"Left" and "right" coordinates control our spatial behavior and even influence abstract thoughts. For number concepts, horizontal spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) have been widely documented: we associate few with left and many with right. Importantly, increments are universally coded on the right side even in preverbal humans and nonhuman animals, thus questioning the fundamental role of directional cultural habits, such as reading or finger counting. Here, we propose a biological, nonnumerical mechanism for the origin of SNAs on the basis of asymmetric tuning of animal brains for different spatial frequencies (SFs). The resulting selective visual processing predicts both universal SNAs and their context-dependence. We support our proposal by analyzing the stimuli used to document SNAs in newborns for their SF content. As predicted, the SFs contained in visual patterns with few versus many elements preferentially engage right versus left brain hemispheres, respectively, thus predicting left-versus rightward behavioral biases. Our "brain's asymmetric frequency tuning" hypothesis explains the perceptual origin of horizontal SNAs for nonsymbolic visual numerosities and might be extensible to the auditory domain.

Background: Under the new psychotherapy law in Germany, standardized patients (SPs) are to become a standard component inpsychotherapy training, even though little is known about their authenticity.Objective:The present pilot study explored whether, followingan exhaustive two-day SP training, psychotherapy trainees can distinguish SPs from real patients. Methods: Twenty-eight psychotherapytrainees (M= 28.54 years of age,SD= 3.19) participated as blind raters. They evaluated six video-recorded therapy segments of trained SPsand real patients using the Authenticity of Patient Demonstrations Scale. Results: The authenticity scores of real patients and SPs did notdiffer (p= .43). The descriptive results indicated that the highest score of authenticity was given to an SP. Further, the real patients did notdiffer significantly from the SPs concerning perceived impairment (p= .33) and the likelihood of being a real patient (p= .52). Conclusions: The current results suggest that psychotherapy trainees were unable to distinguish the SPs from real patients. We therefore stronglyrecommend incorporating training SPs before application. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Empirical investigations on the uncanny valley have almost solely focused on the analysis of people?s noninteractive perception of a robot at first sight. Recent studies suggest, however, that these uncanny first impressions may be significantly altered over an interaction. What is yet to discover is whether certain interaction patterns can lead to a faster decline in uncanny feelings. In this paper, we present a study in which participants with limited expertise in Computer Science played a collaborative geography game with a Furhat robot. During the game, Furhat displayed one of two personalities, which corresponded to two different interaction strategies. The robot was either optimistic and encouraging, or impatient and provocative. We performed the study in a science museum and recruited participants among the visitors. Our findings suggest that a robot that is rated high on agreeableness, emotional stability, and conscientiousness can indeed weaken uncanny feelings. This study has important implications for human-robot interaction design as it further highlights that a first impression, merely based on a robot?s appearance, is not indicative of the affinity people might develop towards it throughout an interaction. We thus argue that future work should emphasize investigations on exact interaction patterns that can help to overcome uncanny feelings.

Objective: Individuals’ decisions to engage in exercise are often the result of in-the-moment choices between exercise and a competing behavioral alternative. The purpose of this study was to investigate processes that occur in-the-moment (i.e., situated processes) when individuals are faced with the choice between exercise and a behavioral alternative during a computerized task. These were analyzed against the background of interindividual differences in individuals’ automatic valuation and controlled evaluation of exercise. Method: In a behavioral alternatives task 101 participants were asked whether they would rather choose an exercise option or a behavioral alternative in 25 trials. Participants’ gaze behavior (first gaze and fixations) was recorded using eye-tracking. An exercise-specific affect misattribution procedure (AMP) was used to assess participants’ automatic valuation of exercise before the task. After the task, self-reported feelings towards exercise (controlled evaluation) and usual weekly exercise volume were assessed. Mixed effects models with random effects for subjects and trials were used for data analysis. Results: Choosing exercise was positively correlated with individuals’ automatic valuation (r = 0.20, p = 0.05), controlled evaluation (r = 0.58, p < 0.001), and their weekly exercise volume (r = 0.43, p < 0.001). Participants showed no bias in their initial gaze or number of fixations towards the exercise or the non-exercise alternative. However, participants were 1.30 times more likely to fixate on the chosen alternative first and more frequently, but this gaze behavior was not related to individuals’ automatic valuation, controlled evaluation, or weekly exercise volume. Conclusion: The results suggest that situated processes arising from defined behavioral alternatives may be independent of individuals’ general preferences. Despite one’s best general intention to exercise more, the choice of a non-exercise alternative behavior may seem more appealing in-the-moment and eventually be chosen. New psychological theories of health behavior change should therefore better consider the role of potentially conflicting alternatives when it comes to initiating physical activity or exercise.

Introduction: The death of a significant person through suicide is a very difficult experience and can have long-term impact on an individual's psychosocial and physical functioning. However, there are only few studies that have examined the effects of interventions in suicide survivors. In the present study, we examine an online-group intervention for people bereaved by suicide using a group-webinar. Methods: The intervention was developed based on focus groups with the target group. The cognitive-behavioral 12-module webinar-based group intervention focuses on suicide bereavement-related themes such as feelings of guilt, stigmatization, meaning reconstruction and the relationship to the deceased. Further, the webinar includes testimonial videos and psychoeducation. The suicide survivors are randomized to the intervention or the waiting list in a group-cluster randomized controlled trial. Primary outcomes are suicidality (Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation) and depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II) and secondary outcomes are symptoms of prolonged grief disorder (Inventory of Complicated Grief-German Version ), posttraumatic stress disorder ( Revised Impact of Event Scale ), stigmatization (Stigma of Suicide and Suicide Survivor ) and posttraumatic cognitions (Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory). Discussion: Previous studies of Internet-based interventions for the bereaved were based on writing interventions showing large treatment effects. Little is known about the use of webinars as group interventions. Advantages and challenges of this novel approach of psychological interventions will be discussed.