classic altruistic Heinz dilemma and in a new egoistical dilemma. These actors's thoughts represented Kohlberg's stages I (Personal Risk) and IV (Societal Risk) and had three levels, High, Medium, and Low. They were presented singly and in a 3 x 3 integration design. Subjects judged how many months of prison the actor deserved. The data supported the averaging model of moral integration theory, whereas Kohlberg's theory has no way to handle the integration problem. Following this, subjects ranked statements related to Kohlberg's first four stages in a procedure similar to that of Rest (1975). Higher score went with larger effect of Societal Risk as predicted by Kohlberg's theory. But contrary to Kohlberg's theory, no age trends were found. Also strongly contrary to Kohlberg's theory, effects of Personal Risk (Stage I) and Societal Risk (Stage IV) correlated positively. KW - integration KW - information KW - judgements KW - intent KW - damage KW - rules Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-133917 VL - 33 IS - 3 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Herbert, Cornelia A1 - Sütterlin, Stefan T1 - Do not respond! Doing the think/no-think and go/no-go tasks concurrently leads to memory impairment of unpleasant items during later recall N2 - Previous research using neuroimaging methods proposed a link between mechanisms controlling motor response inhibition and suppression of unwanted memories.The present study investigated this hypothesis behaviorally by combining the think/no-think paradigm (TNT) with a go/no-go motor inhibition task. Participants first learned unpleasant cue-target pairs. Cue words were then presented as go or no-go items in the TNT. Participants’ task was to respond to the cues and think of the target word aloud or to inhibit their response to the cue and the target word from coming to mind. Cued recall assessed immediately after the TNT revealed reduced recall performance for no-go targets compared to go targets or baseline cues not presented in the TNT. The results demonstrate that doing the no-think and no-go task concurrently leads to memory suppression of unpleasant items during later recall. Results are discussed in line with recent empirical research and theoretical positions. KW - Psychologie KW - memory suppression KW - emotion KW - response inhibition KW - go/no-go task KW - think/no-think paradigm Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-76028 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Janczyk, Markus A1 - Heinemann, Alexander A1 - Pfister, Roland T1 - Instant attraction: Immediate action-effect bindings occur for both, stimulus- and goal-driven actions N2 - Flexible behavior is only possible if contingencies between own actions and following environmental effects are acquired as quickly as possible; and recent findings indeed point toward an immediate formation of action-effect bindings already after a single coupling of an action and its effect. The present study explored whether these short-term bindings occur for both, stimulus- and goal-driven actions (“forced-choice actions” vs. “free-choice actions”). Two experiments confirmed that immediate action-effect bindings are formed for both types of actions and affect upcoming behavior. These findings support the view that action-effect binding is a ubiquitous phenomenon which occurs for any type of action. KW - Psychologie KW - ideomotor theory KW - action planning KW - free-choice KW - forced-choice KW - action-effects KW - binding Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-76203 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Haering, Carola A1 - Kiesel, Andrea T1 - Mine is earlier than yours: Causal beliefs influence the perceived time of action effects N2 - When a key press causes a stimulus, the key press is perceived later and the stimulus earlier than key presses and stimuli presented independently. This bias in time perception has been linked to the intention to produce the effect and thus been called intentional binding (IB). In recent studies it has been shown that the IB effect is stronger when participants believed that they caused the effect stimulus compared to when they believed that another person caused the effect (Desantis et al., 2011). In this experiment we ask whether causal beliefs influence the perceived time of an effect when the putative effect occurs temporally close to another stimulus that is also an effect. In our study two participants performed the same task on connected computers with separate screens. Each trial started synchro- nously on both computers. When a participant pressed a key, a red and a yellow stimulus appeared as action effects simultaneously or with a slight delay of up to 50 ms. The partic- ipants’ task was to judge the temporal order of these two effect stimuli. Participants were either told that one participant caused one of the two stimuli while the other participant seated at the other computer caused the other stimulus, or each participant was told that he/she caused both stimuli. The different causal beliefs changed the perceived time of the effects’ appearance relative to each other. When participants believed they each caused one effect, their “own” effect was perceived earlier than the other participant’s effect. When the participants believed each caused both effects, no difference in the perceived temporal order of the red and yellow effect was found. These results confirm that higher order causal beliefs change the perceived time of an action effect even in a setting in which the occurrence of the putative effect can be directly compared to a reference stimulus. KW - Psychologie KW - intentional binding KW - causal belief KW - causality KW - temporal order judgments KW - TOJ KW - agency Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-76229 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schwerdtle, Barbara A1 - Kanis, Julia A1 - Kahl, Lena A1 - Kübler, Andrea A1 - Schlarb, Angelika A. T1 - Children’s Sleep Comic: development of a new diagnostic tool for children with sleep disorders [original research] N2 - Background: A solid diagnosis of sleep disorders in children should include both self-ratings and parent ratings. However, there are few standardized self-assessment instruments to meet this need. The Children’s Sleep Comic is an adapted version of the unpublished German questionnaire “Freiburger Kinderschlafcomic” and provides pictures for items and responses. Because the drawings were outdated and allowed only for qualitative analysis, we revised the comic, tested its applicability in a target sample, and suggest a procedure for quantitative analysis. Methods: All items were updated and pictures were newly drawn. We used a sample of 201 children aged 5–10 years to test the applicability of the Children’s Sleep Comic in young children and to run a preliminary analysis. Results: The Children’s Sleep Comic comprises 37 items covering relevant aspects of sleep disorders in children. Application took on average 30 minutes. The procedure was well accepted by the children, as reflected by the absence of any dropouts. First comparisons with established questionnaires indicated moderate correlations. Conclusion: The Children’s Sleep Comic is appropriate for screening sleep behavior and sleep problems in children. The interactive procedure can foster a good relationship between the investigator and the child, and thus establish the basis for successful intervention if necessary. KW - Psychologie KW - children KW - sleep KW - sleep disorders KW - diagnostic KW - assessment KW - self-rating Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-75722 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tobias, Kaufmann A1 - Völker, Stefan A1 - Gunesch, Laura A1 - Kübler, Andrea T1 - Spelling is just a click away – a user-centered brain-computer interface including auto-calibration and predictive text entry N2 - Brain–computer interfaces (BCI) based on event-related potentials (ERP) allow for selection of characters from a visually presented character-matrix and thus provide a communica- tion channel for users with neurodegenerative disease. Although they have been topic of research for more than 20 years and were multiply proven to be a reliable communication method, BCIs are almost exclusively used in experimental settings, handled by qualified experts. This study investigates if ERP–BCIs can be handled independently by laymen without expert support, which is inevitable for establishing BCIs in end-user’s daily life situations. Furthermore we compared the classic character-by-character text entry against a predictive text entry (PTE) that directly incorporates predictive text into the character- matrix. N = 19 BCI novices handled a user-centered ERP–BCI application on their own without expert support. The software individually adjusted classifier weights and control parameters in the background, invisible to the user (auto-calibration). All participants were able to operate the software on their own and to twice correctly spell a sentence with the auto-calibrated classifier (once with PTE, once without). Our PTE increased spelling speed and, importantly, did not reduce accuracy. In sum, this study demonstrates feasi- bility of auto-calibrating ERP–BCI use, independently by laymen and the strong benefit of integrating predictive text directly into the character-matrix. KW - Psychologie KW - P300-Speller KW - ERP-BCI KW - brain–computerinterface KW - user-centered KW - auto-calibration KW - predictivetextentry KW - event-relatedpotentials KW - assisitvetechnology Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-75739 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Likowski, Katja U. A1 - Mühlberger, Andreas A1 - Gerdes, Antje B. M. A1 - Wieser, Mattias J. A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Weyers, Peter T1 - Facial mimicry and the mirror neuron system: simultaneous acquisition of facial electromyography and functional magnetic resonance imaging N2 - Numerous studies have shown that humans automatically react with congruent facial reactions, i.e., facial mimicry, when seeing a vis-á-vis’ facial expressions. The current experiment is the first investigating the neuronal structures responsible for differences in the occurrence of such facial mimicry reactions by simultaneously measuring BOLD and facial EMG in an MRI scanner. Therefore, 20 female students viewed emotional facial expressions (happy, sad, and angry) of male and female avatar characters. During picture presentation, the BOLD signal as well as M. zygomaticus major and M. corrugator supercilii activity were recorded simultaneously. Results show prototypical patterns of facial mimicry after correction for MR-related artifacts: enhanced M. zygomaticus major activity in response to happy and enhanced M. corrugator supercilii activity in response to sad and angry expressions. Regression analyses show that these congruent facial reactions correlate significantly with activations in the IFG, SMA, and cerebellum. Stronger zygomaticus reactions to happy faces were further associated to increased activities in the caudate, MTG, and PCC. Corrugator reactions to angry expressions were further correlated with the hippocampus, insula, and STS. Results are discussed in relation to core and extended models of the mirror neuron system (MNS). KW - Psychologie KW - mimicry KW - EMG KW - fMRI KW - mirrorneuronsystem Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-75813 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Herbort, Oliver A1 - Butz, Martin V. T1 - Too good to be true? Ideomotor theory from a computational perspective N2 - In recent years, Ideomotor Theory has regained widespread attention and sparked the development of a number of theories on goal-directed behavior and learning. However, there are two issues with previous studies’ use of Ideomotor Theory. Although Ideomotor Theory is seen as very general, it is often studied in settings that are considerably more simplistic than most natural situations. Moreover, Ideomotor Theory’s claim that effect anticipations directly trigger actions and that action-effect learning is based on the formation of direct action-effect associations is hard to address empirically. We address these points from a computational perspective. A simple computational model of Ideomotor Theory was tested in tasks with different degrees of complexity.The model evaluation showed that Ideomotor Theory is a computationally feasible approach for understanding efficient action-effect learning for goal-directed behavior if the following preconditions are met: (1) The range of potential actions and effects has to be restricted. (2) Effects have to follow actions within a short time window. (3) Actions have to be simple and may not require sequencing. The first two preconditions also limit human performance and thus support Ideomotor Theory. The last precondition can be circumvented by extending the model with more complex, indirect action generation processes. In conclusion, we suggest that IdeomotorTheory offers a comprehensive framework to understand action-effect learning. However, we also suggest that additional processes may mediate the conversion of effect anticipations into actions in many situations. KW - Psychologie KW - ideomotor theory KW - associative learning KW - computational model KW - planning KW - consolidation Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-76383 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Roeser, Karolin A1 - Eichholz, Ruth A1 - Schwerdtle, Barbara A1 - Schlarb, Angelika A. A1 - Kübler, Andrea T1 - Relationship of sleep quality and health-related quality of life in adolescents according to self- and proxy ratings: a questionnaire survey N2 - Introduction: Sleep disturbances are common in adolescents and adversely affect performance, social contact, and susceptibility to stress. We investigated the hypothesis of a relationship between sleep and health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and applied self- and proxy ratings. Materials and Methods: The sample comprised 92 adolescents aged 11–17 years. All participants and their parents completed a HRQoL measure and the Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children (SDSC ). Children with SDSC T -scores above the normal range (above 60) were classified as poor sleepers. Results: According to self- and proxy ratings, good sleepers reported significantly higher HRQoL than poor sleep- ers. Sleep disturbances were significantly higher and HRQoL significantly lower in self- as compared to parental ratings. Parent-child agreement was higher for subscales measuring observable aspects. Girls experienced significantly stronger sleep disturbances and lower self-rated HRQoL than boys. Discussion: Our findings support the positive relationship of sleep and HRQoL. Furthermore, parents significantly underestimate sleep disturbances and overestimate HRQoL in their children. KW - Psychiatrie KW - quality of life KW - sleep KW - adolescence KW - parent-child agreement KW - sleep disorders Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-75953 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Glotzbach, Evelyn A1 - Mühlberger, Andreas A1 - Gschwendtner, Kathrin A1 - Fallgatter, Andreas J A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Herrmann, Martin J T1 - Prefrontal Brain Activation During Emotional Processing: A Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy Study (fNIRS) JF - The Open Neuroimaging Journal N2 - The limbic system and especially the amygdala have been identified as key structures in emotion induction and regulation. Recently research has additionally focused on the influence of prefrontal areas on emotion processing in the limbic system and the amygdala. Results from fMRI studies indicate that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is involved not only in emotion induction but also in emotion regulation. However, studies using fNIRS only report prefrontal brain activation during emotion induction. So far it lacks the attempt to compare emotion induction and emotion regulation with regard to prefrontal activation measured with fNIRS, to exclude the possibility that the reported prefrontal brain activation in fNIRS studies are mainly caused by automatic emotion regulation processes. Therefore this work tried to distinguish emotion induction from regulation via fNIRS of the prefrontal cortex. 20 healthy women viewed neutral pictures as a baseline condition, fearful pictures as induction condition and reappraised fearful pictures as regulation condition in randomized order. As predicted, the view-fearful condition led to higher arousal ratings than the view-neutral condition with the reappraise-fearful condition in between. For the fNIRS results the induction condition showed an activation of the bilateral PFC compared to the baseline condition (viewing neutral). The regulation condition showed an activation only of the left PFC compared to the baseline condition, although the direct comparison between induction and regulation condition revealed no significant difference in brain activation. Therefore our study underscores the results of previous fNIRS studies showing prefrontal brain activation during emotion induction and rejects the hypothesis that this prefrontal brain activation might only be a result of automatic emotion regulation processes. KW - fNIRS KW - Emotional processing KW - emotional regulation Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-141714 VL - 5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Reuss, Heiko A1 - Pohl, Carsten A1 - Kiesel, Andrea A1 - Kunde, Wilfried T1 - Follow the sign! Top-down contingent attentional capture of masked arrow cues JF - Advances in Cognitive Psychology N2 - Arrow cues and other overlearned spatial symbols automatically orient attention according to their spatial meaning. This renders them similar to exogenous cues that occur at stimulus location. Exogenous cues trigger shifts of attention even when they are presented subliminally. Here, we investigate to what extent the mechanisms underlying the orienting of attention by exogenous cues and by arrow cues are comparable by analyzing the effects of visible and masked arrow cues on attention. In Experiment 1, we presented arrow cues with overall 50% validity. Visible cues, but not masked cues, lead to shifts of attention. In Experiment 2, the arrow cues had an overall validity of 80%. Now both visible and masked arrows lead to shifts of attention. This is in line with findings that subliminal exogenous cues capture attention only in a top-down contingent manner, that is, when the cues fit the observer’s intentions. KW - Attention KW - arrow cues KW - spatial cuing KW - masked priming KW - contingent capture Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-140030 VL - 7 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bilalic, Merim A1 - Kiesel, Andrea A1 - Pohl, Carsten A1 - Erb, Michael A1 - Grodd, Wolfgang T1 - It Takes Two–Skilled Recognition of Objects Engages Lateral Areas in Both Hemispheres JF - PLoS ONE N2 - Our object recognition abilities, a direct product of our experience with objects, are fine-tuned to perfection. Left temporal and lateral areas along the dorsal, action related stream, as well as left infero-temporal areas along the ventral, object related stream are engaged in object recognition. Here we show that expertise modulates the activity of dorsal areas in the recognition of man-made objects with clearly specified functions. Expert chess players were faster than chess novices in identifying chess objects and their functional relations. Experts’ advantage was domain-specific as there were no differences between groups in a control task featuring geometrical shapes. The pattern of eye movements supported the notion that experts’ extensive knowledge about domain objects and their functions enabled superior recognition even when experts were not directly fixating the objects of interest. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) related exclusively the areas along the dorsal stream to chess specific object recognition. Besides the commonly involved left temporal and parietal lateral brain areas, we found that only in experts homologous areas on the right hemisphere were also engaged in chess specific object recognition. Based on these results, we discuss whether skilled object recognition does not only involve a more efficient version of the processes found in non-skilled recognition, but also qualitatively different cognitive processes which engage additional brain areas KW - Expert chess players KW - Anterior inferotemporal cortex KW - Deliberate practice KW - Neural basis KW - Function knowledge KW - Parietal cortex KW - Macaque monkey KW - Temporal areas KW - Memory KW - Task Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-176935 VL - 6 IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pfister, Roland T1 - Wardrobe Malfunctions and the Measurement of Internet Behaviour N2 - The wardrobe malfunction—an unanticipated exposure of bodily parts in the public—has become a prevailing issue in concerts, shows and other celebrity events that is reliably reported by the media. The internet as the fastest source for celebrity gossip allows measuring the impact of such wardrobe malfunctions on the public in-terest in a celebrity. This measurement in turn allows conclusions about intention, motivation, and internet be-haviour of a wide variety of internet users. The present study exemplifies the use of an innovative non-reactive measure of active interest—the Search Volume Index—to assess the impact of a variety of internet-related phe-nomena, including wardrobe malfunctions. Results indicate that interest in a celebrity increases immediately af-ter such an event and stays at a high level for about three weeks (the wardrobe plateau). This special form of ce-lebrity gossip thus meets a constant interest of a substantial proportion of internet users. KW - Psychologie KW - Internet Behaviour KW - Search Volume Index KW - Non-reactive Measurement KW - Wardrobe Malfunction Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-69067 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Herbert, Cornelia A1 - Kübler, Andrea T1 - Dogs Cannot Bark: Event-Related Brain Responses to True and False Negated Statements as Indicators of Higher-Order Conscious Processing N2 - The present study investigated event-related brain potentials elicited by true and false negated statements to evaluate if discrimination of the truth value of negated information relies on conscious processing and requires higher-order cognitive processing in healthy subjects across different levels of stimulus complexity. The stimulus material consisted of true and false negated sentences (sentence level) and prime-target expressions (word level). Stimuli were presented acoustically and no overt behavioral response of the participants was required. Event-related brain potentials to target words preceded by true and false negated expressions were analyzed both within group and at the single subject level. Across the different processing conditions (word pairs and sentences), target words elicited a frontal negativity and a late positivity in the time window from 600–1000 msec post target word onset. Amplitudes of both brain potentials varied as a function of the truth value of the negated expressions. Results were confirmed at the single-subject level. In sum, our results support recent suggestions according to which evaluation of the truth value of a negated expression is a time- and cognitively demanding process that cannot be solved automatically, and thus requires conscious processing. Our paradigm provides insight into higher-order processing related to language comprehension and reasoning in healthy subjects. Future studies are needed to evaluate if our paradigm also proves sensitive for the detection of consciousness in non-responsive patients. KW - Psychologie Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-74907 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Crutzen, Rik A1 - Göritz, Anja S. T1 - Does social desirability compromise self-reports of physical activity in web-based research? JF - International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity N2 - Background: This study investigated the relation between social desirability and self-reported physical activity in web-based research. Findings: A longitudinal study (N = 5,495, 54% women) was conducted on a representative sample of the Dutch population using the Marlowe-Crowne Scale as social desirability measure and the short form of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Social desirability was not associated with self-reported physical activity (in MET-minutes/week), nor with its sub-behaviors (i.e., walking, moderate-intensity activity, vigorous-intensity activity, and sedentary behavior). Socio-demographics (i.e., age, sex, income, and education) did not moderate the effect of social desirability on self-reported physical activity and its sub-behaviors. Conclusions: This study does not throw doubt on the usefulness of the Internet as a medium to collect self-reports on physical activity. KW - Question format KW - Internet KW - Physical Activity KW - Sedentary Behavior KW - Social Desirability KW - International Physical Activity Questionnaire KW - Total Physical Activity Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-135156 VL - 8 IS - 31 ER -