Linking Emotional Reactivity Between Laboratory Tasks and Immersive Environments Using Behavior and Physiology.

An event or experience can induce different emotional responses between individuals, including strong variability based on task parameters or environmental context. Physiological correlates of emotional reactivity, as well as related constructs of stress and anxiety, have been found across many physiological metrics, including heart rate and brain activity. However, the interdependances and interactions across contexts and between physiological systems are not well understood.

Intra-Individual Variability in Vagal Control Is Associated With Response Inhibition Under Stress.

Dynamic intra-individual variability (IIV) in cardiac vagal control across multiple situations is believed to contribute to adaptive cognition under stress; however, a dearth of research has empirically tested this notion. To this end, we examined 25 U.S.

Different profiles of decision making and physiology under varying levels of stress in trained military personnel.

Decision making is one of the most vital processes we use every day, ranging from mundane decisions about what to eat to life-threatening choices such as how to avoid a car collision. Thus, the context in which our decisions are made is critical, and our physiology enables adaptive responses that account for how environmental stress influences our performance. The relationship between stress and decision making can additionally be affected by one's expertise in making decisions in high-threat environments, where experts can develop an adaptive response that mitigates the negative impacts of stress.

Not just scenery: viewing nature pictures improves executive attention in older adults.

Unlabelled: BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Attention Restoration Theory (Kaplan, 1995, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15, 169-182) suggests that exposure to nature improves attention. Berman, Jonides, and Kaplan (2008, Psychological Science, 19, 1207-1212) showed that simply viewing nature pictures improves executive attention in young adults. The present study is the first to investigate this Nature Effect in older adults.

Implicit sequence learning in people with Parkinson's disease.

Implicit sequence learning involves learning about dependencies in sequences of events without intent to learn or awareness of what has been learned. Sequence learning is related to striatal dopamine levels, striatal activation, and integrity of white matter connections. People with Parkinson's disease (PD) have degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons, leading to dopamine deficiency and therefore striatal deficits, and they have difficulties with sequencing, including complex language comprehension and postural stability.

Does a simultaneous memory load affect older and younger adults' implicit associative learning?

This study investigated the effects of a simultaneous memory load on implicit associative sequence learning using the Triplets Learning Task (TLT). Participants in the Simultaneous condition held a secondary task memory load during the TLT, while those in the Sequential condition also performed both tasks, but successively, rather than simultaneously. Thus, the Simultaneous condition had a memory load during the TLT, while the Sequential condition did not.

A novel psychophysical method for estimating the time course of olfactory rapid adaptation in humans.

In this presentation, we describe a novel method for estimating the onset time course of psychophysical odor adaptation in human observers. The method employs stimulus conditions derived from an analogous stimulus paradigm in audition. To test this procedure, we used liquid-dilution olfactometry to estimate 2-bottle discrimination thresholds for brief (600 ms) presentations of vanilla odor; 17 volunteers (14 females; ages 18-24) served as participants.

Discrimination of "odorless" mineral oils alone and as diluents by behaviorally trained mice.

Odorant diluents are generally chosen because of their odorless qualities, allowing them to dilute a target odorant without otherwise altering its perception. Unpublished observations from our laboratory, however, suggest that mineral oil (MO), a common diluent for oil-based odorants, may possess a distinct odor when used in the behavioral testing of mice. To test this, mice were trained to discriminate between 4 brands of MO, using a commercial, liquid-dilution olfactometer and a 2-odorant discrimination task.