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Magdalena Pietruch1,2 , Ewa Wiwatowska2, Jarosław Michałowski2
1Faculty of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
2Laboratory of Affective Neuroscience, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poznań, Poland
Abstract: Procrastination, the voluntary delay of beginning or completing an intended task despite the negative consequences of doing so, is a prevalent problem that entails severe academic, professional, financial, and health consequences. According to the influential emotion regulation perspective, procrastination occurs when people prioritize short-term mood repair over pursuing their long-term goals. This suggests that chronic procrastination may be related to emotion regulation dysfunction; however, more research is necessary, as no studies to date have directly investigated the behavioral and neurophysiological mechanisms that occur during the use of different emotion regulation strategies in high versus low procrastinating participants.
In the present EEG study, 80 participants were recruited based on their high or low scores in the Pure Procrastination Scale. With the use of emotion regulation task, we compared amplitudes of the late positive potential as indices of effectiveness of two emotion regulation strategies: cognitive distraction and cognitive reappraisal. We also assessed participants' preference for using either strategy. The results from high (versus low) procrastination individuals suggest a decreased ability to distract attention from negative stimuli in this group. The results suggest that task delay in procrastination may be related to difficulty in detaching from the perceived aversiveness of the task.
Funding: Project financed by Study@research Grant under the "Excellence Initiative - Research University" Program at Adam Mickiewicz University (5 000 PLN).
Aleksandra Domagalik-Pittner1, Malwina Ankiewicz3, Aleksander Wołek3, Halszka Kontrymowicz-Ogińska2
1The Neuroimaging Research Group, Małopolska Centre of Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
2Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroergonomics, Institute of Applied Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
3Institute of Zoology and Biomedical Research, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
Abstract: We present a new method to measure “sociability”. It can be understood as a trait or state - tendency to interact with other people or to withdraw and self-isolate. We assume that the way of perceiving people’s faces as more or less amiable, as well as willingness to know them better, could be an appropriate measure of this trait (or state). Apart from temperamental characteristics, some particular circumstances in day-to-day functioning, like sleep deprivation, can modulate conviviality and thus affect the quality of social relations in private and professional life.
PICNIC consists of 40 pictures of men and women from which participants choose those people they would like to know better – all during an MRI registration.
In this preliminary study data gathered from 10 subjects (9 females; mean age 22.3 ± 1.2 years) was analyzed. We applied ROI and IC analyses to examine the contrast between chosen and rejected stimuli. Important activations in visual and dorsal attention networks were observed. The most promising results are the visible contrasts in DMN and structures associated with brain reward network: anterior insula and caudate nucleus.
Funding: This research was supported by the grant from the Polish National Science Centre Nr 2018/29/B/HS6/01934.
Jan K. Argasiński
Institute of Applied Computer Science, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
Abstract: One of the basic assumptions in affective computing is that there are physiological, quantitative correlates of emotional responses. However, the specificity of these reactions for individual emotions, as well as the cognitive aspect - how the excitation is interpreted by the feeling individual - remains problematic.
In the presented research, the subject of our interest was the possibility of modelling the behaviour of VR simulation participants (Study 1, n=20) and users of a specially selected computer game (Study 2, n=18) based on information from ECG, GSR, eye tracker and other sensors.
The obtained results indicate that the interpretation of the stimulation of the sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system can be significantly facilitated by strict control of the environment and tagging of the context enabled by the virtual nature of the settings.
The results of the research indicate that the virtual environment enables both the control of the subject's arousal and the interpretation of his psychophysiological states. Thanks to detailed data on the actions undertaken by the user, it is possible to create detailed models for further analysis.
It could be imagined that the virtual experimental environments may soon become one of the important tools in behavioural research regarding both human and non-human animals.
Kaźmierowska A.1,2 ,Szczepanik M.1,2,3, Kostecki M.2, Nikołajew T.2, Michałowski J.M.4, Wypych M.1, Marchewka A.1, Knapska E.2
1Laboratory of Brain Imaging, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
2Laboratory of Emotions Neurobiology, BRAINCITY - Centre of Excellence for Neural Plasticity and Brain Disorders, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
3Psychoinformatics Lab, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Brain & Behaviour (INM-7), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany4 Laboratory of Affective Neuroscience, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poznań, Poland
Abstract: Fear contagion is an automatic, unconscious process of aligning emotional distress of one animal to that of the other. Considering its important evolutionary role, we hypothesized it to be a cross-species phenomenon that would involve the amygdala. We thus investigated the social transfer of fear between humans and rats. The habituated rats were handled by familiar humans who underwent the fear conditioning task and following the interaction, the rats’ amygdalae activations were analyzed using the c-Fos expression. Additionally, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the activations in the amygdalar nuclei during fear contagion between human subjects.
The rat amygdala was activated to a higher extent in experimental compared to control rats. A significant change in activation was observed in both basolateral and centromedial nuclei, as compared to the average activations from the control group. The amygdala activation was also present in human data, and was also significantly increased in both basolateral and centromedial nuclei when compared to the baseline hemodynamic response. These results are the first to demonstrate that the same amygdalar subparts are activated in both human-human and human-rat fear contagion. This suggests that the common system of emotional communication may exist in both humans and rats.
Funding: Data collection and analysis were sponsored by National Science Centre grant 2015/19/B/HS6/02209. Ewelina Knapska was supported by European Research Council Starting Grant (H 415148).
I. Zelionkaite1 ,R. Gaizauskaite1, H. Uusberg2 ,A. Uusberg2, B. Derntl3, R. Griksiene1
1Department of Neurobiology and Biophysics, Vilnius University, Lithuania;
2Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Estonia;
3Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Germany
Abstract: Emotion processing depends on menstrual cycle, oral contraception use. Little is known whether the use of the hormonal intra-uterine device (IUD) affects emotional functioning. The aim of our study was to investigate IUD impact on women brain activity and perceived negativity.
33 IUD users, 33 women in follicular (NCF) and 28 women in luteal (NCL) phase of their menstrual cycle participated in the study. Participants were instructed to watch upcoming neutral, low and high negativity images and to evaluate perceived negativity after each stimuli while their electroencephalogram was recorded. Emotion perception related ERPs were evaluated. Emotional arousal and fatigue levels were measured using VAS scales.
There were no group differences in perceived negativity. Higher arousal level was positively related with negativity values while watching low and high negativity pictures. High and low intensity negative pictures induced higher LPP than neutral images (300 – 600 ms). Amplitudes of the early ERP components (P2, P3, N2) were lower for IUD users than for NCF and NCL women while watching negative stimuli (low + high negativity).
Results suggest possible emotion processing and attention alteration via changed brain activity when IUD is used.
Funding: The study was part of the project of the Baltic-German University Liaison Office supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic Germany.
