Publicaties
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One for all: The effect of extinction stimulus typicality on return of fear KU Leuven
Background and Objectives: During exposure therapy, patients are encouraged to approach the feared stimulus, so they can experience that this stimulus is not followed by the anticipated aversive outcome. However, patients might treat the absence of the aversive outcome as an ‘exception to the rule’. This could hamper the generalization of fear reduction when the patient is confronted with similar stimuli not used in therapy. We examined the ...
Automaticity: Componential, causal, and mechanistic explanations KU Leuven Universiteit Gent
The paper first discusses componential explanations of automaticity, which specify non/automaticity features (e.g., un/controlled, un/conscious, non/efficient, fast/slow) and their interrelations. Reframing these features as factors that influence processes (e.g., goals, attention, time) broadens the range of factors that can be considered (e.g., adding stimulus intensity and representational quality). The evidence reviewed challenges the view ...
I sleep with my Mind's eye open: Cognitive arousal and overgeneralization underpin the misperception of sleep KU Leuven
Background and Objectives: Misperception of sleep (e.g., underestimation of sleep time relative to objective measures) is a common feature of insomnia and other psychopathologies. To elucidate the mechanisms underlying this tendency, we examined the role of pre-sleep cognitive arousal and overgeneralization. Methods: We monitored the sleep of 54 community dwellers (the majority being university students), using actigraphy and a sleep diary for 7 ...
Goal relevance influences performance monitoring at the level of the FRN and P3 components KU Leuven Universiteit Gent
The Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN) provides a reliable ERP marker of performance monitoring (PM). It is usually larger for negative compared to positive feedback, and for unexpected relative to expected feedback. In two experiments, we assessed whether these effects could be modulated by goal relevance, defined as feedback informativeness (reliability) and/or impact on a person’s goals. 64-channels EEG was recorded while 30 participants (in ...
The validity of laboratory-based treatment research: Bridging the gap between fear extinction and exposure treatment KU Leuven
A major objective of experimental psychopathology research is to improve clinical practice via the experimental study of treatment mechanisms. The success of this endeavor depends on the external validity of the procedures used to model the treatment component in the laboratory. We propose a general framework and a set of specific criteria that will allow evaluating whether a certain laboratory procedure is a valid model for a certain clinical ...
Perceptual and conceptual similarities facilitate the generalisation of instructed fear KU Leuven
Background and objectives: Learned fear can generalize to neutral events due their perceptual and conceptual similarity with threat relevant stimuli. This study simultaneously examined these forms of generalization to model the expansion of fear in anxiety disorders. Methods: First, artificial categories involving sounds, nonsense words and animal-like objects were established. Next, the words from one category were paired with threatening ...
Development of a Protocol for Studying Premature Onset of Fear as a Feature of Pathological Fear: The Effects of Conditional Stimulus Duration and Counting Behavior KU Leuven
We propose that the premature onset of fear responding is a potentially important feature of pathological fear. A behavioral protocol to study the temporal regulation of fear in humans is, however, lacking. The present study aims at developing such a protocol for healthy individuals. To this end, we investigated the effect of conditional stimulus duration (50 seconds or 90 seconds) and the effect of verbal counting during presentation of the ...
A new approach for modeling generalization gradients: A case for hierarchical models KU Leuven
A case is made for the use of hierarchical models in the analysis of generalization gradients. Hierarchical models overcome several restrictions that are imposed by repeated measures analysis-of-variance (rANOVA), the default statistical method in current generalization research. More specifically, hierarchical models allow to include continuous independent variables and overcomes problematic assumptions such as sphericity. We focus on how ...