Emotional Indicators Research Articles

Full-Endoscopic Ventral Facetectomy vs Open Laminectomy for Lumbar Lateral Recess Stenosis: A Comparative Study and Brief Literature Review.

Lateral recess stenosis (LRS) represents a major etiology of pain and disability in recent years. The aim of the present study was to compare the clinical outcomes of full-endoscopic ventral facetectomy (FEVF) vs conventional open laminectomy (OL) for surgical treatment of lumbar LRS. Ninety individuals with diagnosed LRS according to clinical and radiological criteria were included in this study. Patients were appropriately classified into 2 distinct groups according to received treatment. Group A was constituted from 48 patients subjected to FEVF. Contrariwise, the 42 patients of Group B underwent OL. All patients were consecutively evaluated with particular clinical scores preoperatively and at 6 weeks, 3, months, 6 months, 12 months, and 2 years postoperatively. Clinical assessment was conducted with the visual analog scale for leg pain (VAS-LP) and back pain (VAS-BP) and with the Short-Form 36 (SF-36) medical questionnaire. Values of all studied indices in both groups featured a major clinical improvement in 6 weeks with subsequent quantitatively minor albeit still statistically significant amelioration until the end of follow-up at 2 years. Comparative evaluation of recorded parameters between the 2 groups disclosed that VAS-BP, bodily pain, and role emotional indices of SF-36 were quantitatively and statistically differentiated in favor of Group A in 6 weeks, featuring an amelioration that persisted until the end of follow-up. Registered values of the other parameters were not found to demonstrate a quantitatively and clinically noteworthy differentiation between the 2 groups. FEVF represents a feasible, safe, and beneficial alternative for surgical therapy of patients with LRS, featuring comparable outcomes with conventional OL. Lumbar LRS represents a frequent entity with remarkable clinical sequelae. FEVF represents a novel, groundbreaking and minimally invasive technique that should be considered as a safe and efficacious alternative over conventional open surgery in specific patients with LRS.

Music modulates emotional responses in growing pigs

There is a lack of clarity on whether pigs can emotionally respond to musical stimulation and whether that response is related to music structure. Qualitative Behavioral Assessment (QBA) was used to evaluate effects of 16 distinct musical pieces (in terms of harmonic structure) on emotional responses in nursery pigs (n = 30) during four periods: “habituation”, “treatments”, “breaks” and “final”. Data were evaluated using Principal component analysis (PCA). Two principal components (PC) were considered in the analysis: PC1, characterized as a positive emotions index, included the emotional responses content, playful, sociable, and happy, whereas PC2, characterized as a negative emotions index, included fearful, inquisitive, and uneasy with positive loadings, and relaxed and calm with negative loadings. Musical stimulation (treatment) increased (P < 0.01) both emotional indices, compared to other periods and this response was influenced by harmonic characteristics of the music. We concluded that pigs have a wide variety of emotional responses, with different affective states related to the music structure used, providing evidence of its potential use as environmental enrichment for this species.

Heterogeneous investments induced by emotions promote cooperation in public goods games

Emotion plays an important role in heterogeneous investments and has some direct effects on the cooperation behaviour of a player in a public goods game (PGG). How this irrational factor affects the heterogeneous investments and what level of cooperation is present in players with emotions are still unknown to us. Here, the heterogeneous investments induced by emotions into a PGG were introduced. The emotional index was firstly quantified by considering a memory-cumulative effect, and then an investment formula was proposed based on this emotional index. At last, the effect of emotions on the cooperation behaviour in a PGG was investigated. Results show that the heterogeneous investments induced by emotions can improve cooperation significantly in a PGG, and that an increase of the memory length, the emotional increment, or the memory discounting factor can improve the cooperation level.

Training method and system for stress management and mental health care of managers based on deep learning.

In recent years, with the rapid development of the economy, in order to stabilize in the market and expand their own business, various companies in the form of various indicators, tangible or intangible to improve the management of the work of workers, speed up the pace of work, take up more work time. This article studies its relationship with stress management from the perspective of psychological capital, in order to achieve prior control of work stress from the perspective of individual positive psychological capital, and provide a new perspective for work stress management in the field of human resource management, and at the same time Enterprises and colleges and universities improve the psychological capital of employees and provide new management models. The unreasonable distribution of work even affects the daily life of management workers and aggravates the working pressure of company management workers. The training process of deep learning is actually the process of repeated forward and reverse calculations of the deep neural network based on the provided data. This process can actually be abstracted, and the deep learning framework is designed to accomplish this task. The existence of a deep learning framework allows users not to fully understand the principles and training process of deep neural networks, but can effectively train the models they want. A long time of high mental state tension leads to a variety of physical and psychological discomfort. If the pressure cannot be alleviated and released, this article extends the health collection equipment of the deep learning to households, continuously records the health status of residents through the mobile Internet, and uses the information resources of the regional residents' health file platform to provide residents with health status evaluation, management and guidance, health care consultation, education and education. A series of personal health management services such as health risk factor assessment. The positive emotion index of managers increased from 18 to 27, and the negative emotion index decreased from 29 to 13. The positive emotion was significantly more than the negative emotion, and the emotional situation was improved.

Эмоционально-личностные и метакогнитивные предикторы психологического благополучия студентов в современных условиях

This study aims to comprehensively explore the emotional, personal, and metacognitive predictors of students’ psychological well-being. The article presents the results of identifiesying supporting and dysfunctional factors that affect the level of psychological well-being of the current generation of students. Study sample: 317 people subjects aged 18 to 45 years (average age 20.82) — undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students. To measure these characteristics, the following methods were used: a short portrait questionnaire of the Big Five; methodology “Differential Scale of Emotions”; methodology for diagnosing the subjective well-being of the individual; Metacognitive Awareness Inventory; Metacognitive behavior self-assessment scale; test “Differential type of reflection”; Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and the author’s self-assessment questionnaire of metacognitive behavior “Metacognitive skills in the structure of educational and professional activities”. It is shown that the level of subjective well-being differs significantly depending on the level of metacognitive involvement. A positive effect is also exerted by a high index of positive emotions, a greater level of extraversion and conscientiousness, and a low level of neuroticism. The data obtained can be helpful in developing programs for forming and reforming individual metacognitive strategies that contribute to successful adaptation and maintaining subjective well-being maintenance.

Neuropsychological profile of obsessive -compulsive disorder: findings from structural equation modeling

Background and Aim: Obsessive compulsive disorder has a wide prevalence in human society. Based on this, it is very important to know the cognitive, behavioral and neurological backgrounds of these patients and the effective methods of therapeutic interventions to improve their conditions. The aim of the current research was to compare the cognitive, emotional and neurological profiles of people with obsessive-compulsive symptoms with normal people. Method: The present study was a correlational descriptive study. The statistical population consisted of all people with symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the second half of 1400 in Mashhad, who entered the research through an invitation. After conducting the screening interview and checking the criteria for entering the research, 80 people were selected as the research sample. The research tools included Stroop color word test, Wisconsin cards, anxiety sensitivity, ambiguous scenarios, Googlen behavioral disorders questionnaire, Yale Brown obsessive compulsive disorder questionnaire and uncertainty intolerance scale. In order to analyze the data, partial least squares (PLS) approach was used due to the exploratory nature of the model, small sample size and non-normal distribution of variables. Analyzes were performed with SPSS.25 and SmartPLS.3.3.2 software. Results: The results showed that the trajectory of predicting obsessive-compulsive symptoms by five indicators was significant in all dimensions. Based on this, it was found that from the cognitive indicators, congruent reactions (P &lt; 0.01), incongruent reactions (P &lt; 0.01) and ambiguous scenarios (P &lt; 0.01), among the neurological indicators (P &lt; 0.01) P &lt; 0.01) and completion of classes (P &lt; 0.01), among the emotional indices of anxiety sensitivity (P &lt; 0.01) and intolerance of uncertainty (P &lt; 0.01) and among the behavioral indices of behavioral tendencies Consistency (P&lt;0.01) and impulsive behavior tendencies (P&lt;0.01) were significant predictors for OCD symptoms. Conclusion: These results indicate that in explaining the psychological profile of obsessive-compulsive sufferers, the need to pay attention to cognitive, behavioral, emotional and neurological indicators has an important place. Also, based on these findings, it was found that emotional indicators have the highest level of predictability and behavioral indicators have the lowest level of predictability among the investigated indicators.

Rating the Crisis of Online Public Opinion Using a Multi-Level Index System

Online public opinion usually spreads rapidly and widely, thus a small incident probably evolves into a large social crisis in a very short time, and results in a heavy loss in credit or economic aspects. We propose a method to rate the crisis of online public opinion based on a multi-level index system to evaluate the impact of events objectively. Firstly, the dissemination mechanism of online public opinion is explained from the perspective of information ecology. According to the mechanism, some evaluation indexes are selected through correlation analysis and principal component analysis. Then, a classification model of text emotion is created via the training by deep learning to achieve the accurate quantification of the emotional indexes in the index system. Finally, based on the multi-level evaluation index system and grey correlation analysis, we propose a method to rate the crisis of online public opinion. The experiment with the real-time incident show that this method can objectively evaluate the emotional tendency of Internet users and rate the crisis in different dissemination stages of online public opinion. It is helpful to realizing the crisis warning of online public opinion and timely blocking the further spread of the crisis.

Indices of Favourable and Unfavourable Emotions in the Inter-Actional Context of the Classroom: Constructions from the Chilean Case

The system for measuring the quality of education (SIMCE) is a standardised evaluation that provides results on the academic achievement of Chilean students, while also including indicators of personal and social development. Through a mixed analysis of variables extracted from these indicators, the purpose of this research study is to build a measurement system to assess the favourable and unfavourable emotions of students who took the test in 2018. To contextualise this work, a systematic literature review was carried out synthetising scientific evidence concerning emotions and the interactional context of the classroom. Through a methodological transposition, a qualitative theoretical model epistemologically grounded on radical constructivism was validated quantitatively. This transposition resulted in the construction of three indices of favourable and unfavourable emotions: motivation arising from interaction, exclusionary interaction and interactional context. The results show favourable and unfavourable emotions for learning are a variable in the SIMCE indicators that can be used to understand student academic achievement, confirming existing empirical evidence regarding the explanatory and predictive value of emotions in students’ performance. These results highlight the potential benefits of expanding on this type of research to improve the quality of Chilean education based on the resources already available in the current evaluation system.

The Relationship of Emotional Burnout and Personality Characteristics of Teachers

The article presents the results of an empirical study devoted to the study of the relationship between emotional burnout and personal characteristics of teachers. The subjects included 60 teachers of different age and work experience. It is proved that in the group of teachers with experience of 3-10 years high results were obtained on the scales of communicative speed and intellectual emotionality, and the group of teachers with experience of 11-30 years were found at a higher level of formation on the scales of resistance phase, emotional symptoms -moral disorientation, reduction of professional responsibilities, psychosomatic, psychovegetative disorders, intellectual ergism and control scale than in the group of teachers with 3-10 years of experience. The most pronounced component of the emotional burnout syndrome in the general sample is depersonalization, which is manifested in the deformation of interpersonal contacts with the environment in the form of increasing negativity towards them. A statistically significant positive correlation was found in the overall subjects between the variables of emotional burnout such as stress phase, emotional exhaustion, reduction of personal achievements with such variables of personality traits as communicative emotionality, indices of general emotionality and general activity. In other words, the higher the level of personality traits, the better teachers prevent the occurrence of emotional burnout. There were shown negative correlations in the general in subjects studied between such variables of emotional burnout syndrome as stress phase, symptom of traumatic circumstances, symptom of personal alienation, emotional exhaustion with such variables of personality traits as communicative ergicness and intellectual speed. Negative psychological manifestations of emotional burnout in teachers, such as increased irritability, decreased self-control which leads to professional destruction, deformation, crises, stress and other negative formations were found. The obtained results can be used in the practical work of a psychologist with teachers.

Self-defining memories-Narrative features in relation to adaptive and maladaptive personality traits (replication and extension of Blagov & Singer, 2004).

Self-defining memories (SDMs) are units of life-story analysis, whose features resemble elements from narrative identity's factorial structure. To bridge narrative-identity and personality-trait domains, we conducted a replication and extension of prior research. We linked four SDM features - affect, specificity, meaning making, and content - to the Big Three trait domains of personality and psychopathology in a small sample that was well-powered for multilevel modeling (133 participants, 1330 SDMs). Affect SDM affect correlated with indices of Positive Emotionality and Negative Emotionality, and narrative themes of contamination were associated with Negative Emotionality. Specificity SDM specificity vs. overgenerality related to Constraint and Negative Emotionality indices, lending support to the executive dysfunction and emotional disorder theories of overgeneral autobiographical memory. (Tests of the avoidance thesis of overgeneral memory were inconclusive.) Meaning making Explicit meaning making in SDMs reflected adaptive personality. It moderated (or buffered) the link between SDMs' affect and chronic emotional distress. Content The links between SDM content and traits suggest that SDMs reflect personal goals, whose fulfillment or frustration relate to psychological health. This research serves replication purposes as well as the purpose of connecting two major domains of personality: narrative identity and adaptive and maladaptive traits.

Effect of landscape design elements on promoting neuropsychological health of children

The environmental design of built spaces can have neuro-psychological effects on humans. The design of hospital environments, especially for children, is probably more important than the other spaces because children are mentally more vulnerable than other social groups. This research aimed to examine the children's and therapists' views and perceptions on the effect of a children's hospital's landscape design elements to improve their neuropsychological health during their treatment period. Sixty sick children and 60 hospital staff (therapists) evaluated landscape images and responded to a questionnaire. Both respondent groups believed in the positive effects of landscape elements on all children's neuropsychological indices, including the increased emotional index, increased cognitive index, and reduced non-symptoms index. Both respondent groups firstly preferred children's features and secondly, water features. These preferences positively affected many neuropsychological indices of sick children. However, children chose water features as their priority, which positively affected sick children's relaxation. However, this view was not consistent with their therapists' views. The children and their therapists were also not in agreement on the impact of other landscape elements (trees, flowers, ground cover plants, turfgrasses, and mulch) on many neuropsychological indices of sick children. Therefore, based on this research, children's therapists cannot be good representatives for their psychological perceptions about the hospital's landscape elements when a direct assessment of children's perceptions is almost impossible. This research has practical recommendations for landscape professionals around the world on the sustainable design of therapeutic landscapes.

Psychological and psychophysiological effects of music intensity and lyrics on simulated urban driving

The main aim of this study was to investigate the effect of musical characteristics (i.e., presence of lyrics and loudness) in the context of simulated urban driving. Previous work has seldom isolated musical characteristics and examined these both singularly and interactively. We investigated the potentially distracting effects of processing lyrics through exposing young drivers to the same piece of music with/without lyrics and at different sound intensities (60 dBA [soft] and 75 dBA [loud]) using a counterbalanced, within-subjects design (N = 34; Mage = 22.2 years, SD = 2.0 years). Six simulator conditions were included that comprised low-intensity music with/without lyrics, high-intensity music with/without lyrics, plus two controls – ambient in-car noise and spoken lyrics. Between-subjects variables of driving style (defensive vs. assertive) and sex (women vs. men) were explored. A key finding was that the no lyrics/soft condition yielded lower affective arousal scores when compared to the other music conditions. There was no main effect of condition for HRV data (SDNN and RMSSD). Exploratory analyses showed that, for assertive drivers, NASA-TLX Performance scores were lower in the no lyrics/soft condition compared to the lyrics/loud condition. Moreover, women exhibited higher mean heart rate than men in the presence of lyrics. Although some differences emerged in subjective outcomes, these were not replicated in HRV, which was used as an objective index of emotionality. Drivers should consider the use of soft, non-lyrical music to optimise their affective state during urban driving.

Оценка влияния эмоционального восприятия визуального контента на принятие политических решений

The paper investigates the peculiarities of the emotional perception of political video content of different genres: humorous, video memes, the speech of a political leader and a video that causes disgust, by the youth. The conducted psycho-diagnostic research, using an adapted version of the scale of differential emotions (DES), made it possible to assess the level of emotional impact of political video content on young people, as well as to obtain the results of the influence of emotions on their intention to make certain political decisions. Analysis of the data showed that watching a humorous video and speaking of a political leader statistically significantly reduced the index of anxious-depressive emotions (p = 0.02, p = 0.07&nbsp;–&nbsp;Wilcoxon test), compared with other videos. The assessment of the intention to support a political leader/bill was the highest after watching the video of the politician's speech (2.9).

Evaluation of emotional arousal level and depression severity using voice-derived sound pressure change acceleration

In this research, we propose a new index of emotional arousal level using sound pressure change acceleration, called the emotional arousal level voice index (EALVI), and investigate the relationship between this index and depression severity. First, EALVI values were calculated from various speech recordings in the interactive emotional dyadic motion capture database, and the correlation with the emotional arousal level of each voice was examined. The resulting correlation coefficient was 0.52 (n = 10,039, p < 2.2 × 10−16). We collected a total of 178 datasets comprising 10 speech phrases and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D) score of outpatients with major depression at the Ginza Taimei Clinic (GTC) and the National Defense Medical College (NDMC) Hospital. The correlation coefficients between the EALVI and HAM-D scores were − 0.33 (n = 88, p = 1.8 × 10−3) and − 0.43 (n = 90, p = 2.2 × 10−5) at the GTC and NDMC, respectively. Next, the dataset was divided into “no depression” (HAM-D < 8) and “depression” groups (HAM-D ≥ 8) according to the HAM-D score. The number of patients in the “no depression” and “depression” groups were 10 and 78 in the GTC data, and 65 and 25 in the NDMC data, respectively. There was a significant difference in the mean EALVI values between the two groups in both the GTC and NDMC data (p = 8.9 × 10−3, Cliff’s delta = 0.51 and p = 1.6 × 10−3; Cliff’s delta = 0.43, respectively). The area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic curve when discriminating both groups by EALVI was 0.76 in GTC data and 0.72 in NDMC data. Indirectly, the data suggest that there is some relationship between emotional arousal level and depression severity.

Влияние иппотерапии на психокоррекцию эмоциональных состояний подростков

Introduction. The article shows the relevance of the theoretical and practical study of the influence of hippotherapy on the psychocorrection of emotional states of adolescents. It is hypothesized that the use of hippotherapy classes for the purpose of psychocorrection of emotional states in adolescents will have a regulating effect on the emotional sphere of adolescents and eliminate negative emotional patterns of behavior. Materials and methods of research. The article presents the results of a study on the use of hippotherapy classes for the purpose of psychocorrection of emotional states in adolescents, which have a regulating effect on the emotional sphere of adolescents and eliminate negative emotional patterns of behavior. The stages and a set of psychological techniques are described. The results of the study revealed in most of the adolescents the presence of an increased level of aggressiveness, unwillingness or inability to restrain outbursts of aggression towards others, a moderate level of situational anxiety and a low level of personal anxiety, only half of the subjects are characterized by a pronounced degree of the Index of positive emotions, etc. After completing the course of hippotherapy, the study showed a positive trend in the indicators of emotional states of adolescents: a statistically significant decrease in the level of aggressiveness, a decrease in the level of situational anxiety, a decrease in the level of depressive states, a positive trend in the indicators of emotional states. The results of the study allow us to conclude that hippotherapy can become a justified and effective way to the psychological and emotional health of the individual.

Facial expressions and the business cycle

This paper is the first to consider the link between information in the facial expressions of economic actors and economic activity. While much research has focused on text based sentiment, little is understood about the possible information conveyed by facial expressions. A collection of media photographs corresponding to the US economy for the period 1996–2018 is used to construct indices of emotions communicated by facial expressions. The indices are correlated with business cycle conditions, and also contain information about the future state of the business cycle, information that is incremental to that contained in commonly used measures of economic conditions. Social cognition means that emotions transmitted via facial expressions can influence expectations regarding economic prospects, decision making and hence future economic outcomes. The results here open up the possibility of using information from facial expressions to augment existing methods for using text-based sentiment for macroeconomic or financial forecasting.

Message framing, non-conscious perception and effectiveness in non-profit advertising. Contribution by neuromarketing research

Advertising for non-profit organizations through television commercials is a valuable means of communication to raise awareness and receive donations. When it comes to social aspects, personal attitudes such as empathy are significant for reinforcing the intention to donate; and the study of eliciting emotions has critical attention in the literature, especially some types of emotion, such as guilt which mediates empathy. Different methodologies have been used to measure consumer emotions when faced with TV ads stimuli: mainly traditional techniques such as interviews or questionnaires after the ads viewing. In the last ten years, there has also been a great interest in new neuroscience techniques applied to measure emotional and cognitive reactions by physiological signals, frame by frame. Our research has applied neuromarketing technologies during the observation of a UNHCR commercial promoting legacy calls. The objective was to study cognitive and emotional reactions in order to increase the effectiveness whilst having the possibility to verify the results by measuring the benefits in terms of calls from contributors. The purpose of this research is to empirically prove the impact in calls thanks to changes in the message framing strategy in non-profit advertising suggested and measured by neuromarketing techniques. Particularly we measured the cerebral activity through an electroencephalogram to obtain an Approach-Withdrawal Index (AW); the heart rate and galvanic skin response through different sensors in the palm of one hand, to obtain an Emotional Index (EI), and finally, eye fixations through an eye tracker device to obtain the visual attention on key visual areas of the ads. After these indicators’ recordings on a sample of subjects, some suggestions to modify the advertising were made to create a more effective campaign. The results compared, those elicited by the first version of the spot (LVE) and those by the second version (HVE), confirmed that (1) the number of sellable and legacy calls increased with the message framing strategy modified in the second spot (HVE), (2) a lower cognitive and emotional reactions have been obtained in the final section of HVE, (3) the visual attention on the key information of the phone number to call, in the final call to action frames(CTA), was higher in HVE than in the first version of the spot (LVE), (4) the cognitive approach increased during the same CTA frames in HVE.

Research on the Experience of Users of Political Slogans in Ukraine

The study partly reveals “Zelenskyi’s phenomenon”, when a person without any political experience confidently won a victory over an experienced politician at the presidential and parliamentary elections. The paper considered neuropsychological understanding of a brand as a multi-modal image with emotional connection and as an artificial addiction. Specific features of the perception of political slogans were studied with EMOTIV Epoc+ 14-channel mobile neurointerface and EmotivPRO and EMOTIV Brain Activity Map software. The ranking of slogans in terms of the efficiency of perception of the individuals of 40-60 years old was carried out on the basis of EEG and the cognitive and emotional indexes: obtained stress, interaction, interest, excitement, concentration, relaxation. The study involved 30 men and 30 women who intended to vote in the presidential elections of 2019. It was established which slogans are the best, good, average, ambiguous, with little effect, ineffective, with a negative effect. It was determined that the most effective and at the same time efficient slogan that evokes emotions and really encourages to support is PRESIDENT IS PEOPLE’S SERVANT. The best slogan that appeals to support it is “We Are Ukraine”, “New Policy of Ukraine”, “Country of Strong People!” The basic cognitive and emotional indexes that would contribute to the creation of effective psychological impact on voters’ behavior are the presence in the slogan of the word “Ukraine”, the avoidance of the so-called “stop words” (for women it is “army” and everything related to violence and death, and for men it is everything related to the provision of material benefits), the use of religious sentimentality in women and gender differences in slogans targeting. The value of the studied phenomenon and the efficiency of slogans and other media products before launching them into mass advertising has been proved.

A unified framework for effective team formation in social networks

Collaboration networks are social networks in which nodes represent experts, and edges represent the interactions between them. Team Formation Problem (TFP) in Social Networks (SN) is to construct a group of individuals to work on complex tasks. Teams should satisfy the skill set required by the tasks and can collaborate effectively under multiple constraints. Although many algorithms have been proposed to confront the TFP, most of them optimize different criteria and various parameters (e.g. communication cost or expertise level). There is no unified framework to incorporate the most significant parameters towards formulating effective teams of experts. We propose a unified framework for the TFP in SN based on a multi-objective cultural algorithm that involves the integration of essential cost functions such as communication cost, expertise level, collective trust score, and geological proximity. Since these are conflicting objectives, we return a set of Pareto front of teams that are not dominated by other feasible teams with regards to any of the objectives. Moreover, we examine the temporal nature of both communication costs and expertise levels in our model and introduce a new method to formulate them. We introduce a profile similarity formula to express the trust score. We then discuss the importance of emotional index in TFP. Our model is tested on a benchmark table, which is generated with various criteria of social networks. Our model is then compared with NSGA II, Graph-Based and Exhaustive search.

Attentive immobility in the face of inevitable distal threat-Startle potentiation and fear bradycardia as an index of emotion and attention.

During fear conditioning, a cue (CS) signals an inevitable distal threat (US) and evokes a conditioned response that can be described as attentive immobility (freezing). The organism remains motionless and monitors the source of danger while startle responses are potentiated, indicating a state of defensive hypervigilance. Although in animals vagally mediated fear bradycardia is also reliably observed under such circumstances, results are mixed in human fear conditioning. Using a single-cue fear conditioning and extinction protocol, we tested cardiac reactivity and startle potentiation indexing low-level defensive strategies in a fear-conditioned (n=40; paired presentations of CS and US) compared with a non-conditioned control group (n=40; unpaired presentations of CS and US). Additionally, we assessed shock expectancy ratings on a trial-by-trial basis indexing declarative knowledge of the previous contingencies. Half of each group underwent extinction under sham or active transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS), serving as additional proof of concept. We found stronger cardiac deceleration during CS presentation in the fear learning relative to the control group. This learned fear bradycardia was positively correlated with conditioned startle potentiation but not with declarative knowledge of CS-US contingencies. TVNS abolished differences in heart rate changes between both groups and removed the significant correlation between late cardiac deceleration and startle potentiation in the fear learning group. Results suggest, fear-conditioned cues evoke attentive immobility in humans, characterized by cardiac deceleration and startle potentiation. Such defensive response pattern is elicited by cues predicting inevitable distal threat and resembles conditioned fear responses observed in rodents.