Evaluation of an eye tracking setup for studying visual attention in face-to-face conversations.

Many eye tracking studies use facial stimuli presented on a display to investigate attentional processing of social stimuli. To introduce a more realistic approach that allows interaction between two real people, we evaluated a new eye tracking setup in three independent studies in terms of data quality, short-term reliability and feasibility. Study 1 measured the robustness, precision and accuracy for calibration stimuli compared to a classical display-based setup.

Different effects of spatial separation in action and perception.

Spatial distance of response keys has been shown to have an effect on nonspatial tasks in that performance improved if the spatial distance increased. Comparably, spatial distance of stimulus features has been shown to have a performance-improving effect in a (partly) spatial task. Here, we combined these two findings in the same task to test for the commonality of the effect of stimulus distance and the effect of response distance.

Shedding light on the prefrontal correlates of mental workload in simulated driving: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study.

Optimal mental workload plays a key role in driving performance. Thus, driver-assisting systems that automatically adapt to a drivers current mental workload via brain-computer interfacing might greatly contribute to traffic safety. To design economic brain computer interfaces that do not compromise driver comfort, it is necessary to identify brain areas that are most sensitive to mental workload changes.

Older adults show a higher heartbeat-evoked potential than young adults and a negative association with everyday metacognition.

The ability to monitor internal bodily and cognitive processes is essential for everyday functioning and independence in older adults, because it allows for adjustments when lapses in performance are imminent. In the present study, age-related morphological changes to the heartbeat evoked potential (HEP), an electrophysiological cortical representation of cardiac signals, and its association with self-reported everyday cognition were examined. A community sample of older adults showed an increased HEP amplitude, which could reflect a stronger representation of early stages of cardiac interoception, and a more anterior scalp distribution of the HEP, suggesting a more widespread configuration of the underlying neural generators, compared to a group of young adults.

Dual-tDCS over the right prefrontal cortex does not modulate stop-signal task performance.

Stopping an already initiated action is crucial for human everyday behavior and empirical evidence points toward the prefrontal cortex playing a key role in response inhibition. Two regions that have been consistently implicated in response inhibition are the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the more superior region of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The present study targets both regions with non-invasive brain stimulation to investigate their role in response inhibition.

Genome-wide linkage analysis of families with primary hyperhidrosis.

Primary focal hyperhidrosis (PFH, OMIM %144110) is a genetically influenced condition characterised by excessive sweating. Prevalence varies between 1.0-6.

Personal Trust and System Trust in the Sharing Economy: A Comparison of Community- and Platform-Based Models.

Currently, new business models created in the sharing economy differ considerably and they differ in the formation of trust as well. If and how trust can be created is shown by a comparison of two examples which diverge in their founding philosophy. The chosen example of community-based economy, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), no longer trusts the capitalist system and therefore distances itself and creates its own environment including a new business model.

Adaptive Memory: Independent Effects of Survival Processing and Reward Motivation on Memory.

Humans preferentially remember information processed for their survival relevance, a memorial benefit known as the . Memory is also biased towards information associated with the prospect of reward. Given the adaptiveness of these effects, they may depend on similar mechanisms.

Disorganized attachment in adolescence: Emotional and physiological dysregulation during the Friends and Family Interview and a conflict interaction.

The current study examined the effects of attachment on autonomy, relatedness, and emotion regulation during an attachment interview (Friends and Family Interview; FFI) and a Parent×Child Conflict interaction (Family Interaction Task; FIT) in 49 adolescents (11 to 17 years old). Disorganized adolescents displayed behaviors promoting autonomy and relatedness less frequently and at a lower extent than organized ones in the FIT with mothers but not with fathers. Disorganized adolescents also showed a steeper decrease in heart rate variability (HRV) than organized ones, during both the FFI and the FITs.

Brightness versus darkness: The influence of stimulus intensity on the distractor-response binding effect.

The intensity of a stimulus has been found to have a distinct impact upon response processes (e.g., response speed, response force, & response selection).

The effects of acute stress and stress hormones on social cognition and behavior: Current state of research and future directions.

Stress encompasses profound psychological and physiological changes that are observable on all levels, from cellular mechanisms, humoral changes, and brain activation to subjective experience and behavior. While the impact of stress on health has already been studied for decades, a more recent field of research has revealed effects of stress on human social cognition and behavior. Initial studies have attempted to elucidate the underlying biological mechanisms of these stress-induced effects by measuring physiological responses or by using pharmacological approaches.

When self-prioritization crosses the senses: Crossmodal self-prioritization demonstrated between vision and touch.

The investigation of self-prioritization via a simple matching paradigm represents a new way of enhancing our knowledge about the processing of self-relevant content and also increases our understanding of the self-concept itself. By associating formerly neutral material with the self, and assessing the resulting prioritization of these newly formed self-associations, conclusions can be drawn concerning the effects of self-relevance without the burden of highly overlearned materials such as one's own name. This approach was used to gain further insights into the structure and complexity of self-associations: a tactile pattern was associated with the self and thereafter, the prioritization of the exact same visual pattern was assessed - enabling the investigation of crossmodal self-associations.

Failure to modulate reward prediction errors in declarative learning with theta (6 Hz) frequency transcranial alternating current stimulation.

Recent evidence suggests that reward prediction errors (RPEs) play an important role in declarative learning, but its neurophysiological mechanism remains unclear. Here, we tested the hypothesis that RPEs modulate declarative learning via theta-frequency oscillations, which have been related to memory encoding in prior work. For that purpose, we examined the interaction between RPE and transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS) in declarative learning.

Liked for their looks: evaluative conditioning and the generalisation of conditioned attitudes in early childhood.

Recent studies explored whether attitude formation in early childhood can be explained in terms of evaluative conditioning (EC), the change in liking that is due to the pairing of stimuli. This study sought to replicate and extend this line of research by investigating whether and under what conditions preschool children generalise EC effects from conditioned to novel stimuli. Specifically, two experiments were conducted in which 3- to 6-year-old children ( = 139) observed the pairing of two cartoon characters with two positive and negative images.

Borderline personality disorder classification based on brain network measures during emotion regulation.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by an increased emotional sensitivity and dysfunctional capacity to regulate emotions. While amygdala and prefrontal cortex interactions are regarded as the critical neural mechanisms underlying these problems, the empirical evidence hereof is inconsistent. In the current study, we aimed to systematically test different properties of brain connectivity and evaluate the predictive power to detect borderline personality disorder.

The influence of extra-therapeutic social support on the association between therapeutic bond and treatment outcome.

Both good therapeutic bond as well as extra-therapeutic social support seem to enhance treatment outcomes. Some features of the therapeutic bond are similar to experiences in extra-therapeutic relationships (e.g.

How relative deprivation increases aggressive behavior: Exploring the moderating roles of resource scarcity, deprivation intensity, and sanctions in a game task.

The present work investigated the influence of experimentally manipulated relative deprivation (RD) on aggressive behavior in a game context. Participants experienced personal RD as the difference between own rewards and the rewards of a fictitious other player. Going beyond previous research, three yet-unexplored moderators of the RD-aggression link were experimentally tested: In Experiment 1 (N = 157), we tested the effect of the scarcity of resources one is deprived of, and the intensity of the RD experience in terms of the magnitude of the disadvantaged comparison.

Prediction of factors affecting activation of soil erosion by mathematical modeling at pedon scale under laboratory conditions.

Soil degradation due to erosion is a significant worldwide problem at different spatial (from pedon to watershed) and temporal scales. All stages and factors in the erosion process must be detected and evaluated to reduce this environmental issue and protect existing fertile soils and natural ecosystems. Laboratory studies using rainfall simulators allow single factors and interactive effects to be investigated under controlled conditions during extreme rainfall events.

Effects of Emotional Music on Facial Emotion Recognition in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Impaired facial emotion recognition in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is in contrast to their intact emotional music recognition. This study tested whether emotion congruent music enhances facial emotion recognition. Accuracy and reaction times were assessed for 19 children with ASD and 31 controls in a recognition task with angry, happy, or sad faces.

Interpersonal clarification effects in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for depression and how they are moderated by the therapeutic alliance.

Background: Although a wide body of research links depression to interpersonal deficits, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), considered the gold standard in the treatment of this condition, has not been developed to specifically address interpersonal difficulties. However, cognitive changes on a relational level occurring during CBT might play an important role in the treatment of depression. Interpersonal clarification refers to the process of better understanding the nature of one's interpersonal patterns during therapy.

Frontal ERP slow waves during memory encoding are associated with affective attitude formation.

A neutral stimulus can acquire valence by being paired with a valenced stimulus, leading to a new attitude towards the previously neutral stimulus. There is, however, considerable debate about the mechanisms that underlie this process of affective attitude formation. Therefore, in the present study we employed a single-trial, intentional learning procedure that paired neutral with valenced words while recording ERP activity, and measured subsequent memory and subsequent attitudes for the pre-experimentally neutral words immediately following learning.

Effects of nightmares on the cortisol awakening response: An ambulatory assessment pilot study.

Previous studies have reported an association between sleep-related factors such as sleep duration, sleep quality and time of awakening with the cortisol awakening response (CAR). Preliminary evidence suggests that frequent nightmares are associated with a blunted CAR. In the present pilot study we investigated the effect of acute nightmares on the CAR and the cortisol profile of the subsequent day using a within-subject ambulatory assessment study design.

Finding Possible Weakness in the Runoff Simulation Experiments to Assess Rill Erosion Changes without Non-Intermittent Surveying Capabilities.

The Terrestrial Photogrammetry Scanner (TEPHOS) offers the possibility to precisely monitor linear erosion features using the Structure from Motion (SfM) technique. This is a static, multi-camera array and dynamically moves the digital videoframe camera designed to obtain 3-D models of rills before and after the runoff experiments. The main goals were to (1) obtain better insight into the rills; (2) reduce the technical gaps generated during the runoff experiments using only one camera; (3) enable the visual location of eroded, transported and accumulated material.

Suggested deafness during hypnosis and simulation of hypnosis compared to a distraction and control condition: A study on subjective experience and cortical brain responses.

Hypnosis is a powerful tool to affect the processing and perception of stimuli. Here, we investigated the effects of hypnosis on the processing of auditory stimuli, the time course of event-related-potentials (ERP; N1 and P3b amplitudes) and the activity of cortical sources of the P3b component. Forty-eight participants completed an auditory oddball paradigm composed of standard, distractor, and target stimuli during a hypnosis (HYP), a simulation of hypnosis (SIM), a distraction (DIS), and a control (CON) condition.