TY - JOUR A1 - Schinköth, Michaela A1 - Brand, Ralf T1 - Automatic associations and the affective valuation of exercise BT - disentangling the type-1 process of the affective–reflective theory of physical inactivity and exercise JF - German Journal of Exercise and Sport Research N2 - The decision to exercise is not only bound to rational considerations but also automatic affective processes. The affective–reflective theory of physical inactivity and exercise (ART) proposes a theoretical framework for explaining how the automatic affective process (type‑1 process) will influence exercise behavior, i.e., through the automatic activation of exercise-related associations and a subsequent affective valuation of exercise. This study aimed to empirically test this assumption of the ART with data from 69 study participants. A single-measurement study, including within-subject experimental variation, was conducted. Automatic associations with exercise were first measured with a single-target implicit association test. The somato-affective core of the participants’ automatic valuation of exercise-related pictures was then assessed via heart rate variability (HRV) analysis, and the affective valence of the valuation was tested with a facial expression (FE; smile and frown) task. Exercise behavior was assessed via self-report. Multiple regression (path) analysis revealed that automatic associations predicted HRV reactivity (β = −0.24, p = .044); the signs of the correlation between automatic associations and the smile FE score was in the expected direction but remained nonsignificant (β = −0.21, p = .078). HRV reactivity predicted self-reported exercise behavior (β = −0.28, p = .013) (the same pattern of results was achieved for the frown FE score). The HRV-related results illustrate the potential role of automatic negative affective reactions to the thought of exercise as a restraining force in exercise motivation. For better empirical distinction between the two ART type‑1 process components, automatic associations and the affective valuation should perhaps be measured separately in the future. The results support the notion that automatic and affective processes should be regarded as essential aspects of the motivation to exercise. KW - Heart rate variability KW - Facial expression KW - Somatic KW - Dual-process KW - Motivation Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s12662-020-00664-9 SN - 2509-3150 SN - 2509-3142 VL - 50 IS - 654 SP - 366 EP - 376 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ; Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Koch, Anne A1 - Pollatos, Olga T1 - Cardiac sensitivity in children: Sex differences and its relationship to parameters of emotional processing JF - Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research N2 - 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. KW - Children KW - Emotional intelligence KW - Heartbeat perception KW - Heart rate variability KW - Interoceptive sensitivity Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12233 SN - 0048-5772 SN - 1469-8986 VL - 51 IS - 9 SP - 932 EP - 941 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pollatos, Olga A1 - Dietel, Anja A1 - Herbert, Beate M. A1 - Wankner, Sarah A1 - Wachsmuth, Cornelia A1 - Henningsen, Peter A1 - Sack, Martin T1 - Blunted autonomic reactivity and increased pain tolerance in somatoform patients JF - Pain : journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain N2 - 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. KW - Autonomic KW - Heart rate variability KW - Pain threshold KW - Pain tolerance KW - Response KW - Somatoform disorder KW - Sympathovagal balance Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2011.05.024 SN - 0304-3959 VL - 152 IS - 9 SP - 2157 EP - 2164 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pollatos, Olga A1 - Herbert, Beate M. A1 - Wankner, Sarah A1 - Dietel, Anja A1 - Wachsmuth, Cornelia A1 - Henningsen, Peter A1 - Sack, Martin T1 - Autonomic imbalance is associated with reduced facial recognition in somatoform disorders JF - Journal of psychosomatic research N2 - 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. KW - Somatoform disorder KW - Interoceptive awareness KW - Facial recognition KW - Autonomic response KW - Heart rate variability Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2011.03.012 SN - 0022-3999 VL - 71 IS - 4 SP - 232 EP - 239 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER -