TY - JOUR A1 - Bahník, Štěpán A1 - Strack, Fritz T1 - Overlap of accessible information undermines the anchoring effect JF - Judgment and Decision Making N2 - According to the Selective Accessibility Model of anchoring, the comparison question in the standard anchoring paradigm activates information that is congruent with an anchor. As a consequence, this information will be more likely to become the basis for the absolute judgment which will therefore be assimilated toward the anchor. However, if the activated information overlaps with information that is elicited by the absolute judgment itself, the preceding comparative judgment should not exert an incremental effect and should fail to result in an anchoring effect. The present studies find this result when the comparative judgment refers to a general category and the absolute judgment refers to a subset of the general category that was activated by the anchor value. For example, participants comparing the average annual temperature in New York City to a high 102 °F judged the average winter, but not summer temperature to be higher than participants making no comparison. On the other hand, participants comparing the annual temperature to a low –4 °F judged the average summer, but not winter temperature to be lower than control participants. This pattern of results was shown also in another content domain. It is consistent with the Selective Accessibility Model but difficult to reconcile with other main explanations of the anchoring effect. KW - anchoring KW - judgment KW - heuristics and biases KW - selective accessibility Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-169287 VL - 11 IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mavratzakis, Aimee A1 - Herbert, Cornelia A1 - Walla, Peter T1 - Emotional facial expressions evoke faster orienting responses, but weaker emotional responses at neural and behavioural levels compared to scenes: a simultaneous EEG and facial EMG study JF - NeuroImage N2 - In the current study, electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded simultaneously with facial electromyography (fEMG) to determine whether emotional faces and emotional scenes are processed differently at the neural level. In addition, it was investigated whether these differences can be observed at the behavioural level via spontaneous facial muscle activity. Emotional content of the stimuli did not affect early P1 activity. Emotional faces elicited enhanced amplitudes of the face-sensitive N170 component, while its counterpart, the scene-related N100, was not sensitive to emotional content of scenes. At 220-280 ms, the early posterior negativity (EPN) was enhanced only slightly for fearful as compared to neutral or happy faces. However, its amplitudes were significantly enhanced during processing of scenes with positive content, particularly over the right hemisphere. Scenes of positive content also elicited enhanced spontaneous zygomatic activity from 500-750 ms onwards, while happy faces elicited no such changes. Contrastingly, both fearful faces and negative scenes elicited enhanced spontaneous corrugator activity at 500-750 ms after stimulus onset. However, relative to baseline EMG changes occurred earlier for faces (250 ms) than for scenes (500 ms) whereas for scenes activity changes were more pronounced over the whole viewing period. Taking into account all effects, the data suggests that emotional facial expressions evoke faster attentional orienting, but weaker affective neural activity and emotional behavioural responses compared to emotional scenes. KW - Emotion KW - Affective processing KW - Faces and scenes KW - Electroencephalography KW - Spontaneous facial EMG KW - N170 KW - N100 KW - Early posterior negativity Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-191535 VL - 124 IS - Part A ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Reicherts, Philipp A1 - Gerdes, Antje B. M. A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Wieser, Matthias J. T1 - Psychological placebo and nocebo effects on pain rely on expectation and previous experience JF - Journal of Pain N2 - Expectation and previous experience are both well established key mediators of placebo and nocebo effects. However, the investigation of their respective contribution to placebo and nocebo responses is rather difficult because most placebo and nocebo manipulations are contaminated by pre-existing treatment expectancies resulting from a learning history of previous medical interventions. To circumvent any resemblance to classical treatments, a purely psychological placebonocebo manipulation was established, namely, the "visual stripe pattern induced modulation of pain." To this end, experience and expectation regarding the effects of different visual cues (stripe patterns) on pain were varied across 3 different groups, with either only placebo instruction (expectation), placebo conditioning (experience), or both (expectation + experience) applied. Only the combined manipulation (expectation + experience) revealed significant behavioral and physiological placebo nocebo effects on pain. Two subsequent experiments, which, in addition to placebo and nocebo cues, included a neutral control condition further showed that especially nocebo responses were more easily induced by this psychological placebo and nocebo manipulation. The results emphasize the great effect of psychological processes on placebo and nocebo effects. Particularly, nocebo effects should be addressed more thoroughly and carefully considered in clinical practice to prevent the accidental induction of side effects. KW - psychological placebo intervention KW - placebo hypoalgesia KW - nocebo hyperalgesia KW - experience KW - expectation Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-190962 VL - 17 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kuhn, Manuel A1 - Scharfenort, Robert A1 - Schümann, Dirk A1 - Schiele, Miriam A. A1 - Münsterkötter, Anna L. A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Domschke, Katharina A1 - Haaker, Jan A1 - Kalisch, Raffael A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Reif, Andreas A1 - Romanos, Marcel A1 - Zwanzger, Peter A1 - Lonsdorf, Tina B. T1 - Mismatch or allostatic load? Timing of life adversity differentially shapes gray matter volume and anxious temperament JF - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience N2 - Traditionally, adversity was defined as the accumulation of environmental events (allostatic load). Recently however, a mismatch between the early and the later (adult) environment (mismatch) has been hypothesized to be critical for disease development, a hypothesis that has not yet been tested explicitly in humans. We explored the impact of timing of life adversity (childhood and past year) on anxiety and depression levels (N = 833) and brain morphology (N = 129). Both remote (childhood) and proximal (recent) adversities were differentially mirrored in morphometric changes in areas critically involved in emotional processing (i.e. amygdala/hippocampus, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, respectively). The effect of adversity on affect acted in an additive way with no evidence for interactions (mismatch). Structural equation modeling demonstrated a direct effect of adversity on morphometric estimates and anxiety/depression without evidence of brain morphology functioning as a mediator. Our results highlight that adversity manifests as pronounced changes in brain morphometric and affective temperament even though these seem to represent distinct mechanistic pathways. A major goal of future studies should be to define critical time periods for the impact of adversity and strategies for intervening to prevent or reverse the effects of adverse childhood life experiences. KW - VBM KW - childhood maltreatment KW - adversity KW - stressful life events KW - mismatch KW - allostatic load Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189645 VL - 11 IS - 4 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kirsch, Wladimir A1 - Ullrich, Benjamin A1 - Kunde, Wilfried T1 - Are Effects of Action on Perception Real? Evidence from Transformed Movements JF - PLoS ONE N2 - It has been argued that several reported non-visual influences on perception cannot be truly perceptual. If they were, they should affect the perception of target objects and reference objects used to express perceptual judgments, and thus cancel each other out. This reasoning presumes that non-visual manipulations impact target objects and comparison objects equally. In the present study we show that equalizing a body-related manipulation between target objects and reference objects essentially abolishes the impact of that manipulation so as it should do when that manipulation actually altered perception. Moreover, the manipulation has an impact on judgements when applied to only the target object but not to the reference object, and that impact reverses when only applied to the reference object but not to the target object. A perceptual explanation predicts this reversal, whereas explanations in terms of post-perceptual response biases or demand effects do not. Altogether these results suggest that body-related influences on perception cannot as a whole be attributed to extra-perceptual factors. KW - vision KW - preprocessing KW - analysis of variance KW - sensory perception KW - hands KW - fingers KW - experimental design KW - perception Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-178574 VL - 11 IS - 12 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schiele, Miriam A. A1 - Reinhard, Julia A1 - Reif, Andreas A1 - Domschke, Katharina A1 - Romanos, Marcel A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Pauli, Paul T1 - Developmental aspects of fear: Comparing the acquisition and generalization of conditioned fear in children and adults JF - Developmental Psychobiology N2 - Most research on human fear conditioning and its generalization has focused on adults whereas only little is known about these processes in children. Direct comparisons between child and adult populations are needed to determine developmental risk markers of fear and anxiety. We compared 267 children and 285 adults in a differential fear conditioning paradigm and generalization test. Skin conductance responses (SCR) and ratings of valence and arousal were obtained to indicate fear learning. Both groups displayed robust and similar differential conditioning on subjective and physiological levels. However, children showed heightened fear generalization compared to adults as indexed by higher arousal ratings and SCR to the generalization stimuli. Results indicate overgeneralization of conditioned fear as a developmental correlate of fear learning. The developmental change from a shallow to a steeper generalization gradient is likely related to the maturation of brain structures that modulate efficient discrimination between danger and (ambiguous) safety cues. KW - fear conditioning KW - fear generalization KW - development KW - skin conductance KW - maturation Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189488 VL - 58 IS - 4 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Boll, Sabine A1 - Bartholomaeus, Marie A1 - Peter, Ulrike A1 - Lupke, Ulrike A1 - Gamer, Matthias T1 - Attentional mechanisms of social perception are biased in social phobia JF - Journal of Anxiety Disorders N2 - Previous studies of social phobia have reported an increased vigilance to social threat cues but also an avoidance of socially relevant stimuli such as eye gaze. The primary aim of this study was to examine attentional mechanisms relevant for perceiving social cues by means of abnormalities in scanning of facial features in patients with social phobia. In two novel experimental paradigms, patients with social phobia and healthy controls matched on age, gender and education were compared regarding their gazing behavior towards facial cues. The first experiment was an emotion classification paradigm which allowed for differentiating reflexive attentional shifts from sustained attention towards diagnostically relevant facial features. In the second experiment, attentional orienting by gaze direction was assessed in a gaze-cueing paradigm in which non-predictive gaze cues shifted attention towards or away from subsequently presented targets. We found that patients as compared to controls reflexively oriented their attention more frequently towards the eyes of emotional faces in the emotion classification paradigm. This initial hypervigilance for the eye region was observed at very early attentional stages when faces were presented for 150 ms, and persisted when facial stimuli were shown for 3 s. Moreover, a delayed attentional orienting into the direction of eye gaze was observed in individuals with social phobia suggesting a differential time course of eye gaze processing in patients and controls. Our findings suggest that basic mechanisms of early attentional exploration of social cues are biased in social phobia and might contribute to the development and maintenance of the disorder. KW - Social anxiety KW - Eye gaze KW - Vigilance KW - Amygdala KW - Emotional expression KW - Gaze perception Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189046 VL - 40 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Walz, Nora A1 - Mühlberger, Andreas A1 - Pauli, Paul T1 - A human open field test reveals thigmotaxis related to agoraphobic fear JF - Biological Psychiatry N2 - BACKGROUND: Thigmotaxis refers to a specific behavior of animals (i.e., to stay close to walls when exploring an open space). Such behavior can be assessed with the open field test (OFT), which is a well-established indicator of animal fear. The detection of similar open field behavior in humans may verify the translational validity of this paradigm. Enhanced thigmotaxis related to anxiety may suggest the relevance of such behavior for anxiety disorders, especially agoraphobia. METHODS: A global positioning system was used to analyze the behavior of 16 patients with agoraphobia and 18 healthy individuals with a risk for agoraphobia (i.e., high anxiety sensitivity) during a human OFT and compare it with appropriate control groups (n = 16 and n = 19). We also tracked 17 patients with agoraphobia and 17 control participants during a city walk that involved walking through an open market square. RESULTS: Our human OFT triggered thigmotaxis in participants; patients with agoraphobia and participants with high anxiety sensitivity exhibited enhanced thigmotaxis. This behavior was evident in increased movement lengths along the wall of the natural open field and fewer entries into the center of the field despite normal movement speed and length. Furthermore, participants avoided passing through the market square during the city walk, indicating again that thigmotaxis is related to agoraphobia. CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to our knowledge to verify the translational validity of the OFT and to reveal that thigmotaxis, an evolutionarily adaptive behavior shown by most species, is related to agoraphobia, a pathologic fear of open spaces, and anxiety sensitivity, a risk factor for agoraphobia. KW - Agoraphobia KW - Animal models KW - Anxiety sensitivity KW - Avoidance behavior KW - Openfield test KW - Thigmotaxis Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-187607 VL - 80 IS - 5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wieser, Matthias J. A1 - Reicherts, Philipp A1 - Juravle, Georgiana A1 - von Leupoldt, Andreas T1 - Attention mechanisms during predictable and unpredictable threat - a steady-state visual evoked potential approach JF - NeuroImage N2 - Fear is elicited by imminent threat and leads to phasic fear responses with selective attention, whereas anxiety is characterized by a sustained state of heightened vigilance due to uncertain danger. In the present study, we investigated attention mechanisms in fear and anxiety by adapting the NPU-threat test to measure steady-state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs). We investigated ssVEPs across no aversive events (N), predictable aversive events (P), and unpredictable aversive events (U), signaled by four-object arrays (30 s). In addition, central cues were presented during all conditions but predictably signaled imminent threat only during the P condition. Importantly, cues and context events were flickered at different frequencies (15 Hz vs. 20 Hz) in order to disentangle respective electrocortical responses. The onset of the context elicited larger electrocortical responses for U compared to P context. Conversely, P cues elicited larger electrocortical responses compared to N cues. Interestingly, during the presence of the P cue, visuocortical processing of the concurrent context was also enhanced. The results support the notion of enhanced initial hypervigilance to unpredictable compared to predictable threat contexts, while predictable cues show electrocortical enhancement of the cues themselves but additionally a boost of context processing. KW - Event-related potential KW - Contextual fear KW - Conditioning evidence KW - Sustained attention KW - Selective attention KW - Aversive events KW - Time-course KW - Virtual-reality KW - Anxiety KW - Humans Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-187365 VL - 139 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Citron, Francesca M. M. A1 - Abugaber, David A1 - Herbert, Cornelia T1 - Approach and Withdrawal Tendencies during Written Word Processing: Effects of Task, Emotional Valence, and Emotional Arousal JF - frontiers in Psychology N2 - The affective dimensions of emotional valence and emotional arousal affect processing of verbal and pictorial stimuli. Traditional emotional theories assume a linear relationship between these dimensions, with valence determining the direction of a behavior (approach vs. withdrawal) and arousal its intensity or strength. In contrast, according to the valence-arousal conflict theory, both dimensions are interactively related: positive valence and low arousal (PL) are associated with an implicit tendency to approach a stimulus, whereas negative valence and high arousal (NH) are associated with withdrawal. Hence, positive, high-arousal (PH) and negative, low-arousal (NL) stimuli elicit conflicting action tendencies. By extending previous research that used several tasks and methods, the present study investigated whether and how emotional valence and arousal affect subjective approach vs. withdrawal tendencies toward emotional words during two novel tasks. In Study 1, participants had to decide whether they would approach or withdraw from concepts expressed by written words. In Studies 2 and 3 participants had to respond to each word by pressing one of two keys labeled with an arrow pointing upward or downward. Across experiments, positive and negative words, high or low in arousal, were presented. In Study 1 (explicit task), in line with the valence-arousal conflict theory, PH and NL words were responded to more slowly than PL and NH words. In addition, participants decided to approach positive words more often than negative words. In Studies 2 and 3, participants responded faster to positive than negative words, irrespective of their level of arousal. Furthermore, positive words were significantly more often associated with “up” responses than negative words, thus supporting the existence of implicit associations between stimulus valence and response coding (positive is up and negative is down). Hence, in contexts in which participants' spontaneous responses are based on implicit associations between stimulus valence and response, there is no influence of arousal. In line with the valence-arousal conflict theory, arousal seems to affect participants' approach-withdrawal tendencies only when such tendencies are made explicit by the task, and a minimal degree of processing depth is required. KW - approach KW - withdrawal KW - valence KW - arousal KW - emotion KW - words KW - polarity effects Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165318 VL - 6 IS - 1935 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 - Gressmann, Marcel A1 - Janczyk, Markus T1 - The (Un)Clear Effects of Invalid Retro-Cues JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Studies with the retro-cue paradigm have shown that validly cueing objects in visual working memory long after encoding can still benefit performance on subsequent change detection tasks. With regard to the effects of invalid cues, the literature is less clear. Some studies reported costs, others did not. We here revisit two recent studies that made interesting suggestions concerning invalid retro-cues: One study suggested that costs only occur for larger set sizes, and another study suggested that inclusion of invalid retro-cues diminishes the retro-cue benefit. New data from one experiment and a reanalysis of published data are provided to address these conclusions. The new data clearly show costs (and benefits) that were independent of set size, and the reanalysis suggests no influence of the inclusion of invalid retro-cues on the retro-cue benefit. Thus, previous interpretations may be taken with some caution at present. KW - visual working memory KW - retro-cue KW - attention KW - replication Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165296 VL - 7 IS - 244 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wunsch, Kathrin A1 - Pfister, Roland A1 - Henning, Anne A1 - Aschersleben, Gisa A1 - Weigelt, Matthias T1 - No Interrelation of Motor Planning and Executive Functions across Young Ages JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - The present study examined the developmental trajectories of motor planning and executive functioning in children. To this end, we tested 217 participants with three motor tasks, measuring anticipatory planning abilities (i.e., the bar-transport-task, the sword-rotation-task and the grasp-height-task), and three cognitive tasks, measuring executive functions (i.e., the Tower-of-Hanoi-task, the Mosaic-task, and the D2-attention-endurance-task). Children were aged between 3 and 10 years and were separated into age groups by 1-year bins, resulting in a total of eight groups of children and an additional group of adults. Results suggested (1) a positive developmental trajectory for each of the sub-tests, with better task performance as children get older; (2) that the performance in the separate tasks was not correlated across participants in the different age groups; and (3) that there was no relationship between performance in the motor tasks and in the cognitive tasks used in the present study when controlling for age. These results suggest that both, motor planning and executive functions are rather heterogeneous domains of cognitive functioning with fewer interdependencies than often suggested. KW - anticipatory planning KW - end-state comfort effect KW - developmental disorders KW - child development KW - motor development Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165281 VL - 7 IS - 1031 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kempert, Sebastian A1 - Götz, Regina A1 - Blatter, Kristine A1 - Tibken, Catharina A1 - Artelt, Cordula A1 - Schneider, Wolfgang A1 - Stanat, Petra T1 - Training Early Literacy Related Skills: To Which Degree Does a Musical Training Contribute to Phonological Awareness Development? JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Well-developed phonological awareness skills are a core prerequisite for early literacy development. Although effective phonological awareness training programs exist, children at risk often do not reach similar levels of phonological awareness after the intervention as children with normally developed skills. Based on theoretical considerations and first promising results the present study explores effects of an early musical training in combination with a conventional phonological training in children with weak phonological awareness skills. Using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design and measurements across a period of 2 years, we tested the effects of two interventions: a consecutive combination of a musical and a phonological training and a phonological training alone. The design made it possible to disentangle effects of the musical training alone as well the effects of its combination with the phonological training. The outcome measures of these groups were compared with the control group with multivariate analyses, controlling for a number of background variables. The sample included N = 424 German-speaking children aged 4–5 years at the beginning of the study. We found a positive relationship between musical abilities and phonological awareness. Yet, whereas the well-established phonological training produced the expected effects, adding a musical training did not contribute significantly to phonological awareness development. Training effects were partly dependent on the initial level of phonological awareness. Possible reasons for the lack of training effects in the musical part of the combination condition as well as practical implications for early literacy education are discussed. KW - phonological awareness KW - musical training KW - phonological training KW - preschool children KW - early literacy Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165272 VL - 7 IS - 1803 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lugo, Zulay R. A1 - Quitadamo, Lucia R. A1 - Bianchi, Luigi A1 - Pellas, Fréderic A1 - Veser, Sandra A1 - Lesenfants, Damien A1 - Real, Ruben G. L. A1 - Herbert, Cornelia A1 - Guger, Christoph A1 - Kotchoubey, Boris A1 - Mattia, Donatella A1 - Kübler, Andrea A1 - Laureys, Steven A1 - Noirhomme, Quentin T1 - Cognitive Processing in Non-Communicative Patients: What Can Event-Related Potentials Tell Us? JF - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience N2 - Event-related potentials (ERP) have been proposed to improve the differential diagnosis of non-responsive patients. We investigated the potential of the P300 as a reliable marker of conscious processing in patients with locked-in syndrome (LIS). Eleven chronic LIS patients and 10 healthy subjects (HS) listened to a complex-tone auditory oddball paradigm, first in a passive condition (listen to the sounds) and then in an active condition (counting the deviant tones). Seven out of nine HS displayed a P300 waveform in the passive condition and all in the active condition. HS showed statistically significant changes in peak and area amplitude between conditions. Three out of seven LIS patients showed the P3 waveform in the passive condition and five of seven in the active condition. No changes in peak amplitude and only a significant difference at one electrode in area amplitude were observed in this group between conditions. We conclude that, in spite of keeping full consciousness and intact or nearly intact cortical functions, compared to HS, LIS patients present less reliable results when testing with ERP, specifically in the passive condition. We thus strongly recommend applying ERP paradigms in an active condition when evaluating consciousness in non-responsive patients. KW - P300 KW - event-related potentials KW - locked-in syndrome KW - vegetative state KW - unresponsive wakefulness syndrome KW - minimally conscious state Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165165 VL - 10 IS - 569 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zhou, Sijie A1 - Allison, Brendan Z. A1 - Kübler, Andrea A1 - Cichocki, Andrzej A1 - Wang, Xingyu A1 - Jin, Jing T1 - Effects of Background Music on Objective and Subjective Performance Measures in an Auditory BCI JF - Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience N2 - Several studies have explored brain computer interface (BCI) systems based on auditory stimuli, which could help patients with visual impairments. Usability and user satisfaction are important considerations in any BCI. Although background music can influence emotion and performance in other task environments, and many users may wish to listen to music while using a BCI, auditory, and other BCIs are typically studied without background music. Some work has explored the possibility of using polyphonic music in auditory BCI systems. However, this approach requires users with good musical skills, and has not been explored in online experiments. Our hypothesis was that an auditory BCI with background music would be preferred by subjects over a similar BCI without background music, without any difference in BCI performance. We introduce a simple paradigm (which does not require musical skill) using percussion instrument sound stimuli and background music, and evaluated it in both offline and online experiments. The result showed that subjects preferred the auditory BCI with background music. Different performance measures did not reveal any significant performance effect when comparing background music vs. no background. Since the addition of background music does not impair BCI performance but is preferred by users, auditory (and perhaps other) BCIs should consider including it. Our study also indicates that auditory BCIs can be effective even if the auditory channel is simultaneously otherwise engaged. KW - brain computer interface KW - event-related potentials KW - auditory KW - music background KW - audio stimulus Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165101 VL - 10 IS - 105 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Meule, Adrian A1 - Platte, Petra T1 - Attentional bias toward high-calorie food-cues and trait motor impulsivity interactively predict weight gain JF - Health Psychology Open N2 - Strong bottom-up impulses and weak top-down control may interactively lead to overeating and, consequently, weight gain. In the present study, female university freshmen were tested at the start of the first semester and again at the start of the second semester. Attentional bias toward high- or low-calorie food-cues was assessed using a dot-probe paradigm and participants completed the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. Attentional bias and motor impulsivity interactively predicted change in body mass index: motor impulsivity positively predicted weight gain only when participants showed an attentional bias toward high-calorie food-cues. Attentional and non-planning impulsivity were unrelated to weight change. Results support findings showing that weight gain is prospectively predicted by a combination of weak top-down control (i.e. high impulsivity) and strong bottom-up impulses (i.e. high automatic motivational drive toward high-calorie food stimuli). They also highlight the fact that only specific aspects of impulsivity are relevant in eating and weight regulation. KW - attentional bias KW - Barratt Impulsiveness Scale KW - body mass index KW - calorie content KW - dot probe KW - energy density KW - food-cues KW - impulsivity KW - prospective study KW - weight gain Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-168504 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hommers, Wilfried A1 - Görs, Marijke T1 - Information integration of Kohlbergian thoughts about consensual sex JF - Universitas Psychologica N2 - The unification of two major approaches to moral judgment is the purpose of the present approach. Kohlberg's well-known stage theory assumes a sequence of discrete stages that underlie all moral judgment. Stage theory recognizes the problem of integrating considerations but gives no way to solve such integration, even with information from any one stage. And, of course, the stage concept denies any significant integration from different stages. Thus, research on moral judgment needs to study the integration problem which can be tested within Anderson's theory of information integration. The main purpose of the present study was to extend this unificationist approach to the issue of sexual morality. A novel task presents information from two very different stages. The results showed that in contrast to discreteness the stage informers were positively correlated in punishment judgments of both genders about consensual sex of juveniles. Furthermore, the subjects integrated considerations from those very different stages also in contrast to the hypothesis that only a single stage was operative at any time. KW - Information Integration Theory KW - Kohlberg KW - moral judgment KW - cognition development Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-168487 VL - 15 IS - 3 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Acqualagna, Laura A1 - Botrel, Loic A1 - Vidaurre, Carmen A1 - Kübler, Andrea A1 - Blankertz, Benjamin T1 - Large-Scale Assessment of a Fully Automatic Co-Adaptive Motor Imagery-Based Brain Computer Interface JF - PLoS ONE N2 - In the last years Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology has benefited from the development of sophisticated machine leaning methods that let the user operate the BCI after a few trials of calibration. One remarkable example is the recent development of co-adaptive techniques that proved to extend the use of BCIs also to people not able to achieve successful control with the standard BCI procedure. Especially for BCIs based on the modulation of the Sensorimotor Rhythm (SMR) these improvements are essential, since a not negligible percentage of users is unable to operate SMR-BCIs efficiently. In this study we evaluated for the first time a fully automatic co-adaptive BCI system on a large scale. A pool of 168 participants naive to BCIs operated the co-adaptive SMR-BCI in one single session. Different psychological interventions were performed prior the BCI session in order to investigate how motor coordination training and relaxation could influence BCI performance. A neurophysiological indicator based on the Power Spectral Density (PSD) was extracted by the recording of few minutes of resting state brain activity and tested as predictor of BCI performances. Results show that high accuracies in operating the BCI could be reached by the majority of the participants before the end of the session. BCI performances could be significantly predicted by the neurophysiological indicator, consolidating the validity of the model previously developed. Anyway, we still found about 22% of users with performance significantly lower than the threshold of efficient BCI control at the end of the session. Being the inter-subject variability still the major problem of BCI technology, we pointed out crucial issues for those who did not achieve sufficient control. Finally, we propose valid developments to move a step forward to the applicability of the promising co-adaptive methods. KW - large-scale assessment KW - Brain Computer Interface KW - machine leaning KW - fully automatic KW - co-adaptive Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-167230 VL - 11 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Holtfrerich, Sarah K. C. A1 - Schwarz, Katharina A. A1 - Sprenger, Christian A1 - Reimers, Luise A1 - Diekhof, Esther K. T1 - Endogenous Testosterone and Exogenous Oxytocin Modulate Attentional Processing of Infant Faces JF - PLoS ONE N2 - Evidence indicates that hormones modulate the intensity of maternal care. Oxytocin is known for its positive influence on maternal behavior and its important role for childbirth. In contrast, testosterone promotes egocentric choices and reduces empathy. Further, testosterone decreases during parenthood which could be an adaptation to increased parental investment. The present study investigated the interaction between testosterone and oxytocin in attentional control and their influence on attention to baby schema in women. Higher endogenous testosterone was expected to decrease selective attention to child portraits in a face-in-the-crowd-paradigm, while oxytocin was expected to counteract this effect. As predicted, women with higher salivary testosterone were slower in orienting attention to infant targets in the context of adult distractors. Interestingly, reaction times to infant and adult stimuli decreased after oxytocin administration, but only in women with high endogenous testosterone. These results suggest that oxytocin may counteract the adverse effects of testosterone on a central aspect of social behavior and maternal caretaking. KW - maternal behavior KW - oxytocin KW - testosterone KW - attention KW - infant faces Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-166783 VL - 11 IS - 11 ER -