Search results for "Physiological psychology"
showing 10 items of 760 documents
Habituation and recovery of a slow negative wave of the event-related brain potential.
2002
This study is concerned with the question of whether the late, slow negative wave 2 (SNW2) component of the event-related brain potential is a component of the orienting response (OR). As habituation of the SNW2 would be an argument for such a link with the OR, it was investigated using a variant of the classical repetition/change paradigm. Results supported major claims to be made for a component of the OR: the amplitude of the vertex SNW2 exhibited roughly the typical exponential decline with repeated stimulations (six numeric verbal stimuli presented seriatim in an ascending order) and responded incrementally to a change, at least in a narrow time slot, i.e. it exhibited partial recovery…
Comparison between Spanish young and elderly people evaluated using Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test
2010
The first objective of this work was to compare scores obtained in the daily memory function between young and elderly people, and to check whether there are differences between the groups for each of the profile scores obtained in the memory test. A second aim of this paper is to study the relationship between everyday memory and age, while controlling for gender and educational level. The total and profile scores obtained in the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test were compared in a sample of 60 young and 120 elderly people from Valencia (Spain). Results showed significant differences between the two groups: those between 18 and 30 years obtained a higher average than those over 65. Once th…
Salivary alpha-amylase response to acute psychosocial stress: The impact of age
2011
a b s t r a c t The impact of stress on health varies across the different stages of human life. Aging is associated with psychobiological changes that could limit our ability to cope with stressors. Therefore, it is crucial to clarify the physiological mechanisms that underlie the stress response and the changes that occur in them as we age. Our aim was to investigate age differences in the salivary alpha amylase (sAA) response to stress, and its relationship with other typical stress biomarkers such as cortisol and heart rate (HR). Sixty-two participants divided into two age groups (younger group: N = 31, age range: 18-35 years; older group: N = 31, age range: 54-71 years) were exposed to…
Longitudinal changes in odor identification performance and neuropsychological measures in aging individuals.
2015
To examine changes in odor identification performance and cognitive measures in healthy aging individuals. While cross-sectional studies reveal associations between odor identification and measures of episodic memory, processing speed, and executive function, longitudinal studies so far have been ambiguous with regard to demonstrating that odor identification may be predictive of decline in cognitive function.One hundred and 7 healthy aging individuals (average age 60.2 years, 71% women) were assessed with an odor identification test and nonolfactory cognitive measures of verbal episodic memory, mental processing speed, executive function, and language 3 times, covering a period of 6.5 year…
Distinct effects of positive and negative music on older adults' auditory target identification performances.
2014
Older adults, compared to younger adults, are more likely to attend to pleasant situations and avoid unpleasant ones. Yet, it is unclear whether such a phenomenon may be generalized to musical emotions. In this study, we investigated whether there is an age-related difference in how musical emotions are experienced and how positive and negative music influences attention performances in a target identification task. Thirty-one young and twenty-eight older adults were presented with 40 musical excerpts conveying happiness, peacefulness, sadness, and threat. While listening to music, participants were asked to rate their feelings and monitor each excerpt for the occurrence of an auditory tar…
Differences in false recollection according to the cognitive reserve of healthy older people
2016
We present an associative recognition experiment comparing three samples of healthy people (young people, older people with high cognitive reserve [HCR], and older people with low cognitive reserve [LCR], with each sample consisting of 40 people), manipulating stimuli repetition during the study phase. The results show significant differences among the three samples in their overall performance. However, these differences are not due to a different use of familiarity, but rather due to a different way of using recollection: although there are no differences in the hit rates between the HRC and LRC samples, the LCR group makes significantly more recollective false alarms than the HCR group. …
Age-related changes in amplitude, latency and specialization of ERP responses to faces and watches
2020
Healthy aging is associated with impairments in face recognition. While earlier research suggests that these impairments arise during memory retrieval, more recent findings suggest that earlier mechanisms, at the perceptual stage, may also be at play. However, results are often inconsistent and very few studies have included a non-face control stimulus to facilitate interpretation of results with respect to the implication of specialized face mechanisms vs. general cognitive factors. To address these issues, P100, N170 and P200 event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured during processing of faces and watches. For faces, age-related differences were found for P100, N170 and P200 ERPs. For…
Affective modulation of conditioned eyeblinks
2009
Affective states are known to modulate reflexive actions. Aversive states potentiate defensive reflexes while appetitive states diminish them. The present study examined whether the same holds for associatively learned defensive eyeblinks to mild, initially neutral auditory stimuli. First, delay eyeblink conditioning was applied to human participants while they viewed emotionally neutral images. Next, the conditioned eyeblink responses (CRs) of the participants were tested during the viewing of unpleasant, neutral, or pleasant images. The most vigorous CRs were found during the unpleasant images, although they did not differ between neutral and pleasant images. The results add to the motiva…
Chronometric evidence for memory retrieval in causal conditional reasoning: The case of the association strength effect
2005
According to many models of conditional reasoning, correct responses to the uncertain forms affirmation of consequent (AC) and denial of antecedent (DA) rely on the retrieval of an alternative antecedent from semantic memory. The main prediction issuing from this hypothesis of online retrieval is that the associative strength of the relevant information in long-term memory affects the latency of its retrieval and then of the correct response of uncertainty to AC and DA. This prediction was tested in 64 adults who performed a syllogism evaluation task with familiar causal conditional premises. As predicted, correct responses of uncertainty to AC and DA were not only more frequent but also fa…
Predicting autonomic reactivity to public speaking: don't get fixed on self-report data!
2002
The study focused on the prediction of autonomic reactivity to public speaking by using self-report and objective data (other-ratings and behavioral data) of task-induced nervousness and task engagement. Forty-one individuals participated in the study. Heart rate and electrodermal activity were recorded during baseline and speech delivery. Stepwise multiple regression analyses indicated that self-report data of task engagement and nervousness largely failed in predicting psychophysiological reactivity to the speech task. After controlling for baseline values, demographic variables, and self-report data objective variables, however, were strong predictors of autonomic reactivity. Heart rate …