April 29, 2022 at 10:00 (MEZ - Online)
Speaker: Suvarna Alladi (National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore, India; invited by Thomas Lachmann)
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom.us/j/63973272300?pwd=NEtLVGU3RmVtL21HWjllajFIVzN6dz09
June 03, 2022 at 10:00 (MEZ - in-person)
Title: Behind the scenes at organizing a summer school
Speaker: Jan Chromy (Charles University, Czech Republic; invited by Shanley Allen)
Abstract:
Jan Chromy has organized a successful summer school in the Czech Republic for many years that Shanley Allen has taught at and several of our students have attended. He will tell us what goes on in the background, given that most of us only attended summer schools as a student.
Location: RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau, Building 6
OR
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom.us/j/63973272300?pwd=NEtLVGU3RmVtL21HWjllajFIVzN6dz09
June 10, 2022 at 10:00 (MEZ - in-person)
Title: A general discussion about careers
Speaker: Jeanine Treffers-Daller (University of Reading, UK; invited by Shanley Allen)
Location: RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau, Building 6
OR
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom.us/j/63973272300?pwd=NEtLVGU3RmVtL21HWjllajFIVzN6dz09
June 24, 2022 at 10:00 (MEZ)
Title:The Developmental Trajectory of the Excitation-Inhibition Balance relates to Autism Symptoms
Speaker: Hannah Plückebaum (RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau)
Abstract:
Recent evidence suggests that autism is linked to atypical development in neural oscillatory activity. Imbalances between the excitatory (E) and inhibitory (I) systems of the brain are a potential underlying mechanism and have been suggested as a neuromarker in autism. According to the theory of critical brain dynamics, the implications of an EI imbalance are that neuronal networks diverge from critical point, which is necessary for optimal information processing in the brain. In the present study, we have investigated how the development of the EI balance (EIB) relates to symptom severity and language abilities in autistic children and their non-autistic peers. We determined a functional measure of the EIB (f-EIB) from the resting-state electrophysiological activity in the individual alpha frequency of 59 autistic and 60 non-autistic children between 6 - 17 years of age from the Healthy Brain Network.
In contrast to our expectations and previous findings, no between-group differences in the mean or variance of the averaged f-EIB values were found. The developmental trajectory of the f-EIB, however, were found to differ between groups. Across frontal regions, f-EIB showed a strong linear increase with age for the non-autistic group, r(58) = 0.43, p < .001, which was significantly reduced for the autistic children, r(57) = 0.22, p = .087. The developmental trajectory of f-EIB was related to individual differences in autism symptoms and language ability. Specifically, a quadratic relationship between age and f-EIB was found for social communication symptoms, for verbal comprehension abilities, as well as for listening comprehension abilities , indicating that these autism symptoms relate to an inverted-u-shaped development of the f-EIB. We conclude that the EIB is a potential neurobiological mechanism of autism.
Location: RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau, Building 6
July 08, 2022 at 10:00 (MEZ - online)
Title: The psychological bases of visual preference for curvature
Speaker: Erick Gustavo Chuquichambi (University of the Balearic Islands, Spain)
Abstract:
The effect of curvature proposes that curved contours are preferred and involve more positive feelings than angular contours. This effect is widely supported by the Empirical Aesthetics literature, leading some researchers to propose the effect as universal and, therefore, possibly innate. However, some other studies showed that preference for curvature might be modulated by factors such as experimental conditions, stimuli type, and individual differences, among others. We consider that, before drawing pragmatic conclusions in light of the accumulation of evidence on the curvature effect, we must focus on its consistency and the overall quantitative aspects of the effect. In this work, we provide a synthesis of the evidence on preference for curvature, and present a series of studies examining the robustness of the effect through the assessment of its possible modulating factors. We highlight the existence of a true effect of preference for curvature, while discussing how some factors may explain the heterogeneity that coexists with the effect. We also frame how the neurophysiological bases of curvature sensitivity might help us to understand the neuropsychological bases of preference curvature. This way, we will be able to investigate the effect from a neural perspective and advance our understanding of the essential features that shape human preference.
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom.us/j/63973272300?pwd=NEtLVGU3RmVtL21HWjllajFIVzN6dz09
July 15, 2022 at 10:00 (MEZ - in-person)
Title: TBA
Speaker: Laura Gonnerman (McGill University, Canada; invited by Shanley Allen)
Abstract: TBA
Location: RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau, Building 6
OR
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom.us/j/63973272300?pwd=NEtLVGU3RmVtL21HWjllajFIVzN6dz09
July 22, 2022 at 10:00 (MEZ - in-person)
Title:Vertrauen in Künstliche Intelligenz – Ein qualitativer Ansatz zur Analyse vertrauensbedingender Faktoren
Speaker: Janika Kutz (RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau)
Abstract:
Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) findet aktuell zunehmend Einzug im industriellen Umfeld. Dabei sind Implementierung und Skalierung von KI-Services mit diversen Herausforderungen verbunden. Ein Schlagwort, das dabei immer wieder genannt wird, ist: »Vertrauen« - doch was bedeutet eigentlich »Vertrauen in KI« und wovon ist dieses abhängig? Die Vertrauenswürdigkeit von KI-Services wird in der Literatur aus technischer Perspektive vermehrt behandelt. Wenig Beachtung dagegen gibt es in Bezug auf das menschliche Vertrauen in eine KI. Mit Fokus auf das produzierende Gewerbe soll diese Lücke durch eine qualitative Studie geschlossen werden. Ziel ist es zum einen, »Vertrauen in KI« zu definieren und zum anderen ein Verständnis für die vertrauensbedingenden Faktoren des Einsatzes von KI im industriellen Umfeld (z.B. in der Qualitätssicherung, Predictive Maintenance) zu erlangen.
Location: RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau, Building 6
OR
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom.us/j/63973272300?pwd=NEtLVGU3RmVtL21HWjllajFIVzN6dz09
July 29, 2022 at 10:00 (MEZ - online)
Title: Impact of socio-emotional and mindfulness-based interventions on mental health and resilience: Role of affective biases
Speaker: Malvika Godara (Max Planck Society, Germany)
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to widely-documented mental health challenges in the last two years. Given the requirement of social isolation that comes with the pandemic, the gap in intervention delivery for mental health has widened even more. As such, digital and online interventions for psychological health have become especially prominent. Therefore, in the CovSocial project, we aimed to evaluate the efficacy of brief online socio-emotional and mindfulness-based interventions for improving mental health, emotion regulation difficulties and resilience during the pandemic. Given the crucial role of affective cognitive biases in the onset and maintenance of stress-related psychopathology, we also explored changes in these biases due to interventional effects and their potential mechanistic role. Employing a community sample, participants were randomly assigned to either a dyadic socio-emotional or an individual mindfulness training, both delivered through a mobile app over a 10-week period. Mental health, resilience and emotion regulation were assessed using validated questionnaires, while attention and interpretation biases were assessed pre- and post-training using the mouse-contingent Scrambled Sentences Task. We observed significant training-related reductions in depression, trait anxiety and emotion regulation difficulties in both intervention groups, compared to a waitlist control group. However, while mindfulness-based group showed increases in stress recovery aspect of resilience, only socio-emotional training group showed a significant increase in multidimensional resilience. Moreover, there was a reduction in negative interpretation bias only in the socio-emotional group. The present findings indicate that while both trainings improve mental health, interventions with more socio-emotional aspects might be key to boosting multidimensional resilience and reducing negative interpretation biases. Theoretical and practical implications will be discussed in the context of general theories of resilience and vulnerability.
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom.us/j/63973272300?pwd=NEtLVGU3RmVtL21HWjllajFIVzN6dz09