Valence Manipulation Research Articles

Controllable amorphization and morphology engineering on mixed-valence MOFs for ultra-fast and high-stability near-pseudocapacitance Li+ storage.

Coulombic efficiency (CE) and rate capability are crucial parameters for advanced secondary batteries. Herein, for the first time, we report controllable amorphization and morphology engineering on mixed-valence Fe(II,III)-MOFs from the crystalline to amorphous state and micro-clustered to hollow nano-spherical geometry through valence manipulation by a dissolved oxygen-mediated pathway. The disordered structure and the hollow nanostructure can endow the MOFs with the highest initial CE (>80%) to date for MOF electrodes, and ultrafast and super-stable near-pseudocapacitance lithium storage. These findings can provide new ideas for the engineering of MOF systems for application in LIBs.

Heart rate variability during social interaction: Effects of valence and emotion regulation

Conceptual models of psychosocial influences on short-term changes (i.e., reactivity) in vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) emphasize self-regulatory effort and social threat versus comfort. However, these two general perspectives have been tested separately in nearly all cases, limiting conclusions about the relative importance or possible interactive effects of effortful self-regulation and social stress. The present study compared effects of effort to regulate emotional expression and social stress versus safety on vmHRV reactivity during an interpersonal interaction, in a 2 (self-regulate emotion vs. express emotion freely) × 3 (positive vs. neutral vs. negative interaction valence) × 2 (male vs. female) between-subjects randomized factorial design. A sample of 180 undergraduates (90 women; 69 % White) discussed a current events topic (i.e., human-caused climate change) with a prerecorded partner, presented as a live interaction over a computer. Self-reports of affective responses, self-regulation effort, and appraisals of the partner's behavior, as well as observer ratings of participants' behavior during the interaction, supported the effectiveness of self-regulation and interaction valence manipulations, although the former manipulation may have been somewhat weaker than the latter. Primary analyses of high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) and root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) in heart beat intervals recorded at baseline and during the interaction revealed larger decreases in vmHRV during negative than neutral or positive interactions, but no effects of self-regulation instructions. Overall, results indicated more robust effects of social stress on vmHRV reactivity, relative to effects of self-regulatory effort.

Perceptual richness of words and its role in free and cued recall

This research aimed to clarify the role of the perceptual richness of words (PR) in the recall tasks. PR was operationalized as the number of sensory modalities through which an object can be perceived. Previously, we found that concepts experienced with many modalities (dog) were recalled more accurately in cued recall than those perceived with few modalities (rainbow) and abstract words. This finding fitted the Perceptual symbol system theory (PSST) and the Dual coding theory (DCT) predictions. We tested the PR effect in both cued (experiment 1- E1) and free recall tasks (experiment 2 – E2) in the present study. With careful stimuli manipulation of context availability and emotional valence and statistical control of arousal and relatedness, made to exclude their influence on recall, we tested alternative explanations of the concreteness effect offered by the relational-distinctiveness hypothesis. The additional perceptual codes improved recall accuracy in the cued recall task (E1), which was in line with the PSST and the DCT. This conclusion is straightforward: two critical groups of concrete words were matched for concreteness and visual perceptual strength. Thus, more accurate recall of concepts experienced with many modalities can be attributed to richer perceptual experience. However, the relational information was essential for recall accuracy in the free recall task (E2), as hypothesized by the relational-distinctiveness hypothesis.

Cross-modal Transfer of Valence or Arousal from Music to Word Targets in Affective Priming?

ABSTRACT This registered report considers how emotion induced in an auditory modality (music) can influence affective evaluations of visual stimuli (words). Specifically, it seeks to determine which emotional dimension is transferred across modalities – valence or arousal – or whether the transferred dimension depends on the focus of attention (feature-specific attention allocation). Two experiments were carried out. The first was an affective priming paradigm that will allow for the orthogonal manipulation of valence and arousal in both the words and music, alongside a manipulation to direct participants’ attention to either the valence or the arousal dimension. Secondly, a lexical decision task allowed cross-modal transfer of valence and arousal to be probed without the focus of participants’ attention being manipulated. Congruence effects were present in the affective priming task – valence was transferred in both the valence and arousal tasks, whereas arousal was transferred in the arousal task only. Contrary to predictions, the lexical decision task did not exhibit any congruence effects.

The impact of choice discriminability and outcome valence on visual decision making under risk

Much of human activity involves perceptual or perceptuo-motor choice between options with uncertain outcomes. Previous research suggests that decisions in these contexts can be near-optimal in some circumstances but can also be significantly biased. Here we investigate how biases might depend on: i) discriminability of available choice outcomes, adjusted by manipulating the Expected Value (EV) function curvature; ii) outcome valence, which changes the tendency for risk seeking/aversive behaviour in cognitive decision making. In three experiments, participants set the size of a catcher in order to catch a dot moving on a random walk (with varying levels of predictability) after it emerged from behind an occluder. Catching and missing the dot were associated with scoring a variable number of outcome points depending on catcher size. In experiment 1 outcomes were most discriminable (high EV curvature) and catcher size settings were near-optimal. In experiments 2 and 3 outcomes were harder to discriminate (low EV curvature) and there was a significant bias to set the catcher size too small. Unlike cognitive decision making, the valence manipulation had little effect. Subsequent analyses suggest observed biases might reflect participants moving settings towards the region with highest EV curvature, where feedback is most informative. These data suggest that: i) unlike cognitive decisions, in this task choices are largely insensitive to outcome valence; ii) EV curvature is potentially an important factor when interpreting performance in such tasks; iii) Choice may be biased towards high EV curvature regions, consistent with value being placed on exploration to increase information return.

The elusive effects of incidental anxiety on reinforcement-learning.

Anxiety is a common affective state, characterized by the subjectively unpleasant feelings of dread over an anticipated event. Anxiety is suspected to have important negative consequences on cognition, decision-making, and learning. Yet, despite a recent surge in studies investigating the specific effects of anxiety on reinforcement-learning, no coherent picture has emerged. Here, we investigated the effects of incidental anxiety on instrumental reinforcement-learning, while addressing several issues and defaults identified in a focused literature review. We used a rich experimental design, featuring both a learning and a transfer phase, and a manipulation of outcomes valence (gains vs losses). In two variants (N = 2 × 50) of this experimental paradigm, incidental anxiety was induced with an established threat-of-shock paradigm. Model-free results show that incidental anxiety effects seem limited to a small, but specific increase in postlearning performance measured by a transfer task. A comprehensive modeling effort revealed that, irrespective of the effects of anxiety, individuals give more weight to positive than negative outcomes, and tend to experience the omission of a loss as a gain (and vice versa). However, in line with results from our targeted literature survey, isolating specific computational effects of anxiety on learning per se proved to be challenging. Overall, our results suggest that learning mechanisms are more complex than traditionally presumed, and raise important concerns about the robustness of the effects of anxiety previously identified in simple reinforcement-learning studies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Robust Yellow-Violet Pigments Tuned by Site-Selective Manganese Chromophores.

The rational design of multifunctional inorganic pigments relies on the manipulation of ionic valence and local surroundings of a chromophore in structurally and chemically habitable hosts. To date, the development of environmentally benign and intense violet/purple pigments is still a challenge. Here we report a family of A3-xMnxTeO6 and A3-2xMnxLixTeO6 (A = Zn, Mg; x = 0.01-0.15) pigments colored by site-selective Mn2+O4 yellow and Mn3+O5-6 violet chromophores. Zn2.9Mn0.1TeO6 is intense bright yellow, comparable with commercial BiVO4, and has better near-infrared reflectivity (∼89%) in comparison to commercial TiO2. The codoped Li+ "activator" generates holes and charge-balanced Mn3+ (Mn3+O5-6), realizing a color transformation from yellow to the bright violet pigments of A3-2xMnxLixTeO6. The most vivid Mg2.8Mn0.1Li0.1TeO6 is probably the best violet pigment known to date, exhibits excellent chemical and thermodynamic stability, and demonstrates pressure-dependent stability up to 5-7 GPa, before a (reversible) phase transition to pink. Theoretical calculations revealed the correlation between site-preference occupancy and chromophore motifs and predicted a wide color gamut of pigments in Zn3TeO6-hosted 3d transition-metal ions other than manganese.

Optimal use of reminders: Metacognition, effort, and cognitive offloading.

Individuals frequently choose between accomplishing goals using unaided cognitive abilities or offloading cognitive demands onto external tools and resources. For example, in order to remember an upcoming appointment one might rely on unaided memory or create a reminder by setting a smartphone alert. Setting a reminder incurs both a cost (the time/effort to set it up) and a benefit (increased likelihood of remembering). Here we investigate whether individuals weigh such costs/benefits optimally or show systematic biases. In 3 experiments, participants performed a memory task where they could choose between (a) earning a maximum reward for each remembered item, using unaided memory; or (b) earning a lesser amount per item, using external reminders to increase the number remembered. Participants were significantly biased toward using external reminders, even when they had a financial incentive to choose optimally. Individual differences in this bias were stable over time, and predicted by participants' erroneous metacognitive underconfidence in their memory abilities. Bias was eliminated, however, when participants received metacognitive advice about which strategy was likely to maximize performance. Furthermore, we found that metacognitive interventions (manipulation of feedback valence and practice-trial difficulty) yielded shifts in participants' reminder bias that were mediated by shifts in confidence. However, the bias could not be fully attributed to metacognitive error. We conclude that individuals have stable biases toward using external versus internal cognitive resources, which result at least in part from inaccurate metacognitive evaluations. Finding interventions to mitigate these biases can improve individuals' adaptive use of cognitive tools. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Attitudes toward hiring people with disabilities: A meta‐cognitive approach to persuasion

AbstractAttitudes toward hiring people with disabilities are becoming critical for promoting diversity and egalitarianism within organizations. The few interventions designed to promote positive attitudes toward people with disabilities have relied on changing either the direction and/or the amount of thoughts people generate with regard to this discriminated, understudied group. In the present research, we examine the impact of a different psychological process of attitude change based on meta‐cognition, or thinking about thinking. We used a meta‐cognitive approach to changing prejudiced attitudes because thoughtful processes are often overlooked or denied with regard to this particular group. Specifically, we explored the impact of thought confidence on attitude change across two studies designed to change attitudes toward the incorporation of people with disabilities in companies. In each study, participants first generated either positive or negative thoughts about the proposal (thought valence manipulation). Then, the confidence in those thoughts was measured (Study 1) or manipulated (Study 2). In concert with the self‐validation hypothesis, results showed that when thought confidence was relatively high (vs. low), thought valence had a greater impact on attitudes. Thus, thought valence was more predictive of attitudes when participants were confident in their thoughts. Specifically, confidence in thoughts enhanced persuasion for positive thoughts but reduced persuasion for negative thoughts. These findings provide insights into assessing effects of interventions aiming at improving attitudes toward the inclusion of minority groups in organizations.

Dissociating preferences from evaluations following subliminal conditioning

Preferences towards unfamiliar drink brands may be influenced through subliminal conditioning. This can involve associating unfamiliar brands (CS) with positively valenced attributes (US) under constrained visual conditions to prevent the former's conscious detection. According to learning theory, CS associated with positive US should become increasingly preferred as the latter's positive valences generalizes (transfer) across associated CS. Similarly, correlating CS with negative US should reduce CS-associated preferences. There is some evidence that CS-associated preferences can be reliably influenced through subliminal conditioning (Elgendi et al., 2018). Conversely, there is also evidence that subliminal conditioning does not effectively alter evaluations of CS valence (Heycke et al., 2018). Those works suggest CS preferences may be more susceptible to subliminal valence transfer relative to CS evaluations. We explored this hypothesis presently, where four pairs of supraliminal/visible and subliminal trigrams (CS) were respectively associated with four US categories varied along aggregate valence (100% positive, 80% positive, 20% positive, 0% positive). CS evaluations and preferences were recorded before and after conditioning. Bayesian analyses revealed US valence manipulations were likely to shift preferences, but not evaluations, of subliminal CS. Across supraliminal CS, Bayesian and frequentist analyses indicated US valence was significant and likely to shift preferences and evaluations. The present study demonstrates preferences may be influenced through subliminal conditioning even as evaluations are not.

Relatedness needs and negative fantasies as the origins of obsessive thinking in romantic relationships

Surprisingly little experimental research has been conducted regarding the origins of obsessive thinking. Based on prior research on basic psychological needs (Sheldon and Gunz in J Pers 77(5):1467–1492, 2009) and future fantasies (Kappes and Oettingen in J Exp Soc Psychol 47(4):719–729, 2011), we proposed that a threat to the need for relatedness increases obsessive thinking about a romantic partner (i.e., a need-relevant target) when combined with a negatively valenced future fantasy about the partner. We tested this hypothesis in three experiments: Experiment 1, administered online, used a meta-cognitive relatedness threat manipulation, a scenario-based fantasy valence manipulation, and a measure of obsessive thinking. Experiment 2 used a modified fantasy valence manipulation, a new obsessive thinking measure, and a measure of romantic proximity-seeking. Experiment 3 used cyberball to manipulate relatedness threat in the lab. An internal meta-analysis revealed that threats to relatedness (vs. no threat) and negative fantasies (vs. positive fantasies) both led to small increases in obsessive thinking; however, inconsistent evidence emerged for the hypothesized threat-by-fantasy valence interaction.

Non-stoichiometric defect-controlled reduction toward mixed-valence Mn-doped hexaaluminates and their optical applications

The valence manipulation of emissive Mn ions (Mn2+/Mn4+) in Ba0.75Al11O17.25–BaMgAl10O17 solid solutions and their corresponding application in temperature-sensing have been demonstrated by defect control along with composition variation.

Is it about me? Time-course of self-relevance and valence effects on the perception of neutral faces with direct and averted gaze

Most face processing research has investigated how we perceive faces presented by themselves, but we view faces everyday within a rich social context. Recent ERP research has demonstrated that context cues, including self-relevance and valence, impact electrocortical and emotional responses to neutral faces. However, the time-course of these effects is still unclear, and it is unknown whether these effects interact with the face gaze direction, a cue that inherently contains self-referential information and triggers emotional responses. We primed direct and averted gaze neutral faces (gaze manipulation) with contextual sentences that contained positive or negative opinions (valence manipulation) about the participants or someone else (self-relevance manipulation). In each trial, participants rated how positive or negative, and how affectively aroused, the face made them feel. Eye-tracking ensured sentence reading and face fixation while ERPs were recorded to face presentations. Faces put into self-relevant contexts were more arousing than those in other-relevant contexts, and elicited ERP differences from 150 to 750 ms post-face, encompassing EPN and LPP components. Self-relevance interacted with valence at both the behavioural and ERP level starting 150 ms post-face. Finally, faces put into positive, self-referential contexts elicited different N170 ERP amplitudes depending on gaze direction. Behaviourally, direct gaze elicited more positive valence ratings than averted gaze during positive, self-referential contexts. Thus, self-relevance and valence contextual cues impact visual perception of neutral faces and interact with gaze direction during the earliest stages of face processing. The results highlight the importance of studying face processing within contexts mimicking the complexities of real world interactions.

Valence and Origin of Emotional Words Influence on Subsequent Perception of Ambiguous Stimuli in Terms of Competence Versus Warmth

The aim of this study was to examine whether the valence and origin of emotional words can alter perception of ambiguous objects in terms of warmth versus competence, fundamental dimensions of social cognition. 60 individuals were invited into the study focusing on the limits of intuition. They were asked to try to guess the meaning of Japanese pictorial signs in terms of their warmth versus competence connotations. Before each trial a subsequent memory load task was applied. Participants were supposed to read and remember words creating a factorial manipulation of valence (three levels) and origins (three levels: automatic, neutral and reflective) of affective connotations presenting to them for 500 ms. For positively valenced words, automatic originated ones resulted in perception of ambiguous signs more in terms of warmth, while reflective originated words resulted in perception of signs more in terms of competence. This study shows that social perception of warmth versus competence is susceptible to emotional influence of unrelated stimulation, and thus can be primed by objects in the environment. Warmth may be treated as linked with automatic mind processes, while competence may be treated as associated with the controlled part of the mind. In a broader context, this experiment results support claim that distinct dualities identified in dual-processes theories of mind are related to one another, and in fact they may be emanations of two more general systems of mind.

Attentional Capture by Emotional Stimuli: Manipulation of Emotional Valence by the Sample Pre‐rating Method

AbstractEye movements directed at emotional and neutral pictures were investigated. Participants were instructed to fixate on a target and avoid looking at a non‐target. Results of trials consisting of emotional and neutral pictures were analyzed based on participants’ evaluations of the stimuli before the experiment. Results indicated that the number and duration of fixations were larger and longer for targets than for non‐targets. Further, the probability of first fixation was less for neutral targets than for emotional targets. This suggests that unpleasant pictures capture visual attention and that the attentional orienting is subject to automatic response. The possibility that top‐down processes of visual attention may be involved in attentional capture was also discussed.

The Impact of Individual Difference Factors on Men’s Competitive Intent Against a Female Confederate Following Social Stress

The perpetration of violence against women by men is an important social issue. There is sufficient evidence to suggest that particular individual factors increase risk of perpetration; however, much of the research occurs outside of social contexts. The current study examined the manipulation of feedback valence on male participants’ competitive intent, conceptualized as a precursor to aggression, against a female confederate following a social stress task. It was expected that negative feedback (i.e., experimental condition) would elicit greater increases in competitive intent compared with positive feedback (i.e., control condition). However, it was also expected that this increase in competitive intent would be moderated by individual difference factors (i.e., physical aggression, hostility, emotion regulation difficulties, and psychological symptoms). The results suggest differential responding between the experimental and control conditions for competitive intent. Physical aggression, emotion regulation difficulties, and depression symptom severity moderated the differences in competitive intent in the experimental condition.

Dissociating the Influence of Affective Word Content and Cognitive Processing Demands on the Late Positive Potential.

The late positive potential (LPP) elicited by affective stimuli in the event-related brain potential (ERP) is often assumed to be a member of the P3 family. The present study addresses the relationship of the LPP to the classic P3b in a published data set, using a non-parametric permutation test for topographical comparisons, and residue iteration decomposition to assess the temporal features of the LPP and the P3b by decomposing the ERP into several component clusters according to their latency variability. The experiment orthogonally manipulated arousal and valence of words, which were either read or judged for lexicality. High-arousing and positive valenced words induced a larger LPP than low-arousing and negative valenced words, respectively, and the LDT elicited a larger P3b than reading. The experimental manipulation of arousal, valence, and task yielded main effects without any interactions on ERP amplitude in the LPP/P3b time range. The arousal and valence effects partially differed from the task effect in scalp topography; in addition, whereas the late positive component elicited by affective stimuli, defined as LPP, was stimulus-locked, the late positive component elicited by task demand, defined as P3b, was mainly latency-variable. Therefore LPP and P3b manifest different subcomponents.

Can Harry Potter still put a spell on us in a second language? An fMRI study on reading emotion-laden literature in late bilinguals

In this fMRI study we contrasted emotional responses to literary reading in late bilinguals' first or second language. German participants with adequate English proficiency in their second language (L2) English read short text passages from Harry Potter books characterized by a “negative” or “positive” versus “neutral” emotional valence manipulation. Previous studies have suggested that given sufficient L2 proficiency, neural substrates involved in L1 versus L2 do not differ (Fabbro, 2001). On the other hand, the question of attenuated emotionality of L2 language processing is still an open debate (see Conrad, Recio, & Jacobs, 2011). Our results revealed a set of neural structures involved in the processing of emotion-laden literature, including emotion-related amygdala and a set of lateral prefrontal, anterior temporal, and temporo-parietal regions associated with discourse comprehension, high-level semantic integration, and Theory-of-Mind processing. Yet, consistent with post-scan emotion ratings of text passages, factorial fMRI analyses revealed stronger hemodynamic responses to “happy” than to “neutral” in bilateral amygdala and the left precentral cortex that were restricted to L1 reading. Furthermore, multivariate pattern analyses (MVPA) demonstrated better classifiability of differential patterns of brain activity elicited by passages of different emotional content in L1 than in L2 for the whole brain level. Overall, our results suggest that reading emotion-laden texts in our native language provides a stronger and more differentiated emotional experience than reading in a second language.

The Robustness of Affect Manipulations in Vigilance Paradigms

Previous research has shown that vigilance tasks result in decreased affect ratings. However, studies have not examined the effectiveness of valence manipulations presented in discrete manipulation sessions over the course of a vigilance task, nor how repeated exposure to an affect manipulation would impact the perceptions or effectiveness of the manipulations. To that end, 109 participants from a large southeastern university completed three affect manipulations (of either positive, negative, or neutral valence) over the course of a 700 image visual search task and rated the manipulation stimuli and their own experiences in terms of valence and arousal. Results revealed no changes in the perceptions or effectiveness of the negative manipulations over time. However, those in the positive condition perceived their stimuli as less positive over time and were resistant to affect restoration at the end of the experiment. Results are discussed in relation to implications for experimental design when attempting to examine the effects of affect over a vigilance task.

P.4.b.008 Structural covariance of striatal and limbic regions in obsessive–compulsive disorder

Neural substrates of behavioral inhibitory control have been probed in a variety of animal model, physiologic, behavioral, and imaging studies, many emphasizing the role of prefrontal circuits. Likewise, the neurocircuitry of emotion has been investigated from a variety of perspectives. Recently, neural mechanisms mediating the interaction of emotion and behavioral regulation have become the focus of intense study. To further define neurocircuitry specifically underlying the interaction between emotional processing and response inhibition, we developed an emotional linguistic go/no-go fMRI paradigm with a factorial block design which joins explicit inhibitory task demand (i.e., go or no-go) with task-unrelated incidental emotional stimulus valence manipulation, to probe the modulation of the former by the latter. In this study of normal subjects focusing on negative emotional processing, we hypothesized activity changes in specific frontal neocortical and limbic regions reflecting modulation of response inhibition by negative stimulus processing. We observed common fronto-limbic activations (including orbitofrontal cortical and amygdalar components) associated with the interaction of emotional stimulus processing and response suppression. Further, we found a distributed cortico-limbic network to be a candidate neural substrate for the interaction of negative valence-specific processing and inhibitory task demand. These findings have implications for elucidating neural mechanisms of emotional modulation of behavioral control, with relevance to a variety of neuropsychiatric disease states marked by behavioral dysregulation within the context of negative emotional processing.