People with higher interoceptive sensitivity are more altruistic, but improving interoception does not increase altruism.

People consistently show preferences and behaviors that benefit others at a cost to themselves, a phenomenon termed altruism. We investigated if perception of one's body signals - interoception - may be underlying such behaviors. We tested if participants' sensitivity to their own heartbeat predicted their decision on a choice between self-interest and altruism, and if improving this sensitivity through training would make participants more altruistic.

Reaching back: the relative strength of the retroactive emotional attentional blink.

Visual stimuli with emotional content appearing in close temporal proximity either before or after a target stimulus can hinder conscious perceptual processing of the target via an emotional attentional blink (EAB). This occurs for targets that appear after the emotional stimulus (forward EAB) and for those appearing before the emotional stimulus (retroactive EAB). Additionally, the traditional attentional blink (AB) occurs because detection of any target hinders detection of a subsequent target.

Attentional modulation of the carry over of eye-movements between tasks.

Task demands that influence scanning behaviour in one task can cause that behaviour to persist to a second unrelated task (carry over). This can also affect performance on a second task (e.g.

Attentional capture by emotional stimuli is preserved in patients with amygdala lesions.

The importance of cues signaling reward, threat or danger would suggest that they receive processing privileges in the neural systems underlying perception and attention. Previous research has documented enhanced processing of motivationally salient cues, and has pointed to the amygdala as a candidate neural structure underlying the enhancements. In the current study, we examined whether the amygdala was necessary for this emotional modulation of attention to occur.

Reprint of: Fear-enhanced visual search persists after amygdala lesions.

Previous research has indicated that the amygdala is a critical neural substrate of the emotional modulation of attention. However, a recent case study suggests that the amygdala may not be essential for all types of emotion-attention interactions. In order to test this hypothesis, we assessed the visual-search performance of patients with unilateral amygdala lesions, matched controls, and medication-matched epilepsy patients with intact amygdalae.

Fear-enhanced visual search persists after amygdala lesions.

Previous research has indicated that the amygdala is a critical neural substrate of the emotional modulation of attention. However, a recent case study suggests that the amygdala may not be essential for all types of emotion-attention interactions. In order to test this hypothesis, we assessed the visual-search performance of patients with unilateral amygdala lesions, matched controls, and medication-matched epilepsy patients with intact amygdalae.

All I saw was the cake. Hunger effects on attentional capture by visual food cues.

While effects of hunger on motivation and food reward value are well-established, far less is known about the effects of hunger on cognitive processes. Here, we deployed the emotional blink of attention paradigm to investigate the impact of visual food cues on attentional capture under conditions of hunger and satiety. Participants were asked to detect targets which appeared in a rapid visual stream after different types of task irrelevant distractors.

Neural correlates of affective influence on choice.

Making the right choice depends crucially on the accurate valuation of the available options in the light of current needs and goals of an individual. Thus, the valuation of identical options can vary considerably with motivational context. The present study investigated the neural structures underlying context dependent evaluation.

Neural correlates of appetite and hunger-related evaluative judgments.

How much we desire a meal depends on both the constituent foods and how hungry we are, though not every meal becomes more desirable with increasing hunger. The brain therefore needs to be able to integrate hunger and meal properties to compute the correct incentive value of a meal. The present study investigated the functional role of the amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex in mediating hunger and dish attractiveness.