@misc{GottwaldElsnerPollatos2015, author = {Gottwald, Janna M. and Elsner, Birgit and Pollatos, Olga}, title = {Good is up-spatial metaphors in action observation}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {422}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-406281}, pages = {10}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Positive objects or actions are associated with physical highness, whereas negative objects or actions are related to physical lowness. Previous research suggests that metaphorical connection ("good is up" or "bad is down") between spatial experience and evaluation of objects is grounded in actual experience with the body. Prior studies investigated effects of spatial metaphors with respect to verticality of either static objects or self-performed actions. By presenting videos of object placements, the current three experiments combined vertically-located stimuli with observation of vertically-directed actions. As expected, participants' ratings of emotionally-neutral objects were systematically influenced by the observed vertical positioning, that is, ratings were more positive for objects that were observed being placed up as compared to down. Moreover, effects were slightly more pronounced for "bad is down," because only the observed downward, but not the upward, action led to different ratings as compared to a medium-positioned action. Last, some ratings were even affected by observing only the upward/downward action, without seeing the final vertical placement of the object. Thus, both, a combination of observing a vertically-directed action and seeing a vertically-located object, and observing a vertically-directed action alone, affected participants' evaluation of emotional valence of the involved object. The present findings expand the relevance of spatial metaphors to action observation, thereby giving new impetus to embodied-cognition research.}, language = {en} } @article{AlbrechtKopietzLinnetal.2009, author = {Albrecht, Jessica and Kopietz, Rainer and Linn, Jennifer and Sakar, Vehbi and Anzinger, Andrea and Schreder, Tatjana and Pollatos, Olga and Br{\"u}ckmann, Hartmut-Josef and Kobal, Gerd and Wiesmann, Martin}, title = {Activation of olfactory and trigeminal cortical areas following stimulation of the nasal mucosa with low concentrations of S(-)-nicotine vapor : an fMRI study on chemosensory perception}, issn = {1065-9471}, year = {2009}, abstract = {Applied to the nasal mucosa in low concentrations, nicotine vapor evokes odorous sensations (mediated by the olfactory system) whereas at higher concentrations nicotine vapor additionally produces burning and stinging sensations in the nose (mediated by the trigeminal system). The objective of this study was to determine whether intranasal stimulation with suprathreshold concentrations of S(-)-nicotine vapor causes brain activation in olfactory cortical areas or if trigeminal cortical areas are also activated. Individual olfactory detection thresholds for S(-)-nicotine were determined in 19 healthy occasional smokers using a computer-controlled air-dilution olfactometer. Functional magnetic resonance images were acquired using a 1.5T MR scanner with applications of nicotine in concentrations at or just above the individual"s olfactory detection threshold. Subjects reliably perceived the stimuli as being odorous. Accordingly, activation of brain areas known to be involved in processing of olfactory stimuli was identified. Although most of the subjects never or only rarely observed a burning or painful sensation in the nose, brain areas associated with the processing of painful stimuli were activated in all subjects. This indicates that the olfactory and trigeminal systems are activated during perception of nicotine and it is not possible to completely separate olfactory from trigeminal effects by lowering the concentration of the applied nicotine. In conclusion, even at low concentrations that do not consistently lead to painful sensations, intranasally applied nicotine activates both the olfactory and the trigeminal system.}, language = {en} } @article{FuestoesGramannHerbertetal.2013, author = {F{\"u}st{\"o}s, J{\"u}rgen and Gramann, Klaus and Herbert, Beate M. and Pollatos, Olga}, title = {On the embodiment of emotion regulation - interoceptive awareness facilitates reappraisal}, series = {Frontiers in human neuroscience}, volume = {8}, journal = {Frontiers in human neuroscience}, number = {8}, publisher = {Oxford Univ. Press}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {1749-5016}, doi = {10.1093/scan/nss089}, pages = {911 -- 917}, year = {2013}, abstract = {The ability to cognitively regulate emotional responses to aversive events is essential for mental and physical health. One prerequisite of successful emotion regulation is the awareness of emotional states, which in turn is associated with the awareness of bodily signals [interoceptive awareness (IA)]. This study investigated the neural dynamics of reappraisal of emotional responses in 28 participants who differed with respect to IA. Electroencephalography was used to characterize the time course of emotion regulation. We found that reappraisal was accompanied by reduced arousal and significant modulation of late neural responses. What is more, higher IA facilitated downregulation of affect and was associated with more pronounced modulation of underlying neural activity. Therefore, we conclude that IA not only advances the consolidation of somatic markers required for guiding individual behaviour but also creates processing advantages in tasks referring to these bodily markers.}, language = {en} } @article{PollatosSchandry2008, author = {Pollatos, Olga and Schandry, Rainer}, title = {Emotional processing and emotional memory are modulated by interoceptive awareness}, issn = {0269-9931}, year = {2008}, abstract = {The ability to perceive interoceptive signals plays a central role in many theories of emotions. The present study was designed to investigate the relationship between interoceptive awareness and the conscious processing and memory of emotional information. Heart-rate changes were recorded during baseline and affective picture presentation in two groups of participants, differing in cardiac awareness. After a 60-minute break, a recognition task was conducted. Statistical analyses revealed significantly stronger heart-rate deceleration to pleasant and unpleasant stimuli in participants with high interoceptive awareness. In the subsequent picture recognition task, participants with high interoceptive awareness demonstrated a superior recall of pleasant and unpleasant pictures, while no differences were found between interoceptive awareness groups for pictures of neutral content. Our results demonstrate a strong relationship between the perception of cardiac signals and both the processing as well as the recognition of emotional stimuli. High interoceptive awareness was related to increased physiological responses to emotional stimuli and is therefore an important mediating variable when investigating cardiovascular reactivity both in healthy subjects as well as in clinical populations.}, language = {en} } @article{PollatosTrautMattauschSchandry2009, author = {Pollatos, Olga and Traut-Mattausch, Eva and Schandry, Rainer}, title = {Differential effects of anxiety and depression on interoceptive accuracy}, issn = {1091-4269}, year = {2009}, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Feedback from the body is assumed to be altered in depression. Nevertheless, empirical studies investigating this assumed relationship remain sparse. This study aimed to examine interrelations between the ability to perceive heartbeats accurately (interoceptive awareness), depressive symptoms, and anxiety in healthy participants. METHODS: A well-validated heartbeat perception task to measure interoceptive awareness together with two questionnaires indexing anxiety and depression were administered to 119 participants. RESULTS: As main results we observed a negative correlation between heartbeat perception and depression. Only when focussing on high anxiety levels this negative correlation coefficient between depression and interoception remained significant. CONCLUSIONS: Our results highlight the possible relationship between depressive symptoms and interoceptive awareness and may have further implications for theoretical models of anxiety disorders and their treatment. Further research is required to examine the potential consequences of altering interoceptive awareness in healthy subjects in relation to depression and anxiety.}, language = {en} } @article{PollatosSchuboeHerbertetal.2008, author = {Pollatos, Olga and Schub{\"o}, Anna and Herbert, Beate M. and Matthias, Ellen and Schandry, Rainer}, title = {Deficits in early emotional reactivity in alexithymia}, issn = {0048-5772}, year = {2008}, abstract = {Abstract Alexithymia is characterized by a difficulty in identifying and describing one"s emotions. This study addressed the question of whether alexithymic tendencies are related to limited affective reactivity to briefly presented emotional stimuli. Skin conductance responses were assessed and backward masking was used to minimize elaborated processing of emotional pictures. Results indicated that alexithymic tendencies are associated with smaller electrodermal responses to briefly presented negative pictures. These effects were driven by difficulties in identifying and communicating emotions whereas externally orientated thinking was unrelated to affective reactivity. We conclude that there is an early processing deficit in response to negative stimuli in participants with high scores in alexithymia. Differences in the early emotional reactivity to arousing material could contribute to difficulties in emotional processes related to alexithymia.}, language = {en} } @article{HerbertHerbertPollatosetal.2010, author = {Herbert, Beate M. and Herbert, Cornelia and Pollatos, Olga and Weimer, Katja and Sauer, Helene and Enck, Paul and Zipfel, Stephan}, title = {Effects of short-term food deprivation on interoceptive awareness, feelings and autonomic cardiac activity : implications for eating disorders}, issn = {0048-5772}, doi = {10.1111/j.1469-8986.2010.01111.x}, year = {2010}, abstract = {Poster session abstracts. Poster 9}, language = {en} } @article{PollatosHerbertFuestoesetal.2012, author = {Pollatos, Olga and Herbert, Beate M. and Fuestoes, Juergen and Weimer, Katja and Enck, Paul and Zipfel, Stephan}, title = {Food deprivation sensitizes pain perception}, series = {International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology}, volume = {26}, journal = {International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology}, number = {1}, publisher = {Hogrefe}, address = {G{\"o}ttingen}, issn = {0269-8803}, doi = {10.1027/0269-8803/a000062}, pages = {1 -- 9}, year = {2012}, abstract = {While food deprivation has known effects on sympathovagal balance, little is known about hunger's influence on the perception of pain. Since autonomic activities influence many cognitive and emotional processes, this suggests that food deprivation should interact with the perception of pain. This study analyzed the possible effects of short-term food deprivation on pain sensitivity in healthy female participants. This study was comprised of 32 healthy female participants who underwent a 48-hr inpatient hospital investigation. Prior to testing, heart rate and heart rate variability were assessed. After a standardized breakfast, day 1 measurements were taken. Food intake was then not allowed again until the following evening for 22 participants (experimental group), while 12 participants were served standard meals (control group). Pain threshold and tolerance were assessed at 10:00 a. m. on both days using a pressure algometer. Additionally pain experience was examined. Food deprivation significantly reduced pain thresholds and tolerance scores in the experimental group. Additionally, the sympathovagal balance changed, characterized by a decrease in parasympathetic activation. Higher vagal withdrawal after food deprivation was associated with higher pain sensitivity in the experimental group. Furthermore, perceived unpleasantness and pain intensity increased for threshold and tolerance stimuli in the experimental group. We conclude that short-term food deprivation sensitized pain perception in healthy females. An imbalance in sympathovagal activation evoked by food deprivation accounted for this effect. Our results might be a pathogenic mechanism for the development of emotional difficulties associated with disturbed eating behavior.}, language = {en} } @article{HerbertHerbertPollatosetal.2012, author = {Herbert, Beate M. and Herbert, Cornelia and Pollatos, Olga and Weimer, Katja and Enck, Paul and Sauer, Helene and Zipfel, Stephan}, title = {Effects of short-term food deprivation on interoceptive awareness, feelings and autonomic cardiac activity}, series = {Biological psychology}, volume = {89}, journal = {Biological psychology}, number = {1}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0301-0511}, doi = {10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.09.004}, pages = {71 -- 79}, year = {2012}, abstract = {The perception of internal bodily signals (interoception) plays a relevant role for emotion processing and feelings. This study investigated changes of interoceptive awareness and cardiac autonomic activity induced by short-term food deprivation and its relationship to hunger and affective experience. 20 healthy women were exposed to 24 h of food deprivation in a controlled setting. Interoceptive awareness was assessed by using a heartbeat tracking task. Felt hunger, cardiac autonomic activity, mood and subjective appraisal of interoceptive sensations were assessed before and after fasting. Results show that short-term fasting intensifies interoceptive awareness, not restricted to food cues, via changes of autonomic cardiac and/or cardiodynamic activity. The increase of interoceptive awareness was positively related to felt hunger. Additionally, the results demonstrate the role of cardiac vagal activity as a potential index of emotion related self-regulation, for hunger, mood and the affective appraisal of interoceptive signals during acute fasting.}, language = {en} } @article{PollatosGramann2012, author = {Pollatos, Olga and Gramann, Klaus}, title = {Attenuated modulation of brain activity accompanies emotion regulation deficits in alexithymia}, series = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, volume = {49}, journal = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, number = {5}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0048-5772}, doi = {10.1111/j.1469-8986.2011.01348.x}, pages = {651 -- 658}, year = {2012}, abstract = {The personality trait alexithymia has been associated with deficits in emotion regulation; nevertheless, experimental investigations on this research question are sparse. We investigated reappraisal as one emotion regulation strategy in 44 healthy participants with high (HDA) versus low (LDA) degrees of alexithymia. High density EEG and spatiotemporal current density reconstruction were used to characterize the time course of emotion regulation and to identify brain regions involved. Main results were that reappraisal was accompanied by reduced arousal and significant amplitude reduction of P3 and slow wave in the LDA group only. In contrast to the LDA group, reappraisal was not associated with an increase of activation in fusiform gyrus and inferior temporal gyrus in the HDA group. We demonstrate profound deficits in emotion regulation, which might contribute to everyday problems of social functioning in alexithymia.}, language = {en} } @article{PollatosDietelHerbertetal.2011, author = {Pollatos, Olga and Dietel, Anja and Herbert, Beate M. and Wankner, Sarah and Wachsmuth, Cornelia and Henningsen, Peter and Sack, Martin}, title = {Blunted autonomic reactivity and increased pain tolerance in somatoform patients}, series = {Pain : journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain}, volume = {152}, journal = {Pain : journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain}, number = {9}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0304-3959}, doi = {10.1016/j.pain.2011.05.024}, pages = {2157 -- 2164}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Somatoform disorders are characterized by the presence of multiple somatic symptoms. Patients often experience different pain syndromes, and recent research suggests that sympathovagal balance is disturbed in somatoform patients, which could be related to alteration in pain sensitivity. This study analyzed how proposed sympathovagal imbalance interacts with objective pain assessment and the imagination of pain in somatoform disorders. Twenty-one patients (4 men) with diagnosed multisomatoform disorder were included in the study and matched to healthy control subjects. Autonomic measures and heart rate variability were assessed during baseline; pain perception was assessed by means of a pressure algometer and pain imagination. We found evidence for a sympathovagal imbalance in somatoform disorders characterized by low parasympathetic activation and high sympathetic activation during all conditions. Additionally, somatoform patients had reduced pain tolerance. Vagal withdrawal during pain assessment was more pronounced for healthy control subjects and correlated positively with assessed pain tolerance. During imagination somatoform, patients reported higher pain unpleasantness and higher pain intensity as compared to control subjects. We conclude that our data demonstrate an imbalance in sympathovagal activation and a hyposensitivity to pain tolerance stimuli in somatoform disorders. Parasympathetic reactivity might form crucial information when judging pain-associated affective-motivational components. Our results might be attributable to a deficient detection of visceral signals and might be a pathogenetic mechanism for the development of emotional difficulties and increased everyday vulnerability in somatoform patients.}, language = {en} } @article{PollatosWernerDuscheketal.2011, author = {Pollatos, Olga and Werner, Natalie S. and Duschek, Stefan and Schandry, Rainer and Matthias, Ellen and Traut-Mattausch, Eva and Herbert, Beate M.}, title = {Differential effects of alexithymia subscales on autonomic reactivity and anxiety during social stress}, series = {Journal of psychosomatic research}, volume = {70}, journal = {Journal of psychosomatic research}, number = {6}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0022-3999}, doi = {10.1016/j.jpsychores.2010.12.003}, pages = {525 -- 533}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Objectives: Alexithymia is characterized by a difficulty in identifying and describing one's emotions. Recent research has associated differential effects of the alexithymia facets to hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis markers during stress. This study aimed to analyze how the facets of alexithymia interact with autonomic reactivity as well as self- and observer-rated anxiety during a social stress task. Methods: With the use of a public-speaking paradigm, skin conductance levels (SCLs) and heart rate (HR) during the defined periods of baseline, preparation, stress, and recovery were assessed in 60 volunteers (42 females, mean age 22.8) categorized as having either high (HDA) or low (LDA) degrees of alexithymia. Results: We found smaller SCLs during preparation and speech in the HDA group. Regression analyses indicated that only the alexithymia facet "difficulty in describing feelings" (DDF) was associated with smaller electrodermal responses. In the HDA group, self- and observer-rated anxiety was higher in the HDA than in the LDA group, which was attributable to higher scores in the subscales "difficulty in identifying feelings" (DIF) and "externally oriented thinking" (EOT). Conclusions: Our data support and specify the decoupling hypothesis of alexithymia by showing that the facets of alexithymia are differentially related to autonomic reactivity as well as self- and observer-rated anxiety during social stress.}, language = {en} } @article{PollatosHerbertWankneretal.2011, author = {Pollatos, Olga and Herbert, Beate M. and Wankner, Sarah and Dietel, Anja and Wachsmuth, Cornelia and Henningsen, Peter and Sack, Martin}, title = {Autonomic imbalance is associated with reduced facial recognition in somatoform disorders}, series = {Journal of psychosomatic research}, volume = {71}, journal = {Journal of psychosomatic research}, number = {4}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0022-3999}, doi = {10.1016/j.jpsychores.2011.03.012}, pages = {232 -- 239}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Objectives: Somatoform disorders are characterized by the presence of multiple somatic symptoms. While the accuracy of perceiving bodily signal (interoceptive awareness) is only sparely investigated in somatoform disorders, recent research has associated autonomic imbalance with cognitive and emotional difficulties in stress-related diseases. This study aimed to investigate how sympathovagal reactivity interacts with performance in recognizing emotions in faces (facial recognition task). Methods: Using a facial recognition and appraisal task, skin conductance levels (SCLs), heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) were assessed in 26 somatoform patients and compared to healthy controls. Interoceptive awareness was assessed by a heartbeat detection task. Results: We found evidence for a sympathovagal imbalance in somatoform disorders characterized by low parasympathetic reactivity during emotional tasks and increased sympathetic activation during baseline. Somatoform patients exhibited a reduced recognition performance for neutral and sad emotional expressions only. Possible confounding variables such as alexithymia, anxiety or depression were taken into account. Interoceptive awareness was reduced in somatoform patients. Conclusions: Our data demonstrate an imbalance in sympathovagal activation in somatoform disorders associated with decreased parasympathetic activation. This might account for difficulties in processing of sad and neutral facial expressions in somatoform patients which might be a pathogenic mechanism for increased everyday vulnerability.}, language = {en} } @article{HerbertHerbertPollatos2011, author = {Herbert, Beate M. and Herbert, Cornelia and Pollatos, Olga}, title = {On the relationship between interoceptive awareness and alexithymia - is interoceptive awareness related to emotional awareness?}, series = {Journal of personality}, volume = {79}, journal = {Journal of personality}, number = {5}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Malden}, issn = {0022-3506}, doi = {10.1111/j.1467-6494.2011.00717.x}, pages = {1149 -- 1175}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Interoceptive awareness (IA) is associated with emotional experience, the processing of emotional stimuli, and activation of brain structures that monitor the internal visceral and emotional state of the organism. Alexithymia is characterized by difficulties in identifying and describing one's emotions and externally oriented thinking (EOT) and reflects impairments in emotional awareness and the regulation of emotions. This study examined the relationship between alexithymia and IA in a healthy population of N = 155 persons. A well-validated heartbeat perception task to measure interoceptive awareness, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and a depression questionnaire (BDI-2) were administered to 88 women and 67 men. IA was inversely associated with all features of alexithymia in the whole sample. When considering sex differences, IA turned out to be a relevant negative predictor for the EOT subscale only in men. This large sample investigation in a nonclinical population indicates that IA represents a relevant negative predictor for alexithymia.}, language = {en} } @article{KochPollatos2014, author = {Koch, Anne and Pollatos, Olga}, title = {Cardiac sensitivity in children: Sex differences and its relationship to parameters of emotional processing}, series = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, volume = {51}, journal = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, number = {9}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0048-5772}, doi = {10.1111/psyp.12233}, pages = {932 -- 941}, year = {2014}, abstract = {In adults, the level of ability to perceive one's own body signals plays an important role for many concepts of emotional experience as demonstrated for emotion processing or emotion regulation. Representative data on perception of body signals and its emotional correlates in children is lacking. Therefore, the present study investigated the cardiac sensitivity of 1,350 children between 6 and 11 years of age in a heartbeat perception task. Our main findings demonstrated the distribution of cardiac sensitivity in children as well as associations with interpersonal emotional intelligence and adaptability. Furthermore, independent of body mass index, boys showed a significantly higher cardiac sensitivity than girls. We conclude that cardiac sensitivity in children appears to show weaker but similar characteristics and relations to emotional parameters as found in adults, so that a dynamic developmental process can be assumed.}, language = {en} } @article{KochPollatos2014, author = {Koch, Anne and Pollatos, Olga}, title = {Interoceptive sensitivty, body weight and eating behavior in children: a prospective study}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {5}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01003}, pages = {11}, year = {2014}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{NowozinWahnschaffeFayetal.2014, author = {Nowozin, Claudia and Wahnschaffe, A. and Fay, Doris and Pollatos, Olga and Kunz, D.}, title = {Does bright light interfere with fear learning?}, series = {Journal of sleep research : official journal of the European Sleep Research Society}, volume = {23}, booktitle = {Journal of sleep research : official journal of the European Sleep Research Society}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0962-1105}, pages = {102 -- 102}, year = {2014}, language = {en} } @article{PollatosLaubrockWittmann2014, author = {Pollatos, Olga and Laubrock, Jochen and Wittmann, Marc}, title = {Interoceptive focus shapes the experience of time}, series = {PLoS one}, volume = {9}, journal = {PLoS one}, number = {1}, publisher = {PLoS}, address = {San Fransisco}, issn = {1932-6203}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0086934}, pages = {6}, year = {2014}, abstract = {The perception of time is a fundamental part of human experience. Recent research suggests that the experience of time emerges from emotional and interoceptive (bodily) states as processed in the insular cortex. Whether there is an interaction between the conscious awareness of interoceptive states and time distortions induced by emotions has rarely been investigated so far. We aimed to address this question by the use of a retrospective time estimation task comparing two groups of participants. One group had a focus on interoceptive states and one had a focus on exteroceptive information while watching film clips depicting fear, amusement and neutral content. Main results were that attention to interoceptive processes significantly affected subjective time experience. Fear was accompanied with subjective time dilation that was more pronounced in the group with interoceptive focus, while amusement led to a quicker passage of time which was also increased by interoceptive focus. We conclude that retrospective temporal distortions are directly influenced by attention to bodily responses. These effects might crucially interact with arousal levels. Sympathetic nervous system activation affecting memory build-up might be the decisive factor influencing retrospective time judgments. Our data substantially extend former research findings underscoring the relevance of interoception for the effects of emotional states on subjective time experience.}, language = {en} } @article{MaiGramannHerbertetal.2015, author = {Mai, Sandra and Gramann, Klaus and Herbert, Beate M. and Friederich, Hans-Christoph and Warschburger, Petra and Pollatos, Olga}, title = {Electrophysiological evidence for an attentional bias in processing body stimuli in bulimia nervosa}, series = {Biological psychology}, volume = {108}, journal = {Biological psychology}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0301-0511}, doi = {10.1016/j.biopsycho.2015.03.013}, pages = {105 -- 114}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Empirical evidence suggests abnormalities in the processing of body stimuli in bulimia nervosa (BN). This study investigated central markers of processing body stimuli by means of event-related potentials in BN. EEG was recorded from 20 women with BN and 20 matched healthy controls while watching and evaluating underweight, normal and overweight female body pictures. Bulimics evaluated underweight bodies as less unpleasant and overweight bodies as bigger and more arousing. A higher P2 to overweight stimuli occurred in BN only. In contrast to controls, no N2 increase to underweight bodies was observed in BN. P3 was modulated by stimulus category only in healthy controls; late slow waves to underweight bodies were more pronounced in both groups. P2 amplitudes to overweight stimuli were correlated with drive for thinness and body dissatisfaction. We present novel support for altered perceptual and cognitive-affective processing of body images in BN on the subjective and electrophysiological level. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @article{KochMatthiasPollatos, author = {Koch, Anne and Matthias, Ellen and Pollatos, Olga}, title = {Increased Attentional Bias towards Food Pictures in Overweight and Obese Children}, series = {Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior}, volume = {2}, journal = {Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior}, number = {2}, issn = {2375-4494}, doi = {10.4172/2375-4494.1000130}, pages = {7}, abstract = {Objective: Childhood overweight is related to higher sensitivity for external food cues and less responsiveness towards internal satiety signals. Thus, cognitive psychological models assume an enhanced food attention bias underlying overeating behavior. Nevertheless, this question has only been sparsely investigated so far in younger children and it remains open whether restrained eating behavior plays a correlative role. Methods: The present study investigated this specific information processing bias for food relevant stimuli in 34 overweight children between 6 and 10 years and 34 normal weight children matched for age, sex and socioeconomic status. Children completed a computerized Food Picture Interference task that assessed reaction time interference effects towards high and low calorie food pictures. Level of hunger and restrained eating were assessed via self-report. Results: Results indicated that while finding no group difference in general processing speed or hunger level before the task, overweight children showed a higher attentional bias to food pictures than normal weight children. No effect of caloric density was found. However, surprisingly, the interference effect was negatively related to restrained eating in the overweight group only. Conclusion: The found hypersensitivity for food cues independent of calorie content in overweight children appears to be related to dysfunctional eating, so that future research should consider strategies for attentional retraining.}, language = {en} }