Memories in public speaking performance anxiety reconstructed: a qualitative exploration using a cognitive and etiological model

Prior research on social anxiety disorder (SAD) demonstrated the importance of anxiety provoking images, which can be related to memories. The present study examines how imagery plays a role in young adults’ public speaking anxiety. The experiential intervention imagery rescripting (ImRs), conducted in fourteen participants with public speaking anxiety, resulted in reconstructing memories from adolescence. In order to explore which themes contribute to anxiety provoking images, the study of reconstructed memories focused on the cognitive anxiety process and etiological factors. Qualitative theory-driven analysis of these memories demonstrates that the anxiety process fits the cognitive model on SAD. With regard to etiology, expected influences of negative peer behaviour and parents were small or not found whereas influence of negative teacher behaviour was found. The present results therefore suggest that ImRs could be effective for the specific anxiety group which should be directed on negative teacher behaviour as contributor to their anxiety.

Next Generation Metrics for Scientific and Scholarly Research in Europe:LERU report of an Expert Working Group

The field of evaluating academic activities is vast, complex, and highly dynamic, as are the roles of any data and indicators used to support these evaluations This Next Generation Metrics for Scientific and Scholarly Research in Europe paper, explores how universities can and should use currently available metrics and data to assess their research evaluation processes, in conjunction with qualitative expertise and information

Investigating real-time social interaction in pairs of adolescents with the Perceptual Crossing Experiment

The study of real-time social interaction provides ecologically valid insight into social behavior. The objective of the current research is to experimentally assess real-time social contingency detection in an adolescent population, using a shortened version of the Perceptual Crossing Experiment (PCE). Pairs of 148 adolescents aged between 12 and 19 were instructed to find each other in a virtual environment interspersed with other objects by interacting with each other using tactile feedback only. Across six rounds, participants demonstrated increasing accuracy in social contingency detection, which was associated with increasing subjective experience of the mutual interaction. Subjective experience was highest in rounds when both participants were simultaneously accurate in detecting each other\u27s presence. The six-round version yielded comparable social contingency detection outcome measures to a ten-round version of the task. The shortened six-round version of the PCE has therefore enabled us to extend the previous findings on social contingency detection in adults to an adolescent population, enabling implementation in prospective research designs to assess the development of social contingency detection over time

Capacity for social contingency detection continues to develop across adolescence

The capacity for dynamically coordinating behaviour is assumed to have largely matured in infancy. In adolescence—another sensitive period for social development—the primary focus on individual social cognition as the main driver of interaction has prevented the study of actual social interaction as behavioural coordination within dyads. From a dynamic perspective, however, capturing real-time social dynamics is essential for the assessment of social interactive processes. In order to improve the understanding of social development during adolescence, we investigated the potential developmental course of social contingency detection in dynamic interactions. Pairs of 205 Belgian adolescents (83 male, 122 female), aged 11–19, engaged in real-time social interaction via the Perceptual Crossing Experiment (PCE). Comparing early, middle and late adolescents, we found a generally higher performance of late adolescents on behavioural and cognitive measures of social contingency detection, while the reported awareness of the implicitly established social interaction was lower in this group overall. Additionally, late adolescents demonstrated faster improvement of behavioural social coordination throughout the experiment, compared with the other groups. Our results indicate that social interactive processes continue to develop throughout adolescence, which manifests as faster social coordination at the behavioural level. This finding underscores dynamic social interaction within dyads as a new opportunity for identifying altered social development during adolescence

Academia in Motion Festival: Plenary Session slides

<p>Plenary session slides from the AiM Festival.</p&gt

LERU NGM Paper - Survey data for Table in Section 9

Data from LERU survey about open science, sent to each LERU institution in March 2023

Pleiotropic effects of Atorvastatin result in a downregulation of the Carboxypeptidase U System (CPU, TAFIa, CPB2) in a mouse model of advanced atherosclerosis

Statins (hydroxymethyl-glutaryl-CoA-reductase inhibitors) lower procarboxypeptidase U (proCPU, TAFI, proCPB2). However, it is challenging to prove whether this is a lipid or non-lipid-related pleiotropic effect, since statin treatment decreases cholesterol levels in humans. In apolipoprotein E-deficient mice with a heterozygous mutation in the fibrillin-1 gene (ApoE−/−Fbn1C1039G+/−), a model of advanced atherosclerosis, statins do not lower cholesterol. Consequently, studying cholesterol-independent effects of statins can be achieved more straightforwardly in these mice. Female ApoE −/−Fbn1C1039G+/− mice were fed a Western diet (WD). At week 10 of WD, mice were divided into a WD group (receiving WD only) and a WD + atorvastatin group (receiving 10 mg/kg/day atorvastatin +WD) group. After 15 weeks, blood was collected from the retro-orbital plexus, and the mice were sacrificed. Total plasma cholesterol and C-reactive protein (CRP) were measured with commercially available kits. Plasma proCPU levels were determined with an activity-based assay. Total plasma cholesterol levels were not significantly different between both groups, while proCPU levels were significantly lower in the WD + atorvastatin group. Interestingly proCPU levels correlated with CRP and circulating monocytes. In conclusion, our results confirm that atorvastatin downregulates proCPU levels in ApoE−/−Fbn1C1039G+/− mice on a WD, and evidence was provided that this downregulation is a pleiotropic effect of atorvastatin treatment