TY  - GEN
A1  - Weymar, Mathias
A1  - Ventura-Bort, Carlos
A1  - Wendt, Julia
A1  - Lischke, Alexander
T1  - Behavioral and neural evidence of enhanced long-term memory for untrustworthy faces
T2  - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe
N2  - In daily life, we automatically form impressions of other individuals on basis of subtle facial features that convey trustworthiness. Because these face-based judgements influence current and future social interactions, we investigated how perceived trustworthiness of faces affects long-term memory using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the current study, participants incidentally viewed 60 neutral faces differing in trustworthiness, and one week later, performed a surprise recognition memory task, in which the same old faces were presented intermixed with novel ones. We found that after one week untrustworthy faces were better recognized than trustworthy faces and that untrustworthy faces prompted early (350–550 ms) enhanced frontal ERP old/new differences (larger positivity for correctly remembered old faces, compared to novel ones) during recognition. Our findings point toward an enhanced long-lasting, likely familiarity-based, memory for untrustworthy faces. Even when trust judgments about a person do not necessarily need to be accurate, a fast access to memories predicting potential harm may be important to guide social behaviour in daily life.
T3  - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 594 
KW  - Recognition Memory
KW  - Facial Expressions
KW  - Trustworthiness
KW  - Recollection
KW  - Amygdala
KW  - Metaanalysis
KW  - Information
KW  - Appearance
KW  - Perception
KW  - Trust
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-442925
SN  - 1866-8364
IS  - 594
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Weymar, Mathias
A1  - Ventura-Bort, Carlos
A1  - Wendt, Julia
A1  - Lischke, Alexander
T1  - Behavioral and neural evidence of enhanced long-term memory for untrustworthy faces
JF  - Scientific Reports
N2  - In daily life, we automatically form impressions of other individuals on basis of subtle facial features that convey trustworthiness. Because these face-based judgements influence current and future social interactions, we investigated how perceived trustworthiness of faces affects long-term memory using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the current study, participants incidentally viewed 60 neutral faces differing in trustworthiness, and one week later, performed a surprise recognition memory task, in which the same old faces were presented intermixed with novel ones. We found that after one week untrustworthy faces were better recognized than trustworthy faces and that untrustworthy faces prompted early (350–550 ms) enhanced frontal ERP old/new differences (larger positivity for correctly remembered old faces, compared to novel ones) during recognition. Our findings point toward an enhanced long-lasting, likely familiarity-based, memory for untrustworthy faces. Even when trust judgments about a person do not necessarily need to be accurate, a fast access to memories predicting potential harm may be important to guide social behaviour in daily life.
KW  - Recognition Memory
KW  - Facial Expressions
KW  - Trustworthiness
KW  - Recollection
KW  - Amygdala
KW  - Metaanalysis
KW  - Information
KW  - Appearance
KW  - Perception
KW  - Trust
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55705-7
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 9
PB  - Macmillan Publishers Limited
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Szeska, Christoph
A1  - Richter, Jan
A1  - Wendt, Julia
A1  - Weymar, Mathias
A1  - Hamm, Alfons O.
T1  - Promoting long-term inhibition of human fear responses by non-invasive transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation during extinction training
JF  - Scientific reports
N2  - Inhibiting fear-related thoughts and defensive behaviors when they are no longer appropriate to the situation is a prerequisite for flexible and adaptive responding to changing environments. Such inhibition of defensive systems is mediated by ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), limbic basolateral amygdala (BLA), and brain stem locus-coeruleus noradrenergic system (LC-NAs). Non-invasive, transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) has shown to activate this circuit. Using a multiple-day single-cue fear conditioning and extinction paradigm, we investigated long-term effects of tVNS on inhibition of low-level amygdala modulated fear potentiated startle and cognitive risk assessments. We found that administration of tVNS during extinction training facilitated inhibition of fear potentiated startle responses and cognitive risk assessments, resulting in facilitated formation, consolidation and long-term recall of extinction memory, and prevention of the return of fear. These findings might indicate new ways to increase the efficacy of exposure-based treatments of anxiety disorders.
KW  - Amygdala
KW  - Autonomic nervous system
KW  - Electromyography – EMG
KW  - Extinction
KW  - Fear conditioning
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58412-w
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 10
IS  - 1
PB  - Nature Publishing Group
CY  - London
ER  -