Psychophysiology

What is an emotion?'' William James's seminal paper in Mind (1884) proposed the idea that physiological and behavioral responses precede subjective experience in emotions that are marked by ''distinct bodily expression.'' This notion has broadly inspired the investigation of emotion-specific autonomic nervous system activity, a research topic with great longevity. The trajectory of this literature is traced through its major theoretical challenges from the Cannon-Bard, activation, and Schachter-Singer theories, through its rich empirical history in the field of psychophysiology. Although these studies are marked by various findings, the overall trend of the research supports the notion of autonomic specificity for basic emotions. The construct of autonomic specificity continues to influence a number of core theoretical issues in affective science, such as the existence of basic or 'natural kinds' of emotion, the structure of affective space, the cognition-emotion relationship, and the function of emotion. Moreover, James's classic paper, which stimulated the emergence of psychology from philosophy and physiology in the latter nineteenth century, remains a dynamic force in contemporary emotion research.

the guests, but D., desperate for energy, keeps touching me, and grounding the energy into himself before I can build up a good charge." COMMENT: Within a day or so following this lucid dream healing, D. showed a remarkable improvement. For the previous six months he had needed oxygen therapy twenty-four hours a day. Afterwards, he required oxygen supplementation only while sleeping at night, and his supplemental oxygen intake decreased from 3 liters per day to 2 liters per day. He continued in this improved state for over 5 years. In July of 1997 he had to return to using oxygen therapy 24 hours a day.

Changes of acral skin blood flow are a commonly used indicator for sympathetic reflex responses to various stimuli. The goal of the present study was to determine whether decreases in fingertip temperature are indicative for sympathetic induced changes in microcirculation. Infrared thermography demonstrated that various stimuli triggering the sympathetic nervous system induced decreases in cutaneous microcirculation, most prominently in fingertip skin. Various such stimuli induced almost immediate temporary vasoconstriction, measured by laser Doppler flux and photoplethysmography. With a lag phase of approximately 15 s, reduced microcirculation was also reflected by a transient decrease in fingertip temperature. Vasoconstrictions were easily demonstrable by fingertip temperature when the starting fingertip temperature was above 32ЊC and vasoconstriction lasted at least 5 s. Temperature measurement offers the advantages of ease and simplicity of performance and analysis, compared with the more complex analyses of flux and pulse volume.

In schizophrenia, disturbances of cognitive control have been associated with impaired functional specialization within the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), but little is known about the functional interactions between specialized LPFC subregions. Here, we addressed this question with a recent model that describes the LPFC functioning as a cascade of control processes along a rostrocaudal axis, whereby anterior frontal regions influence the processing in posterior frontal regions to guide action selection on the basis of the temporal structure of information.

The feasibility of long-term monitoring of electrodermal activity (EDA) from freely moving subjects was assessed by examining several confounding variables including epidermal hydration, ambient temperature, and physical activity. EDA was monitored from 12 subjects during a normal working day. A portable 4 channel cassette recorder (Medhg) was employed to record skin conductance, ambient temperature, and arm movements. The etrects of epidermal hydration were assessed using ditrerent 0.05 KCI electrolyte media. EDA was quantified throughout tbe day during several 5-min rest periods and subsequent simple reaction time tasks. In order to distinguish betweeo the influence of time of day and electrode/electrolyte aging, an extra pair of fresh electrodes was applied at each measurement period. Significant effects of temperature, electrolyte medium, and time of measurement on several indices of EDA were obtained. The implications of these data for long-term ambulatory EDA monitoring were discussed.

While performing a visuo-motor task under incrementally-varied levels of difficulty, individuals were probed with a variety of novel, task-irrelevant, auditory stimuli. To determine the effect of task load on cerebralcortical processing of these stimuli, event-related potentials were recorded while participants performed the task. We found that N1, P2, P3 and late positive potential (LPP) component amplitudes were inversely related to task-difficulty. This suggests that a variant of the oddball paradigmin which the stimulus stream comprises novel soundsis capable of providing a reliable index of mental workload.

The reinforcement learning theory suggests that the feedback negativity should be larger when feedback is unexpected. Two recent studies found, however, that the feedback negativity was unaffected by outcome probability. To further examine this issue, participants in the present studies made reward predictions on each trial of a gambling task where objective reward probability was indicated by a cue. In Study 1, participants made reward predictions following the cue, but prior to their gambling choice; in Study 2, predictions were made following their gambling choice. Predicted and unpredicted outcomes were associated with equivalent feedback negativities in Study 1. In Study 2, however, the feedback negativity was larger for unpredicted outcomes. These data suggest that the magnitude of the feedback negativity is sensitive to violations of reward prediction, but that this effect may depend on the close coupling of prediction and outcome.

Growing evidence suggests that loudness dependency of auditory evoked potentials (LDAEP) and resting EEG alpha and theta may be biological markers for predicting response to antidepressants. In spite of this promise, little is known about the joint reliability of these markers, and thus their clinical applicability. New standardized procedures were developed to improve the compatibility of data acquired with different EEG platforms, and used to examine test-retest reliability for the three electrophysiological measures selected for a multisite project-Establishing Moderators and Biosignatures of Antidepressant Response for Clinical Care (EMBARC). Thirty-nine healthy controls across four clinical research sites were tested in two sessions separated by about 1 week. Resting EEG (eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions) was recorded and LDAEP measured using binaural tones (1000 Hz, 40 ms) at five intensities (60-100 dB SPL). Principal components analysis of current source density waveform...

Contrary to what occurs with negative pictures, negative words are, in general, not capable of interfering with performance in ongoing cognitive tasks in normal subjects. A probable explanation is the limited arousing power of linguistic material. Especially intense words (insults and compliments), neutral personal adjectives, and pseudowords were presented to 28 participants while they executed a lexical decision task. Insults were associated with the poorest performance in the task and compliments with the best. Amplitude of the late positive component of the event-related potentials, originating at parietal areas, was maximal in response to compliments and insults, but latencies were delayed in response to the latter. Results suggest that intense emotional words modulate ongoing cognitive processes through both bottom-up (attentional capture by insults) and top-down (facilitation of cognitive processing by arousing words) mechanisms.

The aim of this study was to see whether or not physiological hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle modulate normal aggressiveness in psychophysically healthy women. In 15 probands estrogens (E), progesterone (PROG) and free testosterone (FT) plasma levels were measured by immunochemiluminescence and levels of global aggressiveness and its subitems "verbal aggressiveness", "suspiciousness" and "resentments" were measured by the Buss-Durkee Rating Scale in the early follicular, midluteal and premenstrual phases of the cycle. E and PROG levels varied significantly along the menstrual cycle, while those of FT, of global aggressiveness (GA) and of its subitems did not change. Values of global aggressiveness did not correlate with any of the hormonal parameters studied. However, E values correlated positively with "verbal aggression" scores in the follicular phase and positively with "resentment" in the premenstruum, while PROG levels correlated negatively with "suspiciousness" and "resentment" in the premenstrual phase of the cycle. Hormonal and psychological changes from one phase to the next (Δ) revealed that Δ E in the second half of the cycle correlated negatively with "verbal aggressiveness", while Δ PROG from follicular to luteal and from luteal to premenstrual phases correlated negatively with "resentment". Thus, although aggressiveness did not seem to vary along the menstrual cycle, nor to correlate with hormonal changes, hormone secretions and fluctuations might possibly modulate some of the physiological aspects of the behavioral parameter.

Salivary a-amylase (sAA) increases rapidly in response to psychosocial stress in young adults, but no direct comparisons between different age groups across the life span have been made. Secretion of sAA and cortisol was assessed in children, young adults, and older adults after exposure to the Trier Social Stress Test. Additionally, cardiovascular activity was measured in both adult groups. Older adults showed attenuated sAA, heart rate (HR), and heart rate variability (HRV) responses. Furthermore, we found higher sAA but lower cortisol at baseline as well as lower sAA and cortisol responses in children. Age  sex interactions were observed only for cortisol with higher responses in older male participants. No associations between the parameters were found. These results implicate sAA as an alternative or additional sympathetic stress marker throughout the life span, with marked and rapid stress responsiveness in three relevant age groups.

In his seminal paper, Donders proposed that Choice reaction time (RT) tasks differ from Go/No-go RT tasks only by the insertion of a response decision operation. We evaluated this possibility by comparing the time course of Laplacian-transformed ERPs, recorded over the primary (M1s) and supplementary motor areas (SMAs) in a Choice and in a Go/No-go task. Laplacian-transformed ERPs showed that a component that develops over the SMAs during the RTof Choice tasks vanishes in our Go/No-go task. This indicates that a process, absent in the Go/No-go task, was ''inserted'' in the Choice task. The Choice versus Go/No-go manipulation also modified the motor command: the activity recorded over M1s and the delay separating EMG onset from response completion depended on the nature of the task. This indicates that, although a process was inserted in the Choice task, it was not ''purely'' inserted, contrary to Donders' initial assumption.

This study examined the acute immunological effects of two laboratory stressors, expected to evoke distinct patterns of cardiac autonomic activity; namely an "active coping" time-paced memory test, and a "passive coping" stressful video showing surgical operations. We measured salivary S-IgA, IgA-subclasses~IgA1, IgA2!, and secretory component SC!. SC is responsible for the transport of S-IgA across the epithelium, and thus a rate-determining step in S-IgA secretion. Thirty-two male undergraduates were subjected to both stressors and a control video~a didactic television program!. The memory test induced a typical "fight-flight" response, characterized by increases in heart rate and blood pressure in association with a decrease in cardiac preejection period~PEP! and vagal tone. The surgical video produced a "conservation-withdrawal"-like response, characterized by an enhanced vagal tone, a decrease in heart rate, and a moderate sympathetic coactivation~as indicated by a shortened PEP and an increased systolic pressure!. The memory test induced an increase in the concentration and, to a lesser extent, in the output of S-IgA, IgA1, and SC. The output of IgA2 was not significantly affected. For the surgical video, a different pattern emerged: During stressor exposure S-IgA remained unaffected, against the background of a small increase in SC output. However, 10 min after the surgical video S-IgA levels had decreased. This decrease in S-IgA was paralleled by a decrease in IgA1, but not IgA2. We conclude that acute stress can have both enhancing and suppressive effects on secretory immunity, the IgA1 subclass in particular. The mechanisms that underlie these divergent responses may include stressor-specific patterns of autonomic activation. ! were very helpful by providing detailed information on their secretory component ELISA. We are grateful to Marjolein Turkenburg and Karin Hartog for their devoted assistance in performing the biochemical analyses.

Flow is an optimal experience characterized by the perception of high challenges and high skills, positive affect, complete absorption in the activity carried out and intrinsic motivation. Although much research has examined the psychological features of flow, little is known about its biological underpinnings. The present study aimed at contributing to this gap by investigating the psychophysiological correlates of flow experience during daily routines. To this end, 15 university students took part in an experience sampling study, in which they provided real-time information on daily activities and associated experience while cardiac activity was monitored. After seven days of observation, 32 flow events were identified among 10 participants. A multilevel regression analysis revealed a significant correlation between optimal experience and specific cardiovascular indexes. In particular, the experience of flow was associated with increased heart rate and increased LF/HF ratio, suggesting relative sympathetic enhancement. These findings are in line with those obtained by previous related studies and indicate the feasibility of investigating physiological correlates of subjective experience in ecological contexts.

In previous papers we proposed that an increase in delta EEG activity during mental tasks might be related to an increase in subjects' attention to internal processing, In this paper we have made a narrow band analysis to detect those EBG frequencies that change selectively during the performance of a mental task that requires attention to internal processing. Two different experiments were performed: (1) a difficult mental calculation task and a control stimulus with the same physical characteristics as the arithmetical symbols were presented in random order; (2) the, Stemberg paradigm for the analysis of short term memory using a memory set of 5 or 3 digits was also presented in random order. Referential recordings to linked ears were obtained in all leads of the lo/20 system. In the ,first experiment, the increase of power from 1.56 to 5.46 Hz was observed only during the performance of the task and not during the control condition. In the Stemberg paradigm, the increase of power from 1.56 to 3.90 Hz was greater during the difficult than during the easy condition. l!hese results support our hypothesis that an increase in delta activity may be related to attention to internal processing during the performance of a mental task. postulated the existence of two kinds, of' behavioral inhibition, both represented by slow waves in the EEG. 'Class I inhibition' would refer to a gross inactivation of an entire excitatory process; resulting in a relaxed, less active state, as in sleep. 'Class II inhibition' would selectively suppress inappropriate or non-relevant neural activity during the performance of a mental task.

The ability to coordinate our actions with those of others is crucial for our success as individuals and as a species. Progress in understanding the cognitive and neural processes involved in joint action has been slow and sparse, because cognitive neuroscientists have predominantly studied individual minds and brains in isolation. However, in recent years, major advances have been made by investigating perception and action in social context. In this article we outline how studies on joint attention, action observation, task sharing, action coordination and agency contribute to the understanding of the cognitive and neural processes supporting joint action. Several mechanisms are proposed that allow individuals to share representations, to predict actions, and to integrate predicted effects of own and others' actions.

Volume conductor models influence TMS electric field estimates. Present TMS navigation systems use computationally simple spherical conductor models. Anatomically realistic boundary-element models can improve TMS targeting especially at prefrontal and temporal regions.

The purpose of the study was to specify and define the differences of psychophysical stress in elite tennis players under practice and tournament conditions. Basal, pre- and postcompetition urine samples of 26 nationally ranked players (NR) were analysed for concentrations of epinephrine (EPI) and norepinephrine (NE) under practice (P) and tournament conditions (T). Results were completed by the values obtained from two internationally ranked players (IR) competing in 6 (player A) and 5 (player B) Davis-Cup matches, respectively. In NR, pre- and postcompetition concentrations for EPI were significantly higher under tournament conditions (T: 1.33+/-0.65 and 3.66+/-2.51 microg/100 mg creatinine vs P: 0.61+/-0.39 and 0.97+/-0.59 microg/100 mg creatinine). The NE/EPI ratio showed significantly inverse results (T: 3.53+/-1.87 and 3.58+/-1.59 vs P: 8.08+/-6.99 and 10.03+/-6.58), whereas the concentration of NE did not differ between the two conditions. Significant correlations were found ...

. Eysenck 1983 has previously proposed biological mechanisms for his three personality dimensions. From a psychometric perspective there has been a growing acceptance of a five-factor model of personality incorporating two Ž . Ž . Ž . of Eysenck's dimensions Extraversion E and Neuroticism N together with Openness to Experience O , Agree-Ž . Ž . ableness A and Conscientiousness C . Despite the growing acceptance of the 'Big 5' model of personality there has been very few studies that have examined the biological basis of O, A and C. In an exploratory study we report the correlations between photic driving at alpha, beta-1, beta-2, delta and theta bands and O, A and C from the NEO PI-R in 16 participants. Significant correlations between the EEG at frontal, occipital᎐parietal and central᎐temporal areas at different driving frequencies with O, A and C are discussed. ᮊ

Humans are quicker to detect reflectional than rotational or translational symmetry, despite the fact that these patterns are equally regular. We were interested in the neural correlates of these perceptual effects. Participants viewed random, reflection, rotation, and translation patterns while we recorded EEG from the scalp. Half the participants classified the pattern regularity overtly, the other half did not explicitly attend to pattern regularity but reported rare oddball trials, where two squares were embedded among the dots. The amplitude of a symmetry-related ERP known as the sustained posterior negativity was most pronounced for reflection, then rotation and translation. We suggest that reflectional symmetry, despite its biological significance, may not be processed by unique visual mechanisms, but instead it could be a preferred stimulus for a more general regularity-sensitive network in the extrastriate visual cortex.

Recent years have seen huge advancements in the methods available and used in neuroscience employing EEG or MEG. However, the standard approach is to average a large number of trials for experimentally defined conditions in order to reduce intertrial-variability, i.e. treating it as a source of "noise". Yet it is now more and more accepted that trial-to-trial fluctuations bear functional significance, reflecting fluctuations of "brain states" that predispose perception and action. Such effects are often revealed in a pre-stimulus period, when comparing response variability to an invariant stimulus. However such offline analyses are disadvantageous as they are correlational by drawing conclusions in a posthoc-manner and stimulus presentation is random with respect to the feature of interest. A more direct test is to trigger stimulus presentation when the relevant feature is present. The current paper introduces ConSole (CONstance System for OnLine Eeg), a software...

This paper presents a model that explains the origin of the asymmetric bell-shaped velocity profiles generally observed in handwriting and other rapid movements. Applying the central limit theorem to describe the converging behavior of a sequence of dependent neural and muscular networks, it is shown that velocity profiles can be described by log-normal curves. An analysis-by-synthesis experiment is reported to support the model and to specify its mathematical implementation. Practical implications of this approach are discussed at the end of the paper to provide an analytical definition of a stroke, to clarify the concept of fluency and to suggest a powerful method for segmenting complex movements, particularly cursive script.

ADHD is characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and disinhibition, including the inability to screen out distracting stimuli. Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of startle indexes a related gating process and is enhanced during attended compared to ignored stimuli. We predicted that PPI during attended stimuli would be enhanced by the stimulant methylphenidate (MPH) and that this effect would be moderated by baseline PPI. Children with ADHD (n=36) completed a baseline day and a randomized, double-blind medication trial (placebo vs. sustained release MPH). Bilateral startle eyeblink EMG was measured during a tone discrimination task. MPH enhanced PPI during attended, but not during ignored stimuli. Extending findings that pretreatment functioning moderates stimulant effects on PPI, this effect tended to be inversely related to baseline PPI. These data fit with the clinical literature on ADHD and the hypothesis that MPH enhances interference control for important environmental stimuli.

This study examined cardiovascular responses as a function of time following exercise in which participants were exposed to a laboratory stressor. Ninety (42 women) young (18-35 years old) nonsmoking normotensive participants engaged in 30 min of high and low intensity (75-80% and 50-55% VO 2 max) aerobic exercise and a sedentary control condition. Participants were randomly assigned to a laboratory stressor 5, 30, or 60 min following the exercise bout. Results indicate that low and high intensity exercise significantly reduce heart rate (HR) and systolic and diastolic blood pressure reactivity and HR recovery values. An inverse relationship between intensity of exercise and subsequent cardiovascular reactivity was found. These findings suggest attenuated stress responses following acute exercise depend both on exercise intensity and the time of exposure to psychological stress following exercise.

To examine the basis of emotional changes to the voice, physiological and electroglottal measures were combined with acoustic speech analysis of 30 men performing a computer task in which they lost or gained points under two levels of difficulty. Predictions of the main effects of difficulty and reward on the voice were not borne out by the data. Instead, vocal changes depended largely on interactions between gain versus loss and difficulty. The rate at which the vocal folds open and close (fundamental frequency; f 0 ) was higher for loss than for gain when difficulty was high, but not when difficulty was low. Electroglottal measures revealed that f 0 changes corresponded to shorter glottal open times for the loss conditions. Longer closed and shorter open phases were consistent with raised laryngeal tension in difficult loss conditions. Similarly, skin conductance indicated higher sympathetic arousal in loss than gain conditions, particularly when difficulty was high. The results provide evidence of the physiological basis of affective vocal responses, confirming the utility of measuring physiology and voice in the study of emotion.

Most contemporary text books of neurology and of psychology pay little attention to the function of the cerebellum beyond noting it to be an organ of motor control. A historical overview of research on cerebellar function is presented, from pre-Sherrinton suggestions of sensory and motor function, through the post-Sherrinton and dominant 20 th . Century view of "motor" function, to the 21 st . century perspective of "sensorimotor" function. The intrinsic capability of the cerebellum is briefly considered in terms of: its size/complexity/capacity; its information representation/processing characteristics (with "a particular computational function"); its sensory information processing capability; and, its role in sensorimotor regulatory control. It is suggested that the cerebellum can process sensorimotor stimulus information in a statistical (connectionist type) manner and respond to in on the basis of its own learning based sensorimotor representations, albeit at a "level" that does not necessarily involve cerebral "awareness".

A common practice in modeling affect from physiological signals consists of reducing the signals to a set of statistical features that feed predictors of self-reported emotions. This paper analyses the impact of various timewindows, used for the extraction of physiological features, to the accuracy of affective models of players in a simple 3D game. Results show that the signals recorded in the central part of a short gaming experience contain more relevant information to the prediction of positive affective states than the starting and ending parts while the relevant information to predict anxiety and frustration appear not to be localized in a specific time interval but rather dependent on particular game stimuli.

Few studies have investigated the role of the BDNF-val66met polymorphism in fear conditioning in humans, and previous results have been inconsistent. In the present study, we examined whether the BDNF-val66met was associated with differences in the acquisition and generalization of fear during a differential conditioning paradigm in a large sample of participants (N = 141). Using three different indexes of fear learning (fear-potentiated startle, skin conductance response, and online risk ratings) no effects of the BDNF-val66met were found either on the acquisition or the generalization of conditioned fear. Taken together with previous data, our study suggests that the BDNF-val66met polymorphism has no effect on the acquisition or generalization of fear.

Functional activity in the visual cortex was assessed using functional magnetic resonance imaging technology while participants viewed a series of pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant pictures. Coronal images at four different locations in the occipital cortex were acquired during each of eight 12-s picture presentation periods~on! and 12-s interpicture interval off !. The extent of functional activation was larger in the right than the left hemisphere and larger in the occipital than in the occipitoparietal regions during processing of all picture contents compared with the interpicture intervals. More importantly, functional activity was significantly greater in all sampled brain regions when processing emotional pleasant or unpleasant! pictures than when processing neutral stimuli. In Experiment 2, a hypothesis that these differences were an artifact of differential eye movements was ruled out. Whereas both emotional and neutral pictures produced activity centered on the calcarine fissure~Area 17!, only emotional pictures also produced sizable clusters bilaterally in the occipital gyrus, in the right fusiform gyrus, and in the right inferior and superior parietal lobules.

The role of laughter during psychotherapy is poorly understood. This study examined 10 unique sessions of psychodynamic psychotherapy with digital videotape and simultaneous measures of skin conductivity (SC) from patients and therapists. Independent observers coded laugh episodes using published criteria. Observers identified 167 laugh responses. Of the 119 patient laughs, 91 (76.5%) were patient as speaker, compared with 28 (23.4%) as nonspeaker audience. In contrast, of the 48 therapist laughs, only five (10.4%) were therapist as speaker, whereas 43 (90.3%) were as nonspeaker audience. The difference was highly significant (p Ͻ .001). Physiologic data showed that mean SC level increased regardless of role as patient, therapist, speaker, or audience (p Ͻ .001). Two-factor analysis of variance indicated that SC change scores were significantly larger when patients and therapists laughed together compared with laughing alone (p Ͻ .05). The results support an empirically based approach to the study of laughter and the use of psychophysiology as a measure of process during psychotherapy.

In tasks requiring sustained attention, human alertness varies on a minute time scale. This can have serious consequences in occupations ranging from air tra c control to monitoring of nuclear power plants. Changes in the electroencephalographic (EEG) power spectrum accompany these uctuations in the level of alertness, as assessed by measuring simultaneous changes in EEG and performance on an auditory monitoring task. By combining power spectrum estimation, principal component analysis and arti cial neural networks, we show that continuous, accurate, noninvasive, and near real-time estimation of an operator's global level of alertness is feasible using EEG measures recorded from as few as two central scalp sites. This demonstration could lead to a practical system for noninvasive monitoring of the cognitive state of human operators in attention-critical settings.

The human infant's neurophysiological responses to feeding are poorly understood. We found recently a significant increase of EEG amplitude in the newborn during nutritive feeding, but not during pacifier sucking. In this study, we report EEG responses to feeding in 13 infants at the ages of 3 and 6 months. The undifferentiated response of the newborn was found to wane until the age of 3 months, whereas in 6-month-old infants, relatively abundant rhythmic 3-5 Hz theta activity was recorded during feeding with an amplitude maximum in right posterior areas. Cessation of feeding was followed by cessation of theta activity. The rhythmic 3-5 Hz theta response to feeding is likely to represent emotional arousal, as it is similar to previous findings showing posterior theta increase in other settings connected with emotional arousal in infants.

While suhstance use disorders have long been recognized as chronic relapsing conditions, it has mainly been in the last two decades that clinical researchers have been systematically attending to the nature and processes of relapse. These efforts have led to the development of a variety of psychological and psychobiological models of relapse. These models are summarized in the present article, with particular attention placed on each model's basic principles and on the predpitants of relapse predicted by the respective models. The delineation of these models may help facilitate subsequent cross-referencing and cross-fertilization of thinking in this important area.

We investigated whether creative cognition can be improved by means of cognitive and affective stimulation and whether these interventions are associated with changes of EEG alpha activity. Participants were required to generate original uses of conventional objects (Alternative Uses task, AU) while the EEG was recorded. In the cognitive stimulation condition, participants worked on the AU task subsequent to the exposure to other people's ideas. In the affective stimulation condition, they had to think creatively in positive affective states, induced via emotionally contagious sound clips. Creative cognition generally elicited alpha synchronization, most prominent in the prefrontal cortex and in the right hemisphere. The interventions were associated with stronger prefrontal alpha activity in the upper alpha band (10-12 Hz) than the control condition (no intervention), possibly indicating a state of heightened internal awareness, which might have a beneficial impact on creativity.

Slow temporal modulations below 40Hz have been shown to be important for speech understanding. Modulation frequencies near 4 and 20Hz represent the rate by which syllables (±250ms) and phonemes (±50ms) appear in speech, respectively. It has been hypothesized that a neural deviance in the processing of these lower temporal modulations relates to the reading and spelling problems in dyslexia, a specific learning disorder. This deviance may cause subtle speech perception problems and could eventually lead to impaired literacy skills. The neural correlates of temporal auditory processing can be investigated by recording Auditory Steady-State Responses (ASSRs) in the electroencephalogram (EEG). ASSRs measure the ability of the auditory system to follow the rate of temporal information and may therefore provide an objective measure to determine the sensitivity for important acousticalphonological elements in language.

The question of whether the mismatch negativity (MMN) is modulated by attention has been debated for over a decade. Although the MMN is widely regarded as reflecting a preattentive auditory process, many studies have shown attention effects on MMN. So, what does preattentive mean if attention can modulate the MMN? To understand the function of MMN in auditory processing, we need to shed new light on the "MMN and attention" debate. This review will discuss the apparent paradox that MMN can be modulated by attention and still be considered an attention-independent process, and provide a new framework for viewing the MMN system. The new model proposes that the principal factor governing MMN is the sound context. MMN generation relies on multiple processing mechanisms that are part of a larger system of auditory scene analysis. MMN elicitation involves two distinct but interrelated processes: 1) standard formation and 2) deviance detection. While MMN is most commonly thought of in terms of the deviance detection process (i.e., in terms of the sounds that evoke the response), it is the standard formation process that crucially affects its elicitation. The "standard" is the prerequisite for deviance detection. Moreover, these two aspects of the MMN "system" are differentially affected by attention. The standard formation process is most suscep-

a r t i c l e i n f o Previously, electroencephalographic (EEG) delta–beta coupling (positive correlation between power in the fast beta and slow delta frequency bands) has been related to affective processing. For instance, differences in delta–beta coupling have been observed between people in a psychological stress condition and controls. We previously reported relationships between attentional threat processing and delta–beta coupling and individual differences in attentional control. The present study extended and replicated these findings in a large mixed gender sample (N = 80). Results demonstrated that emotional Stroop task interference for threatening words was related to self-reported attentional inhibition capacity and frontal delta–beta coupling. There was no clear gender difference for delta–beta coupling (only a non-significant trend) and the relationship between delta–beta coupling and attentional threat-processing was not affected by gender. These results rep-licate ...

Збірник містить матеріали доповідей учасників IІ Наукового семінару "Особистісні та психофізіологічні ресурси професійної життєстійкості", який відбувся на базі лабораторії вікової психофізіології Інституту психології імені Г. С. Костюка НАПН України 16 вересня 2021 року. У представлених матеріалах висвітлено широке коло питань, дотичних до проблем загальної та професійної життєстійкості людини, а також особистісних та психофізіологічних ресурсів, які забезпечують життєстійкість. Збірник адресовано науковцям, викладачам, здобувачам вищої освіти, фахівцям у галузях психології праці, психології особистості та психофізіології.

This study examined the association between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology and aggressive behavior among a sample of male Vietnam veterans (N = 1,328). Results indicated that the hyperarousal PTSD symptom cluster evidenced the strongest positive association with aggression at the bivariate level when compared with the other PTSD symptom clusters. When the PTSD symptom clusters were examined together as predictors, hyperarousal symptoms evidenced a significant positive relationship with aggression, and avoidance/numbing symptoms were negatively associated with aggression. Examination of potential mediators indicated that hyperarousal symptoms were directly associated with aggression and indirectly related to aggression via alcohol problems. Reexperiencing symptoms were associated with aggression only indirectly and through their positive association with physiological reactivity and negative association with alcohol problems. Study results highlight the complexity of the relationship between PTSD symptoms and aggression, and suggest possible mechanisms explaining this association.

A growing body of data suggests that the emotional dimension of a stimulus can be processed without conscious identification of the stimulus. The arousal system could be activated by unrecognised biologically significant stimuli through simple physical stimulus features related to threat, without any evaluation of the meaning of the stimulus. However, unconscious processing of emotionally laden words cannot rely only

‘Consciousness’ is a superordinate term for a heterogeneous array of mental state types. The types share the property of ‘being experienced’ or ‘being experiences’—‘of there being something that it is like for the subject to be in one of these states.’ I propose that we can only build a theory of consciousness by deploying ‘the natural method’ of coordinating all relevant informational resources at once, especially phenomenology, cognitive science, neuroscience and evolutionary biology. I'll provide two examples of the natural method in action in mental domains where an adaptationist evolutionary account seems plausible: (i) visual awareness and (ii) conscious event memory. Then I will discuss a case, (iii), dreaming, where I think no adaptationist evolutionary account exists. Beyond whatever interest the particular cases have, the examination will show why I think that a theory of mind, and the role conscious mentation plays in it, will need to be built domain-by-domain with no a priori expectation that there will be a unified account of the causal role or evolutionary history of different domains and competences.

The influence of sleep state~i.e., active and quiet! on heart period, heart period variability, respiratory sinus arrhythmiã RSA!, and the coupling between RSA and heart period was evaluated in 24 healthy full-term newborns. Electro-cardiogram~ECG! data were collected, and sleep state was coded 1 hr after feeding until at least 10 min of data were collected in states of active and quiet sleep. ECG data were analyzed for the first five continuous minutes of each sleep state. Relative to active sleep, quiet sleep was associated with significantly higher amplitude RSA, lower heart period variability, and longer heart periods. Because RSA amplitude reflects the functional output of vagal pathways originating in the nucleus ambiguus, it was hypothesized that sleep state would influence how these vagal pathways regulate instantaneous changes in heart period. A new method, evaluating the instantaneous coupling of RSA and heart period, demonstrated that coupling was significantly greater during active sleep. The neurophysiological explanation extends the polyvagal theory to include potential cortical-brain stem connections.