At least one in seven children have experienced child abuse and/or neglect in the past year and more than two thirds of children reported at least one traumatic event by the age of sixteen....Show moreAt least one in seven children have experienced child abuse and/or neglect in the past year and more than two thirds of children reported at least one traumatic event by the age of sixteen. Psychological problems, gender, mood, and socioeconomic status (SES) are all related to the severity of childhood trauma. Childhood trauma has not only been associated with a lower SES, but also with lower scores on IQ-tests. For example, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect are all negatively correlated with IQ. The relationship between SES, IQ and childhood trauma is not well understood. Especially in a population with individuals that report overall higher levels of traumatic experiences and have a lower IQ, such as offspring of people with a mood disorder. In this study, we investigated the relationship between SES, IQ, and trauma in offspring of parents with a mood disorder. Children (N = 198 and N = 40) participating in the MARIO cohort study were assessed for gender, age, SES, and exposure to childhood trauma (emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect) using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). Child IQ-scores were assessed with either the WISC or the WAIS. A linear regression analysis showed that IQ was only weakly related to childhood trauma. In contrast SES was strongly related to childhood trauma. These findings suggest that IQ is not a determinant of childhood trauma in current research but underscores the importance of SES. The significant association between SES and childhood trauma could be further investigated and implemented in clinical practice. Future interventions could for example focus on preventing and/or reducing childhood trauma in children who grow up with a low SES.Show less
Most studies analyzing decision-making in individuals with impaired impulse control focus on decisions based on unimodal senses e.g., auditory or visual systems. Little is known about the effect of...Show moreMost studies analyzing decision-making in individuals with impaired impulse control focus on decisions based on unimodal senses e.g., auditory or visual systems. Little is known about the effect of impulsivity on overall performance in a decision-making task based on multisensory presentation. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the relationship between impulsivity, reaction time and performance accuracy in a multisensory decision-making task. The task consisted of three modalities (visual, auditory, and audiovisual) and two difficulty levels (easy and hard). Data were obtained from 37 participants between the ages of 16 and 18 years old. Participants were either diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Disruptive Behavioral Disorder (DBD) or were typically developing. Impulsivity was measured using a self-report questionnaire. Due to a small sample of clinical participants, all participants were median split into a low and high impulsivity group. To test the effect of modality, difficulty, and impulsivity on reaction time and performance accuracy two mixed ANOVAs were conducted. The mixed ANOVAs showed no significant effects of impulsivity on reaction time or performance accuracy, thus no significant differences between the low and high impulsivity groups were found. The main effect of modality on reaction time was significant, with a shorter reaction time on the audiovisual trials than on the visual and auditory trials. Moreover, analysis showed a higher performance accuracy on the audiovisual trials compared to the visual and auditory trials. This shows the beneficial effect of multisensory (audiovisual) presentation on reaction time and performance accuracy. The current study confirms that multisensory presentation benefits overall performance but did not find a significant relationship between impulsivity and behavioral performance. Future research could focus on possible differences in multisensory behavioral performance between typically developing individuals and individuals with ADHD or DBD and should include a continuous impulsivity variable.Show less
The effect of stress on the exploration of new environments has shown to be impacted by individual preferences in novelty seeking in rodents, in which high stressed rodents explore novel stimuli...Show moreThe effect of stress on the exploration of new environments has shown to be impacted by individual preferences in novelty seeking in rodents, in which high stressed rodents explore novel stimuli more compared to low stressed rodents. Whereas studies to examine the way this behaviour is expressed in humans have been conducted, the effect of stress and attention on this behaviour has not. In this study, we tested for a relationship between stress, attention, and the combination of these two on the degree of exploration in humans. Participants were divided up among the low and high stress condition in the Sing-a-Song Stress Test (SSST) before roaming a virtual environment after which they were tested on their ability to recollect landmarks from that environment and having to complete a questionnaire to establish attention control. The SSST affected participants in the high stress condition more than in the low stress condition, showing the SSST to be effective as conditioning tool. However, participants’ virtual distance travelled and attention as measured by the Attention Control Scale Test did not reveal any relationship between stress, attention, and exploration behaviour. This suggests that, contrary to rodents, subjective stress and attention do not factor in exploration behaviour in humans. If such a link does however exist, further research on stress, attention, and exploration behaviour could help construct stress coping mechanisms for high-pressure situations and to assist people with stress- and attention deficit disorders.Show less
Neuroticism is a personality trait that has been associated with higher stress intensity and a poor ability to cope with stress. Research has also linked neuroticism with daily spatial behavior and...Show moreNeuroticism is a personality trait that has been associated with higher stress intensity and a poor ability to cope with stress. Research has also linked neuroticism with daily spatial behavior and roaming entropy, affirming that higher neuroticism negatively influences these factors. In the current research we examined whether highly neurotic individuals showed lower distance traveled, and whether this effect was different after stress induction. The sing-a-song stress test (SSST) was used to induce stress in half of the participants, their distance traveled was then measured based on their exploration behavior in a virtual environment. The participants filled out the big five personality questionnaire and their neuroticism score was calculated. The results showed no effects of neuroticism on distance traveled, regardless of stress induction or lack thereof. We also found no link between neuroticism and stress, or between stress and distance traveled. The results did show that the SSST increased stress level, in line with the expectations. In conclusion, the outcomes of this research did not find a link between neuroticism, stress and roaming entropy, this is not in line with earlier done research and further testing is necessary.Show less
Mensen hebben interesse in het exploreren van nieuwe omgevingen. We zien in het dagelijks leven echter ook dat de mate waarin mensen exploreren verschilt en dat het exploreren van nieuwe omgevingen...Show moreMensen hebben interesse in het exploreren van nieuwe omgevingen. We zien in het dagelijks leven echter ook dat de mate waarin mensen exploreren verschilt en dat het exploreren van nieuwe omgevingen stress kan oproepen. Wat we niet weten is of het ontdekkingsgedrag in een nieuwe omgeving wordt beïnvloed door een staat van hoge stress, of dit stresseffect gedurende een langere tijd aanwezig blijft en of daarbij man-vrouw verschillen een rol spelen. Uit dit onderzoek blijkt dat de sing-a-song stresstest een significant effect heeft op de subjectieve stress. Daarnaast laten we zien dat sekse wel invloed heeft op het ontdekken van nieuwe omgevingen. We hebben gevonden dat mannen gemiddeld meer afstand afleggen tijdens het ontdekken van nieuwe omgevingen dan de gemiddelde afstand die vrouwen afleggen tijdens het ontdekken. Er is geen bewijs gevonden dat stress hier invloed op heeft. Onze resultaten laten zien dat mannen en vrouwen op verschillende manieren omgaan met nieuwe omgevingen. Verwacht wordt dat dit onderzoek van invloed kan zijn op het diagnosticeren van depressie en het behandelen van de manische symptomen van de bipolaire stoornis. In toekomstig onderzoek kan gekeken worden naar hoe de ontdekking van nieuwe omgevingen onder continue stress plaatsvindt. Daarnaast kan ook gekeken worden naar wat de invloed van de eigenschap harm avoidance hierop is. Aangezien uit de literatuur blijkt dat hier een verband verwacht kan worden.Show less
Exploration behaviour is essential in becoming familiar with one’s environment and is necessary to survive in life-threatening situations. Previous studies found that stress negatively affects...Show moreExploration behaviour is essential in becoming familiar with one’s environment and is necessary to survive in life-threatening situations. Previous studies found that stress negatively affects exploration behaviour and introverts are more stress-prone than extroverts. Moreover, high levels of extroversion are positively related to explorative behaviour. However, no study focused on whether the effects of stress on explorative behaviour differ between introverts and extroverts. The current study hypothesised that extroversion and stress correlate since previous studies found this correlation. It is also hypothesised that introverts will explore less than extroverts in low- and high-stress conditions. To test this, 51 participants were recruited and assigned to the high- or low-stress condition through the counterbalance method. Participants in the high-stress condition were asked to sing a song (known as the Sing-a-Song Stress Test (SSST)), and participants in the low-stress condition were asked to listen to a song. During the SSST, an eye tracker was used to measure arousal. Hereafter, participants explored a VR environment, carried out the Landmark test and filled in questionnaires. Results indicated that the SSST caused stress among our participants in both conditions. No correlation was found between the stress groups and personality type extroversion and introversion, nor exist significant effects of personality and stress on exploration behaviour. It is advised that future research includes a larger number of subgroups and considers all the individual variables underlying exploration behaviour to get insights into the relationship between stress and personality type on exploration behaviour.Show less
The ability to perceive novelty in the surrounding environment and memorize the changes has been crucial for all species throughout evolution. Exploring novel environments induces memory...Show moreThe ability to perceive novelty in the surrounding environment and memorize the changes has been crucial for all species throughout evolution. Exploring novel environments induces memory consolidation mechanisms and may facilitate consolidating even weakly encoded, unrelated events into long-term memory. Based on animal studies, exposure to novelty activates dopaminergic neuronal networks and, thus, the memory consolidation mechanisms. These networks mature and deteriorate throughout human development, but the consequences to environmental novelty-related responses in memory are still unknown. This study examined the effects of environmental novelty on verbal and landmark memory in different ages throughout human development. In the present study, participants (n = 439) in different age groups explored novel or familiar VR environments in two exploration rounds, with landmarks presented on the second round. Simultaneously, their paths in the VR environment were constantly tracked. Afterwards, words were introduced during a deep or shallow encoding task, and the level of the memory performance for recalling words and recognizing words and landmarks was measured. As expected, adolescents and young adults benefited more from environmental novelty on word recall and recognition than children or older adults. The words were recalled better after an exposure to a novel rather than to a familiar environment and in deep rather than in shallow learning conditions. In general, novelty did not interact with age or learning condition, except slightly in recognition task. In deep learning, younger adults benefited significantly more from novelty than children. In shallow learning, adolescents benefited significantly more from novelty than older adults or children. Landmarks were recognized better in a familiar rather than novel environment, and adolescents and younger adults recognized more landmarks than other age groups. The tendency to explore novel paths instead of familiar ones predicted the level of word and landmark recognition, but not for word recall. Older age was not associated with a reduced tendency to explore novel paths. As a conclusion, younger individuals benefit more from environmental novelty than older adults, who generally show novelty detriment – this is in line with the developmental changes in the dopaminergic system.Show less
Wanneer dieren stress ervaren, kunnen zij een aantrekking of vermijding richting een nieuw object laten zien. Ondanks verschillende dierenstudies naar de invloed van stress op exploratiegedrag...Show moreWanneer dieren stress ervaren, kunnen zij een aantrekking of vermijding richting een nieuw object laten zien. Ondanks verschillende dierenstudies naar de invloed van stress op exploratiegedrag richting nieuwe objecten keken, is dit bij mensen niet eerder onderzocht. Eerder onderzoek bij mensen onderzocht de rol van stress op navigatietaken en ruimtelijke taken in een virtuele omgeving. De hippocampus zou ook een mogelijk rol kunnen spelen bij de relatie tussen stress en exploratiegedrag. Verder laat onderzoek zien dat slaapduur een rol kan spelen in zowel stress als exploratiegedrag. Er is nog niet eerder gekeken naar de invloed van stress en slaapduur op exploratiegedrag, gemeten door roaming entropy, in een virtuele omgeving bij mensen. Dit wordt in de huidige studie onderzocht door stress te verhogen door middel van de Sing-a-Song Stress Test en de participanten vervolgens een virtuele omgeving, gedurende 150 seconden, te laten verkennen. Daarna dienden de participanten in te vullen wat hun gewoonlijke slaapduur was. De resultaten van de huidige studie lieten geen effect van stress en slaapduur op exploratiegedrag zien. Dit kan mogelijk verklaard worden doordat de stressmanipulatie afwijkt van de stressmanipulatie in dierenstudies, er geen nieuwigheid werd getest, individuele verschillen (e.g. persoonlijke factoren) een rol kunnen spelen, slaapduur niet werd gemanipuleerd en geen andere slaapfactoren werden geïncludeerd (e.g. slaapefficiëntie en slaapkwaliteit). Dit moet verder worden onderzocht. Aangezien dit een begin studie is naar het effect van stress en slaapduur op exploratiegedrag, is er vervolgonderzoek nodig om de vraag; ‘wat is de invloed van stress en slaapduur op exploratiegedrag?’, te beantwoorden.Show less