Publications

@article{Pan2022,
title = {Psychological well-being is associated with prosociality during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparison of Swedish and Chinese samples},
author = {Y Pan and J B Vieira and P P\"{a}rnamets and S Jangard and X Cheng and Y Zhang and A Olsson},
doi = {10.1037/emo0001121},
year = {2022},
date = {2022-05-31},
journal = {Emotion},
keywords = {Prosocial, well-being},
pubstate = {forthcoming},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Acar2022,
title = {COVID-19 conspiracy ideation is associated with the delusion proneness trait and resistance to update of beliefs},
author = {K Acar and A V Lebedev and O Horntvedt and A Carbrera and A Olsson and M Ingvar and P Petrovic },
year = {2022},
date = {2022-05-31},
keywords = {beliefs, conspiracy, delusion},
pubstate = {forthcoming},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Jangard2022,
title = { Alcohol Use Disorder Displays Trait-Related Reductions in Prosocial Decision-Making},
author = {S Jangard and B Lindstr\"{o}m and L Khemiri and P P\"{a}rnamets and N Jayaram-Lindstr\"{o}m and A Olsson },
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2022.05.002},
year = {2022},
date = {2022-05-18},
journal = {Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging},
abstract = {Background
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is associated with deficits in social cognition, but the relationship between harmful alcohol use and the processes underlying interactive social behavior is still unknown. We hypothesized that prosocial decision-making is reduced in AUD and that individual differences in the underlying processes are key to better understand these reductions.

Method
In one laboratory study (Swedish participants, n=240) and one confirmatory online study (American participants, n=260), we compared young adults with AUD to age-, gender-, and education-matched healthy controls on six facets of prosocial decision-making. We used standardized behavioral economic tasks, namely: Dictator Game, Ultimatum Game, Trust Game, and Third-Party Game. To better understand the expected differences in prosociality, we evaluated attention by tracking eye-gaze, decision response time, clinical symptoms and social cognition.

Results
Altruism (Lab study: p = .007; Online study: p < .001), Fairness (Lab study: p = .003; Online study: p = .007), and Reciprocal trust decisions (Lab study: p = .007; Online study: p = .039) were reduced in AUD compared to healthy controls whereas Trust, and Third-party punishment and compensation were comparable in both studies. Reduced prosociality was associated with attending to the selfish response option, faster response time, and moral attitudes, while dissociated from both psychiatric symptoms and drinking history in AUD.

Conclusions
Individuals with AUD have trait-related reductions in prosocial decision-making that do not vary with drinking history or psychiatric symptom load. These reductions were confined to one-to-one interaction accompanied by differences in attention, decision-time and moral attitudes.},
keywords = {alcohol use disorder, behavioral economics, Decision making, Prosocial, Social cognition},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Louzolo2022,
title = {Enhanced instructed fear learning in delusion-proneness},
author = {A Louzolo and R Almeida and M Guitart-Masip and M Bj\"{o}rnsdotter and A V Lebedev and M Ingvar and A Olsson and P Petrovic},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2022.786778},
year = {2022},
date = {2022-04-13},
journal = {Frontiers in Psychology},
abstract = {Psychosis is associated with distorted perceptions and deficient bottom-up learning such as classical fear conditioning. This has been interpreted as reflecting imprecise priors in low-level predictive coding systems. Paradoxically, overly strong beliefs, such as overvalued beliefs and delusions, are also present in psychosis-associated states. In line with this, research has suggested that patients with psychosis and associated phenotypes rely more on high-order priors to interpret perceptual input. In this behavioural and fMRI study we studied two types of fear learning, i.e., instructed fear learning mediated by verbal suggestions about fear contingencies and classical fear conditioning mediated by low level associative learning, in delusion proneness-a trait in healthy individuals linked to psychotic disorders. Subjects were shown four faces out of which two were coupled with an aversive stimulation (CS+) while two were not (CS-) in a fear conditioning procedure. Before the conditioning, subjects were informed about the contingencies for two of the faces of each type, while no information was given for the two other faces. We could thereby study the effect of both classical fear conditioning and instructed fear learning. Our main outcome variable was evaluative rating of the faces. Simultaneously, fMRI-measurements were performed to study underlying mechanisms. We postulated that instructed fear learning, measured with evaluative ratings, is stronger in psychosis-related phenotypes, in contrast to classical fear conditioning that has repeatedly been shown to be weaker in these groups. In line with our hypothesis, we observed significantly larger instructed fear learning on a behavioural level in delusion-prone individuals (n = 20) compared to non-delusion-prone subjects (n = 23; n = 20 in fMRI study). Instructed fear learning was associated with a bilateral activation of lateral orbitofrontal cortex that did not differ significantly between groups. However, delusion-prone subjects showed a stronger functional connectivity between right lateral orbitofrontal cortex and regions processing fear and pain. Our results suggest that psychosis-related states are associated with a strong instructed fear learning in addition to previously reported weak classical fear conditioning. Given the similarity between nocebo paradigms and instructed fear learning, our results also have an impact on understanding why nocebo effects differ between individuals.},
keywords = {Fear conditioning, Fear learning, fMRI},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Svensson2022,
title = {Does gender matter? the association between different digital media activities and adolescent well-being},
author = {R Svensson, B Johnson, A Olsson},
doi = {10.1186/s12889-022-12670-7},
year = {2022},
date = {2022-02-10},
journal = {BMC Public Health},
abstract = {Background
Previous research on the relationship between social media use and well-being in adolescents has yielded inconsistent results. We addressed this issue by examining the association between various digital media activities, including a new and differentiated measure of social media use, and well-being (internalizing symptoms) in adolescent boys and girls.

Method
The sample was drawn from the four cross-sectional surveys from the \"{O}cker\"{o} project (2016\textendash2019) in eight municipalities in southern Sweden, consisting of 3957 adolescents in year 7 of compulsory education, aged 12\textendash13. We measured the following digital media activities: playing games and three different activities of social media use (chatting, online sociability, and self-presentation). Our outcome measure was internalizing symptoms. Hypotheses were tested with linear regression analysis.

Results
Social media use and playing games were positively associated with internalizing symptoms. The effect of social media use was conditional on gender, indicating that social media use was only associated with internalizing symptoms for girls. Of the social media activities, only chatting and self-presentation (posting information about themselves) were positively associated with internalizing symptoms. Self-presentation was associated with internalizing symptoms only for girls.

Conclusion
Our study shows the importance of research going beyond studying the time spent on social media to examine how different kinds of social media activities are associated with well-being. Consistent with research in psychology, our results suggest that young girls posting information about themselves (i.e. self-presentation) might be especially vulnerable to display internalizing symptoms.},
keywords = {well-being},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{vanBavel2021,
title = {National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic},
author = {J J van Bavel and A Cichocka and V Sjr{a}stad and J B Nezlek and M Alfano and ... and A Olsson and S Jangard and P P\"{a}rnamets and J Vieira and ... and M F C Hudeck},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27668-9},
year = {2022},
date = {2022-01-26},
journal = {Nature Communications},
abstract = {Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = −0.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics.},
keywords = {Health, Identity},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Undeger2021,
title = {Model-based representational similarity analysis of BOLD fMRI captures threat learning in social interactions},
author = {I Undeger and R Visser and N Becker and L de Boer and A Golkar and A Olsson },
url = {https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.202116},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.202116},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-11-24},
journal = {Royal Society Open Science},
volume = {8},
number = {202116},
abstract = {Past research has shown that attributions of intentions to other's actions determine how we experience these actions and their consequences. Yet, it is unknown how such attributions affect our learning and memory. Addressing this question, we combined neuroimaging with an interactive threat learning paradigm in which two interaction partners (confederates) made choices that had either threatening (shock) or safe (no shock) consequences for the participants. Importantly, participants were led to believe that one partner intentionally caused the delivery of shock, whereas the other did not (i.e. unintentional partner). Following intentional versus unintentional shocks, participants reported an inflated number of shocks and a greater increase in anger and vengeance. We applied a model-based representational similarity analysis to blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD)-MRI patterns during learning. Surprisingly, we did not find any effects of intentionality. The threat value of actions, however, was represented as a trial-by-trial increase in representational similarity in the insula and the inferior frontal gyrus. Our findings illustrate how neural pattern formation can be used to study a complex interaction.},
keywords = {Learning, Social interaction, Threat},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Pan2021,
title = {The interpersonal neuroscience of social learning},
author = {Y Pan and G Novembre and A Olsson},
url = {https://psyarxiv.com/p386k/},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211008429},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-10-12},
journal = {Perspectives on Psychological Science},
abstract = {The study of the brain mechanisms underpinning social behavior is currently undergoing a paradigm shift, moving its focus from single individuals to the real-time interaction among groups of individuals. Although this development opens unprecedented opportunities to study how interpersonal brain activity shapes behaviors through learning, there have been few direct connections to the rich field of learning science. Our paper examines how the rapidly developing field of interpersonal neuroscience is (and could be) contributing to our understanding of social learning. To this end, we first review recent research extracting indices of brain-to-brain coupling (BtBC) in the context of social behaviors, and in particular social learning. We then discuss how studying communicative behaviors during learning can aid the interpretation of BtBC, and how studying BtBC can inform our understanding of such behaviors. Importantly, we then discuss how BtBC and communicative behaviors collectively can predict learning outcomes, suggesting several causative and mechanistic models. Finally, we highlight key methodological and interpretational challenges, as well as exciting opportunities for integrating research in interpersonal neuroscience with social learning, and propose a multi-person framework for understanding how interpersonal transmission of information between individual brains shapes social learning.},
keywords = {Brain-tobrain coupling, Causation, interpersonal neuroscience, machine learning, Preprint, Social learning},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Haaker2021,
title = {Observation of others’ threat reactions recovers memories previously shaped by firsthand experiences},
author = {J Haaker and L Diaz-Mataix and G Guillazo-Blanch and S A Stark and L Kern and J LeDoux and A Olsson},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2101290118},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-07-27},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS},
volume = {118},
number = {30},
abstract = {Information about dangers can spread effectively by observation of others’ threat responses. Yet, it is unclear if such observational threat information interacts with associative memories that are shaped by the individual’s direct, firsthand experiences. Here, we show in humans and rats that the mere observation of a conspecific’s threat reactions reinstates previously learned and extinguished threat responses in the observer. In two experiments, human participants displayed elevated physiological responses to threat-conditioned cues after observational reinstatement in a context-specific manner. The elevation of physiological responses (arousal) was further specific to the context that was observed as dangerous. An analogous experiment in rats provided converging results by demonstrating reinstatement of defensive behavior after observing another rat’s threat reactions. Taken together, our findings provide cross-species evidence that observation of others’ threat reactions can recover associations previously shaped by direct, firsthand aversive experiences. Our study offers a perspective on how retrieval of threat memories draws from associative mechanisms that might underlie both observations of others’ and firsthand experiences.},
keywords = {reinstatment, Social learning, threat conditioning, Vicarious learning},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Lebedev2021,
title = {Psychedelic drug use and schizotypy in young adults},
author = {A V Lebedev and K Acar and B Garz\'{o}n and R Almeida and J Rr{a}back and A r{A}berg and S Martinsson and A Olsson and A Louzolo and P P\"{a}rnamets and M L\"{o}vden and L Atlas and M Ingvar and P Petrovic},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-94421-z},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-07-23},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
volume = {11},
number = {15058},
abstract = {Despite recently resurrected scientific interest in classical psychedelics, few studies have focused on potential harms associated with abuse of these substances. In particular, the link between psychedelic use and psychotic symptoms has been debated while no conclusive evidence has been presented. Here, we studied an adult population (n = 1032) with a special focus on young (18\textendash35 years) and healthy individuals (n = 701) to evaluate the association of psychedelic drug use with schizotypy and evidence integration impairment typically observed in psychosis-spectrum disorders. Experimental behavioural testing was performed in a subsample of the subjects (n = 39). We observed higher schizotypy scores in psychedelic users in the total sample. However, the effect size was notably small and only marginally significant when considering young and healthy subjects (Cohen’s d = 0.13). Controlling for concomitant drug use, none of our analyses found significant associations between psychedelic use and schizotypal traits. Results from experimental testing showed that total exposure to psychedelics (frequency and temporal proximity of use) was associated with better evidence integration (Cohen’s d = 0.13) and a higher sensitivity of fear responses (Cohen’s d = 1.05) to the effects instructed knowledge in a reversal aversive learning task modelled computationally with skin conductance response and pupillometry. This effect was present even when controlling for demographics and concomitant drug use. On a group level, however, only difference in sensitivity of fear responses to instructed knowledge reached statistical significance. Taken together, our findings suggest that psychedelic drug use is only weakly associated with psychosis-like symptoms, which, in turn, is to a large extent explained by psychiatric comorbidities and use of other psychoactive substances. Our results also suggest that psychedelics may have an effect on flexibility of evidence integration and aversive learning processes, that may be linked to recently suggested therapeutic effects of psychedelic drugs in non-psychotic psychiatric populations.},
keywords = {Aversive fear reversal learning, psychedelics, psychosis},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Yi2021,
title = {The face value of feedback: facial behaviour is shaped by goals and punishments during interaction with dynamic faces},
author = {J Yi and P P\"{a}rnamets and A Olsson},
doi = {10.1098/rsos.202159},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-07-14},
journal = {Royal Society Open Science},
volume = {8},
number = {7},
abstract = {Responding appropriately to others' facial expressions is key to successful social functioning. Despite the large body of work on face perception and spontaneous responses to static faces, little is known about responses to faces in dynamic, naturalistic situations, and no study has investigated how goal directed responses to faces are influenced by learning during dyadic interactions. To experimentally model such situations, we developed a novel method based on online integration of electromyography signals from the participants’ face (corrugator supercilii and zygomaticus major) during facial expression exchange with dynamic faces displaying happy and angry facial expressions. Fifty-eight participants learned by trial-and-error to avoid receiving aversive stimulation by either reciprocate (congruently) or respond opposite (incongruently) to the expression of the target face. Our results validated our method, showing that participants learned to optimize their facial behaviour, and replicated earlier findings of faster and more accurate responses in congruent versus incongruent conditions. Moreover, participants performed better on trials when confronted with smiling, when compared with frowning, faces, suggesting it might be easier to adapt facial responses to positively associated expressions. Finally, we applied drift diffusion and reinforcement learning models to provide a mechanistic explanation for our findings which helped clarifying the underlying decision-making processes of our experimental manipulation. Our results introduce a new method to study learning and decision-making in facial expression exchange, in which there is a need to gradually adapt facial expression selection to both social and non-social reinforcements.},
keywords = {avoidance learning, decision-making, electromyography, facial expression},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Pan2020,
title = {Social safety learning: Shared safety abolishes the recovery of learned threat},
author = {Y Pan and A Olsson and A Golkar},
doi = {10.1016/j.brat.2020.103733},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-12-01},
journal = {Behaviour Research and Therapy},
volume = {135},
pages = {103733},
abstract = {Humans, like other social animals, learn about threats and safety in the environment through social cues. Yet, the processes that contribute to the efficacy of social safety learning during threat transmission remain unknown. Here, we developed a novel dyadic model of associative threat and extinction learning. In three separate social groups, we manipulated whether safety information during extinction was acquired via direct exposure to the conditioned stimulus (CS) in the presence of another individual (Direct exposure), via observation of other's safety behavior (Vicarious exposure), or via the combination of both (Shared exposure).These groups were contrasted against a fourth group receiving direct CS exposure alone (Asocial exposure). Based on skin conductance responses, we observed that all social groups outperformed asocial learning in inhibiting the recovery of threat, but only Shared exposure abolished threat recovery. These results suggest that social safety learning is optimized by a combination of direct exposure and vicariously transmitted safety signals. This work might help develop exposure therapies used to treat symptoms of threat and anxiety-related disorders to counteract maladaptive fears in humans.},
keywords = {Recovery, Shared safety, Social interaction, Social learning, Threat},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Szczepanik2020b,
title = {Observational learning of fear in real time procedure},
author = {M Szczepanik and A M Ka\'{z}mierowska and J M Micha\lowski and M Wypych and A Olsson and E Knapska},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-74113-w},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-10-12},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
volume = {10},
abstract = {Learning to avoid threats often occurs by observing others. Most previous research on observational fear learning (OFL) in humans has used pre-recorded standardized video of an actor and thus lacked ecological validity. Here, we aimed to enhance ecological validity of the OFL by engaging participants in a real-time observational procedure (35 pairs of healthy male friends, age 18\textendash27). One of the participants watched the other undergo a differential fear conditioning task, in which a conditioned stimulus (CS+) was paired with an aversive electric shock and another stimulus (CS−) was always safe. Subsequently, the CS+ and CS− were presented to the observer to test the OFL. While the friend’s reactions to the shock elicited strong skin conductance responses (SCR) in all observers, subsequent differential SCRs (CS+ > CS−) were found only when declarative knowledge of the CS+/US contingency (rated by the participants) was acquired. Contingency-aware observers also showed elevated fear potentiated startle responses during both CS+ and CS− compared to baseline. We conclude that our real-time procedure can be effectively used to study OFL. The procedure allowed for dissecting two components of the OFL: an automatic emotional reaction to the response of the demonstrator and learning about stimulus contingency.},
keywords = {Obsfear procedure, Social learning},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Espinosa2020,
title = {Enhanced social learning of threat in adults with autism},
author = {L Espinosa and J Lundin Kleberg and B Hofvander and S Berggren and S B\"{o}lte and A Olsson},
url = {https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1186/s13229-020-00375-w},
doi = {10.1186/s13229-020-00375-w},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-09-24},
journal = {Molecular Autism},
volume = {11},
number = {71},
abstract = {Background: Recent theories have linked autism to challenges in prediction learning and social cognition. It is unknown, however, how autism affects learning about threats from others “demonstrators” through observation, which contains predictive learning based on social information. The aims of this study are therefore to investigate social fear learning in individual with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to examine whether typically developing social cognition is necessary for successful observational learning.
Methods: Adults with ASD (n = 23) and neurotypical controls (n = 25) completed a social fear learning (SFL) procedure in which participants watched a “demonstrator” receiving electrical shocks in conjunction with a previously neutral conditioned stimulus (CS+), but never with a safe control stimulus (CS−). Skin conductance was used to measure autonomic responses of learned threat responses to the CS+ versus CS−. Visual attention was measured during learning using eye tracking. To establish a non-social learning baseline, each participant also underwent a test of Pavlovian conditioning.
Results: During learning, individuals with ASD attended less to the demonstrator’s face, and when later tested, displayed stronger observational, but not Pavlovian, autonomic indices of learning (skin conductance) compared to controls. In controls, both higher levels of attention to the demonstrator’s face and trait empathy predicted diminished expressions of learning during test.
Limitations: The relatively small sample size of this study and the typical IQ range of the ASD group limit the generalizability of our findings to individuals with ASD in the average intellectual ability range.
Conclusions: The enhanced social threat learning in individuals with ASD may be linked to difficulties using visual attention and mental state attributions to downregulate their emotion.},
keywords = {Anxiety, Attention, Autism, Eye tracking, Skin conductance, Social cognition, Social fear learning, Vicarious threat},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{P\"{a}rnamets2020b,
title = {Integration of social cues and individual experiences during instrumental avoidance learning},
author = {P P\"{a}rnamets and A Olsson},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008163},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-09-08},
journal = {PLOS Computational Biology},
volume = {16},
number = {9},
pages = {e1008163},
abstract = {Learning to avoid harmful consequences can be a costly trial-and-error process. In such situations, social information can be leveraged to improve individual learning outcomes. Here, we investigated how participants used their own experiences and others’ social cues to avoid harm. Participants made repeated choices between harmful and safe options, each with different probabilities of generating shocks, while also seeing the image of a social partner. Some partners made predictive gaze cues towards the harmful choice option while others cued an option at random, and did so using neutral or fearful facial expressions. We tested how learned social information about partner reliability transferred across contexts by letting participants encounter the same partner in multiple trial blocks while facing novel choice options. Participants’ decisions were best explained by a reinforcement learning model that independently learned the probabilities of options being safe and of partners being reliable and combined these combined these estimates to generate choices. Advice from partners making a fearful facial expression influenced participants’ decisions more than advice from partners with neutral expressions. Our results showed that participants made better decisions when facing predictive partners and that they cached and transferred partner reliability estimates into new blocks. Using simulations we show that participants’ transfer of social information into novel contexts is better adapted to variable social environments where social partners may change their cuing strategy or become untrustworthy. Finally, we found no relation between autism questionnaire scores and performance in our task, but do find autism trait related differences in learning rate parameters.},
keywords = {Autism, Decision making, Emotions, Facial expressions, Fear, Fractals, Human learning, Learning},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Vieira2020,
title = {Help or flight? Increased threat imminence promotes defensive helping in humans},
author = {J B Vieira and S Schellhaas and E Enstr\"{o}m and A Olsson},
url = {https://psyarxiv.com/bckn3/},
doi = {10.1098/rspb.2020.1473},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-08-26},
journal = {Proceedings of the Royal Society B},
keywords = {Altruism, Defensive state, Empathy, Fear, Fight\textendashflight, Freezing, Prosocial},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Undeger2020,
title = {Neural pattern similarity unveils the integration of social information and aversive learning},
author = {I Undeger and R M Visser and A Olsson},
url = {http://www.emotionlab.se/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Undeger-Visser-Olsson-2020-Neural-pattern-similarity-unveils-the-integration-of-social-information-and-aversive-learning.pdf},
doi = {10.1093/cercor/bhaa122},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-06-24},
journal = {Cerebral Cortex},
pages = {1-10},
abstract = {Attributing intentions to others’ actions is important for learning to avoid their potentially harmful consequences. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging multivariate pattern analysis to investigate how the brain integrates information about others’ intentions with the aversive outcome of their actions. In an interactive aversive learning task, participants (n =33) were scanned while watching two alleged coparticipants (confederates)\textemdashone making choices intentionally and the other unintentionally\textemdashleading to aversive (a mild shock) or safe (no shock) outcomes to the participant. We assessed the trial-by-trial changes in participants’ neural activation patterns related to observing the coparticipants and experiencing the outcome of their choices. Participants reported a higher number of shocks, more discomfort, and more anger to shocks given by the intentional player. Intentionality enhanced responses to aversive actions in the insula, anterior cingulate cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, and the anterior superior temporal sulcus. Our findings indicate that neural pattern similarities index the integration of social and threat information across the cortex.},
keywords = {Aversive learning, Conditioning, Intention, MVPA, RSA},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{P\"{a}rnamets2020,
title = {Physiological synchrony predicts observational threat learning in humans},
author = {P P\"{a}rnamets and L Espinosa and A Olsson},
doi = {10.1098/rspb.2019.2779},
issn = {1471-2954},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-04-25},
journal = {Proceedings of the Royal Society B},
abstract = {Understanding how information about threats in the environment is shared and transmitted between individuals is crucial for explaining adaptive, survival-related behavior in humans and other animals, and for developing treatments for phobias and other anxiety disorders. Research across species has shown that observing a conspecific’s, a “demonstrator’s”, threat responses causes strong and persistent threat memories in the “observer”. Here, we examined if physiological synchrony between demonstrator and observer can serve to predict the strength of observationally acquired conditioned responses. We measured synchrony between demonstrators' and observers' phasic electrodermal signals during learning, which directly reflects autonomic nervous system activity. Prior interpersonal synchrony predicted the strength of the observer's later skin conductance responses to threat predicting stimuli, in the absence of the demonstrator. Dynamic coupling between an observer's and a demonstrator's autonomic nervous system activity may reflect experience sharing processes facilitating the formation of observational threat associations.},
keywords = {Empathy, Fear, Observational learning, Social learning, Synchrony, Threat},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{Hillman2020,
title = {Intact classical fear conditioning to interpersonally threatening stimuli in borderline personality disorder},
author = {K Hillman and F Mancke and S Herpertz and M Jungkunz and A Olsson and J Haaker and and K Bertsch},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-04-24},
journal = {Psychopathology},
keywords = {Fear conditioning},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}