Development and validation of the Emotional Climate Change Stories (ECCS) stimuli set.

Climate change is widely recognised as an urgent issue, and the number of people concerned about it is increasing. While emotions are among the strongest predictors of behaviour change in the face of climate change, researchers have only recently begun to investigate this topic experimentally. This may be due to the lack of standardised, validated stimuli that would make studying such a topic in experimental settings possible.

Rats respond to aversive emotional arousal of human handlers with the activation of the basolateral and central amygdala.

Reading danger signals may save an animal's life, and learning about threats from others allows avoiding first-hand aversive and often fatal experiences. Fear expressed by other individuals, including those belonging to other species, may indicate the presence of a threat in the environment and is an important social cue. Humans and other animals respond to conspecifics' fear with increased activity of the amygdala, the brain structure crucial for detecting threats and mounting an appropriate response to them.

Improved attention and performance monitoring in high procrastinating students after positive relative to negative norm-referenced feedback.

Procrastination is an irrational delay of task completion. Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals who often procrastinate present deficits in attentional control and performance monitoring and that these dysfunctions might be differentially manifested depending on the motivational context. Building upon these results, the present event-related potential (ERP) study aimed to investigate the impact of norm-referenced feedback on executive functions among students with high (HP; N = 75) or low (LP; N = 77) procrastination levels.

Learning about threat from friends and strangers is equally effective: An fMRI study on observational fear conditioning.

Humans often benefit from social cues when learning about the world. For instance, learning about threats from others can save the individual from dangerous first-hand experiences. Familiarity is believed to increase the effectiveness of social learning, but it is not clear whether it plays a role in learning about threats.

Self-regulation and learning from failures: Probabilistic reversal learning task reveals lower flexibility persisting after punishment in procrastinators.

Procrastination is a self-regulation failure in which people irrationally delay intended actions which leads to lower performance, satisfaction from achievements, and quality of life. Trait procrastination is estimated to affect 15% to 20% of the total population, and previous studies have shown procrastination to be related to impulsivity, emotion dysregulation, and executive dysfunctions, making it a good nonclinical example of a self-regulation disorder. Our previous fMRI results revealed impaired error processing (lower error-related activity of the anterior cingulate cortex) and lack of ability to intensify executive-control during the punishment context (no increase in activity in prefrontal regions) in procrastinators.

Kidney transplantation and action-intentional improvements: Evidence from an ERP study.

Reaction slowing observed in dialyzed patients results from deficits in initiating and sustaining motor response mobilization. The present study aimed at investigating whether these deficits are reversible following successful kidney transplantation. To achieve this goal, behavioral and electrophysiological (EEG) data were assessed from healthy control participants as well as kidney transplant and dialyzed patients performing a series of reaction time tasks.

Decreased preparatory activation and inattention to cues suggest lower activation of proactive cognitive control among high procrastinating students.

Procrastination is a voluntary delay in completing an important task while being aware that this behavior may lead to negative outcomes. It has been shown that an increased tendency to procrastinate is associated with deficits in some aspects of cognitive control. However, none of the previous studies investigated these dysfunctions through the lenses of the Dual Mechanisms Framework, which differentiates proactive and reactive modes of control.

Brain potentials reveal reduced attention and error-processing during a monetary Go/No-Go task in procrastination.

Procrastination is a self-regulatory problem of voluntarily and destructively delaying intended and necessary or personally important tasks. Previous studies showed that procrastination is associated with executive dysfunctions that seem to be particularly strong in punishing contexts. In the present event-related potential (ERP) study a monetary version of the parametric Go/No-Go task was performed by high and low academic procrastinators to verify the influence of motivational context (reward vs.

Observational learning of fear in real time procedure.

Learning to avoid threats often occurs by observing others. Most previous research on observational fear learning (OFL) in humans has used pre-recorded standardized video of an actor and thus lacked ecological validity. Here, we aimed to enhance ecological validity of the OFL by engaging participants in a real-time observational procedure (35 pairs of healthy male friends, age 18-27).

Attenuated brain activity during error processing and punishment anticipation in procrastination - a monetary Go/No-go fMRI study.

Procrastination is a self-regulatory failure in which people voluntarily but irrationally delay important tasks. Trait procrastination is estimated to affect 15-20% of the total population and leads to a significant decrease in performance, satisfaction with achievements, and quality of life. Procrastination is related to impulsivity and reduced executive control, especially in the domain of inhibition.

Nencki Affective Picture System: Cross-Cultural Study in Europe and Iran.

Although emotions have been assumed conventionally to be universal, recent studies have suggested that various aspects of emotions may be mediated by cultural background. The purpose of our research was to test these contradictory views, in the case of the subjective evaluation of visual affective stimuli. We also sought to validate the recently introduced Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) database on a different cultural group.

Arousal Rather than Basic Emotions Influence Long-Term Recognition Memory in Humans.

Emotion can influence various cognitive processes, however its impact on memory has been traditionally studied over relatively short retention periods and in line with dimensional models of affect. The present study aimed to investigate emotional effects on long-term recognition memory according to a combined framework of affective dimensions and basic emotions. Images selected from the Nencki Affective Picture System were rated on the scale of affective dimensions and basic emotions.

The Set of Fear Inducing Pictures (SFIP): Development and validation in fearful and nonfearful individuals.

Emotionally charged pictorial materials are frequently used in phobia research, but no existing standardized picture database is dedicated to the study of different phobias. The present work describes the results of two independent studies through which we sought to develop and validate this type of database-a Set of Fear Inducing Pictures (SFIP). In Study 1, 270 fear-relevant and 130 neutral stimuli were rated for fear, arousal, and valence by four groups of participants; small-animal (N = 34), blood/injection (N = 26), social-fearful (N = 35), and nonfearful participants (N = 22).

What Is the Effect of Basic Emotions on Directed Forgetting? Investigating the Role of Basic Emotions in Memory.

Studies presenting memory-facilitating effect of emotions typically focused on affective dimensions of arousal and valence. Little is known, however, about the extent to which stimulus-driven basic emotions could have distinct effects on memory. In the present paper we sought to examine the modulatory effect of disgust, fear, and sadness on intentional remembering and forgetting using widely used item-method directed forgetting (DF) paradigm.

Slowing with end-stage renal disease: Attentive but unprepared to act.

Dialyzed patients show longer response latencies to stimuli than healthy controls. This study was designed to learn if this abnormal latency may be related to an impairment in the networks that mediate the allocation of sensory-attention (inducing a delay in stimulus recognition-awareness) and/or an impairment of intentional motor preparation (inducing a delay in action-initiation). Dialyzed patients with end-stage renal disease and matched healthy controls were assessed using reaction time tasks from the ROtman-Baycrest Battery to Investigate Attention (ROBBIA) and event-related potentials (ERPs) to help elucidate the possible attentional and/or intentional brain mechanisms that may account for this slowing.

Neural response patterns in spider, blood-injection-injury and social fearful individuals: new insights from a simultaneous EEG/ECG-fMRI study.

In the present simultaneous EEG/ECG-fMRI study we compared the temporal and spatial characteristics of the brain responses and the cardiac activity during fear picture processing between spider, blood-injection-injury (BII) and social fearful as well as healthy (non-fearful) volunteers. All participants were presented with two neutral and six fear-related blocks of pictures: two social, two spider and two blood/injection fear blocks. In a social fear block neutral images were occasionally interspersed with photographs of angry faces and social exposure scenes.

Brain dynamics of visual attention during anticipation and encoding of threat- and safe-cues in spider-phobic individuals.

This study systematically investigated the sensitivity of the phobic attention system by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) in spider-phobic and non-phobic volunteers in a context where spider and neutral pictures were presented (phobic threat condition) and in contexts where no phobic but unpleasant and neutral or only neutral pictures were displayed (phobia-irrelevant conditions). In a between-group study, participants were assigned to phobia-irrelevant conditions either before or after the exposure to spider pictures (pre-exposure vs post-exposure participants). Additionally, each picture was preceded by a fixation cross presented in one of three different colors that were informative about the category of an upcoming picture.

Remembering the object you fear: brain potentials during recognition of spiders in spider-fearful individuals.

In the present study we investigated long-term memory for unpleasant, neutral and spider pictures in 15 spider-fearful and 15 non-fearful control individuals using behavioral and electrophysiological measures. During the initial (incidental) encoding, pictures were passively viewed in three separate blocks and were subsequently rated for valence and arousal. A recognition memory task was performed one week later in which old and new unpleasant, neutral and spider pictures were presented.

[Polish adaptation and validation of the Agoraphobic Cognitions Questionnaire and the Body Sensations Questionnaire].

Aim: The present study aimed at the adaptation and validation of two questionnaires assessing fear of bodily sensations (BSQ; suggested Polish name: Kwestionariusz Doznań Cielesnych [KDC]) and concerns specific to agoraphobics (ACQ; suggested Polish name: Kwestionariusz Myśli Towarzyszacych Agorafobii [KMTA]).

Method: The study included a total of 82 patients diagnosed with agoraphobia or panic disorder with agoraphobia according to the diagnostic criteria of the DSM-IV as well as 100 control subjects who did not show the presence of mental disorders.

Results: The results showed that both adapted questionnaires meet basic psychometric criteria.

Modulation of the ERP repetition effects during exposure to phobia-relevant and other affective pictures in spider phobia.

In the present study, dense sensor event-related potentials were measured in spider-phobic individuals and non-anxious controls during incidental encoding of phobia-relevant spider and standard neutral, unpleasant and pleasant pictures. Stimulus repetition effects were assessed by presenting each picture twice--in the first and in the second half of the session. Repeated presentation of standard pleasant, unpleasant and neutral pictures resulted in a late ERP repetition effect that was similarly pronounced in both experimental groups and for all picture categories.

Interoceptive threat leads to defensive mobilization in highly anxiety sensitive persons.

To study defensive mobilization elicited by the exposure to interoceptive arousal sensations, we exposed highly anxiety sensitive students to a symptom provocation task. Symptom reports, autonomic arousal, and the startle eyeblink response were monitored during guided hyperventilation and a recovery period in 26 highly anxiety sensitive persons and 22 controls. Normoventilation was used as a non-provocative comparison condition.

Brain dynamics in spider-phobic individuals exposed to phobia-relevant and other emotional stimuli.

Dense sensor event-related brain potentials were measured in participants with spider phobia and nonfearful controls during viewing of phobia-relevant spider and standard emotional (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral) pictures. Irrespective of the picture content, spider phobia participants responded with larger P1 amplitudes than controls, suggesting increased vigilance in this group. Furthermore, spider phobia participants showed a significantly enlarged early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) during the encoding of phobia-relevant pictures compared to nonfearful controls.

Anticipation of interoceptive threat in highly anxiety sensitive persons.

Anticipatory anxiety plays a major role in the etiology of panic disorder. Although anticipatory anxiety elicited by expectation of interoceptive cues is specifically relevant for panic patients, it has rarely been studied. Using a population analogue in high fear of such interoceptive arousal sensations (highly anxiety sensitive persons) we evaluated a new experimental paradigm to assess anticipatory anxiety during anticipation of interoceptive (somatic sensations evoked by hyperventilation) and exteroceptive (electric shock) threat.