Objective: Sleep deprivation may alter sensory integration. The research question was whether 24 and 36 h of sleep deprivation affect visual dependency (the weighting of visual information for vertical perception). Method: Twenty healthy participants (M-age 25.3 years) were tested after a normal night of sleep and at 24 and 36 h of sleep deprivation. Participants sat in a dark room and rotated an illuminated projected rod to their perceived vertical without visual references (subjective visual vertical) and with a clockwise or counterclockwise frame (visual dependency). Subjective scores of sleepiness were taken. Results: Visual dependency was elevated at 24 h of sleep deprivation compared to the control for counterclockwise frame tilts (p = .001). Subjective sleepiness increased from 0.4 in the control to 5.4 at 24 h of sleep deprivation and 6.7 at 36 h of sleep deprivation (p < .001 vs. control). Discussion: There was an increase in visual dependency in the rod and frame test at 24 h of sleep deprivation but not at 36 h. This study suggests sensory reweighting to compensate for a night of sleep deprivation.
We investigated motor effector differences in N2 and P3 components of event-related potentials (ERPs) during a visual Go/No-go task requiring button-press responses with the hands and feet. Twenty-three healthy right-handed and right-footed participants (M-age: 22.3 +/- 1.4 years) performed the task using their right hand, left hand, right foot, and left foot. We also evaluated the relationships between the response time (RT) and amplitudes and latencies of N2 and P3 components. Behavioral results showed significantly longer RTs and greater response variability for foot responses than for hand responses. ERP analysis revealed significantly larger amplitudes of Go-N2 under lower-limb conditions, whereas no significant effector-related differences were observed in No-go-N2 amplitudes. P3 amplitudes were significantly larger for upper limbs during both Go and No-go trials, and a trend toward shorter P3 latencies was observed for lower-limb responses. The scalp distributions of Go-P3 amplitudes differed between upper- and lower-limb conditions. These findings suggest that certain aspects of neural activity related to motor execution and inhibitory control are shared between upper- and lower-limb conditions, whereas other aspects are considered to be modulated by the specific motor effector involved.
: Introduction: Moral persuasion engages cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal regulation processes. While autonomic synchrony has been linked to cooperation, empathy and mutual influence, its role in moral persuasion remains underexplored. This study examines how physiological synchrony - measured via heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and skin conductance level (SCL) - is associated with the subjective perception of opinion change within interacting pairs. Methods: Thirty young adults (15 unacquainted same-sex pairs, mean age = 23.6) participated in a structured, realistic moral persuasion task while their autonomic physiological signals were recorded. Dissimilarity indices (Euclidean distance) were computed for HR, HRV, and SCL within each pair. Dyads were grouped according to Self-evaluation of Opinion Change (SOC) concordance: higher SOC (both members reported relatively higher opinion change), mixed SOC (only one reporting opinion change), and lower SOC (both reporting no opinion change). Results: HRV dissimilarity significantly differed by SOC group: mixed SOC pairs showed significantly higher HRV dissimilarity than high SOC pairs, whereas other physiological signals did not show different profiles. Discussion: Preliminary findings suggest that convergence in cardiac autonomic activity during the persuasive exchange varies as a function of the concordance of perceived opinion change. This pattern may reflect that interpersonal dynamics contribute to shaping moral interactions and autonomic co-regulation, consistent with perspectives emphasizing the social and embodied nature of moral decision-making.
: Determining the relationship between psychological states and physiological processes requires accurate measurement of physiological signals associated with the autonomic nervous system's activity, such as electrocardiograms. Electrocardiogram-derived measures can be associated with changes in emotional or affective states, but only if they are recorded with sufficient quality. Poor signal quality can distort the waveform and undermine the reliability of any downstream analyses, underscoring the need for robust signal quality assessment. There is currently no universally applicable electrocardiogram signal quality assessment adaptable across diverse psychophysiological datasets without extensive manual tuning. Current heuristic or machine learning-based approaches are tailored to individual datasets and require large training datasets, consisting of several hours of annotated electrocardiogram recordings containing real-world quality issues. Creating these datasets is slow and costly because domain experts must accurately annotate waveform distortions, so high-quality datasets remain scarce. This work contributes a novel approach that utilizes adaptive quality checks based on each recording's intrinsic statistical properties to create a quality assessment that does not rely on dataset-specific tuning. While minor adjustments (e.g., correlation thresholds, lead-aggregation logic) can be made to align with different labeling standards, the approach remains robust and transferable across varied electrocardiogram signals. The limitations of existing methods are addressed by accurately assessing signal quality across varied recording conditions, devices, and populations. Results indicate near state-of-the-art performance on both controlled (91% accuracy) and ambulatory (96% accuracy) datasets, while remaining dataset agnostic. Assessments of the impact of signal quality on emotion classification reinforce that even subtle artefacts can destabilize heart rate variability features and impair model performance, highlighting the necessity of applying signal quality assessment prior to affective modeling.
: The NIMH RDoC initiative is aimed at reconceptualizing psychopathology by focusing on transdiagnostic constructs that reflect core mechanisms of disorder. Reward responsiveness is a key construct that, when impaired, is associated with a variety of mental health disorders. However, much is unknown as to how other RDoC constructs, such as threat functioning, impact reward processing. The current study aimed to examine the relatedness of threat sensitivity and reward processing in a cohort of youth, ages 16-19 (N = 152). Participants completed a battery of self-report forms, including the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS), which captures two stages of reward processing, anticipation and consumption. Objective threat response was captured using the no-predictable-unpredictable (NPU) threat paradigm and the error-related negativity (ERN). The NPU task includes anticipation of a predictable (P-) and an unpredictable (U-) electric shock. Startle eyeblink potentiation was measured as an index of aversive responding. The ERN measures neural response to errors during an electroencephalogram (EEG). Separate, exploratory hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted for reward anticipation and consumption, controlling for sex. In the consumption model, greater startle reactivity to U-threat and a more blunted ERN amplitude were uniquely related to lower levels of consummatory pleasure. In both models, there was an interaction between startle reactivity and ERN amplitude, such that at high, not low, levels of startle reactivity to U-threat, a more blunted ERN was associated with reduced anticipatory and consummatory pleasure. Taken together, startle reactivity to U-threat and ERN have a unique and interactive effect on youth hedonic capacity.
: The application of mental strategies in sports training plays a crucial role in enhancing both physiological and psychological performance. This study investigated the effects of various mental techniques, including visualization, meditation, mindfulness, breathing exercises, and goal setting, on endurance and overall physiological performance in professional athletes. The study involved 60 athletes (50% male, 50% female) aged 18-30 years (mean age: 24.5 +/- 3.2 years), all with at least 5 years of professional sports experience. Participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group (n = 30 per group). The experimental group received structured mental training in addition to standard physical training, comprising daily mindfulness meditation (20 min), visualization exercises (15 min before each workout), and breath control techniques (5 min before and after physical activity). Additionally, they participated in weekly goal-setting and self-reflection sessions (30 min) under the guidance of a sports psychologist. The intervention lasted for 12 weeks, with sessions conducted six times per week. Physiological and psychological outcomes were assessed using maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) tests, heart rate variability monitoring, lactate threshold measurement, and validated psychological scales such as the Spielberger-Hanin Anxiety Inventory and the Perceived Stress Scale. In the experimental group, VO2max increased by 15% (from 45.3 +/- 3.2 to 52.1 +/- 3.5 ml/kg/min, p < 0.05), resting heart rate decreased by 8 bpm (from 72 +/- 4 to 64 +/- 3 bpm, p < 0.05), and lactate level decreased by 20% (from 8.5 +/- 0.7 to 6.8 +/- 0.6 mmol/l, p < 0.05). Situational anxiety decreased by 25% (from 44 +/- 4 to 33 +/- 3 points, p < 0.05) and time to exhaustion increased by 30% (from 18.5 +/- 2 to 24 +/- 2.5 min, p < 0.05). Statistical analyses showed significant differences between groups (p < 0.001), confirming the effectiveness of the mental strategies. The statistical analyses confirmed the efficacy of mental strategies in enhancing endurance performance (p < 0.001). The findings demonstrate that incorporating mental strategies into sports training can significantly enhance physiological and psychological resilience in athletes. This study provides empirical support for the development of comprehensive training programs that integrate mental techniques to optimize athletic performance.
: Research examining the relation between dispositional optimism and the magnitude of cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to stress has produced mixed findings, with some studies finding that optimism was associated with increased CVR, some with decreased CVR, and some with no association with CVR. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether task difficulty accounted for these mixed findings and moderated the association between optimism and CVR. Seventy-four young adults classified as having high optimism and 78 young adults classified as having low optimism based on the Life Orientation Test-Revised were randomized to complete either an easy or difficult Raven's Matrices task. Blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), and HR variability were measured during a pre-task rest period followed by the task period. Participants also completed ratings of positive and negative affect experienced while completing the task, as well as measures of task appraisals. Results revealed that high optimism participants exhibited greater diastolic blood pressure reactivity (DBP) to both the easy and difficult stress tasks compared to low optimism counterparts. Low optimism participants randomized to the difficult task condition exhibited a significant reduction in standard deviation of normal-to-normal (SDNN) intervals in comparison to those assigned to the easy task condition, a differential task response not detected among the high optimism sample. Analysis of affective responses to the tasks showed that high optimism participants reported experiencing more positive affect than low optimism participants, but no group differences were observed for negative affect. No differences between high and low optimism samples were observed on task performance, and significant DBP and SDNN findings remained when controlling for task performance. Task difficulty only moderated the relation between optimism and SDNN response to stress but not HR or BP responses, demonstrating the importance of assessing a broad range of physiological parameters when exploring relations between psychological constructs like optimism and autonomic responses to stress.
: Electrodermal activity (EDA) is a general term for the electrical characteristics of the skin associated with sympathetic nervous system activity. It is shown that various factors can impact EDA measurements. Skin hydration may be one of the possible factors that could influence EDA measurements. This study aimed to examine the effects of skin hydration on tonic and phasic EDA measurements by using a new technique that could record all EDA parameters: skin conductance (SC), skin potential (SP), and skin susceptance (SS), at the same skin sites. 60 (30 male and 30 female) healthy volunteers participated in the study through two different experimental conditions (normal and hydration). They were subjected to four external stimuli: math, breathing, image, and sound to elicit EDA responses. Skin hydration was produced by applying 0.2 g of 0.5% KCI in a 2% agar jelly medium to the selected skin sites for electrode placement. Tonic and phasic EDA components were significantly (p < 0.01, Wilcoxon signed-rank test) influenced by skin moistening. Moreover, EDA levels and amplitudes significantly increased, whereas time-dependent scores were not changed following skin hydration. It is concluded that tonic (level) and phasic (amplitude) EDA components are strongly influenced by skin hydration. This should be considered in the applications of EDA devices, and any factor (other than psychological sweating) that moistens skin should be avoided.
: How does social judgment modulate behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying value-based decision-making? Social judgment is likely to play a particularly important role when the potential for embarrassing errors is substantial, and so we investigated it using an orthogonalized reward/punishment-based Go/NoGo task in which untoward Pavlovian influences favoring Go in a reward scenario and NoGo in a punishment scenario are known to disturb required instrumental actions. Thirty participants completed this task in three social contexts: in isolation, with the passive presence, and under the active evaluation of another person. We found that the experience of being socially evaluated selectively impaired learning of Go responses, while NoGo learning was unimpaired. Phasic pupillary response to the required action was attenuated under the evaluation, over and above the mere presence of the other person, suggesting altered noradrenergic activity emanating from evaluation stress. Social evaluation also shifted Positivity bias from near-neutral levels to a significantly negative bias, pointing to more conservative decision-making strategies when under social judgment. These findings indicate that social evaluative stress specifically disrupts action generation, aligning with theories positing that stress promotes passive or habitual responses.
Discrimination is commonly experienced by marginalized groups and is increasingly understood to be linked with heart rate variability (HRV), an index of cardiovascular and self-regulatory (e.g., emotion regulatory) function. The current study examined how self-reported discrimination might be linked with HRV responses while undergoing a social evaluative speech task in a diverse sample of young adults in the U.S. Continuous HRV was collected as participants (N = 158, Mage = 20.49, 58% female) completed the task. Lower self-reported discrimination was linked with a quadratic pattern (i.e., inverted U-shape) of HRV throughout the task, which reflects an adaptive self-regulatory response, whereas higher discrimination was associated with blunted HRV over the course of the task, suggesting little to no self-regulatory action. These data support the notion that higher discrimination might compromise self-regulatory capacity under circumstances unrelated to discrimination, as indicated by a blunted HRV response. Our novel findings contribute to the emerging literature on the key role of the parasympathetic nervous system, indexed by HRV, in linking higher discrimination with health and longevity.
: While precision medicine approaches are still an emerging field in psychiatric research, there is already significant interest in exploring biological markers that forecast treatment responses, as well as support in the development of targeted interventions. This explorative pilot study investigated the role of event-related potentials (ERPs) - specifically the error negativity/error-related negativity (Ne/ERN), correct-response negativity (CRN), neural indicators of conflict monitoring (N2), and attention allocation (P3) - in predicting treatment response for patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) undergoing evidence-based psychopharmacological and cognitive-behavioral treatment within a naturalistic, intensive inpatient setting. We included 23 OCD patients and examined the correlations between baseline ERPs, elicited by a flanker task, and symptom severity, as well as the potential of these neural indices to predict treatment response. Results indicated that baseline obsessive-compulsive symptom severity was not only associated with a larger Ne/ERN but also with faster response times on correct trials. Regarding the prediction of treatment outcomes, neither neural nor behavioral variables significantly predicted changes in obsessive-compulsive symptoms, depressive symptoms, or global functioning. However, some associations approached significance and were discussed with caution. Overall, this study may provide a preliminary foundation for the potential application of neurobiological measures in precision medicine approaches within psychiatry. Future research should build upon these findings by conducting randomized controlled trials (RCT) that more clearly account for confounding variables, as well as larger naturalistic studies to enhance ecological validity. Such efforts will help improve the reliability and practical applicability of these insights.
: Virtual influencers are increasingly used by many companies as they have lots of advantages. While scholars have studied the effectiveness of influencer type, relatively limited research has explored the effect of virtual influencers' anthropomorphism on consumers' willingness to buy. By employing the event-related potentials (ERP) method, we examined the psychological mechanism of virtual influencers' anthropomorphism on consumers' willingness to buy. The results showed that the high-anthropomorphism condition elicited an attenuated N400 and an enlarged late positive potential (LPP) compared to the low-anthropomorphism condition, indicating that the high-anthropomorphism condition was more in line with consumers' categorization evaluation. The results of our findings provide important theoretical and practical significance for the deeper understanding of consumers' psychological mechanisms in virtual influencers.
Health communications inform about health risks and promote more sustainable lifestyles. For this, persuasion is used to produce changes in attitudes or behavior. We aimed to evaluate the persuasiveness of health messages, considering the presentation strategy and measuring the physiological response via heart rate variability (HRV). Also, we explored whether neuroticism and perceived stress moderated the relationship between self-reports and physiological responses. Messages were framed with Ethos (authority), Pathos (emotions), and Logos (logic) persuasive strategies. Results from 58 young participants revealed that Ethos was the most convincing strategy, while HRV decreased during message exposure with no differences among the strategies. Neuroticism showed no significant effects. However, perceived stress moderated the relationship between HRV and Logos assessment in a negative direction, indicating higher persuasiveness of this strategy among stressed individuals. This finding holds implications for designing messages for those with high perceived stress, a significant demographic in health communication.
This study examined the relationships between emotion beliefs and test anxiety among Chinese adolescents in grade 11, focusing specifically on both controllability beliefs about emotion and goodness beliefs about anxiety. Data collection included self-reported test anxiety, as well as heart rate (HR) and galvanic skin response (GSR) recorded during an exam. The findings indicated that controllability beliefs about emotion negatively predicted self-reported test anxiety and mean HR values over the entire exam period and at the end of the exam. By contrast, goodness beliefs about anxiety were not related to self-reported test anxiety. However, they negatively predicted the mean values of the integration of skin conductance responses (iSCR) over the entire exam period and at the start of the exam, whereas positively predicted the mean HR values over the entire exam period. These results highlight distinct correlation patterns between these two types of emotion beliefs and test anxiety. These results suggested that the students with a controllable view about emotion may worry less during the exam. In contrast, the students with a good view about anxiety may invest more cognitive efforts into the exam or appropriately elevate the worry component of test anxiety to better cope with the exam.
Startle reflex is an involuntary defensive withdrawal response to a suddenly-occurring stimulus and is influenced by subjective affective states. However, most studies have examined the effect of positive and negative affect independently rather than in relation to one another, which is important since positive and negative affect co-exist within an individual. Thus, the present study examined the effect of participants' relative dominance of current subjective positive over negative mood on their startle response. Participants (N = 59) indicated the extent to which they were feeling certain positive and negative emotions using Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) immediately before their participation in the experiment. Then, the affect-startle task presented participants with pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral IAPS photographs with loud acoustic startle probe presented on some pictures and some of the inter-stimulus intervals (to index baseline startle). The median-split of the relative dominance of positive over negative mood score gave two groups of High and Low Dominance of Positive Mood (HDP & LDP, respectively). Repeated-measures ANCOVA revealed that individuals with LDP showed significantly delayed startle onset on neutral and unpleasant photographs than those with HDP. The groups did not differ on amplitude or latency to the peak of startle in the affective or baseline conditions or the baseline latency to startle onset. The findings indicate that individuals with lower positive, relative to negative, mood require more time to interpret neutral and unpleasant emotional content. Nevertheless, once the emotional content is interpreted, their relative mood does not affect the involuntary emotional reaction, that is, the startle response.
Driving a vehicle is a complex behavior requiring an optimal psychophysiological state in order to safely accomplish the task. The identification of human factors influencing driving behavior could enable the development of technologies for monitoring drivers and improving their comfort. This study aims to monitor the driver’s cardiac autonomic activity during real road driving, assuming psychophysiological variations depending on the driving context (e.g., ring road vs. urban driving) and the induction of psychosocial stress during urban driving activity. Moreover, we investigated the extent to which perceived stress, anxiety symptoms, habitual driving behavior as well as sex, and driving experience, influenced cardiac autonomic responses while driving. Heart rate (HR) and its variability (HRV) were assessed during a real driving task in a sample of thirty-eight drivers, including twenty males and eighteen females. Drivers’ psychometric characteristics were collected using questionnaires. HRV analysis revealed a significant overall autonomic activation while driving, independent of the exposure to external stressors. Neither sex nor driving experience seemed to affect cardiac autonomic response to driving. A significant positive correlation emerged between anxiety-stress symptoms and aberrant driving behavior. In summary, our results suggest that the overall driving task produced a notable impact on cardiac autonomic neural modulation. Understanding the factors that influence driving performance and modulate the resulting physiological response could provide a springboard for practical applications, such as the development of human-vehicle interaction monitoring systems for optimal psychophysiological arousal while driving.
Emotions impact pain; appetitive (pleasant) emotions reduce pain, and aversive (unpleasant) emotions increase pain. Emotion regulation (ER) strategies can alter emotional experience, and we have shown that ER can alter emotional modulation of pain, but not emotional modulation of spinal nociception (as assessed by nociceptive flexion reflex, NFR). The current study examined whether ER influences the emotional modulation of cortical event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to nociceptive input. To investigate, 68 pain-free individuals viewed pleasant (erotic), neutral, and unpleasant (mutilation) pictures during which painful electric stimulations were delivered. Participants viewed one block of pictures without engaging in ER and were then randomly assigned to ER (suppress or enhance) employed during a second block of pictures. Picture-evoked valence and arousal ratings, skin conductance response, and corrugator electromyogram (EMG) suggested that ER successfully regulated emotional experience. Instructions to suppress led to a significant reduction of emotional modulation of self-reported pain (i.e., reducing pleasure-induced pain inhibition and displeasure-induced pain facilitation), but neither NFRs nor ERPs were affected. Paradoxically, enhance instructions had no effect on pain or NFR, but were associated with a general suppression of the P260 ERP, indicating non-specific emotional arousal up-regulation. Findings indicate ER can independently impact emotional modulation at perceptual and supraspinal levels, but does not impact spinal nociception. Given that emotional suppression led to decreases in displeasure-evoked pain facilitation without reducing displeasure-evoked facilitation of spinal or supraspinal responses to nociception, future research should determine whether this divergence is associated with positive or negative long-term consequences.
While repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has gained attention as an alternative treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), there is a lack of evidence regarding the mechanisms underlying the neural modifications induced by rTMS in OCD individuals. Our study investigates how rTMS influences neural oscillations and connectivity to address this gap by examining changes through coherence, relative power, and amplitude asymmetry analyses. From a cohort of 196 OCD individuals undergoing rTMS at a neuroscience clinic, we selected 12 participants who met our criteria. These participants received 20 sessions of bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)-targeted rTMS. We assessed symptom severity using the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) and recorded their brain activity with a 19-channel EEG before and after the intervention. Our analysis employed coherence and amplitude asymmetry, revealing altered connectivity patterns, alongside conducting relative power analysis for insights into neural oscillation changes. The Y-BOCS scores demonstrated significant treatment efficacy. Connectivity outcomes underscored that rTMS effects exert a comprehensive influence on the broader brain network beyond the DLPFC. The relative power analysis also indicated increased Alpha frequency and decreased Beta3 and High beta bands. These findings can provide valuable insights into the changes in neural activity following rTMS intervention in OCD individuals.
In this study by combining a-tDCS with DBT training and targeting two different brain regions, we aimed to find out the effective target for tDCS to facilitate learning performance and enhance balance in younger adults. Besides targeting the sensorimotor cortex (M1), we alternatively applied a-tDCS to the prefrontal cortex (left DLPFC). We further explored changes in resting-state oscillations induced by a-tDCS combined with balance training. Additionally, in this study, we investigated whether rs-EEG can predict practice effects in balance task. Forty-three healthy young adults were recruited for this study. Results revealed that a-tDCS was effective in facilitating balance performance for both experimental groups compared to sham. Further, our data confirmed retention effects for Cz and sham group to the second day of training while this retention was not confirmed for F3 group. Our data did not confirm any transfer effects of DBT to untrained static balance tasks. With respect to the EEG analysis, our data revealed an increase in relative Alpha power in the post relative to the pre-test, independent of Stimulation Group. Results further revealed an association of theta and beta power at pre-test with a practice effect. We conclude that our findings thus substantially extend previous studies by demonstrating the application of a-tDCS to facilitate changes in brain networks in targeted brain areas which are not only improving motor execution but also top-down executive control.
