TY - JOUR A1 - Käthner, Ivo A1 - Eidel, Matthias A1 - Häge, Anne-Sophie A1 - Gram, Annika A1 - Pauli, Paul T1 - Observing physicians acting with different levels of empathy modulates later assessed pain tolerance JF - British Journal of Health Psychology N2 - Objectives The patient–physician relationship is essential for treatment success. Previous studies demonstrated that physicians who behave empathic in their interaction with patients have a positive effect on health outcomes. In this study, we investigated if the mere perception of physicians as empathic/not empathic modulates pain despite an emotionally neutral interaction with the patients. Methods N = 60 women took part in an experimental study that simulated a clinical interaction. In the paradigm, each participant watched two immersive 360° videos via a head-mounted display from a patient’s perspective. The physicians in the videos behaved either empathic or not empathic towards a third person. Importantly, these physicians remained emotionally neutral in the subsequent virtual interaction with the participants. Finally, participants received a controlled, painful pressure stimulus within the narratives of the videos. Results The physicians in the high compared with the low empathy videos were rated as more empathic and more likable, indicating successful experimental manipulation. In spite of later neutral behaviour of physicians, this short observation of physicians’ behaviour towards a third person was sufficient to modulate pain tolerance of the participants. Conclusions The finding of this study that the mere observation of physicians’ behaviour towards a third person modulates pain, despite a neutral direct interaction with the participants, has important clinical implications. Further, the proposed paradigm enables investigating aspects of patient–physician communication that are difficult to examine in a clinical setting. KW - patient–physician relationship KW - empathy KW - psychology KW - pain KW - 360° videos Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-258368 VL - 27 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Eidel, Matthias A1 - Kübler, Andrea T1 - Wheelchair Control in a Virtual Environment by Healthy Participants Using a P300-BCI Based on Tactile Stimulation: Training Effects and Usability JF - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience N2 - Tactile stimulation is less frequently used than visual for brain-computer interface (BCI) control, partly because of limitations in speed and accuracy. Non-visual BCI paradigms, however, may be required for patients who struggle with vision dependent BCIs because of a loss of gaze control. With the present study, we attempted to replicate earlier results by Herweg et al. (2016), with several minor adjustments and a focus on training effects and usability. We invited 16 healthy participants and trained them with a 4-class tactile P300-based BCI in five sessions. Their main task was to navigate a virtual wheelchair through a 3D apartment using the BCI. We found significant training effects on information transfer rate (ITR), which increased from a mean of 3.10–9.50 bits/min. Further, both online and offline accuracies significantly increased with training from 65% to 86% and 70% to 95%, respectively. We found only a descriptive increase of P300 amplitudes at Fz and Cz with training. Furthermore, we report subjective data from questionnaires, which indicated a relatively high workload and moderate to high satisfaction. Although our participants have not achieved the same high performance as in the Herweg et al. (2016) study, we provide evidence for training effects on performance with a tactile BCI and confirm the feasibility of the paradigm. KW - brain-computer interface (BCI) KW - event-related-potential (ERP) KW - P300 KW - tactile KW - wheelchair control KW - tactually evoked potentials KW - replication Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-207775 SN - 1662-5161 VL - 14 ER -