Author: dziobeklab

New member! 👥 Welcome, Maria!

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Maria Badanova has recently joined us as a PhD student!

Her research focuses on the altered states of consciousness (ASC) practices such as breathwork and mindfulness. She is particularly interested in identifying the therapeutic benefits as well as potential risks of ASC interventions, and in exploring the interplay of the challenging and the helpful.

Maria conducts her studies within the Max Planck School of Cognition, a doctoral program dedicated to advancing the understanding of cognitive processes through interdisciplinary and innovative approaches.

We wish her all the best for her doctoral studies!

📹 Dziobek Lab on TV! “Terra Xplore” on Empathy

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The TV program “Terra Xplore” explores the question What is empathy and can it be learnt?. Among other protagonists, the show follows Isabel Dziobek, who shares her experience in the field of empathy research and presents some amazing work from the Lab like the Zirkus Empathico or the EVA/SCOTT training.
The documentary will be broadcast on September 03, 2023 at 18:00 on ZDF (in German) and can already be watched in the ZDF Mediathek. Link to the full size video (in German)

Podcast: Smart and well

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Smart and Well: encouraging conversations about mental health in academiaIt is no secret that universities are high-pressure environments, where students are under constant stress to achieve top grades, secure internships and keep up with coursework. This pressure is only amplified when you are looking to move into academia and pursue a career in research. The demands of academia can be immense: from stressful deadlines, the expectation to constantly achieve in order to maintain the place in the field, and the need to keep up with an ever-changing environment. With contracts often lasting only a few years and having to move around frequently to find work it can become difficult to plan for the future or maintain personal and professional relationships. With all this in mind, it is no surprise that mental health issues are on the rise. Academia can be rewarding in many ways and while the causes of mental health issues are complex and varied, for many academics, the only way to cope with the constant pressure is to sacrifice their personal well-being. The impact of mental health issues on academics should not, therefore, be underestimated. This is something that needs to be addressed more openly in universities, as it can have repercussions even on the most resilient individuals. Smart and Well is an initiative of a group of students and researchers from different institutions in Berlin aiming to increase awareness about mental health in academia. The mission of the project is set to foster well-being and prevent distress in students and early career researchers by providing information on, creating awareness for, and destigmatising the topic of mental health. The team is currently working on an interview series with experts in different mental health-related fields such as psychology, healthcare, coaching, and others. Based on surveys conducted by some of the group members, the conversations with experts will address topics that are currently prevalent among academics based in Germany.  Some topics that will be covered are for instance academic-related stress management, depression and anxiety among students and early career researchers, the available support provided by healthcare institutions in Germany and many more. All this is a step further towards encouraging open conversations about mental health in academia, enforcing appropriate work/life balance, and providing adequate support for students and researchers when needed. With proper awareness, care and knowledge that help is available, academics should be able to reach their full potential without sacrificing their well-being.The Smart and Well initiative has been kindly encouraged by Scholar Minds, the Institute of Psychology of the Humboldt University and the Hochschulisches Gesundheitsmanagement of the Humboldt University. The project would not have been able to reach its extent without the great support of the funding program for digital media in research, teaching, and studies “Designing hybrid learning 2022” developed by the Media Commission of the Academic Senate of the Humboldt University. Thanks to the support of this program, it has been possible to acquire professional recording equipment and hire a student assistant to take care of the technical setup, do research, and facilitate communication with the experts.The interviews will be released later this year in a podcast format which will be available for free on many well-known streaming platforms. The podcast will be useful for but not limited to anyone studying and pursuing an academic degree in Germany. More updates about the project will be available soon.If you have in mind a specific topic that you would like to hear or maybe talk about on the podcast, you are more than welcome to get in touch by emailing the Smart and Well team at smartwell.hgm@hu-berlin.de.

The Surprising Benefit of Helping Someone in Distress

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Article in “Psychology Today”: The Surprising Benefit of Helping Someone in Distress

Have you ever watched a horror-movie alone? Surely most people would rather watch such a movie with their partner or a good friend. Of course, it’s reassuring to have a companion, who can calm you down in stressful situations. But the effect might also work the other way around: Comforting another person can help reducing your own distress.

In an exciting fMRI experiment, Simón Guendelmann investigated the benefits of regulating a partner’s emotions and how regulating others’ emotions differs from regulating one’s own emotions in the brain. An article on the “Psychology Today” website features this research and gives a great overview of the study.

You can find the “Psychology Today” article here and the original research paper in “NeuroImage” here.

Festive opening of the university outpatient clinic

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On 09.09.2022, the new outpatient clinic for psychotherapy and psychodiagnostics, headed by Prof. Dr. Isabel Dziobek, at the Humboldt University of Berlin was officially opened. From now on it is located at Justus-von-Liebig-Str. 7, 12489 Berlin.

Prior to the tour of the new outpatient clinic premises, a scientific symposium was held at the Erwin Schrödinger Zentrum. An overview of the topics presented can be found in the attached PDF (only available in german).

Eröffung HSA HU BerlinDownload

The university outpatient clinic of the Institute of Psychology of the HU Berlin offers psychotherapeutic treatments and clinical-psychological diagnostics at the latest scientific level. There are four specialized clinics:

Specialized Outpatient Clinic for Social Interactions

The specialized outpatient clinic for social interactions at HU Berlin offers diagnostics, counselling and therapy for adults who have problems in social interaction and communication. For some people, such problems occur in the context of a mental illness. These disorders include, for example, autism spectrum disorders, social anxiety disorders or chronic depression.

Specialized outpatient clinic for anxiety disorders

The special outpatient clinic for anxiety disorders at HU Berlin offers treatment, diagnostics and specialised psychotherapy for people with anxiety disorder, panic disorder or various phobic disorders. Treatment is provided by individual therapy and is based on the latest scientific findings.

Specialized outpatient clinic for obsessive-compulsive disorders

In the specialized outpatient clinic for obsessive-compulsive disorders at the HU Berlin, patients with obsessive-compulsive disorders receive individual psychotherapy. Scientifically tested methods of cognitive behavioural therapy are applied. The therapy focuses on exposure with reaction prevention, i.e. facing fears, anxieties, obsessive thoughts and other triggers without engaging in the habitual compulsive actions. According to current research, cognitive behavioural therapy is the most effective method for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Spcialized outpatient clinic for children, adolescents and families

The specialized outpatient clinic for children, adolescents and families at the HU Berlin offers psychotherapeutic help for children and adolescents between the ages of 0 and 21. A special focus is currently on anxiety disorders. The offer consists of cognitive-behavioural individual treatments for children and adolescents as well as family treatments. The psychotherapy and diagnostics offered are closely linked to research on the development, course and treatment of mental illnesses in children and adolescents. At the same time, further developments and improvements of current therapy methods take place in the outpatient clinic.

📝 Subjective and objective difficulty of emotional facial expression perception from dynamic stimuli

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You can find the original article here (open access).

Is it difficult to read emotions? It can be. Is it always equally difficult? No. Why? That was our question in our study.

Background

For some people reading people’s emotional expressions is easier that for others, and that varies in different situations. But why? Is it about the observer? The person showing the expression? The emotion itself? Or, maybe it’s an interplay of all those?

We asked these questions by investigating how the following influence difficulty of emotion perception:

  • observer’s age and (self-reported) sex,
  • actor’s age and sex,
  • valence (positive/negative) and arousal of the displayed emotion

Why and how?

Hey, aren’t there plenty of papers about it already? Yes, there’s a ton of emotion 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 papers. They taught us a lot, but one problem is that they assume a “ground truth” – the correct answer. E.g., if you have to label the emotion of the person in the following image, what would it be?

Whatever you just thought, your answer would be correct if it matches the pre-established label for it in a study. What is it? Usually the actor’s intention. But what if the actor intended “puzzled” and all participants say it’s “surprised”? Are they all wrong? Well, it’s difficult.

We were interested in the 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: how hard it is to read an emotion?Importantly, we differentiated 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 (self-rated) and 𝗼𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 difficulty (how far off is your answer from others of similar culture and gender).

For that, we used a “multidimensional emotion perception framework”, in which 441 observers rated the perceived emotion along a number of dimensions (basic emotions + interest) instead of choosing from traditionally-used discrete categories of emotions (“happy”, “surprised”,etc).

Results

Our data showed that subjective and objective emotion perception is more difficult for:

  • older actors
  • female actors (more complex signals?)
  • female observers (less confidence and/or picking up more subtleties?)

Also, males and the youngest/the oldest participants underestimated their difficulty (subjective difficulty was smaller than the objective one).

The effects of valence/arousal were more complicated (see the figure below and check the paper), but overall stimulus-specific factors (valence and arousal) are more important for difficulty than person-specific (actor/observer age/sex) factors.

Here is the take-home message:

  • we measured difficulty of emotion perception (not recognition)
  • the new paradigm is more sensitive and captures a broader view of human emotion perception (consider the surprising higher objective difficulty for females)

Surprised? Interested? Puzzled? Get in touch, we’re happy to discuss!

Interessiert? Lesen Sie mehr!

📣 Language is action! Terminology Guideline for Autism Researchers.

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The autism-research-cooperation (AFK) developed a guideline to destigmatising and inclusive use of language in autism research for our team.

The Guideline for Language Use in Autism Research were developed following the recommendations of Bottema-Beutel et al. (2021), the publication guidelines for terminology of the scientific journals Autism and Autism in Adulthood and the discussion in the Autismus-Forschungs-Kooperation (AFK). The guideline contains recommendations for the use of diagnostic terms and the designation of subgroups and comparison groups in clinical trials. Medicalised and value-laden terms should be avoided and replaced with neutral or strengths-based language.

You can find the PDF of the guideline here:
You can download the PDF below.



Terminology Guideline for Autism ResearchersDownload
Interessiert? Lesen Sie mehr!

🗞 Article in the magazine “Psychologie Heute”: Autism in women and girls (german)

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“Nicht einfach nur schüchtern.” (“Not just shy.”)
Article in the “Psychologie Heute” from Angelika s. Friedl (04.11.2021). In interview with Isabel Dziobek among others.

The article deals with gender differences in individuals with Autism spectrum disorders.
Autism spectrum disorders are often associated with male gender. Diagnostic bias due to differences in male and female autistic individuals may have an impact on this.
In practice, Isabel Dziobek tells us, the gender distribution looks quite different.
In addition to the differences, general aspects and similarities of males and females in the autism spectrum are described.

Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com

You will find the original article here (link to the Website of the magazine “Psychologie Heute”, registration necessary for reading).

Interessiert? Lesen Sie mehr!

New paper! 📝 Pupillary Responses to Faces Are Modulated by Familiarity and Rewarding Context

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Every day we see dozens of faces and we are experts in their processing. Faces carry a lot of information, one of which is feedback and reward for our actions. For example, when we do something and our friend smiles in response, it’s rewarding. On the other side, sometimes we see people smile, but this smile is not a response to our actions. If smiling faces are per se rewarding, we should feel rewarded in both situations. If, however, the rewarding value of faces depends on our actions, the smile is only rewarding in the first situation. Thus, in this study we compared how people process smiling faces when they serve as feedback and when they simply appear on the screen. Further, faces differ in how familiar (known, recognisable) and socially relevant (personally important) they are. We hypothesised that more familiar and relevant faces would also be more rewarding (when providing feedback). We found that 1) familiarity plays a larger role than social relevance when processing rewarding smiling faces, and that 2) smiling faces are rewards only when they are delivered in response to some actions, and not when we passively watch them on a screen.

Image by Lenka Fortelna from Pixabay 

You can find the original article here (open access, ENG).

Interested? Read more here