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Appetitive and aversive learning are both key building blocks of adaptive behavior, yet knowledge regarding their differences is sparse. Using a capsaicin heat pain model in 36 healthy participants, this study directly compared the acquisition and extinction of conditioned stimuli (CS) predicting pain exacerbation and relief. Valence ratings show stronger acquisition during aversive compared to appetitive learning, but no differences in extinction. Skin conductance responses and contingency ratings confirmed these results. Findings were unrelated to individual differences in pain sensitivity or psychological factors. Our results support the notion of an evolutionarily hardwired preponderance to acquire aversive rather than appetitive cues as is protective for acute aversive states such as pain but may contribute to the development and maintenance of clinical conditions such as chronic pain, depression or anxiety disorders.

Humans often show reduced social attention in real situations, a finding rarely replicated in controlled laboratory studies. Virtual reality is supposed to allow for ecologically valid and at the same time highly controlled experiments. This study aimed to provide initial insights into the reliability and validity of using spherical videos viewed via a head-mounted display (HMD) to assess social attention. We chose five public places in the city of Würzburg and measured eye movements of 44 participants for 30 seconds at each location twice: Once in a real environment with mobile eye tracking glasses and once in a virtual environment playing a spherical video of the location in an HMD with an integrated eye tracker. As hypothesized,participants demonstrated reduced social attention with less fixations on passengers in the real environment as compared to the virtual one. This is in line with earlier studies showing social avoidance in interactive situations. Furthermore, we observed more consistent fixation patterns in virtual environments. These findings highlight that the potential for social interactions and an adherence to social norms are essential modulators of viewing behavior in social situations and cannot be easily simulated in laboratory contexts. However, spherical videos might be helpful for supplementing the range of methods in social cognition research and other fields. Data and analysis scripts are available at https://osf.io/hktdu/.

Generalization of fear is considered an important mechanism contributing to the etiology and maintenance of anxiety disorders. Although previous studies have identified the importance of stimulus discrimination for fear generalization, it is still unclear to what degree overt attention to relevant stimulus features might mediate its magnitude. To test the prediction that visual preferences for distinguishing stimulus aspects are associated with reduced fear generalization, we developed a set of facial stimuli that was meticulously manipulated such that pairs of faces could either be distinguished by looking into the eyes or into the region around mouth and nose, respectively. These pairs were then employed as CS+ and CS− in a differential fear conditioning paradigm followed by a generalization test with morphs in steps of 20%. Shock expectancy ratings indicated a moderately curved fear generalization gradient that is typical for healthy samples but its shape was altered depending on individual attentional deployment: Subjects who dwelled on the distinguishing facial features faster and for longer periods of time exhibited less fear generalization. Although both, pupil and heart rate responses also showed a generalization gradient, with pupil diameter and heart rate deceleration increasing as a function of threat, these responses were not significantly related to visual exploration. In total, the current results indicate that the extent of explicit fear generalization depends on individual patterns of attentional deployment. Future studies evaluating the efficacy of perceptual trainings that aim to augment stimulus discriminability in order to reduce (over )generalization seem desirable. Data, materials, experimental & analysis scripts can be accessed via https://osf.io/4gz7f/.

The detection of deception has attracted increased attention among psychological researchers, legal scholars, and ethicists during the last decade. Much of this has been driven by the possibility of using neuroimaging techniques for lie detection. Yet, neuroimaging studies addressing deception detection are clouded by lack of conceptual clarity and a host of methodological problems that are not unique to neuroimaging. We review the various research paradigms and the dependent measures that have been adopted to study deception and its detection. In doing so, we differentiate between basic research designed to shed light on the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying deceptive behavior and applied research aimed at detecting lies. We also stress the distinction between paradigms attempting to detect deception directly and those attempting to establish involvement by detecting crime-related knowledge, and discuss the methodological difficulties and threats to validity associated with each paradigm. Our conclusion is that the main challenge of future research is to find paradigms that can isolate cognitive factors associated with deception, rather than the discovery of a unique (brain) correlate of lying. We argue that the Comparison Question Test currently applied in many countries has weak scientific validity, which cannot be remedied by using neuroimaging measures. Other paradigms are promising, but the absence of data from ecologically valid studies poses a challenge for legal admissibility of their outcomes.

Since the 2001 attacks on the twin towers, policies on security have changed drastically, bringing about an increased need for tools that allow for the detection of deception. Many of the solutions offered today, however, lack scientific underpinning. We recommend two important changes to improve the (cost) effectiveness of security policy. To begin with, the emphasis of deception research should shift from technological to behavioural sciences. Secondly, the burden of proof should lie with the manufacturers of the security tools. Governments should not rely on security tools that have not passed scientific scrutiny, and should only employ those methods that have been proven effective. After all, the use of tools that do not work will only get us further from the truth.