The efficacy of augmented reality exposure therapy in the treatment of spider phobia—a randomized controlled trial

The evidence for the use of Augmented Reality (AR) in treating specific phobias has been growing. However, issues of accessibility persist, especially in developing countries. The current study examined a novel, but relatively simple therapist guided smartphone-based AR Exposure Treatment (ARET) of spider phobia. Participants who reported symptoms of Arachnophobia were randomized into one of three comparison groups: ARET (n = 20), traditional in vivo exposure therapy (IVET; n = 18) and a waitlist control group (n = 17). Behavioral approach, subjective symptom measures, and galvanic skin response were assessed pre- and post-treatment. The study was concluded with a one-month follow up assessment. Results indicated that both treatment groups showed statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in behavioral approach at post-test that were maintained at 1 month follow- up, compared to the wait-listed group. Moreover, the treatment groups demonstrated significant improvements in subjective symptom report at 1-month follow up. Given its utility and potential accessibility, our findings suggest that future AR evaluation research could be conducted in therapy settings with minimal resources

The effect of social dimension on the emotional response : centraland peripheral reactivity = Efecto de la dimensión social en la respuesta emocional : reactividad central y periférica

Emociones han sido un objeto de estudio importante en Psicología. Otro tema bien estudiado es la percepción social. Esta tesis estudia cómo el contenido social de los estímulos afectivos puede modificar la respuesta emocional provocada por dichos estímulos. El objetivo principal de la tesis era investigar esta cuestión mediante diferentes métodos. Hemos empleado fotografías clasificándolas atendiendo a dos dimensiones afectivas básicas – valencia afectiva y activación. Para operativizar la variable “contenido social” dividimos los estímulos sociales en tres categorías (sin personas, con una persona y con dos o más personas) y introducimos una escala de autoinforme, “interacción social”, que participantes usaron para evaluar el grado de interacción social en imágenes. La parte experimental consiste en cuatro estudios. En el Experimento 1 obtuvimos la evaluación subjetiva de 200 imágenes afectivas para disponer de una base de imágenes equiparadas en valencia afectiva, activación y interacción social para usarlas en sucesivos experimentos. Además, estudiamos las relaciones entre las mencionadas dimensiones. En el Experimento 2 estudiamos respuestas periféricas: actividad electrodérmica, actividad electromiográfica facial y respuesta de parpadeo reflejo de sobresalto durante la observación pasiva de imágenes. En el Experimento 3 investigamos la actividad cerebral mediante la electroencefalografía durante una tarea atencional con imágenes como distractores. En el Experimento 4 introducimos una técnica novedosa para la captación de los movimientos de cabeza como indicadores del estado emocional. Según la evaluación subjetiva (Experimento 1) las imágenes agradables se valoraron como las más sociales. Observamos una correlación positiva entre la escala de interacción social y las escalas de valencia afectiva y activación sólo en el caso de las imágenes agradables: cuanto más social se percibe una imagen agradable, tanto más agradable y activadora es. La actividad electromiográfica del músculo corrugador superciliar era mayor en respuesta a imágenes desagradables con una persona que a imágenes desagradables sin personas (Experimento 2). La actividad electrodérmica era mayor cuando participantes vieron las imágenes desagradables con una persona que cuando vieron las imágenes desagradables sin personas y con dos o más personas. Pensamos que la situación social “uno a uno” provocó cierto estado de incertidumbre. Para explicar este resultado recurrimos al efecto del espectador, que consiste en que los espectadores de situaciones de emergencia son más responsables. Este efecto parece manifestarse en los patrones de la actividad periférica registrados por nosotros. La modulación emocional de la respuesta de parpadeo no fue influida por el contenido social. Probablemente, la base cerebral de percepción social es difusa y no puede modular directamente una respuesta tan rápida. En la tarea atencional con imágenes afectivas como estímulos distractores, las imágenes con dos o más personas provocaron una respuesta más rápida (Experimento 3), lo que interpretamos a la luz de la teoría de la facilitación social que postula que los humanos desempeñan unas tareas mejor en presencia de otras personas gracias a un aumento de activación. Este efecto conductual iba acompañado de la modulación de los potenciales evocados electroencefalográficos. La latencia de las ondas N1a, P2a, P2p, N2a y N2p era más corta y la amplitud de las ondas N2a y P3 era mayor en respuesta a imágenes con una y dos o más personas. Es decir, el procesamiento de tales estímulos es más rápido, pero requiere más recursos. La dispersión espacial de los movimientos de cabeza era menor durante la visión de imágenes agradables con una y dos o más personas que durante la visión de imágenes agradables sin personas (Experimento 4). Este hallazgo está de acuerdo con una visión evolucionista que supone que el ambiente social agradable provoca una sensación de seguridad que puede provenir de la naturaleza social de humanos. Emotions have always been an important subject of study in Psychology. Another well-studied topic is social perception. This thesis studies how the social content of affective stimuli can modulate different responses provoked by such stimuli. The main aim of the present work was to investigate this question using different methods. We employed photographs and classified them according to two main affective dimensions - affective valence and arousal. To operationalise the term "social content”, first, we divided social stimuli into three categories (without people, with one person, and with two or more people) and, second, we introduced a self-report scale, "social interaction", that participants used to evaluate the degree of social interaction depicted in pictures. The experimental part consists of four studies. In Experiment 1 we obtained the subjective ratings of 200 pictures to build a set of pictures balanced in affective valence, arousal level and social interaction, in order to use these pictures in the following experiments. We also investigated the relationships between the aforementioned dimensions. In Experiment 2 we measured peripheral variables: electrodermal activity, facial electromyography and modulation of the startle blink response during the passive observation of pictures. In Experiment 3 we investigated the brain activity using the evoked potentials of the electroencephalogram during an attentional task with pictures as background distracters. In Experiment 4 we introduced a new technique for capturing the head movements as an indicator of emotional state and predisposition to act. According to subjective evaluation (Experiment 1), pleasant pictures were evaluated as the most social ones. We observed a positive correlation between the social interaction ratings and the affective valence and arousal ratings only for pleasant pictures (but not for neutral and unpleasant pictures): the more social a pleasant picture was, the more pleasant and arousing was considered. The electromyographic activity of the corrugator supercilii muscle was greater to unpleasant pictures with one person than to unpleasant pictures without people (Experiment 2). Electrodermal response was greater when participants watched unpleasant pictures with one person than when they watched unpleasant pictures without people and with two or more people. We think that the "one-to-one" social situation caused a state of uncertainty, and for a possible explanation we referred to the bystander effect that consists in that in emergency situations observers are more responsible when they are alone. This effect seems to manifest itself in the physiological patterns we obtained. However, the startle blink response was not influenced by the social content. A possible interpretation is that the brain underpinnings of social perception are diffuse and cannot directly modulate the startle blink reflex that develops very quickly. In the attentional task pictures with two or more people provoked a faster response (Experiment 3). We interpret this result in the light of the theory of social facilitation that postulates that humans perform a task better in the presence of others thanks to the increase of arousal. The data on the cerebral activity, as measured by event-related potentials, revealed that the latency of N1a, P2a, P2p, N2a and N2p was shorter and the amplitude of the N2a and P3 was larger to pictures with one person and two or more people. Thus, the processing of social stimuli is faster but requires more resources. The spatial spread of head movement was lesser when viewing pleasant pictures with one and two or more people (Experiment 4). This finding is consistent with an evolutionary theory that assumes that pleasant social environment causes a sense of security that might come from the social nature of humans that allowed them to survive

Perspective taking in the human brain: complementary evidence from neuroimaging studies with media-based naturalistic stimuli and artificial controlled paradigms

Funding Information: The work was financed by the Russian Science Foundation, project #22-48-08002, https://rscf.ru/project/22-48-08002/ and carried out using HSE Automated system of non-invasive brain stimulation with the possibility of synchronous registration of brain activity and registration of eye movements (Reg. num 354937). Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2023 Jääskeläinen and Kosonogov.Perception and interpretation of various types of events and information in life crucially depend on one’s perspective. A specific perspective can be explicitly adopted, for example, via instructing an experimental subject, implicitly via a priori information given to subjects, and by subjects’ personality traits or cultural background. The neural basis of perspective taking has been addressed in a number of recent neuroimaging studies, some of which have used movies and narratives as media-based stimuli to pursue a holistic understanding of the phenomenon under ecologically valid conditions. Results across these studies suggest that the human brain flexibly adapts to support the information-processing needs of different perspectives, however, also that inferior temporal-occipital areas and posterior-medial parietal areas are engaged across different perspectives. These findings are complemented by studies that have investigated specific aspects of perspective taking with highly controlled experimental designs. They have disclosed involvement of the temporoparietal junction in visual perspective taking and the importance of the affective component of the pain matrix when empathizing with others’ pain. Identification with the protagonists also seems to matter, as dorsomedial vs. ventromedial prefrontal areas are recruited when the protagonist is dissimilar vs. similar to self. Finally, as a translational aspect, perspective taking can, under certain conditions, serve as an effective emotion regulation technique, wherein lateral and medial regions of the prefrontal cortex seem to support reappraisal processes. Together, findings from studies with media-based stimuli and more traditional paradigms complement each other to gain a comprehensive understanding of the neural basis of perspective taking.Peer reviewe

A REVIEW OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL AND GENETIC CORRELATES OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

The article is an overview of modern studies of brain organization and genetic correlates of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is becoming the subject of more and more attentive study of psychologists due to the fact that it influences the mental development of humans, plays an important role in many professions, and its impairment is a marker of some disorders. Nevertheless, the brain organization and genetic correlates of emotional intelligence have not been studied enough – first studies appeared only in the early 2000s. A review of the literature on the enceph-alographic showed that in rest, people with higher emotional intelligence show greater excitation of the left anterior regions of the brain. When per-ceiving affective stimuli, participants with high emotional intelligence show stronger synchronization of some EEG rhythms. Brain mapping technique made it possible to identify the areas of the brain involved in activities related to emotional intelligence. In regard to genetic correlates of emotional intelligence, some genes of neurotransmitter systems have been associated to this trait: the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene COMT, the dopamine DRD2 receptor gene, the serotonin receptor gene HTR2A, and the BDNF brain neurotrophic factor gene

A review of neurophysiological and genetic correlates of emotional intelligence

The article is an overview of modern studies of brain organization and genetic correlates of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is becoming the subject of more and more attentive study of psychologists due to the fact that it influences the mental development of humans, plays an important role in many professions, and its impairment is a marker of some disorders. Nevertheless, the brain organization and genetic correlates of emotional intelligence have not been studied enough – first studies appeared only in the early 2000s. A review of the literature on the enceph-alographic showed that in rest, people with higher emotional intelligence show greater excitation of the left anterior regions of the brain. When per-ceiving affective stimuli, participants with high emotional intelligence show stronger synchronization of some EEG rhythms. Brain mapping technique made it possible to identify the areas of the brain involved in activities related to emotional intelligence. In regard to genetic correlates of emotional intelligence, some genes of neurotransmitter systems have been associated to this trait: the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene COMT, the dopamine DRD2 receptor gene, the serotonin receptor gene HTR2A, and the BDNF brain neurotrophic factor gene

Señales de amenaza y sesgo atencional en la fobia a la sangre, inyecciones y heridas y en la fobia a las serpientes.

El objetivo de esta investigación fue estudiar el efecto de una señal que indica la aparición de una imagen fóbica sobre la actividad electrocortical provocada por el estímulo relevante para el trastorno en la fobia a la sangre por lesión en inyección (BII) y la fobia a las serpientes. Una muestra de 13 participantes con fobia BII, 12 individuos con fobia a las serpientes y 14 controles no fóbicos se sometieron a una tarea S1-S2, donde S1 era una palabra que describía el contenido de una imagen posterior (relacionada con la sangre, serpiente y neutral) que apareció 2 segundos después (S2). Obtuvimos las amplitudes ERP P200 y P300 provocadas por las imágenes. Nuestros resultados revelan que P200 no diferenciaba entre el contenido de las imágenes en la fobia BII mientras que, por el contrario, las imágenes relacionadas con la serpiente y la sangre provocaron las respuestas más grandes en los participantes con fobia a las serpientes. Tanto las imágenes relacionadas con la sangre como las de serpientes provocaron amplitudes de P300 mayores que las imágenes neutrales en todos los grupos. Las señales de amenaza redujeron la reacción electrocortical del BII, posiblemente por la provocación de respuestas anticipatorias o reguladoras. Estos resultados son indicativos de una baja atención automática exógena hacia los estímulos temidos en la fobia BII, como lo revela P200, probablemente relacionado con una falta de sesgo de atención al objeto fóbico.The aim of this research was to study the effect of a cue signalling the upcoming of a phobic picture on the electrocortical activity provoked by the disorder-relevant stimulus in in blood-injection-injury (BII) phobia and snake phobia. A sample of 13 BII phobia participants, 12 snake phobia individuals and 14 non-phobic controls underwent an S1-S2 task, where S1 was a word that described the content of a subsequent picture (blood-related, snake and neutral) that appeared 2 seconds later (S2). We obtained the P200 and P300 ERP amplitudes provoked by the pictures. Our results reveal that P200 did not differentiate between picture contents in BII phobia while, in contrast, snake and blood-related pictures provoked the largest responses in snake phobia participants. Both blood-related and snake pictures provoked greater P300 amplitudes than neutral pictures in all the groups. Threat cues reduced the electrocortical reaction of the BII, possibly by the elicitation of anticipatory or regulatory responses. These results are indicative of a low automatic, exogenous attention towards the feared stimuli in BII phobia, as revealed by P200, probably related to a lack of attentional bias to the phobic object

Neural mechanisms of expert persuasion on willingness to pay for sugar

Funding Information: This study was supported by the International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology ICN HSE RF Government grant ag. no. 075-15-2022-1037. Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2023 Ntoumanis, Davydova, Sheronova, Panidi, Kosonogov, Shestakova, Jääskeläinen and Klucharev.Introduction: Sugar consumption is associated with many negative health consequences. It is, therefore, important to understand what can effectively influence individuals to consume less sugar. We recently showed that a healthy eating call by a health expert can significantly decrease the willingness to pay (WTP) for sugar-containing food. Here, we investigate which aspects of neural responses to the same healthy eating call can predict the efficacy of expert persuasion. Methods: Forty-five healthy participants performed two blocks of a bidding task, in which they had to bid on sugar-containing, sugar-free and non-edible products, while their electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. In between the two blocks, they listened to a healthy eating call by a nutritionist emphasizing the risks of sugar consumption. Results: We found that after listening to the healthy eating call, participants significantly decreased their WTP for sugar-containing products. Moreover, a higher intersubject correlation of EEG (a measure of engagement) during listening to the healthy eating call resulted in a larger decrease in WTP for sugar-containing food. Whether or not a participant’s valuation of a product was highly influenced by the healthy eating call could also be predicted by spatiotemporal patterns of EEG responses to the healthy eating call, using a machine learning classification model. Finally, the healthy eating call increased the amplitude of the P300 component of the visual event-related potential in response to sugar-containing food. Disussion: Overall, our results shed light on the neural basis of expert persuasion and demonstrate that EEG is a powerful tool to design and assess health-related advertisements before they are released to the public.Peer reviewe

Facial thermal variations: A new marker of emotional arousal.

Functional infrared thermal imaging (fITI) is considered a promising method to measure emotional autonomic responses through facial cutaneous thermal variations. However, the facial thermal response to emotions still needs to be investigated within the framework of the dimensional approach to emotions. The main aim of this study was to assess how the facial thermal variations index the emotional arousal and valence dimensions of visual stimuli. Twenty-four participants were presented with three groups of standardized emotional pictures (unpleasant, neutral and pleasant) from the International Affective Picture System. Facial temperature was recorded at the nose tip, an important region of interest for facial thermal variations, and compared to electrodermal responses, a robust index of emotional arousal. Both types of responses were also compared to subjective ratings of pictures. An emotional arousal effect was found on the amplitude and latency of thermal responses and on the amplitude and frequency of electrodermal responses. The participants showed greater thermal and dermal responses to emotional than to neutral pictures with no difference between pleasant and unpleasant ones. Thermal responses correlated and the dermal ones tended to correlate with subjective ratings. Finally, in the emotional conditions compared to the neutral one, the frequency of simultaneous thermal and dermal responses increased while both thermal or dermal isolated responses decreased. Overall, this study brings convergent arguments to consider fITI as a promising method reflecting the arousal dimension of emotional stimulation and, consequently, as a credible alternative to the classical recording of electrodermal activity. The present research provides an original way to unveil autonomic implication in emotional processes and opens new perspectives to measure them in touchless conditions

Impact of Induced Moods, Sensation Seeking, and Emotional Contagion on Economic Decisions Under Risk

Funding Information: This study was supported by the International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology ICN HSE RF Government grant ag. no. 075-15-2019-1930. Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2022 Efimov, Ntoumanis, Kuskova, Kadieva, Panidi, Kosonogov, Kazanina, Shestakova, Klucharev and Jääskeläinen.In addition to probabilities of monetary gains and losses, personality traits, socio-economic factors, and specific contexts such as emotions and framing influence financial risk taking. Here, we investigated the effects of joyful, neutral, and sad mood states on participants’ risk-taking behaviour in a simple task with safe and risky options. We also analysed the effect of framing on risk taking. In different trials, a safe option was framed in terms of either financial gains or losses. Moreover, we investigated the effects of emotional contagion and sensation-seeking personality traits on risk taking in this task. We did not observe a significant effect of induced moods on risk taking. Sad mood resulted in a slight non-significant trend of risk aversion compared to a neutral mood. Our results partially replicate previous findings regarding the presence of the framing effect. As a novel finding, we observed that participants with a low emotional contagion score demonstrated increased risk aversion during a sad mood and a similar trend at the edge of significance was present in high sensation seekers. Overall, our results highlight the importance of taking into account personality traits of experimental participants in financial risk-taking studies.Peer reviewe

“Expert persuasion” can decrease willingness to pay for sugar-containing food

Funding Information: This study was supported by the International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology ICN HSE RF Government grant ag. no. 075-15-2022-1037. Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2022 Ntoumanis, Panidi, Grebenschikova, Shestakova, Kosonogov, Jääskeläinen, Kadieva, Baran and Klucharev.Recent studies have revealed types of eating nudges that can steer consumers toward choosing healthier options. However, most of the previously studied interventions target individual decisions and are not directed to changing consumers’ underlying perception of unhealthy food. Here, we investigate how a healthy eating call—first-person narrative by a health expert—affects individuals’ willingness to pay (WTP) for sugar-free and sugar-containing food products. Participants performed two blocks of a bidding task, in which they had to bid on sweets labeled either as “sugar- free” or as “sugar-containing.” In-between the two blocks, half of the participants listened to a narrative by a dietary specialist emphasizing the health risks of sugar consumption, whereas the remaining participants listened to a control narrative irrelevant to food choices. We demonstrate that the health expert’s narrative decreased individuals’ WTP for sugar-containing food, but did not modulate their WTP for sugar- free food. Overall, our findings confirm that consumers may conform to healthy eating calls by rather devaluating unhealthy food products than by increasing the value of healthy ones. This paves the way for an avenue of innovative marketing strategies to support individuals in their food choices.Peer reviewe