Psychophysiology

Background. A rich vocabulary supports human achievements in socio-economic activities, education, and communication. It is therefore important to clarify the nature of language acquisition as a complex multidimensional process. However, both the psychological and neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning language learning, as well as the links between them, are still poorly understood.

Objective. This study aims to explore the psychological and neurophysiological correlates of successful word acquisition in a person’s native language.

Design. Thirty adults read sentences with novel nouns, following which the participants’ electroencephalograms were recorded during a word-reading task. Event-related potentials in response to novel words and alpha oscillation parameters (amplitude, variability, and long-range temporal correlation dynamics) were analyzed. Learning outcomes were assessed at the lexical and semantic levels. Psychological variables measured using Amthauer’s test (verbal abilities), BIS/BAS scales (motivation), and the MSTAT-1 (ambiguity tolerance) and alpha oscillation parameters were factored.

Results. Better recognition of novel words was related to two factors which had high factor loadings for all measured alpha oscillation parameters, indicating the role of attention networks and respective neural activity for enabling information processing. More successful learners had lower P200 amplitude, which also suggests higher attention-system involvement. Another factor predicted better acquisition of word meanings for less ambiguity-tolerant students, while the factor which pooled logical conceptual thinking ability and persistence in goal-reaching, positively correlated with acquisition of both word forms and meanings.

Conclusion. The psychological factors predominantly correlated with word-learning success in semantic tasks, while neurophysiological variables were linked to performance in the recognition task.

Background. Early childhood is a critically important period of development for the formation of personality. Many studies provide convincing proof that elements of moral behavior are observable already in the early stages of ontogenesis. Of particular interest for psychophysiologists is the question of whether the capacity for moral evaluation in younger children can be reflected in specific EEG patterns characteristic of them.

Objective. To establish specific patterns of EEG oscillations, including the frontal alpha-rhythm asymmetry, in young children who are prone to evaluate differently the behaviors of “helping” and “hindering” puppets.

Design. Fifty-six children aged 16 to 42 months participated in the study. To measure the level of moral evaluation in children, we used the method designed by B. Kenward and M. Dahl, with some modifications. The EEG was recorded when children distributed resources among the puppet-actors.

Results. When deciding how to distribute resources among the puppets, the children with a higher moral evaluation index demonstrated an overall higher alpha rhythm amplitude, as well as a specific pattern of theta rhythm amplitude. The moral evaluation indices correlated with alpha asymmetry in the EEG loci F7 and F8.

Conclusions. 1. Significant differences in EEG patterns were found between the children who showed different levels of moral evaluation. Children with higher indices of moral evaluation showed a higher alpha rhythm amplitude when deciding how to distribute resources among the puppets, depending on the puppets’ “helping” or “hindering” behavior. 2. The theta rhythm oscillation patterns differed significantly between the samples of children with different moral evaluation indices. 3. Alpha asymmetry in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (loci F7, F8) was correlated with the moral evaluation indices, indicating an increased activation in the prefrontal regions of the left hemisphere in children with a more developed understanding of moral behavior.

Background. One promising direction in development of contactless techniques for assessment of the human psychoemotional state (PES) is elucidation of the relationships between psychophysiological indices and electromagnetic radiation in the IR and THz ranges.

Objective. To present a complex approach to assessing PESs based on combining psychological testing and psychophysiological diagnostics with measurements of radiation in the IR-THz range from face areas.

Methods. Stressful psychoemotional states were provoked by physical or cognitive stressors. The PES was monitored by psychological testing and registration of heart rate, photoplethysmogram, galvanic skin response, and respiration rate. The facial images in the IR-THz range were extracted by an IR/V-T0831Cdetector (NEC, Japan).

Results and Discussion. Different PESs are characterized by different specific patterns of psychophysiological parameters. Scores on the anxiety test are highly correlated with scores on the chronic stress questionnaire, but there are no reliable links between the data of psychological tests and the psychophysiological indicators. This discrepancy allows us to assume that for reliable identification of PESs, it is necessary to combine these technologies into one diagnostic complex. We found statistically significant correlations between the intensity of the IR-THz image in the forehead and the galvanic skin response.

Conclusion. For the effective diagnosis and forecast of changes in the PES, it is important to consider both the psychological and physiological data. Despite the relatively low signal-to-noise ratio and low frequency of image recording, it is possible to extract informative THz parameters of the broadband IR-THz signal and associate them with psychophysiological reactions. The improvement of IR-THz detectors and the development of new processing methods will allow wide use of the THz range for remote assessment of human PESs in real time.

Background. The genes responsible for regulating neuro-chemical metabolism are capable of influencing emotional responses. 

Objective. The goal is to determine the influence of the polymorphism of BDNF, HTR2A, and COMT genes on potentials evoked in response to faces with various emotional expressions and objects with different emotional valences. 

Design. The stimuli set included 175 faces and 150 objects with neutral, positive, and negative emotional content. All images were unified in size and brightness and presented for 500 ms. The participants’ task was to determine the emotional content of each stimulus. Each participant’s EEG was recorded at 128 points and averaged in alignment with her responses. Six measures of ERP were recorded for each lead: three for faces with different emotional expressions, and three for objects with different emotional valences.

Results. We discovered that the BDNF and HTR2A gene polymorphism does not affect the visual perception of emotionally charged stimuli as reflected in changes of ERP. By contrast, participants in the COMT Met-Met group differed from participants in groups COMT Val-Met and COMT Val-Val in that their ERPs for both faces and objects were characterized by an increase in P300 amplitude in their frontal, temporal, and parietal areas, predominantly in the right hemisphere. The COMT Met-Met participants were less successful in differentiating stimuli by their emotional valence. 

Conclusion. The COMT gene mutation of the Met/Met type may lead to deficiencies in decision-making about the emotional valence of visual stimuli, as reflected in a substantial increase in the P300 response amplitude. 

This paper gives an overview of the published data on eye movement parameters while reading sentences in different languages with both local and global syntactic ambiguity. A locally ambiguous sentence contains a syntactically problematic phrase that leads to only one interpretation, while a globally ambiguous sentence has more than one distinct interpretation. In the first case the ambiguity persists only to the end of the sentence, when it is successfully resolved; in the second case the ambiguity is still present after reading the whole sentence. The obvious difficulty in analyzing the structure of locally and globally ambiguous sentences leads to increased reading time compared with unambiguous sentences. The syntactic ambiguity increases two major parameters: the fixation duration when reading words critical for interpreting the sentence, and the frequency of regressive saccades to reread those words. The reading time for critical words, disambiguating the local ambiguity, depends on the principle of early/late closure (i.e., high/low attachment): preferring a recurrent pattern to associate the critical word with a distant or closer word, respectively (as determined by its position in the sentence), and differs across languages. The first study of eye movement parameters in reading globally syntactic ambiguous sentences in the Russian language is reported in this paper. Our findings open up the prospects of quantitative studies of syntactic disambiguation in Slavonic and Romano-Germanic languages.

In modern science, along with the “classic” and “non-classical” approach to solving fundamental and applied problems, there is an actively developing “postnonclassical” research paradigm. This renovation of general scientific methodology has been accompanied by the emergence of new experimental technologies and new scientific research directions based on them. “Social psychophysiology” is one such direction. It is formed within the frame of postnonclassical methodology at the intersection of neuroscience and psychology. This work is devoted to the analytical review of the methods, achievements and prospects of contemporary social neuroscience and social psychophysiology studying brain structures that are specifically related to the implementation of social forms of behavior and intercultural communication. Physiological studies of brain activity during social interaction processes, which are simulated using virtual reality environments, are analyzed, and the physiological approach to the study of the brain mechanisms associated with social perception, social cognition and social behavior is used. Along with the analysis of psychophysiological studies of the mechanisms of social perception and social cognition, we discuss the theories of “Brain Reading” and “Theory of Mind” and the underlying data concerning “Gnostic neurons recognition of persons and recognition of emotional facial expressions”, “mirror neurons”, “emotional resonance” and “cognitive resonance”. Particular emphasis is placed on the discussion of a fundamentally new trend in the study of the relationship between the brain and culture (i.e., “cultural neuroscience”). Related to this connection, the following topics are raised: physiological mechanisms protecting the “individual distance” in communication between members of a personified community, psychophysiological approaches to the study of cross-cultural differences, physiological mechanisms of social classification (particularly the formation of attitudes toward representatives of various social groups and toward the content of socially oriented information), and psychophysiological approaches to the study of processes of social classification in the field of intercultural relations (racial perception, stereotypes and prejudices).

This article discusses the connection of hemispheric control over audioverbal perception processes and such individual features as “leading hand” (right-handedness and lefthandedness). We present a literature review and description of our research to provide evidence of the complexity and ambiguity of this connection. The method of dichotic listening was used for diagnosing audioverbal perception lateralization. This method allows estimation of the right-ear coefficient (REC), the efficiency coefficient (EC), and the effectiveness ratio (ER) of different aspects of audioverbal perception. Our research involved 47 persons with a leading right hand (mean age, 29.04±9.97 years) and 32 persons with a leading left hand (mean age, 29.41±10.34 years). Different hypotheses about the mechanisms of hemispheric control over audioverbal and motor processes were assessed. The research showed that both the leftand right-handers’ audioverbal perception characteristics depended mainly on right-hemisphere activity. The most dynamic and sensitive index of the functioning of the two hemispheres during dichotic listening was the efficiency coefficient of stimuli reproduction through the left ear (EC of the left ear). It turns out that this index depends on the coincidence/noncoincidence of the leading hemispheres in speech and motor processes. The highest efficiency of audioverbal perception revealed itself in the left-handers with a leading left ear (the hemispheric-control coincidence), and the lowest efficiency was in the left-handers with a leading right ear (the hemispheric-control divergence). The right-handers were characterized by less variation in values, although the influence of the coincidence/noncoincidence of the leading hemispheres in speech and motor processes also revealed itself as a tendency. This consistent pattern points out the necessity for further research on asymmetries of the different modalities that takes into account their probable interaction. The results of our study comport with scientific data showing genotypic left-handers with subzero right-ear coefficient (REC) values to be more efficient than left-handed persons who display high REC values.

This article sets forth the problem of studying social creativity from the psychophysiological perspective. Presented here are the first experimental records of studying the cognitive component of social activity. This article describes the peculiar hemispheric activity during the resolution of interpersonal problems by students of different individual peculiarities and professional achievement levels. The author shows that when the solution to a verbal divergent task by young males and females of high creativity and professional achievement is reached, the frequency-spatial EEG indexes are higher in the parietal and frontal brain regions. In the solution of a convergent task, these indexes are higher in the frontal, central and cervical brain zones. In case of young males and females of low creativity and average and low levels of professional achievement, the solution of a convergent task is accompanied by increased EEG power in the central, frontal, parietal zones of both hemispheres.

Thus, the assessment of the psychophysiological mechanisms of the cognitive component in social activity has shown that a definite picture of hemispheric activation stipulates the peculiarities of divergent and convergent thinking in young males and females of various levels of creativity and professional success.

This difference, revealed at the initial stage of investigation, demands a deeper study of the phenomenon of social creativity in the professional training of a personality that is inclusive of this personality’s individual peculiarities.

We investigated whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activation in a group of 21 healthy adult subjects during perception, imagination and remembering of two dynamic visual scenarios. Activation of the posterior parts of the cortex prevailed when watching videos. The cognitive tasks of imagination and remembering were accompanied by a predominant activity in the anterior parts of the cortex. An independent component analysis identified seven large-scale cortical networks with relatively invariant spatial distributions across all experimental conditions. The time course of their activation over experimental sessions was task-dependent. These detected networks can be interpreted as a recombination of resting state networks. Both central and peripheral networks were identified within the primary visual cortex. The central network around the caudal pole of BA17 and centers of other visual areas was activated only by direct visual stimulation, while the peripheral network responded to the presentation of visual information as well as to the cognitive tasks of imagination and remembering. The latter result explains the particular susceptibility of peripheral and twilight vision to cognitive top-down influences that often result in false-alarm detections.

Human error is commonly differentiated into three different types. These are: errors in perception, errors in decision and errors in sensation. This analysis is based on classical psychophysics (Fechner, 1860) and describes the errors of detection and perception. Decision- making errors are evaluated in terms of the theory of signal detection (McNicholson, 1974), and errors of sensation or sensitivity are evaluated in terms of proprioceptive information (van Beers, 2001).

Each of these stages developed its own method of evaluation that has influenced the development of ergonomics in the event of errors in perception and the verbal assessment of personality (stress, impulsiveness, burnout, etc.) in decision-making errors. Here we represent the method we have developed, the Proprioceptive Diagnosis of Temperament and Character (DP- TC) test, for the specific assessment of errors of perception or expressivity which are based on fine motor precision performance.

Each of the described errors types are interdependent of each other in such a manner that observable stress in behaviour may be caused due to: the inadequate performance of a task due to the perception of the person (i.e. from right to left for a right-handed person); performing a task that requires attentive decision-making to be performed too hastily; undertaking a task that does not correspond to the prevailing disposition of the person.

Experimental data was obtained from a dichotic listening test by patients with unilateral brain lesions and corpus callosum pathology (agenesis, cysts, degenerative changes, etc). Efficiency index analysis shows that interhemispheric interaction in the audioverbal sphere depends to a greater extent on the right hemisphere state. The dichotic listening technique is not an informative means of studying hemispheric interaction, since it does not allow a clear distinction between hemispheric symptoms and symptoms of pathology of the corpus callosum. Thus, violations of hemispheric relations caused by disorders of the corpus callosum and cerebral hemispheres change worth more right hemisphere activity.

In this article, eating behavior is discussed from the point of view of various areas of psychology. First, tasting food and the perception of food palatability are discussed from the viewpoints of sensory and perceptual psychology and of physiological psychology. Second, the phenomenology of some social-psychological effects on eating behavior are introduced – for example, communication at the table, sociocultural variations in food liking/disliking, and emotional changes after eating. Third, these topics are integrated and are applied to food businesses. Two conclusions can be drawn: (1) understanding human eating behavior leads one to understand human beings themselves; (2) a psychological understanding of eating behavior not only gives one broad knowledge of psychology but also provides businesses and governments with hints for improving quality of life.

This article shows that the peculiarities of divergent and convergent thinking in young males and females of various creativity levels are stipulated by a definite EEG frequency-and-spatial arrangement. Young males and females of mixed and left lateral arrangement profiles demonstrate an expressed activity of occipital, central, and temporal areas of both cerebral hemispheres. In young males and females of right LAP (lateral arrangement profile), connections are clearly localized in case of solution of both convergent and divergent tasks. Solution of divergent and convergent tasks may condition certain frequency-and-spatial arrangement of EEG in young males and females with different levels of academic progress and a different lateral arrangement profile (LAP).

Automated classification of a human functional state is an important problem, with applications including stress resistance evaluation, supervision over operators of critical infrastructure, teaching and phobia therapy. Such classification is particularly efficient in systems for teaching and phobia therapy that include a virtual reality module, and provide the capability for dynamic adjustment of task complexity.

In this paper, a method for automated real-time binary classification of human functional states (calm wakefulness vs. stress) based on discrete wavelet transform of EEG data is considered. It is shown that an individual tuning stage of the classification algorithm — a stage that allows the involvement of certain information on individual peculiarities in the classification, using very short individual learning samples, significantly increases classification reliability. The experimental study that proved this assertion was based on a specialized scenario in which individuals solved the task of detecting objects with given properties in a dynamic set of flying objects.

This article investigates the problem of lightness perception. To clarify the role of depth in lightness perception two current models—the albedo hypothesis and the coplanar-ratio hypothesis—are discussed. To compare them the strength of the simultaneous-lightnesscontrast (SLC) illusion was investigated as a function of three-dimensional (3D) configurations of the test and background squares. In accordance with both hypotheses the changes in the depth arrangements of the test and background squares should result in changes in the illusory effect. However, the reasons for and the directions of these changes should be different. Five different types of 3D configurations were created in which the test squares were tilted at different angles to the background squares. A virtual-reality technique was used to present stereo pairs of different 3D configurations. Thirty-seven observers took part in the experiment. The method of constant stimuli was used to obtain psychometric functions. The displacements of these functions for 3D configurations in comparison with the 2D configuration allowed the estimation of illusion strength. The analysis of individual values of illusion strength revealed two groups of subjects. For the first group (38% of all participants) the strength changed insignificantly depending on the 3D configurations. For the second group (62% of all participants) significant differences were obtained for those configurations in which the test and background squares were perceived as differently illuminated. The changes in the SLC illusion strength for the second group were consistent with predictions made by the albedo hypothesis. Thus, it seems that the perceived illumination of a surface should be considered the main parameter for lightness estimations in 3D scenes.

In this chapter the author summarises the descriptions of proprioceptive sense from different perspectives. The importance of proprioceptive sense has been shown in developmental psychology, in both the earlier and later stages of individuum formation. The author emphasises in this chapter the role of proprioception as a basis of personality and the individual differences construct. The importance of assessing behaviour at multiple levels has been pointed out by experiments of classic and modern researchers that should include not only verbal tests that would be more important for conscious mental description, but also techniques that could assess other behavioural characteristics, including automatic unconscious and pre-reflexive behaviour. The author also describes the effects of altered proprioception in humans, such as the Pinocchio effect, and other spatial perception distortions. In this chapter the importance of proprioception in acquiring new skills (embodied knowledge) as automatic and conditioned reflexive behaviour has also been highlighted. Finally, the complete picture of the individuum has been presented as a multi-layered level of a body-mind union approach.

Intracellular research of land snail Helix lucorum L. eye demonstrates two types of visual cells responding to flashes of white light by slow sustained depolarization (D-type) and by slow sustained hyperpolarization (H-type), respectively. Peaks of spectral sensitivity of both cell types at 465-500 nm coincide with peak of spectral sensitivity of photopigment "rhodopsin". The two-channel vector model of achromatic vision of snail is proposed. According to the model, responses of D- and H-cells constitute two-dimensional 'excitation vector' of constant length, the direction of which is the code of light intensity. The two-dimensional vector model of light encoding in snails' eye is analogous with achromatic vision models of achromatic vision in vertebrates based on psychophysical and neurophysiological data in fish, rabbit, monkey and human. So, intracellular data in snail taken together with data on vertebrate animals testify in favor of the hypothesis that 2-dimensioanl module of "bright" and "dark" cells is the universal opponent mechanism of "vector encoding" of light intensity in neuronal nets for vision.

Processing of sensory stimuli is controlled by the top-down influences that shape oscillations in the synchrony form revealed in the EEG. However, little is known about the nature of these influences. The present study investigated the contribution of "evoked oscillations" in the perception of auditory stimuli during passive and active attention from the position of pacemaker hypothesis on the origin of gamma rhythm. To analyze the problem, the author suggests a special method based on the narrow frequency filtering event-related potentials, localization of dipole sources of gamma oscillations over the structural MRI slices. Computation of equivalent dipoles for the discrete frequencies demonstrates interaction between prefrontal and auditory cortex during active attention to auditory stimuli. The obtained results are compatible with the pacemaker hypothesis.

The aim of this study was to investigate holistic / feature processing for encod­ing face expressions employing the chimeric face technique. In the course of our experiment we tested the recognition accuracy of universal and "chimeric" countenance. As the study has revealed there was a considerable difference between distributions of subject responses depending on the localization of expression features (top/ bottom parts of the face). For chimeric face identification accuracy substantially decreased, there were considerable variations in the naming of face expression and the names assigned were hardly dictated by distinguishing features. The changes in recognition of facial expressions may be accounted for by disarrangement in holistic processing of expression encoding.

The new method of microstructure analysis of oscillatory brain activity was pro­posed for studying the structure and dynamics of working memory. Mapping local network activity according to dipole localization of frequency-selective gamma and beta generators supports the leading role of frontal areas in processes of working memory. The retention of information during the delay interval is presented by joint activity of frequency-selective gamma and beta generators which provide the integration of frontal areas, associative, visual cortex and cerebellum. The joint activity of the gamma- and beta-generators has a wave-like character and is modulated by low-frequency wave activity.