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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.
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.
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.
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.
A brain-computer interface (BCI) enables communication without movement based on brain signals measured with electroencephalography (EEG). BCIs usually rely on one of three types of signals: the P300 and other components of the event-related potential (ERP), steady state visual evoked potential (SSVEP), or event related desynchronization (ERD). Although P300 BCIs were introduced over twenty years ago, the past few years have seen a strong increase in P300 BCI research. This closed-loop BCI approach relies on the P300 and other components of the ERP, based on an oddball paradigm presented to the subject. In this paper, we overview the current status of P300 BCI technology, and then discuss new directions: paradigms for eliciting P300s; signal processing methods; applications; and hybrid BCIs. We conclude that P300 BCIs are quite promising, as several emerging directions have not yet been fully explored and could lead to improvements in bit rate, reliability, usability, and flexibility.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Aufgabenstellung dieser Arbeit ist die Prozessdarstellung des Kompetenzerwerbs im Umgang mit menügesteuerten Informationssystemen (kurz: Menüsysteme) im Fahrzeug. Hierzu zählen die Darstellung des Lernverlaufs sowie der Bedeutung von förderlichen und hinderlichen Lernbedingungen. Als ein Schwerpunkt der Arbeit werden mentale Repräsentationen der Nutzer bezüglich des Menüsystems betrachtet. Zusätzlich wird die Kompatibilität des Kompetenzerwerbs für Menüsysteme mit der Fahrzeugführung geprüft. Aus diesen Analysen ergeben sich Methoden der Überprüfung des Lernaufwands, -verlaufs und -erfolgs. Zur empirischen Überprüfung werden prototypische Menüsysteme konstruiert. Anhand sog. Raumschiff-Systeme wird z.B. der Umgang des Nutzers mit einem begrifflich weitgehend eindeutigen Menüsystem eines Raumschiffs der Bedienung eines Menüsystems ohne bedeutungshaltige Informationen (sog. System sinnloser Silben) gegenübergestellt. Um die Auswirkungen des Kompetenzerwerbs für Menüsysteme auf die Fahrsicherheit zu untersuchen, werden fahrkontextnahe Systeme konzipiert. Diese werden sowohl unter Single-Task Bedingungen (z.B. an einem Bildschirmarbeitsplatz, im stehenden Fahrzeug) als auch unter Dual-Task Bedingungen (z.B. während der Fahrt) bedient. Zielsetzung weiterer Explorationsstudien ist die Analyse der zeitlichen Struktur einer Bedienhandlung in einem Menüsystem in Abhängigkeit des Kompetenzerwerbs. Insgesamt werden sechs Hauptstudien und fünf Explorationsstudien in dieser Arbeit berichtet. Es wird gezeigt, dass der Kompetenzerwerb für Menüsysteme dem sog. Potenzgesetz der Übung folgt: So findet sich zu Übungsbeginn ein starker Leistungsanstieg im Umgang mit einem Menüsystem unter Single-Task Bedingungen, in späteren Übungsphasen verringert sich dieser Leistungsanstieg. Das erzielte Leistungsniveau in der Menübedienung ist nach einer längeren Lernpause (von bis zu 12 Wochen) weitgehend stabil. Zu Übungsbeginn treten v.a. Orientierungs- und Bedienfehler auf, in späteren Übungsphasen vermehrt Flüchtigkeitsfehler. Diese Fehler stellen voneinander unabhängige Fehlerklassen dar. Zu Lernbeginn ist v.a. die Bediengenauigkeit von Bedeutung, mit zunehmender Übung die Bediengeschwindigkeit. Insbesondere antizipative Aspekte der Handlungsvorbereitung und -initiierung im Umgang mit Menüsystemen sind Lerneinflüssen zugänglich. Für exekutive Aspekte der Handlungsdurchführung und -kontrolle ist der Kompetenzerwerb von untergeordneter Bedeutung. Als Nutzermerkmale erweisen sich das bereichsspezifische Vorwissen, die kognitive Leistungsfähigkeit und das Nutzeralter als bedeutsam: Diese Merkmale werden mit zunehmender Übung weniger wichtig für interindividuelle Leistungsunterschiede. Die realisierten Systemvariationen eines Menüsystems (Menüstruktur und Bedienmodell) wirken sich unabhängig vom Lernstatus auf das Bedienverhalten der Systemnutzer aus. Auf Nutzerseite werden im Umgang mit einem Menüsystem mentale Repräsentationen konstruiert: Zu Lernbeginn wird insbesondere begriffliches Wissen (sog. Inhaltsstruktur und begriffliche Unterbegriffs-Oberbegriffs-Relationen) angeeignet. Mit zunehmender Übung wird eine räumliche Repräsentation, in der die Positionen der einzelnen Menüinhalte abgebildet sind, aufgebaut. Eine motorische Repräsentation als Resultat einer Optimierung des Umgangs mit dem Bedienelement bis hin zu einer (Teil-)Automatisierung der motorischen Handlungssequenz wird erst nach umfangreicher Übung im Umgang mit einem Menüsystem erworben. Diese Repräsentationen beeinflussen wiederum die Bedienleistung: Zu Übungsbeginn ist z.B. das Erkennen der sog. Inhaltsstruktur für die starken Lernzuwächse verantwortlich. Die Kompatibilität von Vorwissen auf Nutzerseite und für die Bedienung notwendiges Systemwissen bestimmt den Lernaufwand und –verlauf. Die Veränderung räumlicher Positionen von Menüinhalten geht mit Einbußen in der Bedienleistung einher. Personen mit präzisem räumlichem Wissen können effizienter mit einem Menüsystem umgehen. Bedienfehler treten v.a. zu Übungsbeginn auf. Mit zunehmender Übung wird der sensumotorische Umgang mit dem Bedienelement optimiert. Diese Befunde führen zu folgenden Schlussfolgerungen: (1) Der Umgang mit Menüsystemen führt zu einer trialen Kodierung der für die Menübedienung notwendigen Informationen. (2) Das Potenzgesetz der Übung beschreibt den Kompetenzerwerb für Menüsysteme lediglich summativ und resultiert aus der Kombination der einzelnen Lernfunktionen der zu kodierenden Lerninhalte. Unter Dual-Task Bedingungen treten zu Übungsbeginn stärkere Interferenzen zwischen Fahrzeugführung und Menübedienung auf. Mit zunehmender Übung verringern sich diese Interferenzen v.a. auf Seiten der Menübedienung. Dies ist u.a. auf die Instruktion der Probanden zurückzuführen. Übungsbedingt schauen die Nutzer seltener bei vergleichbarer Blickdauer auf das Systemdisplay. Insbesondere ältere Nutzer haben Probleme mit einer Verschränkung von Fahrzeugführung und Menübedienung. Mit zunehmender Übung verringern sich diese Alterseffekte, werden aber nicht eliminiert. Wird ein Menüsystem parallel zur Fahrzeugführung bedient, werden zudem stärkere und präzisere begriffliche und räumliche Repräsentationen über das Menüsystem vom Nutzer konstruiert. Bei diesen Studien wird ein multimethodaler Messansatz verfolgt, in dem verschiedenartige Werkzeuge zur Bestimmung des Kompetenzerwerbs und seiner Wirkungen auf die Fahrsicherheit eingesetzt werden. Es kann dabei zu einer Dissoziation der Ergebnisse in verschiedenen Messmethoden kommen. Unter Single-Task Bedingungen gewonnene Ergebnisse können nicht ohne weiteres auf Dual-Task Bedingungen generalisiert werden.
The aim of this study was both to investigate the influence of cognitive control on unconscious processing, and to investigate the influence of unconscious processing on cognitive control. At first, different mechanisms and accounts to explain unconscious priming are presented. Here, perceptual and motor processes, as well as stimulus-response learning, semantic categorization, and the action trigger account as theories to explain motor priming are discussed. Then, the issue of the potential limits of unconscious processing is presented. Findings that indicate that active current intentions and expertise modulate unconscious processing are illustrated. Subsequently, results that imply an influence of unconsciously presented stimuli that goes beyond motor processes are discussed, with a special focus on inhibition processes, orienting of attention, task set activation, and conflict adaptation. Then I present the results of my own empirical work. Experiment 1 shows that the effective processing of unconsciously presented stimuli depends on expertise, even when potentially confounding difference between the expert and novice groups are controlled. The results of Experiments 2 and 3 indicate that the intention to use particular stimuli is a crucial factor for the effectiveness of these stimuli when they are presented unconsciously. Additionally, these findings show that shifts of attention can be triggered by centrally presented masked arrow cues. Experiments 4 and 5 broaden these results to cue stimuli that are not inherently associated with a spatial meaning. The finding corroborate that typically endogenously controlled shifts of attention can also be induced by unconscious stimuli. Experiments 6 and 7 demonstrate that even a central cognitive control process like task set activation is not contingent on conscious awareness, but can in contrast be triggered through unconscious stimulation. Finally, these results are integrated and I discuss how the concept of cognitive control and the limits of unconscious processing may have to be reconsidered. Furthermore, potential future research possibilities in this field are presented.
In 1999, a tragic catastrophe occurred in the Mont Blanc Tunnel, one of the most important transalpine road tunnels. Twenty-seven of the victims never left their vehicles as a result of which they were trapped in smoke and suffocated (Beard & Carvel, 2005). Immediate evacuation is crucial in tunnel fires, but still many tunnel users stay passive. During emergency situations people strongly influence each other’s behavior (e.g. Nilsson & Johansson, 2009a). So far, only few empirical experimental studies investigated the interaction of individuals during emergencies. Recent developments of advanced immersive virtual worlds, allow simulating emergency situations which makes analogue studies possible. In the present dissertation project, theoretical aspects of human behavior and SI in emergencies are addressed (Chapter 1). The question of Social Influence in emergency situations is investigated in five simulation studies during different relevant stages of the evacuation process from a simulated road tunnel fire (Chapter 2). In the last part, the results are discussed and criticized (Chapter 3). Using a virtual reality (VR) road tunnel scenario, study 1 (pilot study) and 2 investigated the effect of information about adequate behavior in tunnel emergencies as well as Social Influence (SI) on drivers’ behavior. Based on a classic study of Darley and Latané (1968) on bystander inhibition, the effect of passive bystanders on self-evacuation was analyzed. Sixty participants were confronted with an accident and smoke in a road tunnel. The presence of bystanders and information status was manipulated and consequently, participants were randomly assigned into four different groups. Informed participants read a brochure containing relevant information about safety behavior in emergency situations prior to the tunnel drives. In the bystander conditions, passive bystanders were situated in a car in front of the emergency situation. Participants who had received relevant information left the car more frequently than the other participants. Neither significant effect of bystanders nor interaction with information status on the participants’ behavior was observed. Study 3 (pilot study) examined a possible alternative explanation for weak SI in VR. Based on the Threshold Theory of Social Influence (Blascovich, 2002b) and the work of Guadagno et al. (2007), the perception of virtual humans as an avatar (a virtual representation of a real human being) or as an agent (a computer-controlled animated character) was manipulated. Subsequently, 32 participants experienced an accident similar to the one in study 1. However, they were co-drivers and a virtual agent (VA) was the driver. Participants reacted differently in avatar and agent condition. Consequently, the manipulation of the avatar condition was implemented in study 4. In study 4, SI within the vehicle was investigated, as drivers are mostly not alone in their car. In a tunnel scenario similar to the first study, 34 participants were confronted with an emergency situation either as drivers or co-drivers. In the driver group, participants drove themselves and a VA was sitting on the passenger seat. Correspondently, participants in the co-driver group were seated on the passenger seat and the VA drove the vehicle on a pre-recorded path. Like in study 1, the tunnel was blocked by an accident and smoke was coming from the accident in one drive. The VA initially stayed inactive after stopping the vehicle but started to evacuate after ca. 30 seconds. About one third of the sample left the vehicle during the situation. There were no significant differences between drivers and co-drivers regarding the frequency of leaving the vehicle. Co-drivers waited significantly longer than drivers before leaving the vehicle. Study 5 looked at the pre-movement and movement phase of the evacuation process. Forty participants were repeatedly confronted with an emergency situation in a virtual road tunnel filled with smoke. Four different experimental conditions systematically varied the presence and behavior of a VA. In all but one conditions a VA was present. Across all conditions at least 60% of the participants went to the emergency exit. If the VA went to the emergency exit, the ratio increased to 75%. If the VA went in the opposite direction of the exit, however, only 61% went there. If participants were confronted with a passive VA, they needed significantly longer until they started moving and reached the emergency exit. The main and most important finding across all studies is that SI is relevant for self-evacuation, but the degree of SI varies across the phases of evacuation and situation. In addition to the core findings, relevant theoretical and methodological questions regarding the general usefulness and limitations of VR as a research tool are discussed. Finally, a short summary and outlook on possible future studies is presented.
Renewal of fear is one form of relapse that occurs after successful therapy, resulting from an encounter with a feared object in a context different from the context of the exposure therapy. According to Bouton (1994), the return of fear, provoked by context change, indicates that the fear was not erased in the first place. More importantly, the return of fear indicates that during the exposure session a new association was learned that connected the feared object with “no fear”; yet, as Bouton further argues, this association is context dependent. Such dependence could explain effects like renewal. In a new context, the therapeutic association will not be expressed and thus will no longer inhibit the fear. The assumption that an association is context dependent has been tested and showed robust results (Balooch & Neumann, 2011; Siavash Bandarian Balooch, Neumann, & Boschen, 2012; Culver, Stoyanova, & Craske, 2011; Kim & Richardson, 2009; Neumann & Kitlertsirivatana, 2010). Research for the treatment of anxiety disorders, aiming to reduce fear and, more importantly, prevent relapse, is flourishing. There are several exposure protocols currently under investigation: multiple contexts exposure (MCE), which aims at reducing the return of fear due to renewal (e.g., Balooch & Neumann, 2011); prolonged exposure (PE), which aims at strengthening the inhibitory association during the extinction learning (e.g., Thomas, Vurbic, & Novak, 2009); and reconsolidation update (RU), which aims at “updating” the reconsolidation process by briefly exposing the CS+ before the actual extinction takes place (Schiller et al., 2010). So far, however, few clinical studies conducted on humans have investigated these novel treatment protocols, and as far as I know none has investigated the mechanisms of action behind these protocols with a human clinical sample. The present thesis has three main goals. The first is to demonstrate that exposure therapy in multiple contexts reduces the likelihood of renewal. The second is to examine the mechanisms contributing to the effect of MCE and the third is to shed light on the concept of context in the framework of the conditioning and extinction paradigm. To this end, three studies were conducted. The first study investigated the effect of MCE on renewal, the second and third studies examined working mechanisms of MCE. In the first study thirty spider-phobic participants were exposed four times to a virtual spider. The exposure trials were conducted either in one single context or in four different contexts. Finally, all participants completed both a virtual renewal test, with the virtual spider presented in a novel virtual context, and an in vivo behavioral avoidance test with a real spider. This study successfully demonstrated the efficacy of MCE on reducing renewal. Study 2 investigated the working mechanisms behind MCE by utilizing a differential conditioning paradigm and conducting the extinction in multiple contexts, targeting similar renewal attenuation as achieved in study 1. This was followed by two tests that attempted to reveal extinction-relevant associations like ones causing context inhibitory effects. This study had three main hypotheses: (1) The extinction context is associated with the exposure, and thus operates as a safety signal at some point during the extinction; it will therefore compete with the safety learning of the CS, leading to a decreased extinction effect on the CS if the extinction is conducted in only one context. (2) The elements (e.g., room color, furniture) of the extinction context are connected to the therapeutic association and therefore should serve as reminders of the extinction, causing a stronger fear inhibition when presented during a test. (3) Therapy process factors, according to emotional processing theory, determine the renewal effect (e.g., initial fear activation, and within-session and between-session activation are correlated with the strength of renewal). In this study, however, no differences between the groups at the renewal phase were observed, presumably because the extinction was too strong to enable a renewal of fear at the test phase conducted immediately following the extinction. This hence rendered the two inhibitory tests useless. Study 3 aimed at defining the concept of context in the conditioning and exposure framework. Study 3 utilized the phenomenon known as generalization decrement, whereby a conditioned response is reduced due to change in the environment. This allowed context similarity to be quantified. After an acquisition phase in one context, participants were tested in one of three contexts, two of which differed in only one dimension (configuration of objects vs. features). The third group was tested in the same context and served as control group. The goal was to show that both configuration and features play an important role in the definition of context. There was, however, no significant statistical difference between the groups at the test phases, likely because of context novelty effects (participants exposed to a new context following extinction in another context expected a second extinction phase, and thus demonstrated greater fear than expected in all three groups).
Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, herauszufinden, wie sich die Motivation bei Schülerinnen und Schülern in speziellen homogenen Begabtenklassen verglichen mit regulären Schulklassen entwickelt. Dazu wurden im Rahmen des „Projekts zur Untersuchung des Lernens in der Sekundarstufe“ (PULSS-Projekt) zu vier Messzeitpunkten die Leistungs- und Lernzielorientierung sowie die intrinsische Motivation in Mathematik und Deutsch erfasst. Der Untersuchungszeitraum erstreckte sich vom Beginn der 5. Jahrgangsstufe bis zum Ende der 7. Klasse. Um eine größtmögliche Vergleichbarkeit der Begabten- und der Regelklässler zu gewährleisten, wurden die Stichproben anhand entscheidender Merkmale parallelisiert (Schule, Geschlecht, IQ, sozioökonomischer Status). Die statistische Auswertung bestätigte den Rückgang der Motivation aller Schülerinnen und Schüler über die vier Messzeitpunkte hinweg. Darüber hinaus zeigten sich keine bedeutsamen Unterschiede zwischen den beiden Klassentypen. Differenzierte man in den einzelnen Klassen nach Schülerinnen und Schülern unterschiedlicher Begabung, so zeigte sich, dass die Ausprägung der Intelligenz keinen Einfluss auf die Höhe der Motivation nimmt. Beim akademischen Selbstkonzept verhält es sich teilweise anders. Wurde neben dem Klassentyp zwischen Schülerinnen und Schülern mit hohem und solchen mit niedrigem akademischen Selbstkonzept unterschieden, so war bei einigen Kennwerten die Höhe der Motivation in den Begabtenklassen stärker vom Selbstkonzept beeinflusst als in den Regelklassen. Dies äußerte sich dahingehend, dass die Begabtenklässler mit hohem akademischem Selbstkonzept verhältnismäßig stark motiviert waren, wohingegen die Begabtenklässler mit niedrigem akademischem Selbstkonzept die geringste Motivation zeigten. Eine abschließende Bewertung dieser Entwicklung kann aufgrund der in vorliegender Arbeit gefundenen Ergebnisse jedoch nicht vorgenommen werden. Insgesamt konnte die Befürchtung eines ungünstigeren Entwicklungsverlaufs in begabungshomogenen Klassen widerlegt werden. Das Ausmaß, inwieweit einzelne Schülerinnen und Schüler von der Beschulung in Begabtenklassen profitieren, scheint hinsichtlich der motivationalen Entwicklung nicht so sehr von der Intelligenz, sondern vielmehr von nicht-kognitiven Persönlichkeitsfaktoren abzuhängen. So legen die Resultate nahe, die Ausprägung des akademischen Selbstkonzepts bei Auswahlverfahren stärker zu berücksichtigen.
The aim of the present piece of work was to give information about the frequency of psychoactive substances within the German driver population and to identify preventive and promotive circumstances of drug driving. Furthermore, a new methodological approach to gather and link data about the consumption of psychoactive substances and the mobility of drug users is shown. Traditionally, roadside surveys are conducted to estimate the prevalence of drug driving within a population. By the present study, an alternative method is introduced. In total, 195 drug users (mainly cannabis users) and 100 controls out of the normal driving population were queried for four weeks about their driving and drug consumption behaviour by a questionnaire that was deployed on smartphones. The prevalences of drug driving within the sample were extrapolated into representative values. Because the subjects reported all daily activities within the study-period, it was also possible to describe situations in which the subjects decided against driving under influence. Besides, relevant previous experiences, attitudes, the approval of legal regulations, other traffic-specific parameters, social influences and personality variables were queried. So, individual factors that are associated with drug driving can be specified. The results are integrated in a model that shows dependencies of different societal, behavioural and legal variables. They can serve as major input to the discussion on drug driving and can be of practical use for rehabilitation and prevention purposes. The results can be summarised as follows: - Compared to the results of a German roadside survey from 1994, the prevalences that are found within the present study seem pretty low. This finding is discussed and possible explanations for the described trend are lined out. Furthermore, the prevalences that were calculated in the present study are compared to current data from other European countries. - The results show differences between users and controls on several variables. The differences indicate that substance use impacts on the structuring of day-to-day life. Overall, the controls’ days proceed more along a daily working routine than the users’ (e.g. less mobility at night, more mobility at rush-hour, alcohol consumption mainly at nights out). - The individual extent to which drugs are consumed differs dependent on daytime, day of the week and kind of substance. Of course, these dependencies also influence the occurrence of drug driving. Other factors of influence on drug driving are the distance, the availability of alternative modes of transport as well as the presence of female companions. - Not everybody who uses drugs drives under the influence of drugs. A striking predictor for frequent drug driving and highly intoxicated driving is a high consumption, associated with risky consumption patterns and a low subjective feeling of impairment after drug consumption. - The subjects’ attitudes towards drug driving and their beliefs about social norms largely go in line with the behaviour they engage in. Drug users have rather liberal attitudes towards drug use and driving under influence. - A possible deterrence effect of sanctioning and police enforcement and its dependence on the acceptance and awareness of the measures is delineated. - Only small effects are found when examining the objective impairment that is caused by drug use by a computer-based test battery. This result is critically discussed with regards to the operationalisation of the study groups. - Except from driving under influence, there is no evidence to suggest that DUI offenders also show problematic behaviour according to other traffic-related measures. - Parents and peers may have an influence as role models on the development of problematic behaviour. A good relationship between parents and children may have a positive impact on the development of conventional values and behaviour. - Drug use is associated with some crucial personality dimensions and drugs are often used to solve personal problems. A less precise but similar difference was found for users who commit many drives under influence compared to users who never or only sometimes drive under influence. Moreover, users marginally more often have psychological problems compared to controls. Finally, the strengths and weaknesses of the new methodological approach of data collection are discussed as well as the challenges that are faced when implementing it. All in all, it has proved to be a promising method and should serve as a standard to which future studies should aspire.
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.
Just do it! Guilt as a moral intuition to cooperate - A parallel constraint satisfaction approach
(2011)
After a long dominance of rational models of judgment and decision-making in moral psychology (e.g. Kohlberg, 1969) there is now a strong interest in how intuitions and emotions influence moral judgments and decisions (e.g. Greene, 2007; Haidt, 2001; Monin, Pizarro, & Beer, 2007). In the literature, the influence of emotions on moral decisions is explained by heuristic or non-compensatory information processing (e.g. Sinnott-Armstrong, Young, & Cushman, 2010; Sunstein, 2005; Tobler, Kalis, & Kalenscher, 2008). However, the process of emotion elicitation is ignored. Appraisal theories postulate that emotion elicitation is due to the incoherence (or discrepancy) of behavioral representations like goals and actions (Moors, 2009). Emotion elicitation and intuitive decision-making can be combined if both processes apply a connectionist information processing structure (e.g. Barnes & Thagard, 1996). The current work contrasts both perspectives of intuitive-emotional decision-making with respect to guilt and cooperation.
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.
Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) enable paralyzed patients to communicate; however, up to date, no creative expression was possible. The current study investigated the accuracy and user-friendliness of P300-Brain Painting, a new BCI application developed to paint pictures using brain activity only. Two different versions of the P300-Brain Painting application were tested: A colored matrix tested by a group of ALS-patients (n = 3) and healthy participants (n = 10), and a black and white matrix tested by healthy participants (n = 10). The three ALS-patients achieved high accuracies; two of them reaching above 89% accuracy. In healthy subjects, a comparison between the P300-Brain Painting application (colored matrix) and the P300-Spelling application revealed significantly lower accuracy and P300 amplitudes for the P300-Brain Painting application. This drop in accuracy and P300 amplitudes was not found when comparing the P300-Spelling application to an adapted, black and white matrix of the P300-Brain Painting application. By employing a black and white matrix, the accuracy of the P300-Brain Painting application was significantly enhanced and reached the accuracy of the P300-Spelling application. ALS-patients greatly enjoyed P300-Brain Painting and were able to use the application with the same accuracy as healthy subjects. P300-Brain Painting enables paralyzed patients to express themselves creatively and to participate in the prolific society through exhibitions.
Several studies have investigated the neural responses triggered by emotional pictures, but the specificity of the involved structures such as the amygdala or the ventral striatum is still under debate. Furthermore, only few studies examined the association of stimuli’s valence and arousal and the underlying brain responses. Therefore, we investigated brain responses with functional magnetic resonance imaging of 17 healthy participants to pleasant and unpleasant affective pictures and afterwards assessed ratings of valence and arousal. As expected, unpleasant pictures strongly activated the right and left amygdala, the right hippocampus, and the medial occipital lobe, whereas pleasant pictures elicited significant activations in left occipital regions, and in parts of the medial temporal lobe. The direct comparison of unpleasant and pleasant pictures, which were comparable in arousal clearly indicated stronger amygdala activation in response to the unpleasant pictures. Most important, correlational analyses revealed on the one hand that the arousal of unpleasant pictures was significantly associated with activations in the right amygdala and the left caudate body. On the other hand, valence of pleasant pictures was significantly correlated with activations in the right caudate head, extending to the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These findings support the notion that the amygdala is primarily involved in processing of unpleasant stimuli, particularly to more arousing unpleasant stimuli. Reward-related structures like the caudate and NAcc primarily respond to pleasant stimuli, the stronger the more positive the valence of these stimuli is.
ln two experiments, male rats were observed in pairs under different environmental stimulations in an open field. ln Experiment 1, white noise of 85 dB(A) reduced social activities and increased defecation compared to 75 dB(A) and 65 dß(A). ln Experiment 2, the illumination of the open field was varied in addition to a variation of the noise intensity. Again, 85 dB(A) as compared to 50 dB(A) reduced social activities and increased defecation, but also led to changes in non-social behaviours such as sniffing, grooming, and rearing. ln contrast, 400 lx did not differ substantially in its effects from 40 lx in any of the observed behavioural categories. Altogether, the behaviour pattern under 85 dß(A) white noise cannot satisfactorily be explained only by increased anxiety or fear. Alternative explanations are discussed.
The nature of good information processing is outlined as determined by intact neurology, information stored in long-term memory, and general cognitive tendencies, attitudes, and styles. Educators can promote the development of good information processing by promoting what is in long-term memory. This can be accomplished by teaching important literary, scientific, and cultural knowledge; teaching strategies; motivating the acquisition and use of important conceptual knowledge and strategies; and encouraging the general tendencies supporting good information processing. Good information processing can be produced by years of appropriate educational input. Good information processors cannot be produced by short-term interventions.
Domain-Specific Knowledge and Memory Performance: A Comparison of High- and Low-Aptitude Children
(1989)
Two studies compared memory performance and text comprehension of groups that were equivalent on domain-specific knowledge but differed in overall aptitude, to investigate whether prior knowledge about a particular domain or overall aptitude level was more important when the task was to acquire and use new information in the domain of interest. Both studies dealt with third-, fifth-, and seventh-grade soccer experts' and novices' memory and comprehension of a story dealing with a soccer game. Several measures of memory performance, memory monitoring, and text comprehension were used. Levels of soccer knowledge and of overall aptitude were varied in a factorial design. Neither study detected significant differences between high-aptitude and low-aptitude experts, regardless of their ages. Low aptitude experts outperformed high-aptitude novices on all memory and comprehension measures. The results indicate that domain-specific knowledge can compensate for low overall aptitude on domain-related cognitive tasks.
143 9- and 10-year-oId children were classified into high- and Jow-IQ groups and given 4 different sort/recall lists (baseline, training, near [immediate] extension, far [l-week] extension) to assess training and extension of an organizational memory strategy. All children received categorized items of moderate typicality for Phases 1, 3, and 4. For Phase 2, children were assigned to either a training or control group, with half of the children in each group receiving category typical items and the others category atypical items. Levels of recall, sorting, and clustering were greater in Phase 2 for high-IQ children, for the typical lists, and for trained children. Both the high- and low-IQ children trained with typical items continued to show high levels of recall on the near extension phase. No group of subjects maintained high levels of recall after 1 week, although levels of sorting and/or clustering on the extension trials remained high for all groups of subjects except the low-IQ control children. This latter pattern (elevated sorting/clustering with low levels of recall) is an indication of a utilization deficiency, a phase in strategy development when children use a strategy but gain little or no benefit n performance. The results provide evidence for IQ, training, and material effects in the demonstration of a utilization deficiency.
High- and low-IQ children in the first, third, and fifth grades performed two free-recall tasks: a sort-recall task with sets of categorically related pictures, and a class-recall task, with children recalling the current members of their school class. All children were deemed to be experts concerning the composition of their school class, but, unlike experts in other domains, had no special motivation associated with their expertise. Recall and clustering on both tasks were high. The high-IQ children performed better than low-IQ children only on the sort-recall task. IQ was significantly correlated with measures of performance on the sort-recall task but not on the class-recall task. The results reflect the fact that the memory benefits associated with being an expert (here, elimination of IQ effects) are related to the greater knowledge the expert possesses and not to factors of motivation.
In a study intended to replicate and extend the findings from a recent experiment by Schneider and Bjorklund (1992), the expert/novice paradigm was used with second- and fourth-grade children in a sort/recall task. Children were classified as experts or novices for their knowledge of baseball, then given two sort/recall tasks, with a list consisting of either baseball or nonbaseball terms. Experts recalled more than novices on the baseball list only. While both groups used organizational strategies at sorting on the nonbaseball list, experts were marginally more strategic than novices on the baseball list, and no differences were found between the groups on either list for clustering. Baseball experts used more adultlike categories, suggesting that their enhanced levels of recall were attributed in part to strategy use, although there was also evidence that most of the substantial recall difference between the groups was attributed to item-specific effects associated with a more elaborated knowledge base. A second experiment using fifth-grade children on a multitrial sort/recall task using the baseball list also found increased recall by experts, and also found evidence of strategic behavior at the sort phase for trials 3 and 4.
Second- and fourth-grade children were classified according to their knowledge of soccer (experts vs. novices) and IQ (high vs. low), and given 2 sort-recall tasks. One task included items related to the game of soccer and the other included items from familiar natural language categories. Previous research has shown that expertise in a snbject can compensate for low levels of performance on text comprehension tasks. Our results, the flrst examing the effects of both expertise and intelligence on a strategic memory task, were that soccer expert children recalled more items on the soccer list bnt not on the nonsoccer list than soccer novice children. However, soccer expertise did not modify a significant effect of IQ level, with high-IQ children recalling more than low-IQ children for all contrasts. Interest in soccer was found to be related to expertise but did not contribute to differences in memory performance. The results demonstrate that the knowledge base plays an important role in children's memory, but that domain knowledge cannot fully eliminate the effects of IQ on sort-recall tasks using domain-related materials. That is, although rich domain knowledge seemed to compensate for low aptitude, in that low-aptitude experts performed at the level of high-aptitude novices, its effects were not strong enough to eliminate performance differences between highand low-aptitude soccer experts.
The goal of the present study was to determine whether 4- and 5-year-old kindergarten children could be trained to maintain an organizational strategy over 2- and 8 week periods through an elaborate training program. A second goal was to assess the effects of the training program on strategy awareness. Twenty-eight kindergarten children were pretested on two sort-recall tasks and their awareness of the use of the clustering strategy was assessed through a protocol type procedure. Half the children received seven half-hour sessions of individual training in the clustering strategy and half the children participated in a control group. Both groups were post-tested on two sort-recall tasks 2 weeks following training and again 8 weeks following training. Strategy awareness, as measured by verbal protocol, was assessed at both post-test points. The elaborate strategy training program was successful in inducing short- and long-term strategy maintenance of the clustering strategy. Trained children’s clustering during sorting and clustering during recall was consistently related to the amount of items correctly recalled. No differences in strategy awareness were found. These findings demonstrate that the elaborate training procedure used in this study can be a very effective memory technique for young kindergarten children.
Previous research has shown German children to be more strategic on sort-recall memory tasks than their American age-mates, and to show fewer effort-related attributions. We conducted this study to determine if those differences are due to systematic differences in the strategy instruction and attributional beliefs of German and U.S. teachers, and to explore metacognitive instructional practices in the two countries. Teachers responded to a questionnaire that inquired about their use of strategy instructions, fostering of reflective thinking in pupils, sources of children’s learning problems, and modeling of metacognitive skills such as monitoring. The second part of the questionnaire asked about the reasons underlying children’s academic successes and failures. German teachers reported more instruction of task-specific strategies, while American teachers showed more effort-related attributions. The types of strategies instructed and types of learning problems most frequently described varied across the two countries, and also according to how many years the teachers had taught. Results were discussed regarding their implications for metacognitive developmental theory, particularly regarding culture and other environmental influences on the development of controlled processing.
4-6-year-old children's understanding of cognitive cuing was studied in 2 experiments using a strategic interaction paradigm. Ghildren could fool a competitor by hiding targets in locations that were labeled with semantically weakly associated cues and help a cooperative partner by hiding them in semantically highly associated locations. Very few 4-year-olds, half the 5-year-olds, and almost all 6-year-olds appropriately chose semantically highly vs. weakly associated hiding places to make the targets easy vs. difficult to find. The second experiment showed that 4-year-olds did not strategically manipulate cues as sources of information, although they themselves proficiently used them as such in a search task. These findings are discussed with regard to research on children's developing understanding of origins of knowledge and belief and with regard to recent claims that young preschoolers possess a metacognitive understanding of cognitive cuing.
A MODEL of good information processing is sketched, describing how metacognitive knowledge influences strategy selection and use. Three factors pose particular problems for learning disabled students as they attempt to acquire metacognitive knowledge and to use study strategies productively: neurological impairments; deficiencies in general world knowledge; and negative beliefs, attitudes, and styles that limit self-efficacy. Creating an educational atmosphere that explicitly builds conceptual (domain-specific) knowledge and teaches positive beliefs about learning potential is essential in promoting metacognitively-oriented instruction.
In a short-term longitudinal study, we investigated how domain-specific knowledge in soccer influences the amount of text recall and comprehension in elementary school and junior high school children of high and low overall aptitudes. Both level of soccer knowledge and overall aptitude were varied in a factorial design. Third, fifth, and seventh grade children were given several measures of text recall and comprehension and were retested on these measures about 1 year later. Performance was more a function of soccer knowledge than of aptitude level.
This study explored the differential effects of strategy training on German and American elementaryschool children and assessed the role of parents in the development of their children's strategic behavior and metacognition. 184 German and 161 American children were pretested on memory and metamemory tasks. Children were then assigned to either an organizational strategy training condition or a control condition. All children were tested on the maintenance and far-transfer of the strategy and task-related metamemory 1 week following training. Parents completed questionnaires about strategy instruction in the home. Strategy maintenance and metacognition were reassessed 6 months following training. German children were more strategic than American children. Instructed children performed better than control children. German parents reported more instruction of strategies in the home. These data suggest that formal education is responsible for aspects of cognitive development that have sometimes been viewed as a function of age.
Die Arbeit gliedert sich in drei Schwerpunkte. Zunächst wird Zeitmanagement aus psychologischer Perspektive genauer betrachtet. Während Zeitmanagement bislang, auch in der Forschung, vor allem vor dem Hintergrund populärer Ratgeberliteratur beschrieben wurde (z.B. Macan, Shahani, Dipboye & Phillips, 1990, S. 761ff; Orpen, 1994, S. 394) ist es ein besonderes Anliegen im Rahmen dieser Arbeit gutes Zeitmanagement aus psychologischer Perspektive zu diskutieren: Was kann vor dem Hintergrund psychologischer Theorien und Forschungsbefunde unter gutem Zeitmanagement verstanden werden? Welche konkreten Verhaltensweisen zeichnen gutes Zeitmanagement aus? Verschiedene Zeitmanagementtechniken werden hierzu möglichst verhaltensnah expliziert. Das so beschriebene Zeitmanagementverhalten diente als Grundlage für die korrelativen Studien sowie die Interventionsstudien zur Evaluation von Zeitmanagementtrainings. Koch und Kleinmann (2002, S. 212) verwiesen auf das Problem der unklaren theoretischen Fundierung von Zeitmanagementtrainings und sahen darin eine Ursache für die uneinheitliche Befundlage zur Wirksamkeit solcher Trainings. Für den zweiten Teil der Arbeit wurde in drei korrelativen Studien untersucht, ob die Nutzung von Zeitmanagementtechniken mit Befinden und Leistung dergestalt assoziiert ist, dass sich Leistung und Befinden mit zunehmender Nutzungshäufigkeit von Zeitmanagementtechniken verbessern. Zu diesem Zweck wurden korrelative Studien mit Auszubildenden, Sachbearbeitern und Führungskräften durchgeführt. Ein besonderes Anliegen ist in diesem Kontext auch die Diskussion von gefundenen Unterschieden bezüglich der Zusammenhänge zwischen Zeitmanagementverhalten, Leistung und Befinden zwischen den drei Zielgruppen. Im dritten Teil werden die Ergebnisse dreier Evaluationsstudien berichtet, in denen die Wirkung von Zeitmanagementtrainings auf Leistung und Befinden untersucht wurde. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei eine Interventionsstudie mit Sachbearbeitern (kaufmännischen Angestellten), die um zwei weitere Interventionsstudien mit Studierenden ergänzt wurde. Als wichtige Ergebnisse der Studien können festgehalten werden, dass (a) gutes Zeitmanagementverhalten insbesondere bei Führungskräften und Sachbearbeitern in Zusammenhang mit Befinden, weniger mit Leistung, steht, (b) Zeitmanagementtrainings geeignet sind, die erlebte Zeitkontrolle zu steigern und das Stresserleben zu reduzieren, (c), Zeitmanagementtrainings auch eine präventive Wirkung in Bezug auf das Stresserleben bei steigenden Anforderungen haben können, (d) einem wesentlichen Zeitmanagementproblem, dem Aufschieben der Bearbeitung von Aufgaben bis kurz vor eine deadline, durch ein Zeitmanagementtraining erfolgreich begegnet und (e) lediglich eine tendenzielle Wirkung eines Zeitmanagementtrainings auf Leistungsvariablen nachgewiesen werden konnte.
It has been proposed that different features of a face provide a source of information for separate perceptual and cognitive processes. Properties of a face that remain rather stable over time, so called invariant facial features, yield information about a face’s identity, and changeable aspects of faces transmit information underlying social communication such as emotional expressions and speech movements. While processing of these different face properties was initially claimed to be independent, a growing body of evidence suggests that these sources of information can interact when people recognize faces with whom they are familiar. This is the case because the way a face moves can contain patterns that are characteristic for that specific person, so called idiosyncratic movements. As a face becomes familiar these idiosyncratic movements are learned and hence also provide information serving face identification. While an abundance of experiments has addressed the independence of invariant and variable facial features in face recognition, little is known about the exact nature of the impact idiosyncratic facial movements have on face recognition. Gaining knowledge about the way facial motion contributes to face recognition is, however, important for a deeper understanding of the way the brain processes and recognizes faces. In the following dissertation three experiments are reported that investigate the impact familiarity of changeable facial features has on processes of face recognition. Temporal aspects of the processing of familiar idiosyncratic facial motion were addressed in the first experiment via EEG by investigating the influence familiar facial movement exerts on event-related potentials associated to face processing and face recognition. After being familiarized with a face and its idiosyncratic movement, participants viewed familiar or unfamiliar faces with familiar or unfamiliar facial movement while their brain potentials were recorded. Results showed that familiarity of facial motion influenced later event-related potentials linked to memory processes involved in face recognition. The second experiment used fMRI to investigate the brain areas involved in processing familiar facial movement. Participants’ BOLD-signal was registered while they viewed familiar and unfamiliar faces with familiar or unfamiliar idiosyncratic movement. It was found that activity of brain regions, such as the fusiform gyrus, that underlie the processing of face identity, was modulated by familiar facial movement. Together these two experiments provide valuable information about the nature of the involvement of idiosyncratic facial movement in face recognition and have important implications for cognitive and neural models of face perception and recognition. The third experiment addressed the question whether idiosyncratic facial movement could increase individuation in perceiving faces from a different ethnic group and hence reduce impaired recognition of these other-race faces compared to own-race faces, a phenomenon named the own-race bias. European participants viewed European and African faces that were each animated with an idiosyncratic smile while their attention was either directed to the form or the motion of the face. Subsequently recognition memory for these faces was tested. Results showed that the own-race bias was equally present in both attention conditions indicating that idiosyncratic facial movement was not able to reduce or diminish the own-race bias. In combination the here presented experiments provide further insight into the involvement of idiosyncratic facial motion in face recognition. It is necessary to consider the dynamic component of faces when investigating face recognition because static facial images are not able to provide the full range of information that leads to recognition of a face. In order to reflect the full process of face recognition, cognitive and neural models of face perception and recognition need to integrate dynamic facial features as a source of information which contributes to the recognition of a face.
The present work reviews the experimental literature on the acute effects of alcohol on human behaviour related to driving performance. A meta-analysis was conducted which includes studies published between 1954 and 2007 in order to provide a comprehensive knowledge of the substance alcohol. 450 studies reporting 5,300 findings were selected from over 12,000 references after applying certain in- and exclusion criteria. Thus, the present meta-analysis comprises far more studies than reviews on alcohol up to now. In the selected studies, different performance tests were conducted which were relevant for driving. The classification system used in this work assigns these tests to eight categories. The main categories consist of several sub categories classifying the tasks more precisely. The main categories were: (1) visual functions, (2) attention (including vigilance), (3) divided attention, (4) en-/decoding (including information processing and memory), (5) reaction time (including simple reaction time and choice reaction time), (6) psychomotor skills, (7) tracking and (8) driving. In addition to the performance aspect, the classification system takes into account mood and social behaviour variables related to driving safety like tiredness or aggression. Following the evaluation method of vote-counting, the number of significant findings and the number of non-significant findings were summarised per blood alcohol concentration (BAC) group. Thereby, a quantitative estimation of the effects of alcohol depending on the BAC was established, the so-called impairment function, which shows the percentage of significantly impaired findings. In order to provide a general overview of alcohol effects on driving-related performance, a global impairment function was established by aggregating all performance findings. The function is nearly linear with about 30% significant findings at a BAC of 0.05% and 50% significant findings at a BAC of 0.08%. In addition, more specific impairment functions considering only the findings of the single behavioural categories were calculated. The results revealed that impairment depends not only on the BAC, but also clearly differs between most of the performance categories. Tracking and driving performance were most affected by alcohol with impairment beginning at very low BACs of 0.02%. Also psychomotor skills were considerably affected by rather low BACs. Impairment of visual functions and information processing occurred at BACs of 0.04% and increased substantially with higher BACs. Impairment in memory tests could be found with very low BACs of 0.02%, but varied depending on the kind of memory. Performance decrements in divided attention tests could also be found with very low BACs in some studies. Attention started to be impaired at 0.04% BAC, but – as in vigilance tasks – considerable impairment only occurred at higher BACs. Choice reaction time was affected at lower BACs than simple reaction time, which was – together with the critical flicker fusion frequency – the least sensitive parameter to the effects of alcohol. To conclude, most skills which are relevant for the safe operation of a vehicle are clearly impaired by BACs of 0.05%, with motor functions being more affected than cognitive functions and complex tasks more than simple tasks. Generally, the results provided no evidence of a threshold effect for alcohol. There was no driving-related performance category for which a sudden transition from unimpaired to impaired occurred at a particular BAC level. In addition, a comparison was made between the present meta-analysis and two reviews of Moskowitz (Moskowitz & Fiorentino, 2000; Moskowitz & Robinson, 1988). Moskowitz reported much lower BACs at which performance was impaired. The reasons for this discrepancy lies in a different way to review scientific findings. On the one hand, Moskowitz focused on significant findings when selecting studies and findings for his reviews. On the other hand, the evaluation method used by Moskowitz ignored non-significant findings and counted each study once at the lowest BAC for which impairment was found. Those non-significant findings are as important as the significant ones in order to determine thresholds of impairment. Therefore, in contrast to Moskowitz, the present work describes the effects of alcohol with functions considering also the non-significant findings. The significance of the non-significant is emphasized with respect to the selection procedure as well as to the evaluation method.
The present study investigated the relationshtp between developmental shifts in the organization of materials and developmental changes in deliberate strategy use. Second and fourth grade children were presented with clusterable sort/recall lists representing the factorial combinations of high and low interitem association, and high and low category relatedness. Strategy use in the task was rated by the experimenter and also assessed via self reports. General and task-related strategy knowledge tmetamemoryt was also examined. Second graders displayed more category clustering during recall for highly associated items than for weakly associated items. whereas older children’s recall organization (but not recall) was unaffected by this organizational dimension. Correlations among measures of metamemory and organizational behavior indicated that second graders in general were unaware of the importance of categorization strategies for facilitation of recall. On the other hand. sorting during study and task-related metamemory were the most important predictors of fourth graders’ recall performance, thus indicating that most fourth graders used categorization strategies deliberately.
Zusammenfassung Gegenstand der vorliegenden Arbeit ist die Rolle von Sicherheitsverhalten in der Expositionstherapie von Panikstörung mit Agoraphobie. Neu an dieser Arbeit ist, dass die Ausgangslage des Patienten bezüglich des zu Therapiebeginn gezeigten Vermeidungsverhaltens, welches wiederum das in den Expositionen gezeigte Sicherheitsverhalten moderieren sollte, einbezogen wurde. Neben der Klärung dieser spezifischen Variablen sollten weitere Moderatoren, Mediatoren und Prädiktoren für Sicherheitsverhalten bzw. Therapieergebnis identifiziert werden. Hierfür wurde in dieser Studie erstmals die Wirkung von Faktoren wie Therapeutenbegleitung, Angst vor Körpersymptomen und Veränderungen kognitiver Prozesse auf Sicherheitsverhalten und Therapieergebnis mit Hilfe von Pfadanalysemodellen untersucht. Erwartungsangst und das Ausmaß der Depression zu Therapiebeginn wurden als Kovariate einbezogen. In die Berechnungen wurden nach Ausschluss der Drop-Outs N = 242 Patienten eingeschlossen. Nach den in dieser Arbeit durchgeführten Analysen sind weder das Ausmaß der Vermeidung zu Therapiebeginn noch die Therapeutenbegleitung während der Expositionen Prädiktoren für Sicherheitsverhalten. Es konnte zudem in den berechneten Pfadanalysemodellen kein signifikanter Zusammenhang zwischen Sicherheitsverhalten und Therapieergebnis gezeigt werden. Stattdessen weisen die hier gefundenen Ergebnisse darauf hin, dass sowohl die Reduktion der Angst vor Körpersymptomen als auch die Veränderung kognitiver Prozesse signifikant mit dem Therapieergebnis korrelieren. Hinsichtlich der einbezogenen Kovariaten zeigte sich, dass ein positiver Zusammenhang zwischen Erwartungsangst und Sicherheitsverhalten besteht und das Ausmaß der Depression zu Therapiebeginn wie erwartet keinen Einfluss auf Sicherheitsverhalten und Therapieergebnis hatte. Insgesamt bestätigen die hier gefundenen Ergebnisse, dass insbesondere die Reduktion der Angst vor Körpersymptomen und die Veränderung kognitiver Prozesse wichtige Elemente der Expositionstherapie sind und diese somit grundsätzlich einen wirkungsvollen Zugang zur Behandlung von Panikstörung mit Agoraphobie darstellt. Die Analysen weisen darauf hin, dass Sicherheitsverhalten entgegen den Erwartungen dabei eine eher untergeordnete Rolle zu spielen scheint. Dies sollte in weiterführenden Studien geklärt werden, wobei Sicherheitsverhalten insbesondere unter dem in dieser Arbeit aufgezeigten definitions- bzw. störungs-spezifischen Blickwinkel untersucht werden sollte.
Thirty-two 4-year-olds and thirty-two 6-year-olds were tested for free and cued recall following either play-and-remember or sort-and-remember instructions and assessed for their metamemory of the efficacy of conceptual and perceptual sorting strategies. The younger children recalled significantly more items under sort-and-remember than under play-and-remember instructions, whereas no significant recall differences between instructional conditions were found for the older children. However, 6-year-olds showed higher levels of recall than 4-year-olds in both instructional conditions. Category cues were much more effective than color cues, regardless of age. In addition, clustering scores indicated that conceptual organization at both encoding and retrieval increased with age and with instruction. These results show that from 4 to 6 years of age children are learning to spontaneously employ memory strategies. In addition, they highlight the increasing importance of conceptual organization to retention of young children. Finally, the metamemory data suggest that there may be a lag between children’s articulated declarative knowledge about the usefulness of conceptual organization and their procedural use of it.
Nine hierarchical and four nonhierarchical clustering algorithms were compared on their ability to resolve 200 multivariate normal mixtures. The effects of coverage, similarity measures, and cluster overlap were studied by including different levels of coverage for the hierarchical algorithms, Euclidean distances and Pearson correlation coefficients, and truncated multivariate normal mixtures in the analysis. The results confirmed the findings of previous Monte Carlo studies on clustering procedures in that accuracy was inversely related to coverage, and that algorithms using correlation as the similarity measure were significantly more accurate than those using Euclidean distances. No evidence was found for the assumption that the positive effects of the use of correlation coefficients are confined to unconstrained mixture models.
This study addresses three themes that recur in the research on student achievement: (a) developmental modeling ofintraindividual changes in achievement over time; (b) examination of the differences among subgroups within a classroom in the determinants of achievement; (c) description of the interactions among instructional variables in determining achievement differences. Eight classrooms were preselected on the basis of their widely differing slopes obtained in a regression analysis of pre- and posttest achievement scores. Mathematics achievement differences among sixth graders were analyzed in a four-wave design and explained by aptitude and instructional variables in a structural equation framework provided by LISREL. The results demonstrate the local nature of achievement models in that neither their measurement nor structural components proved generalizable across both groups of classrooms. Mention is also made, however, of technical problems and analytical ambiguities in the interpretation of these results.
The scope of the present work encompasses the influence of experience (i.e. expertise) for feature processing in unconscious information processing. In the introduction, I describe the subliminal priming paradigm, a method to examine how stimuli, we are not aware of, nonetheless influence our actions. The activation of semantic response categories, the impact of learned stimulus-response links, and the action triggering through programmed stimulus-response links are the main three hypotheses to explain unconscious response activation. Besides, the congruence of perceptual features can also influence subliminal priming. On the basis of the features location and form, I look at evidence that exists so far for perceptual priming. The second part of the introduction reviews the literature showing perceptual superiority of experts. This is illustrated exemplarily with three domains of expertise – playing action video games, which constitutes a general form of perceptual expertise, radiology, a more natural form of expertise, and expertise in the game of chess, which is seen as the Drosophila of psychology. In the empirical section, I report nine experiments that applied a subliminal check detection task. Experiment 1 shows subliminal response priming for chess experts but not for chess novices. Thus, chess experts are able to judge unconsciously presented chess configurations as checking or nonchecking. The results of Experiment 2 suggest that acquired perceptual chunks, and not the ability to integrate perceptual features unconsciously, was responsible for unconscious check detection, because experts’ priming does not occur for simpler chess configurations which afforded an unfamiliar classification. With a more complex chess detection task, Experiment 3 indicates that chess experts are not able to process perceptual features in parallel or alternatively, that chess experts are not able to form specific expectations which are obviously necessary to elicit priming if many chess displays are applied. The aim of Experiment 4-9 was to further elaborate on unconscious processing of the single features location and form in novices. In Experiment 4 and 5, perceptual priming according the congruence of the single features location and form outperformed semantically-based response priming. Experiment 6 and 7 show that (in contrast to form priming) the observed location priming effect is rather robust and is also evident for an unexpected form or colour. In Experiment 8, location and form priming, which was additionally related to response priming, were directly compared to each other. Location priming was again stronger than form priming. Finally, Experiment 9 demonstrates that with the subliminal check detection task it is possible to induce response priming in novices when the confounding influences of location and form are absent. In the General discussion, I first summarized the findings. Second, I discuss possible underlying mechanisms of different subliminal perception in experts and novices. Third, I focus on subliminal perceptual priming in novices, especially on the impact of the features location and form. And finally, I discuss a framework, the action trigger account that integrates the different results of the present work.
Hintergrund: Die Alzheimer-Erkrankung ist die häufigste neurodegenerative Erkrankung. Da es zurzeit für sie noch keine Heilung gibt, richtet sich das Hauptaugenmerk auf eine möglichst frühe Diagnose und die Behandlung mit krankheitsverzögernden Medikamenten. Vor allem die funktionelle Bildgebung gilt im Bereich der Frühdiagnose als vielversprechend. Neben dem Gedächtnis werden die visuell-räumliche Informationsverarbeitung, exekutive Funktionen und Aufmerksamkeitsprozesse untersucht. Hierbei zeigen sich zentralnervöse Aktivierungsauffälligkeiten in kortikalen Zielregionen etwa im präfrontalen und im parietalen Kortex. Verlaufsuntersuchungen konzentrieren sich vor allem darauf aus der Gehirnaktivierung Vorhersagen über kognitive Veränderungen bei älteren Personen mit und ohne Gedächtnisstörung treffen zu können. Nur wenige Studien erfassen dabei jedoch die Gehirnaktivierung zu mehreren Messzeitpunkten. Gerade für große Stichproben und wiederholte Messungen könnte die funktionelle Nahinfrarotspektroskopie (fNIRS) sich als Alternative zur Magnetresonanztomographie anbieten. Ziel: Ziel der Studie war es, mit fNIRS und ereigniskorrelierten Potentialen funktionelle Unterschiede zwischen Alzheimer-Patienten und gleichaltrigen Kontrollen in mehreren Funktionsbereichen darzustellen und ihre Veränderung über den Zeitraum eines Jahres zu verfolgen. Zum ersten Mal sollte im Rahmen einer prospektiven Untersuchung mit fNIRS geprüft werden ob kortikale Aktivierungen zur Vorhersage von neuropsychologischen Testwerten genutzt werden können. Zusätzlich stellte sich die Frage, ob fNIRS für Verlaufsuntersuchungen an älteren Stichproben geeignet ist. Methoden: Im Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden zum ersten Messzeitpunkt (T1) 73 Patienten und 71 Kontrollen mit vier Paradigmen in den drei Funktionsbereichen visuell-räumliche Informationsverarbeitung, exekutive Funktionen und zentralnervöse Filtermechanismen mit fNIRS und ereigniskorrelierten Potentialen gemessen. Die Probanden durchliefen eine Line Orientation Aufgabe, zwei Versionen einer Wortflüssigkeitsaufgabe (phonologisch und semantisch) und das P50-Doppelklickparadigma. Zielparameter waren dabei die aufgabenbezogene Aktivierung im parietalen Kortex, im dorsolateralen Präfrontalkortex (DLPFC) und das sensorische Gating, gemessen durch die P50-Supression nach wiederholter Reizdarbietung. Zusätzlich wurden zwei typische Tests zur Demenzdiagnostik (MMST und DemTect) erhoben. Die zweite Messung (T2) fand nach 12 Monaten statt und lief identisch zur ersten Untersuchung ab. Zu T2 konnten 14 Patienten und 51 Kontrollen erneut rekrutiert werden. Ergebnisse: Zu T1 konnte mit fNIRS ein Aktivierungsdefizit für Patienten im DLPFC während der phonologischen Wortflüssigkeitsaufgabe und im rechten Parietalkortex während der Line Orientation Aufgabe festgestellt werden. Für die semantische Wortflüssigkeitsaufgabe und das sensorische Gating zeigten sich keine zentralnervösen Unterschiede. Über das Jahr hinweg nahm die aufgabenbezogene Aktivierung der Patienten im linken DLPFC für beide Versionen der Wortflüssigkeitsaufgabe deutlich ab, während gleichaltrige Kontrollpersonen keine kortikalen Veränderungen zeigten. Zu T2 war das sensorische Gating der Patienten außerdem deutlich schlechter im Vergleich zu gesunden Kontrollen. Die Veränderungen der Oxygenierung während der Wortflüssigkeitsaufgabe konnten für gesunde Kontrollen Verschlechterungen im MMST und im DemTect vorhersagen. Vor allem ein Verlust der Lateralisierung ging mit einem Abfall in den kognitiven Tests einher. Schlussfolgerung: Spezifische Defizite in der kortikalen Aktivierung konnten bei Alzheimer-Patienten mit fNIRS beobachtet und genauer beschrieben werden. Auch die Veränderung im Verlauf eines Jahres ließ sich mit dieser Methode verfolgen. Für Längsschnittuntersuchungen, die sich mit der kortikalen Aktivierung als Prädiktor für dementielle Entwicklungen beschäftigen, bietet sich fNIRS somit als praktische Alternative zur fMRT an, zumal die gemessenen Veränderungen in der Oxygenierung auch prognostischen Wert für ältere Kontrollpersonen besaßen. Vor allem die funktionelle Lateralisierung in frontalen Kortexbereichen scheint als Prädiktor kognitiver Leistungen im Alter von Bedeutung zu sein.
Humans have the tendency to react with congruent facial expressions when looking at an emotional face. Interestingly, recent studies revealed that several situational moderators can modulate strength and direction of these reactions. In current literature, congruent facial reactions to emotional facial expressions are usually described in terms of “facial mimicry” and interpreted as imitative behavior. Thereby, facial mimicry is understood as a process of pure motor resonance resulting from overlapping representations for the perception and the execution of a certain behavior. Motor mimicry, however, is not the only mechanism by which congruent facial reactions can occur. Numerous studies have shown that facial muscles also indicate valence evaluations. Furthermore, facial reactions are also determined by our current emotional state. These thoughts suggest that the modulation of congruent facial reactions to emotional expressions can be based on both motor and affective processes. However, a separation of motor and affective processes in facial reactions is hard to make. None of the published studies that tried that could show a clear involvement of one or the other process so far. Therefore, the aim of the present line of experiments is to shed light on the involvement of motor and affective processes in the modulation of congruent and incongruent facial reactions. Specifically, the experiments are designed to test the assumptions of a working model on mechanisms underlying the modulation of facial reactions and to examine the neuronal correlates involved in such modulations with a broad range of methods. Experiments 1 and 2 experimentally manipulate motor and affective mechanisms by using specific contexts. In the chose settings, motor process models and affective models of valence evaluations make competing predictions about resulting facial reactions. The results of Experiment 1 did not support the involvement of valence evaluations in the modulation of congruent and incongruent facial reactions to facial expressions. The results of Experiments 2a and 2b suggest that emotional reactions are the predominant determinant of facial reactions. Experiment 3 aimed at identifying the psychological mediators that indicate motor and affective mechanisms. Motor mechanisms are assessed via the psychological mediator empathy. Additionally, as a psychological mediator for clarifying the role of affective mechanisms subjective measures of the participants’ current emotional state in response to the presented facial expressions were taken. Mediational analyses show that the modulation of congruent facial reactions can be explained by a decrease of state cognitive empathy. This suggests that motor processes mediate the effects of the context on congruent facial reactions. However, such a mechanism could not be observed for incongruent reactions. Instead, it was found that affective processes in terms of emotional reactions are involved in incongruent facial reactions. Additionally, the involvement of a third class of processes, namely strategic processes, was observed. Experiment 4 aimed at investigating whether a change in the strength of perception can explain the contextual modulation of facial reactions to facial expressions. According to motor process models the strength of perception is directly related to the strength of the spread of activation from perception to the execution of an action and thereby to the strength of the resulting mimicry behavior. The results suggest that motor mechanisms were involved in the modulation of congruent facial reactions by attitudes. Such an involvement of motor mechanisms could, however, not be observed for the modulation of incongruent reactions. In Experiment 5 the investigation of neuronal correlates shall be extended to the observation of involved brain areas via fMRI. The proposed brain areas depicting motor areas were prominent parts of the mirror neuron system. The regions of interest depicting areas involved in the affective processing were amygdala, insula, striatum. Furthermore, it could be shown that changes in the activity of parts of the MNS are related to the modulation of congruent facial reactions. Further on, results revealed the involvement of affective processes in the modulation of incongruent facial reactions. In sum, these results lead to a revised working model on the mechanisms underlying the modulation of facial reactions to emotional facial expressions. The results of the five experiments provide strong support for the involvement of motor mechanisms in congruent facial reactions. No evidence was found for the involvement of motor mechanisms in the occurrence or modulation of incongruent facial reactions. Furthermore, no evidence was found for the involvement of valence evaluations in the modulation of facial reactions. Instead, emotional reactions were found to be involved in the modulation of mainly incongruent facial reactions.
Hintergrund: Die Panikstörung ist eine die Lebensqualität beeinträchtigende psychische Störung, die unbehandelt einen chronischen Verlauf zeigt, jedoch sowohl durch Psychotherapie als auch Psychopharmakotherapie erfolgreich behandelt werden kann. Die der Panikstörung zugrundeliegenden neuronalen Schaltkreise werden in der von Gorman et al. (1989, 2000) veröffentlichten neuroanatomischen Hypothese beschrieben. In der stark an der Tierforschung angelehnten revidierten Version (2000) wird die Amygdala als Zentrum eines komplexen Furchtnetzwerks angesehen, deren Aktivität durch höhere kortikale Areale im präfrontalen Kortex moduliert wird. Trotz der Popularität der Hypothese sind deren Annahmen bislang kaum explizit überprüft worden. Ziel: Ziel der Untersuchung war es, die neuronale Verarbeitung emotionaler Reize in empirischen Experimenten genauer zu untersuchen, da die Datenlage in diesem Bereich noch gering und inkonsistent ist und Replikationsstudien fehlen. Außerdem sollte ein Überblick über die bereits veröffentlichten empirischen Studien gegeben werden, welche mit bildgebenden Verfahren Aussagen über die Beteiligung bestimmter neuronaler Strukturen bei der Panikstörung erlauben. Methoden: An den Standorten Würzburg und Hamburg wurden Patienten mit Panikstörung (n = 18/20) und gesunde Kontrollen (n = 27/23) mit zwei Paradigmen zur Verarbeitung emotionaler Reize (emotionaler Stroop-Test und Gesichterverarbeitung) mit der funktionellen Magnetresonanztomographie untersucht. Hierbei sollten insbesondere die in der neuroanatomischen Hypothese wichtigen Strukturen Amygdala und präfrontaler Kortex betrachtet werden. Bildgebende Studien, die Patienten mit Panikstörung untersuchten, wurden über eine Literaturrecherche ermittelt, in Untergruppen von Studien eingeteilt und bewertet. Ergebnisse: In beiden untersuchten Stichproben zeigten die Patienten im Vergleich zu den Kontrollen auf Reaktionszeitebene einen signifikanten emotionalen Stroop-Effekt mit verlängerten Antwortlatenzen für panikrelevante Wörter. In den funktionellen Daten zeigten sich keine Unterschiede in der Amygdalaaktivierung, jedoch zeigten die Patienten für den Kontrast ‚panikrelevante vs. neutrale Wörter‘ im Gruppenvergleich eine erhöhte Aktivierung in präfrontalen Arealen. Bei der Verarbeitung emotionaler Gesichter gab es kaum Unterschiede zwischen den Gruppen, ängstliche Gesichter lösten im Vergleich zu neutralen Gesichtern keine erhöhte Amygdalaaktivierung aus. Hinweise auf eine generelle Hypofrontalität ließen sich bei den Patienten – zumindest bei der Verarbeitung emotionaler Reize – in den angewandten Paradigmen nicht finden. Schlussfolgerung: Die Ergebnisse der experimentellen Untersuchung und des Literaturüberblicks zeigen, dass – trotz durchaus mit der neuroanatomischen Hypothese in Einklang stehender Befunde – Inkonsistenzen zu finden sind, die mit der aktuellen Hypothese nicht erklärt werden können. Die Ergebnisse der vorliegenden Untersuchung im emotionalen Stroop-Test konnten bisher gefundene präfrontale Aktivierungsmuster replizieren, für die Amygdala gilt das nicht. Eine Erweiterung der Hypothese durch die Berücksichtigung neuer Aspekte könnte helfen, diese Befunde besser zu erklären und zu einem umfassenderen Bild der neuronalen Grundlagen der Störung beitragen. Modifikationen werden vorgeschlagen, die der Weiterentwicklung der Hypothese dienen könnten und bei der Planung zukünftiger Studien berücksichtigt werden sollten. Die vermutete prominente Rolle der Amygdala bei der Panikstörung ist nach wie vor nicht hinreichend untersucht und der modulierende Einfluss präfrontaler Strukturen sollte zukünftig insbesondere im direkten Zusammenspiel mit der Amygdala, z. B. im Rahmen psychotherapeutischer Interventionen, genauer analysiert werden.
This article gives an overview of possibilities for the assessment offacial behavior. With regard to validity, results from a longitudinal study of 36 depressed patients and nine controls as weil as often schizophrenic patients and their relatives will be referred to. These results are used to illustrate the following principles which have to be taken into account when studying facial behavior: a) communication strongly facilitates facial expression, b) activation of facial behavior follows the "principle of least effort", and c) the principle of individual specificity applies to the association of nonverbal behavior and mood states. Making allowance for these principles has, among others, consequences a) for situations or conditions under which to asses behavior (specifically conditions of communication), b) for data analysis (e.g., dealing with frequent and rare events), and c) for empirical or experimental strategies (e.g., aggregation of single-case longitudinal comparisons). From the results on facial behavior during depression it can be concluded that the nonverbal reaction tendencies of endogenous and neurotic depressed patients differ. Moreover, the differential behavioral pattems observed cast doubt on the assumption of a homogeneity of affects in depression. Taking into account the conditions which govern it, facial behavior has proved to be a valid and, especially, a differential indicator for pathoIogic affective states and their changes. Given the fact that a psychiatric illness generally incorporates emotional problems it is more than surprising that little attention has been paid to the systematic study of emotional behavior. Some of the reasons for this will be clarified in the following.
No abstract available
In order to survive, organisms avoid threats and seek rewards. Classical conditioning is a simple model to explain how animals and humans learn associations between events that allow them to predict threats and rewards efficiently. In the classical conditioning paradigm, a neutral stimulus is paired with a biologically significant event (the unconditioned stimulus – US). In virtue of this association, the neutral stimulus acquires affective motivational properties, and becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS+). Defensive responses emerge for pairings with an aversive US (e.g., pain), and appetitive responses emerge for pairing with an appetitive event (e.g., reward). It has been observed that animals avoid a CS+ when it precedes an aversive US during a training phase (CS+ US; forward conditioning); whereas they approach a CS+ when it follows an aversive US during the training phase (US CS+; backward conditioning). These findings indicate that the CS+ acquires aversive properties after a forward conditioning, whereas acquires appetitive properties after a backward conditioning. It is thus of interest whether event timing also modulates conditioned responses in such an opponent fashion in humans, who are capable of explicit cognition about the associations. For this purpose, four experiments were conducted in which a discriminative conditioning was applied in groups of participants that only differed in the temporal sequence between CS+ onset and US onset (i.e., the interstimulus interval – ISI). During the acquisition phase (conditioning), two simple geometrical shapes were presented as conditioned stimuli. One shape (CS+) was always associated with a mild painful electric shock (i.e., the aversive US) and the other one (CS-) was never associated with the shock. In a between-subjects design, participants underwent either forward or backward conditioning. During the test phase (extinction), emotional responses to CS+ and CS- were tested and the US was never presented. Additionally, a novel neutral shape (NEW) was presented as control stimulus. To assess cognitive components, participants had to rate both the valence (the degree of unpleasantness or pleasantness) and the arousal (the degree of calmness or excitation) associated with the shapes before and after conditioning. In the first study, startle responses, an ancestral defensive reflex consisting of a fast twitch of facial and body muscles evoked by sudden and intense stimuli, was measured as an index of stimulus implicit valence. Startle amplitude was potentiated in the presence of the forward CS+ whilst attenuated in the presence of the backward CS+. Respectively, the former response indicates an implicit negative valence of the CS+ and an activation of the defensive system; the latter indicated an implicit positive valence of the CS+ and an activation of the appetitive system. In the second study, the blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) response was measured by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate neural responses after event learning. Stronger amygdala activation in response to forward CS+ and stronger striatum activation in response to backward CS+ were found in comparison to CS-. These results support the notion that the defensive motivational system is activated after forward conditioning since the amygdala plays a crucial role in fear acquisition and expression. Whilst the appetitive motivational system is activated after backward conditioning since the striatum plays a crucial role in reward processing. In the third study, attentional processes underlying event learning were observed by means of steady-state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs). This study showed that both forward and backward CS+ caught attentional resources. More specifically, ssVEP amplitude was higher during the last seconds of forward CS+ that is just before the US, but during the first seconds of backward CS+ that is just after the US. Supposedly, attentional processes were located at the most informative part of CS+ in respect to the US. Participants of all three studies rated both forward and backward CS+ more negative and arousing compared to the CS-. This indicated that event timing did not influence verbal reports similarly as the neural and behavioral responses indicating a dissociation between the explicit and implicit responses. Accordingly, dual process theories propose that human behavior is determined by the output of two systems: (1) an impulsive implicit system that works on associative principles, and (2) a reflective explicit system that functions on the basis of knowledge about facts and values. Most importantly, these two systems can operate in a synergic or antagonistic fashion. Hence, the three studies of this thesis congruently suggest that the impulsive and the reflective systems act after backward association in an antagonistic fashion. In sum, event timing may turn punishment into reward in humans even though they subjectively rate the stimulus associated with aversive events as being aversive. This dissociation might contribute to understand psychiatric disorders, like anxiety disorders or drug addiction.
The thesis deals with the question which motivation direction—approach or avoidance—is connected to the emotion relief—a positive, low-arousal emotion, which is caused by an expected or nonexpected, motive-consistent change for the better, thus caused by the absence of an aversive stimulus. Based on the idea of postulating different levels of approach avoidance motivation, the Reflective-Impulsive Model of Behavior (RIM, Strack & Deutsch, 2004) is applied to relief and approach avoidance. The RIM differentiates between an impulsive and a reflective system of information processing, with both systems working in relative independence from each other. Two central variables moderate the relation between relief and approach avoidance. The first is the psychological system in which approach avoidance is processed and assessed. Two levels of approach avoidance are distinguished: an impulsive distance orientation (distance change in relation to specific stimuli) and a reflective goal orientation (attainment of positive versus avoidance of negative end states). The second is the psychological system in which relief developed: In the impulsive system, relief develops as the affect that is conditioned to the absence of negative states; in the reflective system, relief develops as a result of goal-oriented behaviour of controlling or preventing of negative stimulation. The thesis looks at both moderators (level of approach avoidance and psychological system of development of relief) at once. The central prediction for the impulsive distance orientation is: Relief leads to an approach distance orientation (distance reduction), independent from the system in which relief develops. The central prediction for the reflective goal orientation is: Relief leads to an avoidance goal orientation (control of negative end states). This latter prediction is only made for the case when relief was caused by (develops in) the reflective system, that is by one’s own, goal-directed behaviour; it is further necessary for an avoidance goal orientation that the relief state cannot certainly reached, instead there always has to uncertainty in the control of negative states. The methodology in the thesis is based on studies of aversive conditioning. In most studies, a differentiation paradigm is applied. The impulsive relief is operationalized via a classically conditioned relief (aversive CS-), whereas the reflective relief is operationalized via an active avoidance paradigm which ensures the methodological comparability of “reflective relief” to “impulsive relief”. The predictions are as follows: Prediction A: Relief will elicit positive affective valence and an approach distance orientation. This should be true for both relief that is caused by the impulsive system and for relief that is caused by the reflective system (Experiments 2-3). Prediction B: More positive valence of relief—caused by a larger change of affective states—will elicit a stronger approach distance orientation (Experiment 4). Prediction C: Relief caused by the impulsive system will not elicit a specific goal orientation (Experiment 5). Prediction D: Uncertain self-induced relief—caused by the reflective system—will elicit an avoidance goal orientation (Experiments 6-7). In addition, Experiment 1 validated the conditioning paradigm used for the elicitation of relief. The experiments in the thesis support all predictions made in the theoretical part. The work has implications for the assumptions made in the RIM (Strack & Deutsch, 2004). In the impulsive system, the affective valence determines approach avoidance orientation (e.g., R. Neumann & Strack, 2000), the reflective goal not playing an important role. Relief elicits an approach orientation in the impulsive system. In the reflective system, the active goal is decisive for the approach avoidance orientation. Uncertain self-caused relief elicits an avoidance goal orientation in the reflective system. The studies of the thesis thus support and validate the assumptions made in the RIM (Strack & Deutsch, 2004) in the specific field of motivational direction.
Neuroplasticity is a term indicating structural and functional changes in the brain through the lifespan. In the present study, differences in the functional cortical activations between the musical talents and non-talents were investigated after a short-term practice of the visuomotor and auditory tasks. Visuomotor task consisted of the finger tapping sequences, while auditory task consisted of passive listening to the classical music excerpts. Non-talents were divided in two groups: trained non-talents who practiced the task prior to scanning and untrained non-talents who did not practice the task. Functional activations were obtained by the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a 1.5T Scanner. It was hypothesized that talents would exhibit different functional activations from non-talents in both tasks as a result of the long-term music practice, which would account for the brain plasticity. Decreased activation of the same areas in talents in respect to the non-talents as well as the activation of different areas between the talents and non-talents was hypothesized. In addition due to a plethora of previous studies showing increased activations in the primary motor cortex (M1) in musicians, as well as left inferior frontal gyrus (lIFG), increased activation of the M1 and lIFG in talents were hypothesized. Behavioral results did not reveal differences in performance among the three groups of subjects (talents, non-talents who practiced the task, and non-talents who did not practice the task). The main findings from imaging results of the visuomotor task confirmed the hypothesis of the increased activation in the M1 in talents. Region of interest analyses of the lIFG revealed the highest activation in the untrained non-talents, lower activation in talents, and least activation in the trained non-talents. Posthoc imaging analyses revealed higher activations in the cerebella of subjects who practiced the visuomotor task. For the auditory task, the effect of auditory practice was observed in the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG). These results should be interpreted with caution due to the absence of behavioral differences among the groups.
No abstract available
The aim of this project was to investigate whether reflex-like innate facial reactions to tastes and odors are altered in patients with eating disorders. Qualitatively different tastes and odors have been found to elicit specific facial expressions in newborns. This specificity in newborns is characterized by positive facial reactions in response to pleasant stimuli and by negative facial reactions in response to unpleasant stimuli. It is, however, unclear, whether these specific facial displays remain stable during ontogeny (1). Despite the fact that several studies had shown that taste-and odor-elicited facial reactions remain quite stable across a human’s life-span, the specificity of research questions, as well as different research methods, allow only limited comparisons between studies. Moreover, the gustofacial response patterns might be altered in pathological eating behavior (2). To date, however, the question of whether dysfunctional eating behavior might alter facial activity in response to tastes and odors has not been addressed. Furthermore, changes in facial activity might be linked to deficient inhibitory facial control (3). To investigate these three research questions, facial reactions in response to tastes and odors were assessed. Facial reactions were analyzed using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS, Ekman & Friesen, 1978; Ekman, Friesen, & Hager, 2002) and electromyography.
The aim of the present thesis was to explore how food deprivation and reward expectancy versus frustrative nonreward change implicit and explicit food-liking and food-wanting. As a result, Experiment 1-3 were successful in revealing that liking- and wanting-related associations toward food stimuli dissociate as a function of food deprivation, given that participants were not rewarded with real food during the experiment. More specifically, whereas food-deprived participants showed more wanting-related associations toward food stimuli than satiated participants, the liking-related associations did not differ across both conditions of hunger. Overall, this effect could be replicated in 3 experiments using different manipulations of nonreward versus reward expectancy. However, neither food deprivation nor nonreward were found to influence participants’ self-reported mood and frustration. Moreover, participants of Experiment 2 anticipating food consumption showed the same liking- and wanting-related responses due to food deprivation than participants in the nonreward condition. But providing participants with individual control over food consumption abolished the dissociation of liking- and wanting-related associations. In this condition, however, participants’ liking- and wanting-related associations were not moderated by need state, maybe due to the (partial) consumption of snack food before the implicit attitude assessment. This, in turn, may have reduced participants’ disposition to respond with more liking- and wanting-related associations when being hungry. Finally, Experiment 4 revealed that the presentation of need-relevant vs. need-irrelevant stimuli prompted different liking-related associations depending on the time participants had fasted before the experiment. Specifically, it could be demonstrated that whereas moderately-hungry compared to satiated participants responded with more positive associations toward need-relevant stimuli, 15 hours food-deprived participants responded with more negative associations compared to moderately-hungry and satiated participants. Respectively, a significant curvilinear function of need state was obtained. In addition, participants were found to immediately respond more negatively to need-irrelevant stimuli as soon as they became moderately hungry, evidencing devaluation effects (see Brendl, Markman, & Messner, 2003) to also occur on an implicit level of responding. Contrary to the implicit liking- and wanting-related evaluations, self-reported explicit food-liking and food-wanting did not dissociate as a function of food deprivation and nonreward, revealing that participants’ explicit self-reports of food-liking and food-wanting did not mirror their implicit responses. As the most important result, it could be demonstrated that explicit food-liking and food-wanting varied positively as a function of need state. The results were discussed on the background of different theoretical assumptions on the malleability of implicit and explicit need-relevant attitudes (e.g. motivational theories, frustrative nonreward).
Der Einfluss von Methylphenidat auf die affektive Bildverarbeitung bei erwachsenen AD(H)S Patienten
(2010)
Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde im Rahmen des ADHS-Forschungsprojektes der Universität Würzburg zur Identifikation von Endophänotypen der ADHS durchgeführt. Im Fokus des Interesses stand dabei die Untersuchung emotionaler Verarbeitungsprozesse bei erwachsenen ADHS-Patienten. Conzelmann und Kollegen (Conzelmann, et al., 2009) konnten zeigen, dass erwachsene ADHS-Patienten vom Mischtypus und vom hyperaktiv/ impulsiven Typus eine defizitäre affektive Startle Modulation aufweisen. Basierend auf diesen Ergebnissen stellte sich in der vorliegenden Arbeit die Frage, ob dieser defizitäre Schreckreflex auf emotionale Bilder des International Affective Picture Systems (IAPS) zunächst replizierbar und falls ja, durch die Einnahme eines Methylphenidatpräparats (MPH) vermindert oder gänzlich aufgehoben werden kann. Um dieser Frage nachzugehen, wurden zunächst im Rahmen einer Vorstudie 15 erwachsene ADHS-Patienten (Mischtypus) aus der Studie von Conzelmann et al. (2009) nach einer Zeitspanne von einem bis zwei Jahren ein weiteres Mal getestet. Etwa eine Stunde vor der zweiten Testung erhielten die Patienten die Instruktion, ihr MPH-Präparat einzunehmen. Im Anschluss daran wurden den Patienten positive, neutrale und negative IAPS-Bilder präsentiert. Diese Bilddarbietung wurde in unregelmäßigen Abständen von einem akustischen Störgeräusch unterbrochen, den die Patienten möglichst ignorieren sollten. Im zweiten Teil der Untersuchung wurden die Probanden sowohl während der ersten als auch während der zweiten Testung angewiesen, die einzelnen Bilder hinsichtlich ihrer Valenz (angenehm versus unangenehm) und ihres Arousals (aufregend versus ruhig) zu bewerten. Von den 15 getesteten Patienten konnten 13 in die Auswertung mit einbezogen werden (2 Patienten hatten unzureichend auf den Ton reagiert). Unterschiede zwischen den beiden Testzeitpunkten (also ohne und mit MPH) konnten bezüglich der affektiven Startle Modulation lediglich auf Bilder mit hohem Arousal festgestellt werden. Für diese spezifischen Stimuli zeigten die Patienten ohne MPH keine verringerte Startle Reaktion während der Betrachtung positiver Bilder. Mit MPH konnte dieses Ausbleiben der Startle Attenuation aufgehoben werden. Anders als bei der affektiven Startle Modulation, konnte bei den zusätzlich erhobenen physiologischen Maßen weder ein systematischer Einfluss durch die IAPS-Bilder noch durch die Medikation festgestellt werden. Gleiches ließ sich bei den Valenz- und Arousalratings feststellen. Ob sich diese positive MPH-Wirkung auf die affektive Startle Modulation auch unabhängig vom Arousalgehalt der betrachteten Bilder zeigt, sollte im Anschluss an diese Vortestung mittels einer zusätzlichen Studie mit wesentlich größerem Stichprobenumfang untersucht werden. Die Hauptstudie wurde sowohl doppelblind als auch placebo-kontrolliert und im cross-over Design durchgeführt. Die Testprozedur am Computer war vergleichbar mit dem Ablauf der Vortestung. Im Rahmen der Hauptstudie wurden 71 AD(H)S-Patienten (60 vom Mischtypus, 11 vom vorwiegend unaufmerksamen Typus) zweimal getestet. Von diesen 71 Patienten konnten letztlich 61 in die Auswertung der Haupttestung mit einbezogen werden (ein ADHS-Patient (Mischtypus) kam zur zweiten Testung nicht und 9 ADHS-Patienten (Mischtypus) hatten unzureichend auf den Startle-Ton reagiert). Dabei konnte zunächst für die Bilder mit hohem Arousal die defizitäre Startle Modulation auf positive Bilder repliziert werden. Durch die MPH-Einnahme ließ sich dieses Defizit jedoch nicht beheben. Da Conzelmann et al. (2009) lediglich beim Mischtypus und hyperaktiv-impulsiven Typus eine defizitäre Startle Modulation nachweisen konnten, wurde eine vergleichbare Auswertung für die Subgruppe der 51 ADHS-Patienten vom Mischtypus durchgeführt. Dabei unterschieden sich die Ergebnisse dieser Subgruppe im Wesentlichen nicht von der Gesamtstichprobe. Auch bei der Überprüfung der genetischen Hypothesen ließ sich keine Interaktion zwischen der Medikation und dem DRD4-7r, dem COMT Val/Met und dem DAT1-10r Polymorphismus feststellen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen zum einen eine defizitäre Startle Modulation der 61 AD(H)S-Patienten, die vergleichbar ist mit dem gezeigten Defizit von Conzelmann et al. (2009) bei Patienten des Mischtypus. Ein positiver Effekt durch die MPH-Einnahme konnte dabei ebenso wenig bestätigt werden wie eine mögliche Interaktion verschiedener dopaminerger Genpolymorphismen auf die MPH-Wirkung. Zusätzliche Studien werden zeigen, ob diese defizitäre Verarbeitung tatsächlich durch die MPH-Einnahme unbeeinflusst bleibt oder ob letztlich mittels medikamentöser Interventionen doch noch eine entsprechende Symptomverbesserung bei erwachsenen AD(H)S-Patienten zu erzielen ist.
Es wird ein konfigural-analytisches Verfahren zur Erfassung von fünf Variablen der Therapiemotivation (Leidensdruck, Unzufriedenheit, Änderungswunsch, Hilfewunsch und Erfolgserwartung) beschrieben. Die Methode besteht aus einer Kombination der Auswahl zutreffender Selbstbeschreibungen ("Probleme") und der Beantwortung motivationsbezogener Zusatzfragen. Jeder Pb wird so zu seinen spezifischen Problemen hinsichtlich der Ausprägung therapierelevanter motivationaler Variablen befragt. Aus der Beantwortung der Zusatzfragen können verschiedene Therapiemotivations- Syndrome (TMS) gebildet werden. Die statistische Absicherung des individuellen Vorkommens eines TMS in den Zusatzbefragungen erfolgt über die Multinominalverteilung. Dabei wird von der Häufigkeit ausgewählter Probleme eines Pb abstrahiert. Die Erprobung des Verfahrens wurde an 211 Inhaftierten einer Jugendstrafanstalt als potentieller Klienten-Population vorgenommen. Als Kontrollgruppe dienten 207 Berufsschüler vergleichbaren Alters. Während bei den Berufsschülern die Häufigkeit bei der Klassifikation in verschiedene TMS-Gruppen immer im zufälligen Bereich lagen, konnten bei den Delinquenten überzufällig häufig besetzte Gruppenstärken gefunden werden. In der Diskussion wurde auf den Unterschied des hier benutzten Klassifikationsverfahrens zur Konfigurations-Frequenzanalyse und zu Maßen Externaler-Internaler-Kontrolle eingegangen. Außerdem wurden Implikationen der Diagnose von Klienten-Therapiemotivation ftir die Entwicklung therapeutischer Verfahren aufgezeigt.
Children's information processing of risky choice alternatives was investigated in two studies without using verbal reports. In Study 1, the ability to integrate the probabilities and the payoffs of simple bets was examined using the rating scale methodology. Children's choices among three of those simple bets were recorded also. By cross-classifying the children's choice and rating behavior it was shown that a three-stage developmental hypothesis of decision making is not sufficient. A four-stage hypothesis is proposed. In Study 2, the influence of enlarging the presented number of alternatives from two to three and the influence of the similarity of the alternatives on children's choice probabilities was examined with those bets. Children's choice behavior was probabilistic and was influenced only by enlarging the presented number of alternatives. These results suggest that a Bayesian approach, based on two probabilistic choice models, should not be applied in order to analyze children's choice behavior. The functional measurement approach is, as was demonstrated in Study 1, a powerful implement to further the understanding of the development of decision making.
Durch multidimensional skalierte Strukturen von Persönlichkeitsprofilen wurde eine AlternativHypothese für konfigurationsfrequenzanalytisch erlangte Konfigurationen begründet. Diese Alternativ- Hypothese besagte, daß die Anti-Typus-Konfigurationen eines dreivariaten 2x2x2- Datenvektors, aber auch die Neutral-Konfigurationen lediglich Folgen der Mischverteilung der Antworten zweier latenter, den Typen-Konfigurationen zuzuordnenden Klassen darstellen. Diese Hypothese wird an einem Datensatz zur Verteilung dichotomisierter Kontrollüberzeugungen geprüft und bestätigt. Das dabei konzipierte Konfigurale Fehlermodell (KFM) wird generell zur Ergänzung von Konfigurationsfrequenzanalysen (KFA) vorgeschlagen.
Kinder aus 3 Altersgruppen und Erwachsene beurteilten die verdiente Strafe für in Geschichten dargestellte Sachschäden, die aus Versehen oder aus Wut erfolgten. In den Geschichten wurde die Schadenshöhe variiert und außerdem, ob sich der Täter entschuldigte oder nicht bzw. ob der Geschädigte von einem Dritten eine Entschädigung erhielt oder nicht. Entschuldigung und Schadenshöhe hatten altersstabile Wirkungen, Entschuldigung etwa zweimal so stark wie die Schadenshöhe. Entschuldigung und Drittentschädigung hatten etwa gleichgroße Wirkungen, außer bei den Erwachsenen, bei denen die Wirkung der Drittentschädigung etwa auf die Stärke der Schadenswirkung abnahm. Der ursprüngliche Schaden war auch bei erfolgter Entschädigung, wenngleich schwächer, wirksam. Die Wirkungen der Ersatzleistung durch den Täter auf Strafurteile waren jedoch nicht völlig durch die Wirkungen von Entschuldigung und Entschädigung, erklärbar.
No abstract available
No abstract available
No abstract available
Das Wissen um die Zeitpunkte des Eintretens von Handlungseffekten und die Re¬präsentation dieser Zeitpunkte ist unerlässlich, um adäquat mit der Umwelt inter¬agieren zu können. Der Erwerb zeitlichen Wissens im Handlungskontext sowie Ein¬flüsse auf die Repräsentation von Zeitdauern im Handlungskontext sollen in dieser Arbeit untersucht werden. Die Experimente 1-3 untersuchen den Erwerb zeitlicher Relationen im Handlungs¬kontext. In den Experimenten 1 und 2 sagen in zwei Grup-pen entweder Aktionen oder sensorische Reize Zeitpunkt und Identität eines nach¬folgenden Ereignisses voraus, auf das reagiert werden muss. Die Dauer von Zeit¬intervallen wird besser erlernt, wenn eine Aktion sie vorhersagt, als wenn ein Reiz sie vorhersagt. Die Kovariation der Aktion/des Reizes mit dem Ereignis und die damit verbundene Kovariation des Zeit¬intervalls mit dem Ereignis beeinflusst eine Reaktion auf das Ereignis nur, wenn die Auf¬gabe eine Diskrimination des Ereignisses fordert. Experiment 3 zeigt, dass der Erwerb zeitlicher Relationen im Handlungskontext auch dann nach¬zuweisen ist, wenn die exakte motorische Reaktion unabhängig von sowohl Zeitintervall als auch Identität des Ereignisses ist. Die Experimente 4-7 explorieren die Wahr¬nehmung der Dauer von Zeit-intervallen im Handlungskontext. Konkret wird dabei die Einschätzung der Dauer von Aktions-Effekt-Intervallen und von Effekten betrachtet. Unter¬suchungen zur Repräsentation von Zeitpunkten im Handlungskontext haben gezeigt, dass Aktions- und Effektzeitpunkte näher beieinander wahrgenommen werden als sie tatsächlich sind. Bisher wurde nicht überprüft, ob dementsprechend auch die Dauer eines Aktions-Effekt-Intervalls kürzer eingeschätzt wird als sie ist. Diese Lücke soll in dieser Arbeit mit Hilfe einer psycho¬physischen Methode zur Einschätzung der Dauer von Zeitintervallen geschlossen werden. Tatsächlich wird die Dauer eines Aktions-Effekt-Intervalls kürzer eingeschätzt (Experiment 4-6). Allerdings tritt diese Unter¬schätzung gleichermaßen für Aktions-Effekt-Intervalle wie für Reaktions-Effekt-Inter¬valle auf (Experiment 4). Bei der Einschätzung von Zeitpunkten werden eine passive taktile Reizung und ein folgender Reiz weiter voneinander entfernt wahrgenommen als die Zeitpunkte einer Aktion und ihres Effekts. Die Einschätzung der Zeitdauer ist da¬gegen zwischen einer Aktion und ihrem Effekt länger als zwischen taktiler Reizung und einem Reiz (Experiment 5). Die Experimente 6a-d zeigen, dass für eine kürzere Ein¬schätzung des Aktions-Effekt-Intervalls das Auftreten eines intendierten Effekts nicht notwendig ist. Stattdessen ist das Auftreten eines kausal durch die Aktion ver¬ursachten unspezifischen Effekts hinreichend. Die wahrgenommene Dauer eines 400 ms dauernden Effekts hängt dagegen von der Kontingenz seines Auftretens ab (Experi¬ment 7b), nicht aber die eines 250 ms dauernden Effekts (Experiment 7a). Die Experi¬mente 8 und 9 untersuchen den Zusammenhang von Kausalitäts- und Zeitwahrnehmung. Experiment 8 zeigt, dass Abweichungen vom erlernten Effektzeit¬punkt sowohl bei häufig verzögerten Effekten als auch bei häufig unmittelbaren Effekten erkannt werden, sich jedoch die zeitliche Auflösung unterscheidet. Dabei werden Effekte im gleichen Ausmaß als kausal verursacht wahrgenommen, in dem der Effektzeitpunkt als „wie üblich“ wahrgenommen wird. Experiment 9 untersucht, ob eine Manipulation der ange¬nommenen Anzahl von Ursachen zweier kurz nach¬einander auf¬tretender Reize einerseits und die Verursachung dieser Reize durch eine Aktion vs. den Computer anderer¬seits dazu führt, dass sie eher als gleich¬zeitig wahr¬ge¬nom¬men werden. Während die Verursachung der Reize durch eine Aktion dazu führt, dass die Reize tendenziell wahr¬scheinlicher als gleichzeitig wahr¬genommen werden, lässt sich kein Einfluss durch die Manipulation der angenommenen Anzahl von Ursachen finden. Insgesamt zeigt sich, dass zeit¬liche Relationen im Handlungskontext besonders gut erlernt werden. Darüber hinaus wird mit einer psychophysischen Methode bestätigt, dass Zeitintervalle in Handlungskontexten kürzer eingeschätzt werden als in anderen Kontexten. Verschiedene Einflüsse auf die Einschätzung der Dauer von Zeitintervallen im Handlungskontext, insbesondere Kausalität, werden näher untersucht und diskutiert.
The methodological implications of a differential psychopharmacology are discussed. It is shown that the technique of stratifying subjects with personality scores depends on one basic assumption: the personality score is not affected by the other experimental factors. Two experiments are reported in which pre- and posttest (after the experiment) scores were measured. The pre-post-differences showed themselves to be affected by the medication. It is argued that in psychopharmacological experimentation an additional step must be included. All non-treatment factors must be examined for their stability in the course of the experiment. If they are stable, usual evaluation may take place. If changes are attributable to the treatment, personality scores must be regarded as dependent variables. They have to be evaluated together with the other observables with a multivariate model. Additionally, a procedure like this yields as "experimental differential psychology" a self-reliant contribution to the problems of differential psychology.
Ziel der Untersuchung war die Prüfung der humanpsychologischen Validität von quantitativen neobehavioristischen Theorie~ über den Zusammenhang von 'Verten und Zeitspannen bis zu ihren Auszahlungen. Der sofort erforderliche Geldbetrag für den Verzicht auf eine zukünftige Geldauszahlung und der erforderliche zukünftige Geldbetrag für den Verzicht auf einen gegenwärtig verfügbaren Gcldbetrag war unter Variation der Geldbeträge und der Zeitspannen einzuschätzen. Als Ergebnis wurde varianzanalytisch unter Berücksichtigung der Utilität des Geldes eine subtraktive Beziehung zwischcn zukünftigem Geldbetrag und der Zeitspanne bis zu seiner Auszahlung bestimmt. In diese subtraktive Beziehung gingen die Geldbeträge und die Zeitspannen als Potenzfunktionen ein. Durch die Potenzfunktion der Zeit verläuft daher die Kurve des gegenwärtigen Wertes einer zukünftigen Auszahlung konkaver als die e-Funktion, so daß damit Vornahmeänderungen oder impulsive Reaktionen erklärt wer<len könnten. Die Konsequenzen der Ergebnisse für die Konzeptionen der Bedürfnisaufschub - forschung und für die Impulsivität der Extravertierten werden diskutiert.
Dükers Ergebnisse zur Wirkung von zwangsläufiger Arbeit bei wollensschwachen Vpn konnten wieder eingebracht werden. Die Variation des Versuchsgeräts ergab, daß das Gelingen dieser Untersuchungen wesentlich von der methodisch einzuführenden Unausweichlichkeit der Situation abhängt. Je weniger dies verwirklicht wird, desto geringer ist der Leistungsanstieg, um so mehr tritt die Person des Vls in den Vordergrund, um so schwerer fällt es den Vpn, die Leistungssteigerung der eigenen Person zu attribuieren. Ferner konnte gezeigt werden, daß das Schreiben von Achten in freier und zwangsläufiger Arbeit zumindest dieselbe Wirkung auf andere Leistungen hat wie das direkte üben dieser Leistungen. Offensichtlich wird mit dieser Methode eine zentrale Funktion der Leistung geübt.
Texte in drei Schriftarten (Normalschrift, Großschrift und Kleinschrift) wurden 215 Kindern der 5. Jahrgangsstufe vorgelegt mit dem Ziel, die Leistung bei der Sinnentnahme zu vergleichen. Gleichzeitig wurden von den Vpn Urteile über die Ermüdung, die Anstrengung und die Schriftschwere abgegeben. Die schlechteste Sinnentnahme-Leistung trat auf bei Texten, die nur aus Großbuchstaben bestanden. Die Urteile der Vpn deckten sich mit den Leistungen bei der Sinnentnahme. Eine Aufteilung der Vpn nach Leistungsgruppen zeigte, daß gute Leser auf die Variation der Schrift in der Leistung wie in den Urteilen ausgeprägter reagierten.
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No abstract available
Häufig tritt in der psychologischen und psychiatrischen Forschung die Frage nach dem Zusammenhang zwischen zwei oder mehreren Zeitreihen auf. übliche Kovariationsmaße versagen dabei vor allem deshalb, weil sie nicht inferentiell ausgewertet werden können. An einem Beispiel aus der Pharmakopsychologie wird ein auf Pfanzagl (1963) zurückgehendes Verfahren vorgeschlagen, das es erlaubt, voraussetzungsfrei den Zusammenhang zwischen autokorrelierten Meßwertreihen zu prüfen. Als Unabhängigkeit zweier Zeitreihen wird definiert, daß zwischen ihnen bei Erhaltung der Autokorrelation kein höherer Zusammenhang besteht als nach dem Zufall zu erwarten.
No abstract available
In an experimental analog of verbal examinations, the call-up situation, the effects of two dosages of a tranquillizing agent (lopirazepam) are compared to placebo treatment. 72 male and female, healthy, young volunteers have been randomly assigned to 12 groups of 6 subjects each. Pulse frequency and performance were registered. The results indicated differential drug effects which were interpreted according to the hypotheses of "differential effects of social stressors". If a situation was highly challenging for a subject, the application of a tranquillizer in an adequately high dosage enabled him to perform well in spite of or because of strong increases in pulse frequency.
Die Wirkungen von Entschuldigung und Dritt-Entschädigung auf Strafurteile über zwei Schadensarten
(1988)
Kinder aus 3 Altersgruppen und Erwachsene beurteilten die verdiente Strafe aufgrund von Geschichten über zwei aus Wut erfolgte Schädigungen (Sachschaden und Körperschaden). Die Geschichten informierten außerdem darüber, ob sich der Täter entschuldigte oder ob ein Dritter dem Leidtragenden eine materielle Entschädigung gab. Die Dritt-Entschädigungsinformation reduzierte die Strafurteile der Vor- und Grundschüler geringfügig weniger als die Entschuldigungsinformation. Bei Erwachsenen war der Dritt-Entschädigungseffekt jedoch erheblich geringer als der Entschuldigungseffekt. Diese Ergebnisse trafen sowohl auf das mittlere Strafurteil als auch auf den Gebrauch von Strafe zu. Nur die Erwachsenen bestraften den Körperschaden mehr als den' Sachschaden.
No abstract available
Stability and Variability in Interactive Behavior as Measured by Methods of "Speech Chronemics"
(1988)
Dyadic interaction is modelled os an adaptive process between personality of the partners involved and the characteristics of the theme. The theme structure and the principles which control the adaptation process are referred to as "syntality". The material of the studies reported are the speech signals of the verbal interaction reduced to an on-off pattern. In a first study individual speech behavior was found to remain stable in dyads even if partners changed. The second study showed the stability of the speech patterns for different interaction themes even if dyads changed. These apparently contradictory results are reconciled by introducing the concept of "adaptive stability". Individual speech behavior does not happen at a stable activity level, but is characterized by a constant relationship (" less" or "more") to the respective activity of the other partner.
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Der Schwerpunkt empirisch-psychologischer Auseinandersetzung mit der Problematik von Schulzensuren lag bei der Prüfung ihrer Testgütekriterien. Diese Arbeit befaßt sich dagegcn mit dem subjektiven Wert von Schulnoten. Vorrangige Aufgabe war bislang die Erstellung eines Meßverfahrens für den subjektiven Wert der Schulnoten. Allgemeines Kennzeichen des hier benutzten Verfahrens ist seine entsehcidungstheoretische Grundlegung und die Zielsetzung, die Ab'stände der Zensurenwerte zu definieren. Untcr Verwendung dieser Methode liegen Arbeiten von BECKER und SIEGEL [1J, SCHMIDT [6J und SCHl\'IIDT u. a. [7J vor. Den Untersuchungen ist gemeinsam, daß als Ypn mindestens 17 Jahre alte Schüler oder Studenten mitwirkten. Auch in der methodisch anders ansetzenden Arbeit von MÜLLERFOHRBRODT und DANN [5J zu diesem Problembereich stammten die Vpn aus der umschriehenen Altcrsgruppe. Übergeordnetes Ziel dieser Arbeit ist deswegen die Prüfung der Durchführbarkeit einer entscheidungstheoretischen Skalierungsmethode hei Schülern jüngeren Alters.
Durch Variation des Konfliktgehalts zwischen zwei Alternativen und damit der Begründbarkeit von Entscheidungen sollte geprüft werden, ob das Auftreten magisch-animistischer Begründungen bei Schulkindern nur Begründungsschwierigkeiten anzeigt und nicht magisch-animistisches Denken. Mit Hilfe einer erfragten Glückszahl beim Würfeln sollte außerdem die Validität des magisch-animistisehen Gehalts von derartigen Begründungen untersucht werden. Es zeigte sich bei 61 11jährigen Vpn, daß magisch-animistisch klassifizierte Antworten mit dem Konfliktgehalt der Alternativen zusammenhingen und bei eine Glückszahl besitzenden Vpn, die diese in den Entscheidungen berücksichtigen, häufiger vorkommen als bei Vpn zweier Vergleichsgruppen.
No abstract available
Materiell-reparative Handlungen wurden auf einer bipolaren Gut-Böse-Skala beurteilt, da bisherige Arbeiten zu diesem Thema unter Verwendung der unipolaren Strafe-Skala unklare Ergebnisse zeigten. 40 Erwachsene und 80 Kinder hörten 12 Geschichten über die Ruinierung von Briefmarken, in denen die Tatentstehung (Verschulden) und die Höhe der Ersatzleistung variiert wurden. Die Ergebnisse besagten im einzelnen, daß Kinder des Vor- und Grundschulalters stärker die Ersatzleistung als das Verschulden in Gut-Böse-Urteilen berücksichtigten und daß Erwachsene beide Informationen gleichstark in ihre Gut-Böse-Urteile einfließen ließen. Bei beiden Gruppen schienen Verschulden und Ersatz jedoch mit unterschiedlicher Absicherung nicht-additiv zusammenzuwirken. Die Ergebnisse enthielten eine Replikation US-amerikanischer Befunde mit der Strafe-Skala und diesem Szenario, wiesen aber darüber hinaus auf einen Entwicklungstrend in der NonAdditivität hin. Außerdem ließen sie Zweifel an der Allgemeingültigkeit von Aussagen der sozialpsychologischen Equity-Theorie aufkommen, da Schilderungen vollständiger Ersatzleistungen in keiner Gruppe unabhängig vom Verschulden beurteilt wurden.
Die Aufmerksamkeitsdefizit-/Hyperaktivitätsstörung (ADHS) zeichnet sich durch eine starke klinische Heterogenität aus, deren Ursachen bislang noch nicht völlig geklärt sind. Als erfolgversprechendes Erklärungsmodell hat sich das Endophänotypenkonzept herausgestellt, das davon ausgeht, dass unterschiedliche Dysfunktionen den vielfältigen klinischen Phänotypen der ADHS zugrunde liegen. Emotional-motivationalen Defiziten wird hierbei eine große Bedeutung beigemessen, allerdings wurden diese bislang kaum untersucht. Die wenigen vorliegenden Studien bezogen sich auf subjektive Daten und differenzierten nicht nach klinischen Subgruppen, wodurch sich heterogene Ergebnisse ergaben. Die vorliegende Arbeit hatte somit zum Ziel, einen emotional-motivationalen Endophänotyp der ADHS bei unterschiedlichen klinischen Subgruppen von ADHS-Patienten mit subjektiven und objektiven psychophysiologischen Daten zu untersuchen. Dies wurde mithilfe eines emotionalen Bilderparadigmas untersucht, bei dem neben subjektiven Bildbewertungen die affektmodulierte Startlereaktion als Valenzindikator und die elektrodermale Aktivität als Arousalindikator emotional-motivationaler Reaktivität gemessen wurden. Studie 1 (N = 325) konzentrierte sich auf die klinischen Subtypen der ADHS bei erwachsenen Patienten. Diese Studie konnte aufzeigen, dass ADHS-Patienten in Abhängigkeit vom ADHS-Subtypus Defizite in der emotional-motivationalen Reaktivität aufwiesen. Der Mischtypus und der hyperaktiv-impulsive Typus zeichneten sich durch eine verminderte Reaktivität auf positive Stimuli aus, was sich in einer reduzierten Startleinhibition widerspiegelte. Der hyperaktiv-impulsive Typus reagierte zudem vermindert auf negative Stimuli, was sich in einer verringerten Startlepotenzierung zeigte. Im Gegensatz dazu reagierte der unaufmerksame Typus vergleichbar zu Kontrollpersonen mit einer leicht geringeren Startleinhibition bei positiven Stimuli. Die besonders beeinträchtigte emotionale Reaktivität des hyperaktiv-impulsiven Typus spiegelte sich auch in einem Bias zu positiveren Bewertungen aller Bilder und einer verminderten Arousaleinschätzung negativer Stimuli bei Männern dieses Typus wider. Die ADHS-Patienten zeigten keine elektrodermalen Arousaldysfunktionen, wobei auch hier der hyperaktiv-impulsive Typus deskriptiv auffallend abgeflachte Werte in der Reaktivität auf emotionale Stimuli aufwies. Die gefundenen Dysfunktionen könnten zu hyperaktiv-impulsivem Verhalten und Sensation Seeking durch die Suche nach Verstärkern führen. Gleichzeitig könnten die Ergebnisse die starken sozialen Dysfunktionen und antisoziales Verhalten von ADHS-Patienten mit hyperaktiv-impulsiven Symptomen erklären. Zur Berücksichtigung von Entwicklungsaspekten im Endophänotypenmodell und Untersuchung des emotional-motivationalen Endophänotyps bei Kindern mit ADHS konzentrierte sich Studie 2 (N = 102) auf Jungen mit ADHS, die mit und ohne Methylphenidat untersucht wurden. Durch die zusätzliche Methylphenidatgruppe sollten die klinische Relevanz emotional-motivationaler Dysfunktionen belegt und Erkenntnisse zur Wirkweise von Methylphenidat gewonnen werden. Diese Studie konnte aufzeigen, dass sich ADHS-Kinder ohne Methylphenidat durch Hypoarousal auszeichneten, was sich in verminderten Hautleitfähigkeitsreaktionen auf die Bilder und Startletöne sowie einem verminderten tonischen Hautleitfähigkeitsniveau widerspiegelte. Diese Dysfunktionen wurden durch Methylphenidat normalisiert. Die Startledaten konnten aus methodischen Gründen die affektive Modulation bei den Kindern nicht abbilden. Diese Daten lieferten jedoch Hinweise, dass Methylphenidat die emotional-motivationale Reaktivität steigerte, da die ADHS-Kinder mit Methylphenidat eine verstärkte Startlereaktivität während der Bildbetrachtung aufwiesen. Das gefundene Hypoarousal auf Stimuli könnte dazu führen, dass vermindert auf Umweltreize und auch auf Belohnung und Bestrafung reagiert wird. Dies könnte soziale Dysfunktionen und externalisierendes Verhalten nach sich ziehen. Hyperaktiv-impulsives Verhalten und Sensation Seeking könnten kompensatorisch zur Anhebung des Arousals resultieren. Unaufmerksamkeit könnte durch einen suboptimalen Aktiviertheitsgrad bedingt sein. Methylphenidat könnte durch eine Steigerung des Arousals und die Verstärkung der emotionalen Reaktivität diesen Symptomen entgegenwirken. Die vorliegende Arbeit konnte somit als erste einen emotional-motivationalen Endophänotyp der ADHS unter Berücksichtigung valenz- und arousalbezogener Maße bei unterschiedlichen klinischen Subgruppen mit objektiven psychophysiologischen Parametern aufzeigen. Die Normalisierung des Hypoarousals von der Kindheit zum Erwachsenenalter könnte mit der Veränderung der ADHS-Symptome über die Entwicklung zusammenhängen. Die weitere Erforschung des Endophänotypenmodells der ADHS ist eine wichtige Aufgabe für die Zukunft. Die vorliegende Arbeit versuchte, hierzu einen Beitrag zu leisten.
Frühere Untersuchungen zum Entscheidungsverhalten von Kindern lassen zwei Interpretationen sogenannter lagebedingter Wahlen zu. Entscheidungen von 8- bis 14jährigen Schülern zeigten, daß sich lagebedingte Wahlen als orientiert am Erwartungsmaximum bezeichnen lassen. Die Beziehung zwischen Orientierung am Erwartungsmaximum und den Variablen Alter, Schulzugehörigkeit und Vorerfahrung erwies sich als positiv. Weiterhin konnte die Abhängigkeit der Wahlhäufigkeit des Erwartungsmaximums von der Hervorgehobenheit des Erwartungsmaximums nachgewiesen werden. Die Gültigkeit des objektiven Erwartungsmaximierungsmodells mußte aber wegen verschiedener Befunde eingeschränkt werden.