Psychophysiology最新文献

Prosocial behaviors are central to individual and societal well-being. Although the relationship between effort and prosocial behavior is increasingly studied, the impact of effort-based self-interested motivation on prosocial behavior has received less attention. In the current study, we carried out two experiments to examine the effect of motivation to obtain a reward for oneself on donation behavior and brain response. We observed that individuals who accumulated more money in the effort-expenditure rewards task (EEfRT) donated a lower proportion of their earnings. The sigmoid model fitted participants' choices in the EEfRT task, and the effort-reward bias and sigma parameters negatively correlated with the amount of money donated in the donation task. Additionally, the effort-reward bias and sigma parameters negatively predicted N2 amplitude during processing of charitable donation-related information. We propose that individuals who exhibit a lower level of effort-based self-interest motivation may allocate more cognitive control or attentional resources when processing information related to charitable donations. Our work adds weight to understanding the relationship between effort-based self-interest motivation and prosocial behavior and provides electrophysiological evidence.

With the discovery of event-related potentials elicited by errors more than 30 years ago, a new avenue of research on performance monitoring, cognitive control, and decision making emerged. Since then, the field has developed and expanded fulminantly. After a brief overview on the EEG correlates of performance monitoring, this article reviews recent advancements based on single-trial analyses using independent component analysis, multiple regression, and multivariate pattern classification. Given the close interconnection between performance monitoring and reinforcement learning, computational modeling and model-based EEG analyses have made a particularly strong impact. The reviewed findings demonstrate that error- and feedback-related EEG dynamics represent variables reflecting how performance-monitoring signals are weighted and transformed into an adaptation signal that guides future decisions and actions. The model-based single-trial analysis approach goes far beyond conventional peak-and-trough analyses of event-related potentials and enables testing mechanistic theories of performance monitoring, cognitive control, and decision making.

Outdoor adventure challenges are commonly used to enhance self-efficacy, but the physiological mechanisms involved remain unexplored. Additionally, while studies have documented the influence of self-efficacy on stress management, general self-efficacy has yet to be fully understood in the context of cardiovascular stress reactivity (CVR). This study investigated the influence of self-efficacy beliefs on CVR during acute psychological stress tasks. Additionally, it explored whether CVR serves as a novel mechanism underlying the outcomes of outdoor adventure challenges. As part of a wider randomized controlled trial, participants (n = 55) were invited to complete a laboratory session to assess CVR to an active (paced auditory serial addition test (PASAT)) and a passive (cold pressor test (CPT)) stress task. Randomized participants (n = 33) to the experimental condition also engaged in a high ropes challenge course after the laboratory session. It was found that greater self-reported self-efficacy was associated with larger CVR during the CPT and positively associated with perceived engagement and performance during the PASAT. Secondly, participants reporting positive change in self-efficacy post-intervention were associated with greater CVR and greater CVR was associated with higher ratings of intervention engagement and perceived challenge. This study provides preliminary evidence suggesting that greater efficacy beliefs may heighten CVR to passive acute psychological stressors. Habitual stress reactivity may represent a novel mechanism involved in outdoor and adventure-based interventions. Future research should continue to explore the impact of psychological variables on stress physiology and examine CVR as a potential mechanism in adventure experiences.

While previous research has investigated the effects of emotional videos on peripheral physiological measures and conscious experience, this study extends the research to include electrocortical measures, specifically the steady-state visual-evoked potential (ssVEP). A carefully curated set of 45 videos, designed to represent a wide range of emotional and neutral content, were presented with a flickering border. The videos featured a continuous single-shot perspective, natural soundtrack, and excluded elements associated with professional films, to enhance realism. The results demonstrate a consistent reduction in ssVEP amplitude during emotional videos which strongly correlates with the rated emotional intensity of the clips. This suggests that narrative audiovisual stimuli have the potential to track dynamic emotional processing in the cortex, providing new avenues for research in affective neuroscience. The findings highlight the potential of using realistic video stimuli to investigate how the human brain processes emotional events in a paradigm that increases ecological validity. Future studies can further develop this paradigm by expanding the video set, targeting specific cortical networks, and manipulating narrative predictability. Overall, this study establishes a foundation for investigating emotional perception using realistic video stimuli and has the potential to expand our understanding of real-world emotional processing in the human brain.

The experience of empathy for pain is underpinned by sensorimotor and affective dimensions which, although interconnected, are at least in part behaviorally and neurally distinct. Spinal cord injuries (SCI) induce a massive, below-lesion level, sensorimotor body-brain disconnection. This condition may make it possible to test whether sensorimotor deprivation alters specific dimensions of empathic reactivity to observed pain. To explore this issue, we asked SCI people with paraplegia and healthy controls to observe videos of painful or neutral stimuli administered to a hand (intact) or a foot (deafferented). The stimuli were displayed by means of a virtual reality set-up and seen from a first person (1PP) or third person (3PP) visual perspective. A number of measures were recorded ranging from explicit behaviors like explicit verbal reports on the videos, to implicit measures of muscular activity (like EMG from the corrugator and zygomatic muscles that may represent a proxy of sensorimotor empathy) and of autonomic reactivity (like the electrodermal response and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia that may represent a general proxy of affective empathy). While no across group differences in explicit verbal reports about the pain stimuli were found, SCI people exhibited reduced facial muscle reactivity to the stimuli applied to the foot (but not the hand) seen from the 1PP. Tellingly, the corrugator activity correlated with SCI participants' neuropathic pain. There were no across group differences in autonomic reactivity suggesting that SCI lesions may affect sensorimotor dimensions connected to empathy for pain.

Teleological reasoning is the tendency for humans to see purpose and intentionality in natural phenomena when there is none. In this study, we assess three competing theories on how bias in reasoning arises by examining performance on a teleological reasoning task while measuring pupil size and response times. We replicate that humans (N = 45) are prone to accept false teleological explanations. Further, we show that errors on the teleological reasoning task are associated with slower response times, smaller baseline pupil size, and larger pupil dilations. The results are in line with the single-process extensive integration account and directly oppose predictions from dual-processing accounts. Lastly, by modeling responses with a drift-diffusion model, we find that larger baseline pupil size is associated with lower decision threshold and higher drift rate, whereas larger pupil dilations are associated with higher decision threshold and lower drift rate. The results highlight the role of neural gain and the Locus Coeruleus-Norepinephrine system in modulating evidence integration and bias in reasoning. Thus, teleological reasoning and susceptibility to bias likely arise due to extensive processing rather than through fast and effortless processing.

Recent studies suggest that the EEG aperiodic exponent (often represented as a slope in log-log space) is sensitive to individual differences in momentary cognitive skills such as selective attention and information processing speed. However, findings are mixed, and most of the studies have focused on just a narrow range of cognitive domains. This study used an archival dataset to help clarify associations between resting aperiodic features and broad domains of cognitive ability, which vary in their demands on momentary processing. Undergraduates (N = 166) of age 18-52 years completed a resting EEG session as well as a standardized, individually administered assessment of cognitive ability that included measures of processing speed, working memory, and higher-order visuospatial and verbal skills. A subsample (n = 110) also completed a computerized reaction time task with three difficulty levels. Data reduction analyses revealed strong correlations between the aperiodic offset and slope across electrodes, and a single component accounted for ~60% of variance in slopes across the scalp, in both eyes-closed and eyes-open conditions. Structural equation models did not support relations between the slope and specific domains tapping momentary processes. However, secondary analyses indicated that the eyes-open slope was related to higher overall performance, as represented by a single general ability factor. A latent reaction time variable was significantly inversely related to both eyes-closed and eyes-open resting exponents, such that faster reaction times were associated with steeper slopes. These findings support and help clarify the relation of the resting EEG exponent to individual differences in cognitive skills.

The current registered report focused on the temporal dynamics of the relationship between expectancy and attention toward threat, to better understand the mechanisms underlying the prioritization of threat detection over expectancy. In the current event-related potentials experiment, a-priori expectancy was manipulated, and attention bias was measured, using a well-validated paradigm. A visual search array was presented, with one of two targets: spiders (threatening) or birds (neutral). A verbal cue stating the likelihood of encountering a target preceded the array, creating congruent and incongruent trials. Following cue presentation, preparatory processes were examined using the contingent negative variation (CNV) component. Following target presentation, two components were measured: early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP), reflecting early and late stages of natural selective attention toward emotional stimuli, respectively. Behaviorally, spiders were found faster than birds, and congruency effects emerged for both targets. For the CNV, a non-significant trend of more negative amplitudes following spider cues emerged. As expected, EPN and LPP amplitudes were larger for spider targets compared to bird targets. Data-driven, exploratory, topographical analyses revealed different patterns of activation for bird cues compared to spider cues. Furthermore, 400-500 ms post-target, a congruency effect was revealed only for bird targets. Together, these results demonstrate that while expectancy for spider appearance is evident in differential neural preparation, the actual appearance of spider target overrides this expectancy effect and only in later stages of processing does the cueing effect come again into play.

Filtering plays an essential role in event-related potential (ERP) research, but filter settings are usually chosen on the basis of historical precedent, lab lore, or informal analyses. This reflects, in part, the lack of a well-reasoned, easily implemented method for identifying the optimal filter settings for a given type of ERP data. To fill this gap, we developed an approach that involves finding the filter settings that maximize the signal-to-noise ratio for a specific amplitude score (or minimizes the noise for a latency score) while minimizing waveform distortion. The signal is estimated by obtaining the amplitude score from the grand average ERP waveform (usually a difference waveform). The noise is estimated using the standardized measurement error of the single-subject scores. Waveform distortion is estimated by passing noise-free simulated data through the filters. This approach allows researchers to determine the most appropriate filter settings for their specific scoring methods, experimental designs, subject populations, recording setups, and scientific questions. We have provided a set of tools in ERPLAB Toolbox to make it easy for researchers to implement this approach with their own data.

The visual system has long been considered equivalent across hemispheres. However, an increasing amount of data shows that functional differences may exist in this regard. We therefore tried to characterize the emergence of visual perception and the spatiotemporal dynamics resulting from the stimulation of visual cortices in order to detect possible interhemispheric asymmetries. Eighteen participants were tested. Each of them received 360 transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulses at phosphene threshold intensity over left and right early visual areas while electroencephalography was being recorded. After each single pulse, participants had to report the presence or absence of a phosphene. Local mean field power analysis of TMS-evoked potentials showed an effect of both site (left vs. right TMS) of stimulation and hemisphere (ipsilateral vs. contralateral to the TMS): while right TMS determined early stronger activations, left TMS determined later stronger activity in contralateral electrodes. The interhemispheric signal propagation index revealed differences in how TMS-evoked activity spreads: left TMS-induced activity diffused contralaterally more than right stimulation. With regard to phosphenes perception, distinct electrophysiological patterns were found to reflect similar perceptual experiences: left TMS-evoked phosphenes are associated with early occipito-parietal and frontal activity followed by late central activity; right TMS-evoked phosphenes determine only late, fronto-central, and parietal activations. Our results show that left and right occipital TMS elicits differential electrophysiological patterns in the brain, both per se and as a function of phosphene perception. These distinct activation patterns may suggest a different role of the two hemispheres in processing visual information and giving rise to perception.