Bruno Laeng

• Laeng, Bruno; Saneyoshi, Ayako; Rogulina, Olga & Kitaoka, Akiyoshi (2026). Pupillary adjustments to the illusory depth of rotoreliefs. Perception. ISSN 0301-0066. doi: 10.1177/03010066261473164. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Recent studies in the perception of visual illusions as well as mental imagery indicate that adjustments of the eye pupils reflect the perception instead of the light input stimulating the eyes. The present study put to test the expectation that similar adjustments of the eye pupil and, possibly, of other oculomotor responses like vergence, would be triggered by the stereokinetic effect, that is, illusory depth. In an eye-tracking study, both gaze direction and pupillary changes were measured while observers viewed “rotoreliefs,”’ that is, rotating two-dimensional patterns, that are known to generate a particularly strong impression of depth. Rotoreliefs can be multistable, and in some cases their perceptual interpretations alternate between seeing either a bump or a hole, protruding or extending beyond the screen. We found strong evidence that pupil diameters were larger when the depth illusion was that of a hole (funnel) than of a bump (cone). Additionally, eyes diverged a few seconds after observers reported a reversal from a bump to a hole. Thus, the eyes adjust spontaneously to what looks like a three-dimensional form, regardless of whether this is an illusion or a veridical perception. We propose that such oculomotor adjustments to illusions index the disambiguation of visual input that optimizes possible interactions with external objects in a dynamic 3D world.

• Laeng, Bruno; Zambrana, Imac; Hou, Jie; Martinsen, Ørjan Grøttem & Holm, Kristiane (2026). Machine learning classification of emotional videos via autonomic arousal based on pupil diameters, electrodermal activity and heart rate. International Journal of Psychophysiology. ISSN 0167-8760. s. 113455–113455. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2026.113455. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We evaluated the ability of Electrodermal Activity (EDA), Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and Pupil Diameter (PD) to detect emotional states via machine learning to determine whether simple arousal metrics can distinguish complex emotional labels: Amusement, Awe, Disgust, Nurturant Love, and Sadness. In a laboratory session, participants (N = 47) selected the most appropriate emotional label out of five immediately after viewing 10 short videos. Classifications relied solely on the three psychophysiological measures and by applying three machine learning models: Support Vector Machine (SVM/SVC), Random Forest (RF), and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost). Features included baseline-corrected average pupil diameter (PD) and electrodermal activity (EDA) peaks. Noisy heart rate variability (HRV) data were excluded to prevent signal-to-noise ratio degradation. PD reflects sympathetic noradrenergic activation and reciprocal coupling within the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), providing a stable state estimate. In the core ‘affect circumplex’, SVC achieved peak accuracy, and PD achieved the highest feature importance score across architectures. Results revealed a many-to-one mapping where discrete valence states produced indistinguishable physiological signatures: high-arousal states (Amusement, Sadness) and low-arousal states (Awe, Disgust) were conflated. Notably, Awe triggered PD constriction, mirroring Disgust's profile. Tactical removal of the cardiovascular features significantly improved RF and XGBoost performance. These findings suggest that simple arousal metrics, and specifically pupillometry, can classify affect without using complex time-series analysis. Non-invasive sensors may facilitate the development of sensitive computerized systems calibrated to objective physiological data.

• Câmara, Guilherme Schmidt; Spiech, Connor; Solli, Sandra; Bang, Birger; Rogulina, Olga & Laeng, Bruno [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2026). Just noticeable difference thresholds of asynchrony and non-isochrony in a Multi-Instrumental groove-based context. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. ISSN 0001-4966. 159(5), s. 4668–4688. doi: 10.1121/10.0043887. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Vanbuckhave, Claire; Eikner, Jakob Scherm; Laeng, Bruno; Onnis, Luca & Mathôt, Sebastiaan (2026). Pupil Size Reflects Trial-Level Variability in Imagery Vividness During Immersive Storytelling but Not (or Hardly) Individual Differences in Trait Imagery. Psychophysiology. ISSN 0048-5772. 63(4). doi: 10.1111/psyp.70298. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Talamini, Francesca; Grassi, Massimo; Altoè, Gianmarco; Brattico, Elvira; Caclin, Anne & Carretti, Barbara [Vis alle 115 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2026). Music Ensemble: a large dataset on musicianship, cognition, and personality in musicians and nonmusicians. Scientific Data. 13(1). doi: 10.1038/s41597-026-06654-0. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The Music Ensemble dataset is a large-scale, cross-national database that provides detailed information about the musical, cognitive, personality, and demographic profiles of young adult musicians and nonmusicians. Data were collected from 1438 participants (aged 18–30) across thirty-five research sites in Europe, North America, South America, and Australia. Participants completed an in-person, in-lab battery of objective tests, including measures of verbal, visuospatial and musical short-term memory, executive functions (updating component), nonverbal reasoning, verbal comprehension, and music perception skills. The battery also included standardized and custom self-report questionnaires assessing music sophistication, music reward, personality traits, socioeconomic status, and demographic characteristics. Music Ensemble was preregistered, and the research protocol followed a standardized procedure across sites. The dataset also includes a large subsample of musicians and nonmusicians that are pair-matched for age, gender, and education (678 pairs). It enables well-powered investigations into the relationship between musical expertise and individual differences in cognition, personality, and demographic variables. It is also suitable for training in statistical and psychometric methods.

• Liu, Hang; Laeng, Bruno & Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi (2025). Visual short-term memory is modulated by 3D depth in stereopsis. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics. ISSN 1943-3921. 87(8), s. 2265–2274. doi: 10.3758/s13414-025-03052-3. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is a memory mechanism temporarily holding visual information for later use. In the real world, objects are located in spatial depth and such depth information may be processed when objects are remembered. The present study investigated how VSTM is modulated by three-dimensional (3D) depth. Previous work used the color of objects to measure memory and provided mixed results, and the impact of separability in depth on memory is unclear. In Experiment 1a, we employed color feature and examined the effect of 3D depth across Stereo (stereoscopic vs. monoscopic) and Plane (one plane vs. multiple planes). VSTM was not found to be influenced by depth information. In Experiments 1b and 1c, the color was respectively replaced with two distinct spatial features, orientation and direction-of-rotation. We found similar results that the performance on VSTM was superior in the stereoscopic multi-plane condition compared to the monoscopic multi-plane condition or stereoscopic single-plane condition. These findings confirm, also via Bayesian statistical analyses, that the VSTM can benefit from 3D depth information in stereopsis, while the benefit is severely limited when the task is non-spatial.

• Grassi, Massimo; Talamini, Francesca; Altoè, Gianmarco; Brattico, Elvira; Caclin, Anne & Carretti, Barbara [Vis alle 110 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2025). Do Musicians Have Better Short-Term Memory Than Nonmusicians? A Multilab Study. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science (AMPPS). ISSN 2515-2459. 8(4). doi: 10.1177/25152459251379432. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Musicians are often regarded as a positive example of brain plasticity and associated cognitive benefits. This emerges when experienced musicians (e.g., musicians with more than 10 years of music training and practice) are compared with nonmusicians. A frequently observed behavioral finding is a short-term memory advantage of the former over the latter. Although available meta-analysis reported that the effect size of this advantage is medium (Hedges’s g = 0.5), no literature study was adequately powered to estimate reliably an effect of such size. This multilab study has been ideated, realized, and conducted in lab by several groups that have been working on this topic. Our ultimate goal was to provide a community-driven shared and reliable estimate of the musicians’ short-term memory advantage (if any) and set a method and a standard for future studies in neuroscience and psychology comparing musicians and nonmusicians. Thirty-three research units recruited a total of 600 experienced musicians and 600 nonmusicians, a number that is sufficiently large to estimate a small effect size (Hedges’s g = 0.3) with a high statistical power (i.e., 95%). Subsequently, we measured the difference in short-term memory for musical, verbal, and visuospatial stimuli. We also looked at cognitive, personality, and socioeconomic factors that might mediate the difference. Musicians had better short-term memory than nonmusicians for musical, verbal, and visuospatial stimuli with an effect size of, respectively, Hedges’s g s = 1.08 (95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.94, 1.22]; large), 0.16 (95% CI = [0.02 0.30]; very small), and 0.28 (95% CI = [0.15, 0.41]; small). This work sets the basis for sound research practices in studies comparing musicians and nonmusicians and contributes to the ongoing debate on the possible cognitive benefits of musical training.

• Otterdijk, Marieke van; Laeng, Bruno; Lindblom, Diana Saplacan; Baselizadeh, Adel & Tørresen, Jim (2025). Seeing Meaning: How Congruent Robot Speech and Gestures Impact Human Intuitive Understanding of Robot Intentions. International Journal of Social Robotics. ISSN 1875-4791. 17, s. 2279–2292. doi: 10.1007/s12369-025-01271-0. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Social communication between humans and robots has become critical as a result of the integration of robots into our daily lives as assistants. There is a need to explore how users intuitively understand the behavior of a robot and the impact of social context on that understanding. This study measures mental effort (as indexed by pupil response) and processing time, measured as the time taken to provide the correct answer, to investigate participants’ intuitive understanding of the robot’s gestures. Thirty-two participants participated in a charades game with a TIAGo robot, during which their eyes were tracked. Our findings show a relationship between mental effort and processing time, and indicate that robot gestures, congruence of speech and behavior, and the correctness of interpreting robot behavior influence intuitive understanding. Furthermore, we found that people focused on the robot’s limb movement. Using these findings, we can highlight what features contribute to the intuitive interaction with a robot, thus improving its efficiency.

• Laeng, Bruno; Canoluk, Hüseyin Berke & Nabil, Shoaib (2025). Pupil adjustments to illusory perceptions of the light intensity of object surfaces. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 19. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1604114. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Using infrared eye tracking, we show that when gaze is maintained at the center of one of two equiluminant surfaces of a Cornsweet stimulus, designed by Lotto and Purves, that illusorily appear to be lighter or darker than the other, the eye pupils constrict or dilate, respectively. That is, pupil sizes mirror the subjective experience of differential brightness. Previous studies of pupil responses to illusions of light had focused on illusions of unveridical light sources (e.g., patterns resembling the sun), whereas in the present study, we show pupil adjustments to the illusory brightness of object surfaces within images of realistic scenes. In two control experiments, we also showed that when the edge gradients of the Cornsweet stimulus, which do differ in luminance, were either occluded or presented alone in a black field, there were no differences in pupil diameters. We also conclude that adjustments to the perception of surface reflectance are unlikely to represent anticipatory responses to probable risks of temporary visual impairment (i.e., dazzle to sunlight) and, instead, indicate that a gradual process of disambiguation of the visual scene is sufficient to elicit adjustments to the apparent light intensity of an object’s surface.

• Laeng, Bruno; Øvervoll, Morten & Ala-Pettersen, Ece Aybike (2025). Original art paintings are chosen over their “color-rotated” versions because of changed color contrast. Perception. ISSN 0301-0066. doi: 10.1177/03010066251345994. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Rotating colors (digitally within CIELAB color space) of an artistic painting is thought to keep constant all aspects of the painting except the hues. When observers are asked to select the preferred image among color-rotated images the “original” version of the artwork is typically selected, while the hue transformed images are rejected. We hypothesized that color contrast may be reduced after such digital rotations, which was supported by feature analyses. We also found that when the original painting or rotations were viewed individually, they did not differ in both hedonic ratings and pupil responses, though observers selected the original paintings in a forced-choice test. Hence, we generated versions of the paintings where color contrast was either enhanced or reduced and forced-choice experiments (online or in the lab) confirmed that the higher color contrast image within a pair was preferred (regardless of whether the image was an original painting or not). Eye tracking revealed that images with relatively higher contrast captured attention. We conclude that previous reports of a preference for the original artworks may have reflected reductions in color contrast of the color-rotated alternatives. These findings point to color contrast as a potential esthetic primitive feature but at the same time cast some doubts on relying exclusively on the results of forced choice tests for revealing genuine esthetic preferences.

• Hansen, Heidi Marie Umbach; Røysamb, Espen; Vassend, Olav Mandt; Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi; Endestad, Tor & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina [Vis alle 8 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2025). Dimensions of music use motivations: Genetic and environmental underpinnings, and associations with Big Five and Empathy traits. PLOS ONE. 20(8). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0329808. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  People differ in their motivation for seeking musical experiences and these differences appear to be partially attributable to their personality. However, little is known about the role of genetic and environmental factors in shaping individual differences in motivations for music use and their shared etiology with personality. This study investigated, using the classical twin design in a sample of 2611 Norwegian twins, the genetic and environmental architecture of four dimensions of motivations for music use (musical transcendence, emotion regulation, social bonding, and musical identity and expression). We also examined their phenotypic associations, as well as genetic and environmental overlap with general personality traits, including the Big Five and Trait Empathy facets. Additive genetic and unique environmental effects largely accounted for the variation in the four dimensions (heritability 38%−52%, mean = 45%), though univariate analyses of the social bonding dimension indicated common environmental influences for this specific subscale. In line with previous studies, trait-congruent phenotypic associations were found between specific personality traits and music use motives, including facets of negative emotionality and musical emotion regulation. Other facets – particularly aesthetic sensitivity (open-mindedness) and fantasy (trait empathy) – were closely tied to all dimensions. Multivariate biometric modeling of the links between personality traits and motivations for music use revealed that these relationships were primarily driven by correlated genetic factors, with personality traits accounting for 40%−66% of the total genetic variance and 5%−17% of the total environmental variance in the music use motivation dimensions. These findings shed new light on the etiology of dispositional music use and provide a comprehensive baseline for future investigations of associations with personality, mental health, and well-being.

• Hansen, Heidi Marie Umbach; Laeng, Bruno; Vassend, Olav Mandt; Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi; Endestad, Tor & Danielsen, Anne [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2025). The role of Big Five personality domains and facets in musical sensibility: a twin study. Scientific Reports. 15(1). doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-95661-z. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Musical sensibility can be understood as a propensity to be emotionally and aesthetically engaged by music and may constitute a key feature of a multidimensional definition of musicality. Yet, the nature of this construct is only just beginning to be understood. In a sample of adult Norwegian twins (N = 2592), we aimed to establish whether interindividual variability in musical sensibility may partially be attributable to personality, both in terms of the Big Five personality domains and their lower-order facets, as well as the role of genes and environments. Phenotypic analyses demonstrated that the personality domains of open-mindedness (and the facet aesthetic sensitivity in particular), agreeableness (and the facet compassion), and negative emotionality were all significantly associated with and predictive of musical sensibility. Multivariate biometric twin models further revealed that these relations were driven mainly by genetic influences, accounting for 50–100% of the observed covariance, whereas non-shared environmental influences accounted for the rest. Moreover, genetic correlations of musical sensibility with personality traits were substantial, and particularly strong for open-mindedness, pointing to considerable overlap in the biological mechanisms underlying the two traits. These findings situate musical sensibility within a broader network of psychological dispositions, possibly linked together via common affective systems.

• Høffding, Simon; Bergstrøm, Rebecca Josefine Five; Bishop, Laura; Bravo, Pedro Pablo Lucas; Burnim, Kayla & Cancino-Chacón, Carlos Eduardo [Vis alle 28 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2025). Introducing the MusicLab Copenhagen Dataset. Music & Science. 8. doi: 10.1177/20592043241303288. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  MusicLab Copenhagen was a unique research concert featuring the world-renowned Danish String Quartet in a naturalistic setting. The audience was split between one group physically located in the hall, another group listening to a radio broadcast, and a third group watching a live stream. Qualitative and quantitative data were captured from both musicians and audiences, resulting in a comprehensive dataset that can be used to address many research questions. This document introduces the dataset, explains its structure, and reflects on the related data collection, storing, publishing, and archiving processes.

• Laeng, Bruno; Nabil, Shoaib & Kitaoka, Akiyoshi (2024). Tunnel motion: Pupil dilations to optic flow within illusory dark holes. Perception. ISSN 0301-0066. doi: 10.1177/03010066241270493. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Spiech, Connor; Danielsen, Anne; Laeng, Bruno & Endestad, Tor (2024). Oscillatory attention in groove. Cortex. ISSN 0010-9452. 174, s. 137–148. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.02.013. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Attention is not constant but rather fluctuates over time and these attentional fluctuations may prioritize the processing of certain events over others. In music listening, the pleasurable urge to move to music (termed ‘groove’ by music psychologists) offers a particularly convenient case study of oscillatory attention because it engenders synchronous and oscillatory movements which also vary predictably with stimulus complexity. In this study, we simultaneously recorded pupillometry and scalp electroencephalography (EEG) from participants while they listened to drumbeats of varying complexity that they rated in terms of groove afterwards. Using the intertrial phase coherence of the beat frequency, we found that while subjects were listening, their pupil activity became entrained to the beat of the drumbeats and this entrained attention persisted in the EEG even as subjects imagined the drumbeats continuing through subsequent silent periods. This entrainment in both the pupillometry and EEG worsened with inc

• Prete, Giulia; Ceccato, Irene; Bartolini, Emanuela; Crosta, Adolfo Di; Malva, Pasquale La & Palumbo, Rocco [Vis alle 10 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2024). Detecting implicit and explicit facial emotions at different ages. European Journal of Ageing. ISSN 1613-9372. 21(1). doi: 10.1007/s10433-024-00805-1. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Abstract Emotions are processed in the brain through a cortical route, responsible for detailed-conscious recognition and mainly based on image High Spatial Frequencies (HSF), and a subcortical route, responsible for coarse-unconscious processing and based on Low SF (LSF). However, little is known about possible changes in the functioning of the two routes in ageing. In the present go/no-go online task, 112 younger adults and 111 older adults were asked to press a button when a happy or angry face appeared (go) and to inhibit responses for neutral faces (no-go). Facial stimuli were presented unfiltered (broadband image), filtered at HSF and LSF, and hybrids (LSF of an emotional expression superimposed to the HSF of the same face with a neutral expression). All stimuli were also presented rotated on the vertical axis (upside-down) to investigate the global analysis of faces in ageing. Results showed an overall better performance of younger compared to older participants for all conditions except for hybrid stimuli. The expected face-inversion effect was confirmed in both age groups. We conclude that, besides an overall worsening of the perceptual skill with ageing, no specific impairment in the functioning of both the cortical and the subcortical route emerged.

• Otterdijk, Marieke van; Laeng, Bruno; Saplacan, Diana & Tørresen, Jim (2024). The Effect of Expressive Robot Behavior on Users’ Mental Effort: A Pupillometry Study. IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems. ISSN 2379-8920. 16(2), s. 474–484. doi: 10.1109/TCDS.2024.3352893. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Robots are becoming part of our social landscape. Social interaction with humans must be efficient and intuitive to understand because nonverbal cues make social interactions between humans and robots more efficient. This study measures mental effort to investigate factors influencing the intuitive understanding of expressive nonverbal robot motions. Using an eye tracker to measure pupil response and gaze, fifty participants were asked to watch eighteen short video clips featuring three different types of robots performing expressive robot behaviors. Our findings indicate that the appearance of the robot, the viewing angle, and the expression shown by the robot all influence the cognitive load. Therefore, they may affect the intuitive understanding of expressive robot behavior. Furthermore, we found differences in the fixation time for different features of the various robots. With these insights, we identified possible improvement directions for making interactions between humans and robots more efficient and intuitive.

• Hansen, Heidi Marie Umbach; Røysamb, Espen; Vassend, Olav Mandt; Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi; Endestad, Tor & Danielsen, Anne [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2024). The underlying architecture of musical sensibility: One general factor, four subdimensions, and strong genetic effects. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. ISSN 0077-8923. 1540(1), s. 291–306. doi: 10.1111/nyas.15227. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Current evidence suggests moderate heritability of music phenotypes, such as music listening and achievement. However, other fundamental traits underlying people's interest in music and its relevance for their lives have been largely neglected, and little is known about the genetic and environmental etiology of what we refer to as musical sensibility—the tendency to be emotionally and aesthetically engaged by music. This study investigated the latent structure, as well as the genetic and environmental factors influencing individual variability in multiple domains of musical sensibility, and the etiological architecture of the relationship between the dimensions. To this end, we used phenotypic confirmatory factor analytic and biometric twin modeling to analyze self-reported ratings on four dimensions of musical sensibility in a sample of Norwegian twins (N = 2600). The results indicate a phenotypic higher-order structure, whereby both the resulting general musical sensibility factor and the conceptually narrower domains were strongly heritable (49–65%). Multivariate analyses of the genetic and environmental covariance further revealed substantial overlap in genetic variance across domains.

• Prete, Giulia; Palumbo, Rocco; Ceccato, Irene; Crosta, Adolfo Di; Malva, Pasquale La & Sforza, Valentina [Vis alle 10 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2024). The Effect of Aging on the Dual-Route Model of Emotion Processing Applied to Memory Recognition. Neuropsychology. ISSN 0894-4105. 38(7), s. 679–686. doi: 10.1037/neu0000972. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Durand, Jean-Baptiste; Marchand, Sarah; Nasres, Ilyas; Laeng, Bruno & Castro, Vanessa De (2024). Illusory light drives pupil responses in primates. Journal of Vision. 24(7), s. 1–16. doi: 10.1167/jov.24.7.14. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In humans, the eye pupils respond to both physical light sensed by the retina and mental representations of light produced by the brain. Notably, our pupils constrict when a visual stimulus is illusorily perceived brighter, even if retinal illumination is constant. However, it remains unclear whether such perceptual penetrability of pupil responses is an epiphenomenon unique to humans or whether it represents an adaptive mechanism shared with other animals to anticipate variations in retinal illumination between successive eye fixations. To address this issue, we measured the pupil responses of both humans and macaque monkeys exposed to three chromatic versions (cyan, magenta, and yellow) of the Asahi brightness illusion.We found that the stimuli illusorily perceived brighter or darker trigger differential pupil responses that are very similar in macaques and human participants. Additionally, we show that this phenomenon exhibits an analogous cyan bias in both primate species. Beyond evincing the macaque monkey as a relevant model to study the perceptual penetrability of pupil responses, our results suggest that this phenomenon is tuned to ecological conditions because the exposure to a “bright cyan-bluish sky” may be associated with increased risks of dazzle and retinal damages.

• Otterdijk, Marieke van; Saplacan, Diana; Laeng, Bruno & Tørresen, Jim (2024). An Exploratory Study on People's Intuitive Understanding of Expressive Robot Behavior. ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). ISSN 2167-2121. s. 1072–1076. doi: 10.1145/3610978.3640568. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Robots are anticipated to communicate with humans in our social context. Using nonverbal communication by robots increases communication comprehension because humans intuitively understand such behavior due to their experience of human-human interaction. Thus, this behavior is suitable for studying what makes robot motion intuitive to understand in human-robot interaction (HRI). We study how robot features help humans intuitively grasp expressive robot gestures, concentrating on what makes behavior easy to interpret. After watching eighteen nine-second videos of three robot kinds demonstrating expressive robot actions, 50 participants completed an open-ended survey. Our findings highlight the inputs, mediating factors, and outputs that users reported based on observing examples of expressive robot behavior. These insights are a starting point for analyzing robot behavior from the perspective of intuition and provide a foundation for a theoretical framework for intuition in HRI.

• Fardzadeh, Haghish Ebad; Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi; Walby, Fredrik Andreas; Qin, Ping & Laeng, Bruno (2024). Suicide attempt risk predicts inconsistent self-reported suicide attempts: A machine learning approach using longitudinal data. Journal of Affective Disorders. ISSN 0165-0327. 355, s. 495–504. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2024.03.133. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Introduction Inconsistent self-reports of lifetime suicide attempts (LSAs) are a major obstacle for accurate assessment of suicidal behavior. This study is the first to posit that adolescents at higher risk report LSAs more consistently than those at lower risk, revealing a link between suicide attempt risk and consistent reporting. Methods A machine learning model was trained with 70 % of the baseline assessment data of a longitudinal sample of Norwegian adolescents (n = 10,739). The model was used to estimate the LSA risk score for the remaining 30 % of the testing dataset. The relationship between these baseline risk scores and the consistency of reporting LSAs was assessed using a 2-year follow-up reassessment of the testing dataset. Results Internalizing problems, optimism about the future, conduct problems, substance use, and disordered eating were important factors associated with suicide attempt risk. Of the participants, 63.41 % had inconsistent self-reports at the two-year follow-up. Adolescents who consistently reported LSAs had significantly higher scores of suicide attempt risk at baseline. Two logistic regression analyses confirmed an association between suicide attempt risk and inconsistent self-reported LSAs and showed that sex (being male), and lower levels of depression and conduct problems significantly predicted such inconsistencies. Those who inconsistently reported LSAs were more likely than the others to be classified by the model as false negatives at the baseline risk assessment due to their lower estimated risk scores. Limitations Suicide attempts were measured with a single item in this study. Conclusion These risk factors support the theory of adolescent suicidality (TAS) and could improve suicide attempt risk assessment. Inconsistent self-reported LSAs signal lower suicide attempt risk.

• Lobben, Marit & Laeng, Bruno (2024). Zooming in and out of semantics: proximal–distal construal levels and prominence hierarchies. Frontiers in Psychology. 15. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1371538. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nielsen, Nanette; Høffding, Simon & Laeng, Bruno (2023). Mind surfing: attention in musical absorption. Cognitive Systems Research. ISSN 2214-4366. doi: 10.1016/j.cogsys.2023.101180. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Fardzadeh, Haghish Ebad; Nes, Ragnhild Bang; Obaidi, Milan; Qin, Ping; Stänicke, Line Indrevoll & Bekkhus, Mona [Vis alle 8 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2023). Unveiling Adolescent Suicidality: Holistic Analysis of Protective and Risk Factors Using Multiple Machine Learning Algorithms. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. ISSN 0047-2891. 53, s. 507–525. doi: 10.1007/s10964-023-01892-6. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Abstract Adolescent suicide attempts are on the rise, presenting a significant public health concern. Recent research aimed at improving risk assessment for adolescent suicide attempts has turned to machine learning. But no studies to date have examined the performance of stacked ensemble algorithms, which are more suitable for low-prevalence conditions. The existing machine learning-based research also lacks population-representative samples, overlooks protective factors and their interplay with risk factors, and neglects established theories on suicidal behavior in favor of purely algorithmic risk estimation. The present study overcomes these shortcomings by comparing the performance of a stacked ensemble algorithm with a diverse set of algorithms, performing a holistic item analysis to identify both risk and protective factors on a comprehensive data, and addressing the compatibility of these factors with two competing theories of suicide, namely, The Interpersonal Theory of Suicide and The Strain Theory of Suicide. A population-representative dataset of 173,664 Norwegian adolescents aged 13 to 18 years (mean = 15.14, SD = 1.58, 50.5% female) with a 4.65% rate of reported suicide attempt during the past 12 months was analyzed. Five machine learning algorithms were trained for suicide attempt risk assessment. The stacked ensemble model significantly outperformed other algorithms, achieving equal sensitivity and a specificity of 90.1%, AUC of 96.4%, and AUCPR of 67.5%. All algorithms found recent self-harm to be the most important indicator of adolescent suicide attempt. Exploratory factor analysis suggested five additional risk domains, which we labeled internalizing problems, sleep disturbance, disordered eating, lack of optimism regarding future education and career, and victimization. The identified factors provided stronger support for The Interpersonal Theory of Suicide than for The Strain Theory of Suicide. An enhancement to The Interpersonal Theory based on the risk and protective factors identified by holistic item analysis is presented.

• Sailer, Uta; Zucknick, Manuela Karola & Laeng, Bruno (2023). Caressed by music: Related preferences for velocity of touch and tempo of music? Frontiers in Psychology. 14. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1135988. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Given that both hearing and touch are ‘mechanical senses’ that respond to physical pressure or mechanical energy and that individuals appear to have a characteristic internal or spontaneous tempo, individual preferences in musical and touch rhythms might be related. We explored this in two experiments probing individual preferences for tempo in the tactile and auditory modalities. Study 1 collected ratings of received stroking on the forearm and measured the velocity the participants used for stroking a fur. Music tempo preferences were assessed as mean beats per minute of individually selected music pieces and via the adjustment of experimenter-selected music to a preferred tempo. Heart rate was recorded to measure levels of physiological arousal. We found that the preferred tempo of favorite (self-selected) music correlated positively with the velocity with which each individual liked to be touched. In Study 2, participants rated videos of repeated touch on someone else’s arm and videos of a drummer playing with brushes on a snare drum, both at a variety of tempos. We found that participants with similar rating patterns for the different stroking speeds did not show similar rating patterns for the different music beats. The results suggest that there may be a correspondence between preferences for favorite music and felt touch, but this is either weak or it cannot be evoked effectively with vicarious touch and/or mere drum beats. Thus, if preferences for touch and music are related, this is likely to be dependent on the specific type of stimulation.

• Høffding, Simon; Yi, Wenbo; Lippert, Eigil; Sanchez, Victor Evaristo Gonzalez; Bishop, Laura & Laeng, Bruno [Vis alle 9 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2023). Into the Hive-Mind: Shared Absorption and Cardiac Interrelations in Expert and Student String Quartets. Music & Science. 6. doi: 10.1177/20592043231168597. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Expert musicians portray awe-inspiring precision, timing, and phrasing and may be thought to partake in a “hive-mind.” Such a shared musical absorption is characterized by a heightened empathic relation, mutual trust, and a sense that the music “takes over,” thus uniting the performers’ musical intentions. Previous studies have found correlations between empathic concern or shared experience and cardiac synchrony (CS). We aimed to investigate shared musical absorption in terms of CS by analyzing CS in two quartets: a student quartet, the Borealis String Quartet (BSQ), and an expert quartet, the Danish String Quartet (DSQ), world-renowned for their interpretations and cohesion. These two quartets performed the same Haydn excerpt in seven conditions, some of which were designed to disrupt their absorption. Using multidimensional recurrence quantification analysis (MdRQA), we found that: (1) performing resulted in significantly increased CS in both quartets compared with resting; (2) across all conditions, the DSQ had a significantly higher CS than the BSQ; (3) the BSQ's CS was inversely correlated with the degree of disruption; 4) for the DSQ, the CS remained constant across all levels of disruption, besides one added extreme disruption—a sight-reading condition. These findings tentatively support the claim that a sense of shared musical absorption, as well as group expertise, is correlated with CS.

• Bishop, Laura; Høffding, Simon; Lartillot, Olivier Serge Gabriel & Laeng, Bruno (2023). Mental Effort and Expressive Interaction in Expert and Student String Quartet Performance. Music & Science. 6. doi: 10.1177/20592043231208000. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Suzuki, Yuta; Atmaca, Sumeyya & Laeng, Bruno (2023). The lateralized flash-lag illusion: A psychophysical and pupillometry study. Brain and Cognition. ISSN 0278-2626. 166. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2023.105956. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Akca, Merve; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina; Laeng, Bruno & Bishop, Laura (2023). Recognition of brief sounds in rapid serial auditory presentation. PLOS ONE. 18(4). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0284396. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Two experiments were conducted to test the role of participant factors (i.e., musical sophistication, working memory capacity) and stimulus factors (i.e., sound duration, timbre) on auditory recognition using a rapid serial auditory presentation paradigm. Participants listened to a rapid stream of very brief sounds ranging from 30 to 150 milliseconds and were tested on their ability to distinguish the presence from the absence of a target sound selected from various sound sources placed amongst the distracters. Experiment 1a established that brief exposure to stimuli (60 to 150 milliseconds) does not necessarily correspond to impaired recognition. In Experiment 1b we found evidence that 30 milliseconds of exposure to the stimuli significantly impairs recognition of single auditory targets, but the recognition for voice and sine tone targets impaired the least, suggesting that the lower limit required for successful recognition could be lower than 30 milliseconds for voice and sine tone targets. Critically, the effect of sound duration on recognition completely disappeared when differences in musical sophistication were controlled for. Participants’ working memory capacities did not seem to predict their recognition performances. Our behavioral results extend the studies oriented to understand the processing of brief timbres under temporal constraint by suggesting that the musical sophistication may play a larger role than previously thought. These results can also provide a working hypothesis for future research, namely, that underlying neural mechanisms for the processing of various sound sources may have different temporal constraints.

• Lobben, Marit; Bochynska, Agata; Eifring, Halvor & Laeng, Bruno (2023). Tracking semantic relatedness: numeral classifiers guide gaze to visual world objects. Frontiers in Language Sciences. doi: 10.3389/flang.2023.1222982. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Directing visual attention toward items mentioned within utterances can optimize understanding the unfolding spoken language and preparing appropriate behaviors. In several languages, numeral classifiers specify semantic classes of nouns but can also function as reference trackers. Whereas all classifier types function to single out objects for reference in the real world and may assist attentional guidance, we propose that only sortal classifiers efficiently guide visual attention by being inherently attached to the nouns' semantics, since container classifiers are pragmatically attached to the nouns they classify, and the default classifiers index a noun without specifying the semantics. By contrast, container classifiers are pragmatically attached, and default classifiers index a noun without specifying the semantics. Using eye tracking and the “visual world paradigm”, we had Chinese speakers ( N = 20) listen to sentences and we observed that they looked spontaneously within 150 ms after offset of the Sortal classifier. After about 200 ms the same occurred for the container classifiers, but with the default classifier only after about 700 ms. This looking pattern was absent in a control group of non-Chinese speakers and the Chinese speakers' gaze behavior can therefore only be ascribed to classifier semantics and not to artifacts of the visual objects. Thus, we found that classifier types affect the rapidity of spontaneously looking at the target objects on a screen. These significantly different latencies indicate that the stronger the semantic relatedness between a classifier and its noun, the more efficient the deployment of overt attention.

• Spiech, Connor; Endestad, Tor; Laeng, Bruno; Danielsen, Anne & Fardzadeh, Haghish Ebad (2023). Beat alignment ability is associated with formal musical training not current music playing. Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1034561. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The ability to perceive the beat in music is crucial for both music listeners and players with expert musicians being notably skilled at noticing fine deviations in the beat. However, it is unclear whether this beat perception ability is enhanced in trained musicians who continue to practice relative to musicians who no longer play. Thus, we investigated this by comparing active musicians’, inactive musicians’, and nonmusicians’ beat alignment ability scores on the Computerized Adaptive Beat Alignment Test (CA-BAT). 97 adults with diverse musical experience participated in the study, reporting their years of formal musical training, number of instruments played, hours of weekly music playing, and hours of weekly music listening, in addition to their demographic information. While initial tests between groups indicated active musicians outperformed inactive musicians and nonmusicians on the CA-BAT, a generalized linear regression analysis showed that there was no significant difference once differences in musical training had been accounted for. To ensure that our results were not impacted by multicollinearity between music-related variables, nonparametric and nonlinear machine learning regressions were employed and confirmed that years of formal musical training was the only significant predictor of beat alignment ability. These results suggest that expertly perceiving fine differences in the beat is not a use-dependent ability that degrades without regular maintenance through practice or musical engagement. Instead, better beat alignment appears to be associated with more musical training regardless of continued use.

• Fardzadeh, Haghish Ebad; Laeng, Bruno & Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi (2023). Are false positives in suicide classification models a risk group? Evidence for “true alarms” in a population-representative longitudinal study of Norwegian adolescents. Frontiers in Psychology. 14. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1216483. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Introduction False positives in retrospective binary suicide attempt classification models are commonly attributed to sheer classification error. However, when machine learning suicide attempt classification models are trained with a multitude of psycho-socio-environmental factors and achieve high accuracy in suicide risk assessment, false positives may turn out to be at high risk of developing suicidal behavior or attempting suicide in the future. Thus, they may be better viewed as “true alarms,” relevant for a suicide prevention program. In this study, using large population-based longitudinal dataset, we examine three hypotheses: (1) false positives, compared to the true negatives, are at higher risk of suicide attempt in future, (2) the suicide attempts risk for the false positives increase as a function of increase in specificity threshold; and (3) as specificity increases, the severity of risk factors between false positives and true positives becomes more similar. Methods Utilizing the Gradient Boosting algorithm, we used a sample of 11,369 Norwegian adolescents, assessed at two timepoints (1992 and 1994), to classify suicide attempters at the first time point. We then assessed the relative risk of suicide attempt at the second time point for false positives in comparison to true negatives, and in relation to the level of specificity. Results We found that false positives were at significantly higher risk of attempting suicide compared to true negatives. When selecting a higher classification risk threshold by gradually increasing the specificity cutoff from 60% to 97.5%, the relative suicide attempt risk of the false positive group increased, ranging from minimum of 2.96 to 7.22 times. As the risk threshold increased, the severity of various mental health indicators became significantly more comparable between false positives and true positives. Conclusion We argue that the performance evaluation of machine learning suicide classification models should take the clinical relevance into account, rather than focusing solely on classification error metrics. As shown here, the so-called false positives represent a truly at-risk group that should be included in suicide prevention programs. Hence, these findings should be taken into consideration when interpreting machine learning suicide classification models as well as planning future suicide prevention interventions for adolescents.

• Fink, Lauren; Simola, Jaana; Tavano, Alessandro; Lange, Elke B.; Wallot, Sebastian & Laeng, Bruno (2023). From pre-processing to advanced dynamic modeling of pupil data. Behavior Research Methods. ISSN 1554-351X. doi: 10.3758/s13428-023-02098-1. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Abstract The pupil of the eye provides a rich source of information for cognitive scientists, as it can index a variety of bodily states (e.g., arousal, fatigue) and cognitive processes (e.g., attention, decision-making). As pupillometry becomes a more accessible and popular methodology, researchers have proposed a variety of techniques for analyzing pupil data. Here, we focus on time series-based, signal-to-signal approaches that enable one to relate dynamic changes in pupil size over time with dynamic changes in a stimulus time series, continuous behavioral outcome measures, or other participants’ pupil traces. We first introduce pupillometry, its neural underpinnings, and the relation between pupil measurements and other oculomotor behaviors (e.g., blinks, saccades), to stress the importance of understanding what is being measured and what can be inferred from changes in pupillary activity. Next, we discuss possible pre-processing steps, and the contexts in which they may be necessary. Finally, we turn to signal-to-signal analytic techniques, including regression-based approaches, dynamic time-warping, phase clustering, detrended fluctuation analysis, and recurrence quantification analysis. Assumptions of these techniques, and examples of the scientific questions each can address, are outlined, with references to key papers and software packages. Additionally, we provide a detailed code tutorial that steps through the key examples and figures in this paper. Ultimately, we contend that the insights gained from pupillometry are constrained by the analysis techniques used, and that signal-to-signal approaches offer a means to generate novel scientific insights by taking into account understudied spectro-temporal relationships between the pupil signal and other signals of interest.

• Holmlund, Terje Bektesevic; Cohen, Alex S; Cheng, Jian; Foltz, Peter W.; Bernstein, Jared & Rosenfeld, Elisabeth [Vis alle 8 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2023). Using Automated Speech Processing for Repeated Measurements in a Clinical Setting of the Behavioral Variability in the Stroop Task. Brain Sciences. 13(3). doi: 10.3390/brainsci13030442. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The Stroop interference task is indispensable to current neuropsychological practice. Despite this, it is limited in its potential for repeated administration, its sensitivity and its demands on professionals and their clients. We evaluated a digital Stroop deployed using a smart device. Spoken responses were timed using automated speech recognition. Participants included adult nonpatients (N = 113; k = 5 sessions over 5 days) and patients with psychiatric diagnoses (N = 85; k = 3–4 sessions per week over 4 weeks). Traditional interference (difference in response time between color incongruent words vs. color neutral words; M = 0.121 s) and facilitation (neutral vs. color congruent words; M = 0.085 s) effects were robust and temporally stable over testing sessions (ICCs 0.50–0.86). The performance showed little relation to clinical symptoms for a two-week window for either nonpatients or patients but was related to self-reported concentration at the time of testing for both groups. Performance was also related to treatment outcomes in patients. The duration of response word utterances was longer in patients than in nonpatients. Measures of intra-individual variability showed promise for understanding clinical state and treatment outcome but were less temporally stable than measures based solely on average response time latency. This framework of remote assessment using speech processing technology enables the fine-grained longitudinal charting of cognition and verbal behavior. However, at present, there is a problematic lower limit to the absolute size of the effects that can be examined when using voice in such a brief ‘out-of-the-laboratory condition’ given the temporal resolution of the speech-to-text detection system (in this case, 10 ms). This resolution will limit the parsing of meaningful effect sizes.

• Otterdijk, Marieke van; Saplacan, Diana; Baselizadeh, Adel; Laeng, Bruno & Tørresen, Jim (2023). To Shake or Not to Shake: Intuitive Reactions of Senior Adults to a Robot Handshake in a Western Culture, Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) 2023. IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). ISSN 9798350336719. s. 890–896. doi: 10.1109/RO-MAN57019.2023.10309608. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Spiech, Connor; Sioros, Georgios; Endestad, Tor; Danielsen, Anne & Laeng, Bruno (2022). Pupil drift rate indexes groove ratings. Scientific Reports. 12(1). doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-15763-w. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Abstract Groove, understood as an enjoyable compulsion to move to musical rhythms, typically varies along an inverted U-curve with increasing rhythmic complexity (e.g., syncopation, pickups). Predictive coding accounts posit that moderate complexity drives us to move to reduce sensory prediction errors and model the temporal structure. While musicologists generally distinguish the effects of pickups (anacruses) and syncopations, their difference remains unexplored in groove. We used pupillometry as an index to noradrenergic arousal while subjects listened to and rated drumbeats varying in rhythmic complexity. We replicated the inverted U-shaped relationship between rhythmic complexity and groove and showed this is modulated by musical ability, based on a psychoacoustic beat perception test. The pupil drift rates suggest that groovier rhythms hold attention longer than ones rated less groovy. Moreover, we found complementary effects of syncopations and pickups on groove ratings and pupil size, respectively, discovering a distinct predictive process related to pickups. We suggest that the brain deploys attention to pickups to sharpen subsequent strong beats, augmenting the predictive scaffolding’s focus on beats that reduce syncopations’ prediction errors. This interpretation is in accordance with groove envisioned as an embodied resolution of precision-weighted prediction error.

• Akca, Merve; Bishop, Laura; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Laeng, Bruno (2022). Human voices escape the auditory attentional blink: Evidence from detections and pupil responses. Brain and Cognition. ISSN 0278-2626. 165. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2022.105928. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Attentional selection of a second target in a rapid stream of stimuli embedding two targets tends to be briefly impaired when two targets are presented in close temporal proximity, an effect known as an attentional blink (AB). Two target sounds (T1 and T2) were embedded in a rapid serial auditory presentation of environmental sounds with a short (Lag 3) or long lag (Lag 9). Participants were to first identify T1 (bell or sine tone) and then to detect T2 (present or absent). Individual stimuli had durations of either 30 or 90 ms, and were presented in streams of 20 sounds. The T2 varied in category: human voice, cello, or dog sound. Previous research has introduced pupillometry as a useful marker of the intensity of cognitive processing and attentional allocation in the visual AB paradigm. Results suggest that the interplay of stimulus factors is critical for target detection accuracy and provides support for the hypothesis that the human voice is the least likely to show an auditory AB (in the 90 ms condition). For the other stimuli, accuracy for T2 was significantly worse at Lag 3 than at Lag 9 in the 90 ms condition, suggesting the presence of an auditory AB. When AB occurred (at Lag 3), we observed smaller pupil dilations, time-locked to the onset of T2, compared to Lag 9, reflecting lower attentional processing when ’blinking’ during target detection. Taken together, these findings support the conclusion that human voices escape the AB and that the pupillary changes are consistent with the so-called T2 attentional deficit. In addition, we found some indication that salient stimuli like human voices could require a less intense allocation of attention, or noradrenergic potentiation, compared to other auditory stimuli.

• Prete, Giulia; Laeng, Bruno & Tommasi, Luca (2022). Environmental risks to humans, the first database of valence and arousal ratings for images of natural hazards. Scientific Data. 9(303). doi: 10.1038/s41597-022-01370-x. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Due to their relevance for the entire society, environmental hazards have largely been investigated in terms of their psychological effects. However, a complete image database comprising different categories of catastrophes has not been proposed yet. We selected 200 photographs of the most frequent natural disasters with the aim to collect the emotional reactions of observers. In particular, 20 stimuli were selected for each of the following 10 categories: earthquake, volcanic activity, lightning, hailstorm, drought, fire, landslide, epidemic, and neutral and positive images as control categories. A sample of 605 participants completed an online survey, in which they were asked to rate either the valence or the arousal of each stimulus, by using a Self-Assessment Manikin. The Environmental Risk to Humans database associates the emotional reactions to these visual stimuli, together with the demographics of the sample (e.g., gender, age, marital status, income, previous experience of natural disasters). The database constitutes a tool to explore human reactions to natural hazards, providing a controlled set of stimuli for different types of catastrophes.

• Laeng, Bruno; Nabil, Shoaib & Kitaoka, Akiyoshi (2022). The Eye Pupil Adjusts to Illusorily Expanding Holes. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 16. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.877249. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Some static patterns evoke the perception of an illusory expanding central region or “hole.” We asked observers to rate the magnitudes of illusory motion or expansion of black holes, and these predicted the degree of dilation of the pupil, measured with an eye tracker. In contrast, when the “holes” were colored (including white), i.e., emitted light, these patterns constricted the pupils, but the subjective expansions were also weaker compared with the black holes. The change rates of pupil diameters were significantly related to the illusory motion phenomenology only with the black holes. These findings can be accounted for within a perceiving-the-present account of visual illusions, where both the illusory motion and the pupillary adjustments represent compensatory mechanisms to the perception of the next moment, based on shared experiences with the ecological regularities of light.

• Saneyoshi, Ayako; Okubo, Matia; Suzuki, Hikaru; Oyama, Takato & Laeng, Bruno (2022). The other-race effect in the uncanny valley. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. ISSN 1071-5819. 166. doi: 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2022.102871. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bishop, Laura; Jensenius, Alexander Refsum & Laeng, Bruno (2021). Musical and Bodily Predictors of Mental Effort in String Quartet Music: An Ecological Pupillometry Study of Performers and Listeners. Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.653021. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Music performance can be cognitively and physically demanding. These demands vary across the course of a performance as the content of the music changes. More demanding passages require performers to focus their attention more intensity, or expend greater “mental effort.” To date, it remains unclear what effect different cognitive-motor demands have on performers' mental effort. It is likewise unclear how fluctuations in mental effort compare between performers and perceivers of the same music. We used pupillometry to examine the effects of different cognitive-motor demands on the mental effort used by performers and perceivers of classical string quartet music. We collected pupillometry, motion capture, and audio-video recordings of a string quartet as they performed a rehearsal and concert (for live audience) in our lab. We then collected pupillometry data from a remote sample of musically-trained listeners, who heard the audio recordings (without video) that we captured during the concert. We used a modelling approach to assess the effects of performers' bodily effort (head and arm motion; sound level; performers' ratings of technical difficulty), musical complexity (performers' ratings of harmonic complexity; a score-based measure of harmonic tension), and expressive difficulty (performers' ratings of expressive difficulty) on performers' and listeners' pupil diameters. Our results show stimulating effects of bodily effort and expressive difficulty on performers' pupil diameters, and stimulating effects of expressive difficulty on listeners' pupil diameters. We also observed negative effects of musical complexity on both performers and listeners, and negative effects of performers' bodily effort on listeners, which we suggest may reflect the complex relationships that these features share with other aspects of musical structure. Looking across the concert, we found that both of the quartet violinists (who exchanged places halfway through the concert) showed more dilated pupils during their turns as 1st violinist than when playing as 2nd violinist, suggesting that they experienced greater arousal when “leading” the quartet in the 1st violin role. This study shows how eye tracking and motion capture technologies can be used in combination in an ecological setting to investigate cognitive processing in music performance.

• Laeng, Bruno; Kuyateh, Sarjo & Kelkar, Tejaswinee (2021). Substituting facial movements in singers changes the sounds of musical intervals. Scientific Reports. 11(1). doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-01797-z. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Cross-modal integration is ubiquitous within perception and, in humans, the McGurk effect demonstrates that seeing a person articulating speech can change what we hear into a new auditory percept. It remains unclear whether cross-modal integration of sight and sound generalizes to other visible vocal articulations like those made by singers. We surmise that perceptual integrative effects should involve music deeply, since there is ample indeterminacy and variability in its auditory signals. We show that switching videos of sung musical intervals changes systematically the estimated distance between two notes of a musical interval so that pairing the video of a smaller sung interval to a relatively larger auditory led to compression effects on rated intervals, whereas the reverse led to a stretching effect. In addition, after seeing a visually switched video of an equally-tempered sung interval and then hearing the same interval played on the piano, the two intervals were judged often different though they differed only in instrument. These findings reveal spontaneous, cross-modal, integration of vocal sounds and clearly indicate that strong integration of sound and sight can occur beyond the articulations of natural speech.

• Wainstein, Gabriel; Rojas-Líbano, Daniel; Medel, Vicente; Alnæs, Dag; Kolskår, Knut-Kristian & Endestad, Tor [Vis alle 11 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2021). The ascending arousal system promotes optimal performance through mesoscale network integration in a visuospatial attentional task. Network Neuroscience. 5(4), s. 890–910. doi: 10.1162/netn_a_00205. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Previous research has shown that the autonomic nervous system provides essential constraints over ongoing cognitive function. However, there is currently a relative lack of direct empirical evidence for how this interaction manifests in the brain at the macroscale level. Here, we examine the role of ascending arousal and attentional load on large-scale network dynamics by combining pupillometry, functional MRI, and graph theoretical analysis to analyze data from a visual motion-tracking task with a parametric load manipulation. We found that attentional load effects were observable in measures of pupil diameter and in a set of brain regions that parametrically modulated their BOLD activity and mesoscale network-level integration. In addition, the regional patterns of network reconfiguration were correlated with the spatial distribution of the α2a adrenergic receptor. Our results further solidify the relationship between ascending noradrenergic activity, large-scale network integration, and cognitive task performance.

• Sulutvedt, Unni; Zavagno, Daniele; Lubell, Jamie; Leknes, Siri; Benavent, Sigrid Aune de Rodez & Laeng, Bruno (2021). Brightness perception changes related to pupil size. Vision Research. ISSN 0042-6989. 178, s. 41–41. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2020.09.004. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bishop, Laura; Sanchez, Victor Evaristo Gonzalez; Laeng, Bruno; Jensenius, Alexander Refsum & Høffding, Simon (2021). Move like everyone is watching: Social context affects head motion and gaze in string quartet performance. Journal of New Music Research. ISSN 0929-8215. doi: 10.1080/09298215.2021.1977338. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Ensemble musicians engage with each other visually through glances and body motion. We conducted a case study to test how string quartet musicians would respond to playing conditions that were meant to discourage or promote visually communicative behaviour. A quartet performed in different seating configurations under rehearsal and concert conditions. Quantity of head motion was reduced when musicians’ gaze was constrained. Differences in gaze and body motion between musicians reflected their musical roles in the ensemble. Overall, our findings suggest that gaze and motion dynamics vary within and between performances in response to changing musical, situational and social factors.

• Laeng, Bruno; Garvija, Lara; Løseth, Guro Engvig; Eikemo, Marie; Ernst, Gernot & Leknes, Siri (2021). ‘Defrosting’ music chills with naltrexone: The role of endogenous opioids for the intensity of musical pleasure. Consciousness and Cognition. ISSN 1053-8100. 90. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2021.103105. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno; Flaaten, Camilla Barthel; Walle, Kjersti Maehlum; Hochkeppler, Anne & Specht, Karsten (2021). “Mickey Mousing” in the Brain: Motion-Sound Synesthesia and the Subcortical Substrate of Audio-Visual Integration. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 15. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.605166. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Motion-sound synesthesia is characterized by illusory auditory sensations linked to the pattern and rhythms of motion (dubbed “Mickey Mousing” as in cinema) of visually experienced but soundless object, like an optical flow array, a ball bouncing or a horse galloping. In an MRI study with a group of three synesthetes and a group of eighteen control participants, we found structural changes in the brains of synesthetes in the subcortical multisensory areas of the superior and inferior colliculi. In addition, functional magnetic resonance imaging data showed activity in motion-sensitive regions, as well as temporal and occipital areas, and the cerebellum. However, the synesthetes had a higher activation within the left and right cuneus, with stronger activations when viewing optical flow stimuli. There was also a general difference in connectivity of the colliculi with the above mentioned regions between the two groups. These findings implicate low-level mechanisms within the human neuroaxis as a substrate for local connectivity and cross activity between perceptual processes that are “distant” in terms of cortical topography. The present findings underline the importance of considering the role of subcortical systems and their connectivity to multimodal regions of the cortex and they strengthen a parsimonious account of synesthesia, at the least of the visual-auditory type.

• Hovey, Daniel; Martens, Louise; Laeng, Bruno; Leknes, Siri & Westberg, Lars (2020). The effect of intranasal oxytocin on visual processing and salience of human faces. Translational Psychiatry. 10(318), s. 1–9. doi: 10.1038/s41398-020-00991-3. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Abstract The mechanisms underlying the role of oxytocin (OT) as a regulator of social behavior in mammals are only partly understood. Recently, it has been proposed that OT increases the salience of social stimuli. We carried out a randomized, double-blind, cross-over study of the effects of OT on binocular rivalry, a visual phenomenon underpinned by the interplay of excitation and inhibition in the cortex. A final sample of 45 participants viewed images of social stimuli (faces with different emotional expressions) and non-social stimuli (houses and Gabor patches). We demonstrate a robust effect that intranasal OT increases the salience of human faces in binocular rivalry, such that dominance durations of faces are longer—this effect is not modulated by the facial expression. We tentatively show that OT treatment increases dominance durations for non-social stimuli. Our results lend support to the social salience hypothesis of OT, and in addition offer provisional support for the role of OT in influencing excitation-inhibition balance in the brain.

• Akca, Merve; Laeng, Bruno & Godøy, Rolf Inge (2020). No Evidence for an Auditory Attentional Blink for Voices Regardless of Musical Expertise. Frontiers in Psychology. 10. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02935. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Background: Attending to goal-relevant information can leave us metaphorically “blind” or “deaf” to the next relevant information while searching among distracters. This temporal cost lasting for about a half a second on the human selective attention has been long explored using the attentional blink paradigm. Although there is evidence that certain visual stimuli relating to one’s area of expertise can be less susceptible to attentional blink effects, it remains unexplored whether the dynamics of temporal selective attention vary with expertise and objects types in the auditory modality. Methods: Using the auditory version of the attentional blink paradigm, the present study investigates whether certain auditory objects relating to musical and perceptual expertise could have an impact on the transient costs of selective attention. In this study, expert cellists and novice participants were asked to first identify a target sound, and then to detect instrumental timbres of cello or organ, or human voice as a second target in a rapid auditory stream. Results: The results showed moderate evidence against the attentional blink effect for voices independent of participants’ musical expertise. Experts outperformed novices in their overall accuracy levels of target identification and detection, reflecting a clear benefit of musical expertise. Importantly, the musicianship advantage disappeared when the human voices served as the second target in the stream. Discussion: The results are discussed in terms of stimulus salience, the advantage of voice processing, as well as perceptual and musical expertise in relation to attention and working memory performances.

• Wardhani, Intan; Mathot, Sebastiaan; Boehler, Niko & Laeng, Bruno (2020). Effects of nicotine on pupil size and performance during multiple-object tracking in non-nicotine users. International Journal of Psychophysiology. ISSN 0167-8760. 158, s. 45–55. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2020.09.005. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Endestad, Tor; Godøy, Rolf Inge; Sneve, Markus Handal; Hagen, Thomas; Bochynska, Agata Elzbieta & Laeng, Bruno (2020). Mental Effort When Playing, Listening, and Imagining Music in One Pianist’s Eyes and Brain. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 14. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.576888. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We investigated “musical effort” with an internationally renowned, classical, pianist while playing, listening, and imagining music. We used pupillometry as an objective measure of mental effort and fMRI as an exploratory method of effort with the same musical pieces. We also compared a group of non-professional pianists and non-musicians by the use of pupillometry and a small group of non-musicians with fMRI. This combined approach of psychophysiology and neuroimaging revealed the cognitive work during different musical activities. We found that pupil diameters were largest when “playing” (regardless of whether there was sound produced or not) compared to conditions with no movement (i.e., “listening” and “imagery”). We found positive correlations between pupil diameters of the professional pianist during different conditions with the same piano piece (i.e., normal playing, silenced playing, listen, imagining), which might indicate similar degrees of load on cognitive resources as well as an intimate link between the motor imagery of sound-producing body motions and gestures. We also confirmed that musical imagery had a strong commonality with music listening in both pianists and musically naïve individuals. Neuroimaging provided evidence for a relationship between noradrenergic (NE) activity and mental workload or attentional intensity within the domain of music cognition. We found effort related activity in the superior part of the locus coeruleus (LC) and, similarly to the pupil, the listening and imagery engaged less the LC–NE network than the motor condition. The pianists attended more intensively to the most difficult piece than the non-musicians since they showed larger pupils for the most difficult piece. Non-musicians were the most engaged by the music listening task, suggesting that the amount of attention allocated for the same task may follow a hierarchy of expertise demanding less attentional effort in expert or performers than in novices. In the professional pianist, we found only weak evidence for a commonality between subjective effort (as rated measure-by-measure) and the objective effort gauged with pupil diameter during listening. We suggest that psychophysiological methods like pupillometry can index mental effort in a manner that is not available to subjective awareness or introspection.

• Pecchinenda, Anna; Monachesi, Bianca & Laeng, Bruno (2020). Fearful expressions of rapidly presented hybrid-faces modulate the lag 1 sparing in the attentional blink. Acta Psychologica. ISSN 0001-6918. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103124. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Lobben, Marit; Bochynska, Agata; Tanggaard, Stine & Laeng, Bruno (2020). Classifiers in non-European languages and semantic impairments in western neurological patients have a common cognitive structure. Lingua. ISSN 0024-3841. 244C. doi: 10.1016/j.lingua.2020.102929. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We compared two non-overlapping data sets: (a) the semantic categories in representative samples of nominal classification languages (N = 334); and in a non-overlapping population (b) semantic category-specific impairments of European neurological patients (N = 121). Each of these appears to organize world objects in natural kinds (e.g., animal, body part, plant, fruit and vegetable, liquid) or manmade kinds (e.g., food, clothing, tool, vehicle, furniture). We show that whenever a specific semantic category is found as a cognitive impairment, this category also exists in some language as a semantic classifier. Since all of the existing semantic impairments reports are with speakers whose languages lack semantic nominal classification systems, the present regularities between grammar and cognitive deficit suggests the idea that cognitive universals may constrain how the neural substrate of knowledge is organized and can break apart but also how they can become expressed in different grammars.

• Zelechowska, Agata; Gonzalez-Sanchez, Victor E.; Laeng, Bruno & Jensenius, Alexander Refsum (2020). Headphones or Speakers? An Exploratory Study of Their Effects on Spontaneous Body Movement to Rhythmic Music. Frontiers in Psychology. 11(698). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00698. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Previous studies have shown that music may lead to spontaneous body movement, even when people try to stand still. But are spontaneous movement responses to music similar if the stimuli are presented using headphones or speakers? This article presents results from an exploratory study in which 35 participants listened to rhythmic stimuli while standing in a neutral position. The six different stimuli were 45 s each and ranged from a simple pulse to excerpts from electronic dance music (EDM). Each participant listened to all the stimuli using both headphones and speakers. An optical motion capture system was used to calculate their quantity of motion, and a set of questionnaires collected data about music preferences, listening habits, and the experimental sessions. The results show that the participants on average moved more when listening through headphones. The headphones condition was also reported as being more tiresome by the participants. Correlations between participants’ demographics, listening habits, and self-reported body motion were observed in both listening conditions. We conclude that the playback method impacts the level of body motion observed when people are listening to music. This should be taken into account when designing embodied music cognition studies.

• Bochynska, Agata Elzbieta; Postma, Albert; Vulchanova, Mila Dimitrova & Laeng, Bruno (2020). More mental rotation time does not imply more mental effort: Pupillary diameters do not change with angular distance. Brain and Cognition. ISSN 0278-2626. 148. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2020.105670. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The ability to mentally rotate objects in space is a fundamental cognitive capacity. Previous studies showed that the time to rotate the image of a figure to match another increases progressively with angular disparity. It remains unclear whether this increase in response time with angular disparity could reflect increased processing operations or more cognitive effort instead of a sustained use of a ‘rotate’ mechanism without a change in workload. We collected response times as well as pupillary responses that index cognitive workload and activity in the brainstem’s locus coeruleus, from a sample of 38 young adults performing a chronometric mental rotations task. The results showed the expected increase in response times but no increase in pupil diameters between 60, 120, and 180 degrees of rotation, suggesting no significant changes in arousal levels when rotating figures near and far. This indicates that during mental rotation the load on cognitive resources remains constant irrespective of angular distance.

• Aminihajibashi, Samira; Hagen, Thomas; Andreassen, Ole Andreas; Laeng, Bruno & Espeseth, Thomas (2020). The effects of cognitive abilities and task demands on tonic and phasic pupil sizes. Biological Psychology. ISSN 0301-0511. 156. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2020.107945. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Previous studies on individual differences in pupil size of healthy individuals and their relation to performance have been inconclusive. Using a novel approach, we tested the effect of general cognitive abilities and level of task performance on pretrial baseline and task-evoked pupil (TEP) sizes (N = 116) while we manipulated the level of task demands using a multiple object tracking task. Results did not reveal an effect of general cognitive abilities, estimated by working memory capacity and gF scores, on either baseline or TEP sizes. In contrast, we found an interaction in TEP sizes between level of overall MOT performance and task demands. We propose that individual differences in TEP sizes are related to state-specific level of task performance and task demands, probably in combination with other factors like age, personality traits, and state-specific level of motivation and arousal. We also suggest methodological confounds that may cause the previous inconclusive findings.

• Sato, Fumiaki; Laeng, Bruno; Nakauchi, Shigeki & Minami, Tetsuto (2020). Cueing the Necker cube: Pupil dilation reflects the viewing-from-above constraint in bistable perception. Journal of Vision. 20(4). doi: 10.1167/jov.20.4.7. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We hypothesized that a perceptually ambiguous or bistable object (Necker cube) can be more effectively biased to assume a point of view-from-above (VFA) than from below the object by cueing attention. Participants viewed a Necker cube in which one surface was temporarily shaded so as to prime a specific perspective on the cube. Subsequently, the standard (wireframe) Necker cube was viewed for 3 seconds, and participants reported what perspective they had seen initially and whether their perception shifted to the alternative perspective during the brief viewing. Concomitantly, pupil size was monitored with an eye-tracker to obtain an index of cognitive effort. There were two conditions: passive viewing and forced attention to sustain the initially primed perspective. We confirmed the presence of a VFA bias with forced attention, which was accompanied by reduced attentional effort, as indexed by a reduced pupil diameter, compared with the view-from-below. Participants showed no bias during passive viewing. We suggest that the level of intensive attention, when retrieving and maintaining a specific view from memory, is mirrored in the size of the eye pupils and may reflect ecological constraints on visual perception.

• Aminihajibashi, Samira; Hagen, Thomas; Laeng, Bruno & Espeseth, Thomas (2020). Pupillary and behavioral markers of alerting and orienting: An individual difference approach. Brain and Cognition. ISSN 0278-2626. 143. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2020.105597. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Measuring task-evoked pupillary (TEP) responses as an index of phasic activity in the locus coeruleus (LC), we examined two competing hypotheses regarding the alerting and orienting mechanisms of attention. According to a dual mechanism account (Fernandez-Duque & Posner, 1997), two separate noradrenergic and cholinergic mechanisms modulate, respectively, the alerting and orienting effects. However, Corbetta and colleagues (2008) proposed that LC phasic activity may also be involved in orienting effect through its functional relationship with the ventral attentional network. We recruited seventy-five healthy Norwegian participants to perform a Posner cueing task. Both behavioral and pupillary responses revealed the alerting effect. Also, both behavioral and pupillary responses indicated that cued attention is affected by age. Behavioral responses also revealed orienting effect However, we found no TEP differences between valid, invalid, and neutral conditions, suggesting that TEP effects were driven by the alerting effect of cue presentation. Moreover, both behavioral and pupillary estimates of alertness and orienting were uncorrelated. Finally, individual differences in general cognitive abilities did not appear to affect the orienting and alerting mechanisms. This pattern of results is consistent with the dual mechanism account of attention. However, the LC involvement in the (re)orienting attention may be driven by state-specific factors.

• Zelechowska, Agata; Sanchez, Victor Evaristo Gonzalez; Laeng, Bruno; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Jensenius, Alexander Refsum (2020). Who Moves to Music? Empathic Concern Predicts Spontaneous Movement Responses to Rhythm and Music. Music & Science. 3. doi: 10.1177/2059204320974216. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Moving to music is a universal human phenomenon, and previous studies have shown that people move to music even when they try to stand still. However, are there individual differences when it comes to how much people spontaneously respond to music with body movement? This article reports on a motion capture study in which 34 participants were asked to stand in a neutral position while listening to short excerpts of rhythmic stimuli and electronic dance music. We explore whether personality and empathy measures, as well as different aspects of music-related behaviour and preferences, can predict the amount of spontaneous movement of the participants. Individual differences were measured using a set of questionnaires: Big Five Inventory, Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire. Liking ratings for the stimuli were also collected. The regression analyses show that Empathic Concern is a significant predictor of the observed spontaneous movement. We also found a relationship between empathy and the participants’ self-reported tendency to move to music.

• Øvervoll, Morten; Schettino, Illaria; Suzuki, Hikaru; Okubo, Matia & Laeng, Bruno (2020). Filtered beauty in Oslo and Tokyo: A spatial frequency analysis of facial attractiveness. PLOS ONE. 15(1). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227513. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Images of European female and male faces were digitally processed to generate spatial frequency (SF) filtered images containing only a narrow band of visual information within the Fourier spectrum. The original unfiltered images and four SF filtered images (low, mediumlow, medium-high and high) were then paired in trials that kept constant SF band and face gender and participants made a forced-choice decision about the more attractive among the two faces. In this way, we aimed at identifying those specific SF bands where forced-choice preferences corresponded best to forced-choice judgements made when viewing the natural, broadband, facial images. We found that aesthetic preferences dissociated across SFs and face gender, but similarly for participants from Asia (Japan) and Europe (Norway). Specifically, preferences when viewing SF filtered images were best related to the preference with the broadband face images when viewing the highest filtering band for the female faces (about 48–77 cycles per face). In contrast, for the male faces, the medium-low SF band (about 11–19 cpf) related best to choices made with the natural facial images. Eye tracking provided converging evidence for the above, gender-related, SF dissociations. We suggest greater aesthetic relevance of the mobile and communicative parts for the female face and, conversely, of the rigid, structural, parts for the male face for facial aesthetics.

• Liu, Hang; Laeng, Bruno & Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi (2020). Does stereopsis improve face identification? A study using a virtual reality display with integrated eye-tracking and pupillometry. Acta Psychologica. ISSN 0001-6918. 210. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103142. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Stereopsis is a powerful depth cue for humans, which may also contribute to object recognition. In particular, we surmise that face identification would benefit from the availability of stereoscopic depth cues, since facial perception may be based on three-dimensional (3D) representations. In this study, a virtual reality (VR) headset with integrated eye-tracking was used to present stereoscopic images of faces. As a monoscopic contrast condition, identical images of faces were displayed to the two eyes. We monitored the participants' gaze behavior and pupil diameters while they performed a sample-to-match face identification task. We found that accuracy was superior in the stereoscopic condition compared to the monoscopic condition for frontal and intermediate views, but not profiles. Moreover, pupillary diameters were smaller when identifying stereoscopically seen faces than when viewing them without stereometric cues, which we interpret as lower processing load for the former than the latter conditions. The analysis of gaze showed that participants tended to focus on regions of the face rich in volumetric information, more so in the stereoscopic condition than the monoscopic condition. Together, these findings suggest that a 3D representation of faces may be the natural format used by the visual system when assessing face identity. Stereoscopic information, by providing depth information, assists the construction of robust facial representations in memory.

• Aminihajibashi, Samira; Hagen, Thomas; Foldal, Maja Dyhre; Laeng, Bruno & Espeseth, Thomas (2019). Individual differences in resting-state pupil size: Evidence for association between working memory capacity and pupil size variability. International Journal of Psychophysiology. ISSN 0167-8760. 140, s. 1–7. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2019.03.007. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Dynamic non-luminance-mediated changes in pupil diameter have frequently been shown to be a reliable index for the level of arousal, mental effort, and activity in the locus coeruleus, the brainstem's noradrenergic arousal center. While pupillometry has most commonly been used to assess the level of arousal in particular psychological states or the level of engagement in cognitive tasks, some recent studies have found a relationship between average resting-state (i.e. baseline) pupil sizes and individuals' working memory capacity (WMC), indicating that individuals with higher WMC on average have larger pupils than individuals with relatively lower WMC. In the present study, we measured pupil size continuously in 212 participants during rest (i.e. while fixating) and estimated WMC in all participants by administering the Letter-Number Sequencing (LNS) task from WAIS-III. We were unable to replicate the relation between average pupil size and WMC. However, the novel finding was that higher WMC was associated with higher variability in resting-state pupil size. The present results are relevant for the current debate on the role of noradrenergic activity on working memory capacity.

• Suzuki, Yuta; Minami, Tetsuto; Laeng, Bruno & Nakauchi, Shigeki (2019). Colorful glares: Effects of colors on brightness illusions measured with pupillometry. Acta Psychologica. ISSN 0001-6918. 198, s. 1–10. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2019.102882. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We hypothesized that pupil constrictions to the glare illusion, where converging luminance gradients subjectively enhance the perception of brightness, would be stronger for ‘blue’ than for other colors. Such an expectation was based on reflections about the ecology of vision, where the experience of dazzling light is common when one happens to look directly at sunlight through some occluders. Thus, we hypothesized that pupil constrictions to ‘blue’ reflect an ecologically-based expectation of the visual system from the experience of sky's light and color, which also leads to interpret the blue gradients of illusory glare to act as effective cues to impending probable intense light. We therefore manipulated the gradients color of glare illusions and measured changes in subjective brightness of identical shape stimuli. We confirmed that the blue resulted in what was subjectively evaluated as the brightest condition, despite all colored stimuli were equiluminant. This enhanced brightness effect was observed both in a psychophysical adjustment task and in changes in pupil size, where the maximum pupil constriction peak was observed with the ‘blue’ converging gradients over and above to the pupil response to blue in other conditions (i.e., diverging gradients and homogeneous patches). Moreover, glare-related pupil constrictions for each participant were correlated to each individual's subjective brightness adjustments. Homogenous blue hues also constricted the pupil more than other hues, which represents a pupillometric analog of the Helmholtz-Kohlrausch effect on brightness perception. Together, these findings show that pupillometry constitutes an easy tool to assess individual differences in color brightness perception.

• Mäki-Marttunen, Verónica; Hagen, Thomas; Laeng, Bruno & Espeseth, Thomas (2019). Distinct Neural Mechanisms Meet Challenges in Dynamic Visual Attention due to Either Load or Object Spacing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. ISSN 0898-929X. 32(1), s. 65–84. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_01469. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Benavent, Sigrid Aune de Rodez; Nygaard, Gro Owren; Nilsen, Kristian Bernhard; Etholm, Lars; Sowa, Piotr & Gustavsen, Marte Wendel [Vis alle 11 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2019). Neurodegenerative interplay of cardiovascular autonomic dysregulation and the retina in early multiple sclerosis. Frontiers in Neurology. 10, s. 1–9. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2019.00507. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Introduction: Autonomic nervous system (ANS) symptoms are prevalent in multiple sclerosis (MS) as is neurodegeneration. Our aim was to explore the occurrence of ANS symptoms and retinal neurodegeneration in a newly diagnosed MS population with tools available in a clinical setting. Methods: Forty-three MS patients and 44 healthy controls took part in the study. We employed a bedside cardiovascular ANS test battery together with classical pupillometry, optical coherence tomography (OCT) evaluation of retinal neurodegeneration in eyes without previous optic neuritis (MSNON) and patients' self-report forms on fatigue, orthostatic and ANS symptoms. Results: Half of the patients presented with ANS symptoms and a high level of fatigue. There was a significant difference in ganglion cell layer thickness (mean GCIPL) evaluated by OCT in MSNON compared to healthy control eyes. We found a negative linearity of mean GCIPL on group level with increasing disease duration. Three patients fulfilled the criteria of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). Conclusion: Our results demonstrate retinal neurodegeneration in MSNON, a high frequency of fatigue and a high prevalence of ANS symptoms in newly diagnosed patients. Whether neurodegeneration precedes ANS dysfunction or vice versa is still open to debate, but as unveiled by the presence of POTS in this MS population, differences in stress-response regulation add to the understanding of variation in onset-time of ANS dysfunction in early MS.

• Skaansar, Jo Fougner; Laeng, Bruno & Danielsen, Anne (2019). Microtiming and mental effort: Onset asynchronies in musical rhythm modulate pupil size. Music Perception. ISSN 0730-7829. 37(2), s. 111–133. doi: 10.1525/mp.2019.37.2.111. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The present study tested two assumptions concerning the auditory processing of microtiming in musical grooves (i.e., repeating, movement-inducing rhythmic patterns): 1) Microtiming challenges the listener's internal framework of timing regularities, or meter, and demands cognitive effort. 2) Microtiming promotes a “groove” experience—a pleasant sense of wanting to move along with the music. Using professional jazz musicians and nonmusicians as participants, we hypothesized that microtiming asynchronies between bass and drums (varying from −80 to 80 ms) were related to a) an increase in “mental effort” (as indexed by pupillometry), and b) a decrease in the quality of sensorimotor synchronization (as indexed by reduced finger tapping stability). We found bass/drums-microtiming asynchronies to be positively related to pupil dilation and negatively related to tapping stability. In contrast, we found that steady timekeeping (presence of eighth note hi-hat in the grooves) decreased pupil size and increased tapping performance, though there were no conclusive differences in pupil response between musicians and nonmusicians. However, jazz musicians consistently tapped with higher stability than nonmusicians, reflecting an effect of rhythmic expertise. Except for the condition most closely resembling real music, participants preferred the on-the-grid grooves to displacements in microtiming and bass-succeeding-drums-conditions were preferred over the reverse.

• Laeng, Bruno & Hofseth, Anders (2019). Where Are the Months? Mental Images of Circular Time in a Large Online Sample. Frontiers in Psychology. 10, s. 1–17. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02634. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  People may think about time by mentally imaging it in some spatial form, or as “spacetime.” In an online survey, 76,922 Norwegian individuals positioned two dots corresponding to the months of December and March on what they imagined to be their appropriate places on a circle. The majority of respondents placed December within a section of the circumference ranging from 11:00 to 12:00 o’clock, but a group of respondents chose positions around the diametrically opposite 6:00 o’clock position. A similar relationship occurred for March, where most respondents chose a position ranging from 2:30 to 3:00 o’clock but a group of respondents chose positions around 9:00 o’clock. About half of the respondents (N = 39,797) continued to fill out an online questionnaire probing their mental images related to the “year” concept. This clarified that 75% of respondents “saw” the months unfolding in a clockwise direction versus 19% in a counter clockwise fashion. Moreover, while a majority (70%) stated that they imagined the year as a “circle,” the rest indicated the use of other mental images (e.g., ellipses and spirals, lines and squares, idiosyncratic or synesthetic spatial forms). We found only weak effects or preferences for spatial forms based on respondents’ gender, handedness, age, or geographical location.

• Walle, Kjersti Mæhlum; Nordvik, Jan Egil; Becker, Frank; Espeseth, Thomas; Sneve, Markus Handal & Laeng, Bruno (2019). Unilateral neglect post stroke: Eye movement frequencies indicate directional hypokinesia while fixation distributions suggest compensational mechanism. Brain and Behavior. 9:e01170(1). doi: 10.1002/brb3.1170. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Introduction: Eye movements and spatial attention are closely related, and eye‐tracking can provide valuable information in research on visual attention. We investigated the pathology of overt attention in right hemisphere (RH) stroke patients differing in their severity of neglect symptoms by using eye‐tracking during a dynamic attention task. Methods: Eye movements were recorded in 26 RH stroke patients (13 with and 13 without unilateral spatial neglect, and a matched group of 26 healthy controls during a Multiple Object Tracking task. We assessed the frequency and spatial distributions of fixations, as well as frequencies of eye movements to the left and to the right side of visual space so as to investigate individuals’ efficiency of visual processing, distribution of attentional processing resources, and oculomotoric orienting mechanisms. Results: Both patient groups showed increased fixation frequencies compared to controls. A spatial bias was found in neglect patients’ fixation distribution, depending on neglect severity (indexed by scores on the Behavioral Inattention Test). Patients with more severe neglect had more fixations within the right field, while patients with less severe neglect had more fixations within their left field. Eye movement frequencies were dependent on direction in the neglect patient group, as they made more eye movements toward the right than toward the left. Conclusion: The patient groups’ higher fixation rates suggest that patients are generally less efficient in visual processing. The spatial bias in fixation distribution, dependent on neglect severity, suggested that patients with less severe neglect were able to use compensational mechanisms in their contralesional space. The observed relation between eye movement rates and directions observed in neglect patients provides a measure of the degree of difficulty these patients may encounter during dynamic situations in daily life and supports the idea that directional oculomotor hypokinesia may be a relevant component in this syndrome.

• Løseth, Guro Engvig; Eikemo, Marie Helene; Isager, Peder Mortvedt; Holmgren, Jostein; Laeng, Bruno & Vindenes, Vigdis [Vis alle 8 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2018). Morphine reduced perceived anger from neutral and implicit emotional expressions. Psychoneuroendocrinology. ISSN 0306-4530. 91, s. 123–131. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.02.035. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The μ-opioid system modulates responses to pain and psychosocial stress and mediates non-social and social reward. In humans, the μ-opioid agonist morphine can increase overt attention to the eye-region and visual exploration of faces with neutral expressions. However, little is known about how the human μ-opioid system influences sensitivity to and appraisal of subtle and explicit cues of social threats and reward. Here, we examined the effects of selective μ-opioid stimulation on perception of anger and happiness in faces with explicit, neutral or implicit emotion expressions. Sixty-three healthy adults (32 females) attended two sessions where they received either placebo or 10 mg per oral morphine in randomised order under double-blind conditions. Based on the known μ-opioid reduction of pain and discomfort, as well as reports suggesting that the non-specific partial agonist buprenorphine or the non-specific antagonist naltrexone affect appraisal of social emotional stimuli, we hypothesised that morphine would reduce threat sensitivity and enhance perception of happy facial expressions. While overall perception of others’ happiness was unaffected by morphine treatment, morphine reduced perception of anger in stimuli with neutral and implicit expressions without affecting perception of explicit anger. This effect was statistically unrelated to gender, subjective drug effects, mood and autism trait measures. The finding that a low dose of μ-agonist reduced the propensity to perceive anger in photos with subtle facial expressions is consistent with the notion that μ-opioids mediate social confidence and reduce sensitivity to threat cues.

• Prete, Giulia; Laeng, Bruno & Tommasi, Luca (2018). Transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) over prefrontal cortex does not influence the evaluation of facial emotions. Social Neuroscience. ISSN 1747-0919. s. 1–5. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2018.1546226. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Walle, Kjersti Mæhlum; Nordvik, Jan Egil; Espeseth, Thomas; Becker, Frank & Laeng, Bruno (2018). Multiple object tracking and pupillometry reveal deficits in both selective and intensive attention in unilateral spatial neglect. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology. ISSN 1380-3395. 49(3), s. 270–289. doi: 10.1080/13803395.2018.1536735. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno; Færevaag, Fredrik Svartdal; Tanggaard, Stine & Tetzchner, Stephen von (2018). Pupillary Responses to Illusions of Brightness in Autism Spectrum Disorder. i-Perception. 9(3), s. 1–11. doi: 10.1177/2041669518771716. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Previous studies indicate that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) do not experience optical illusions in the same manner as individuals with typical development. This study uses pupillary responses as an objective measure of perception of visual illusions, with the hypothesis that adults with ASD will show weaker pupillary constrictions to the illusions than adults without ASD. An eye-tracker was used to investigate the spontaneous pupillary changes to brightness illusions in adults diagnosed with ASD (N = 11) and in a control group (N = 24). Contrary to the hypothesis, the ASD group showed similar pupillary constrictions to the illusory bright stimuli as the control group. Therefore, this study does not support the idea that individuals with ASD have a veridical perception of these types of illusions and instead suggest that atypical perception of illusions does not constitute a universal characteristic of aspect of high-functioning individuals with ASD.

• Mäki-Marttunen, Verónica; Hagen, Thomas; Aminihajibashi, Samira; Foldal, Maja Dyhre; Stavrinou, Maria & Halvorsen, Jens [Vis alle 8 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2018). Ocular signatures of proactive versus reactive cognitive control in young adults. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience. ISSN 1530-7026. s. 1–15. doi: 10.3758/s13415-018-0621-5. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno; Kiambarua, Kenneth Gitiye; Hagen, Thomas; Bochynska, Agata; Lubell, James & Suzuki, Hikaru [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2018). The "face race lightness illusion": An effect of the eyes and pupils? PLOS ONE. 13:e0201603(8), s. 1–36. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0201603. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In an internet-based, forced-choice, test of the ‘face race lightness illusion’, the majority of respondents, regardless of their ethnicity, reported perceiving the African face as darker in skin tone than the European face, despite the mean luminance, contrast and numbers of pixels of the images were identical. In the laboratory, using eye tracking, it was found that eye fixations were distributed differently on the African face and European face, so that gaze dwelled relatively longer onto the locally brighter regions of the African face and, in turn, mean pupil diameters were smaller than for the European face. There was no relationship between pupils’ size and implicit social attitude (IAT) scores. In another experiment, the faces were presented either tachistoscopically (140 ms) or longer (2500 ms) so that, when gaze was prevented from looking directly at the faces in the former condition, the tendency to report the African face as “dark” disappeared, but it was present when gaze was free to move for just a few seconds. We conclude that the presence of the illusion depends on oculomotor behavior and we also propose a novel account based on a predictive strategy of sensory acquisition. Specifically, by differentially directing gaze towards to facial regions that are locally different in luminance, the resulting changes in retinal illuminance yield respectively darker or brighter percepts while attending to each face, hence minimizing the mismatch between visual input and the learned perceptual prototypes of ethnic categories.

• Laeng, Bruno (2018). Swedenborg's Visionary Neuroanatomy. I Vinje, Petrine (Red.), Anthology - Anatomical Theatre. Uten Tittel. ISSN 9788293502203. s. 42–52. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Hagen, Thomas; Espeseth, Thomas & Laeng, Bruno (2018). Chasing Animals With Split Attention: Are Animals Prioritized in Visual Tracking? i-Perception. 9(5), s. 1–35. doi: 10.1177/2041669518795932. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Some evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that animals have priority in human attention. That is, they should be detected and selected more efficiently than other types of objects, especially man-made ones. Such a priority mechanism should automatically deploy more attentional resources and dynamic monitoring toward animal stimuli than nonanimals. Consequently, we postulated that variations of the multiple object or identity tracking and multiple event monitoring tasks should be particularly suitable paradigms for addressing the animate monitoring hypothesis, given their dynamic properties and dependency on divided attention. We used images of animals and artifacts and found neither a substantial sign of improvement in tracking the positions associated with animal stimuli nor a significant distracting effect of animals. We also failed to observe a significant prioritization in orders of response for positions associated with animals. While we observed an advantage for animals in event monitoring, this appeared to be dependent on properties of the task, as confirmed in further experiments. Moreover, we observed a small but inconclusive advantage for animals in identity accuracy. Thus, under certain conditions, some bias toward animals could be observed, but the evidence was weak and inconclusive. To conclude, effect sizes were generally small and not conclusively in favor of the expected attentional bias for animals. We found moderate to strong evidence that images of animals do not improve positional tracking, do not act as more effective distractors, are not selected prior to artifacts in the response phase, and are not easier to monitor for changes in size.

• Sulutvedt, Unni; Mannix, Thea K. & Laeng, Bruno (2018). Gaze and the Eye Pupil Adjust to Imagined Size and Distance. Cognitive Science. ISSN 0364-0213. s. 1–18. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12684. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Zavagno, Damiele; Tommasi, Luca & Laeng, Bruno (2017). The Eye Pupil’s Response to Static and Dynamic Illusions of Luminosity and Darkness. i-Perception. July-August. doi: 10.1177/2041669517717754. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Pupil diameters were recorded with an eye-tracker while participants observed cruciform patterns of gray-scale gradients that evoked illusions of enhanced brightness (glare) or of enhanced darkness. The illusions were either presented as static images or as dynamic animations which initially appeared as a pattern of filled squares that—in a few seconds—gradually changed into gradients until the patterns were identical to the static ones. Gradients could either converge toward the center, resulting in a central region of enhanced, illusory, brightness or darkness, or oriented toward each side of the screen, resulting in the perception of a peripheral ring of illusory brightness or darkness. It was found that pupil responses to these illusions matched both the direction and intensity of perceived changes in light: Glare stimuli resulted in pupil constrictions, and darkness stimuli evoked dilations of the pupils. A second experiment found that gradients of brightness were most effective in constricting the pupils than isoluminant step-luminance, local, variations in luminance. This set of findings suggest that the eye strategically adjusts to reflect in a predictive manner, given that these brightness illusions only suggest a change in luminance when none has occurred, the content within brightness maps of the visual scene.

• Walle, Kjersti Mæhlum; Kyler, Hillary Lynn; Nordvik, Jan Egil; Becker, Frank & Laeng, Bruno (2017). Binocular rivalry after right-hemisphere stroke: Effects of attention impairment on perceptual dominance patterns. Brain and Cognition. ISSN 0278-2626. 117, s. 84–96. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2017.06.007. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Benavent, Sigrid Aune de Rodez; Nygaard, Gro Owren; Harbo, Hanne Flinstad; Tønnesen, Siren; Sowa, Piotr & Landrø, Nils Inge [Vis alle 13 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2017). Fatigue and cognition: Pupillary responses to problem-solving in early multiple sclerosis patients. Brain and Behavior. 7(7). doi: 10.1002/brb3.717. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Introduction In early multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, cognitive changes and fatigue are frequent and troublesome symptoms, probably related to both structural and functional brain changes. Whether there is a common cause of these symptoms in MS is unknown. In theory, an altered regulation of central neuropeptides can lead to changes in regulation of autonomic function, cognitive difficulties, and fatigue. Direct measurements of central neuropeptides are difficult to perform, but measurements of the eye pupil can be used as a reliable proxy of function. Methods This study assesses pupil size during problem-solving in early MS patients versus controls. A difference in pupil size to a cognitive challenge could signal altered activity within the autonomic system because of early functional brain changes associated with cognitive load. We recruited MS patients (mean disease duration: 2.6 years, N = 41) and age-matched healthy controls (N = 43) without eye pathology. Neurological impairment, magnetic resonance imaging, visual evoked potentials, depression, and fatigue were assessed in all of the patients. In both groups, we assessed processing speed and retinal imaging. Pupil size was recorded with an eye-tracker during playback of multiplication tasks. Results Both groups performed well on the cognitive test. The groups showed similar pupillary responses with a mean of 0.55 mm dilation in patients and 0.54 mm dilation in controls for all the tasks collapsed together. However, controls (N = 9) with low cognitive scores (LCS) had an increased pupillary response to cognitive tasks, whereas LCS MS patients (N = 6) did not (p < .05). There was a tendency toward a smaller pupillary response in patients with fatigue. Conclusions This is the first study to investigate pupillary responses to cognitive tasks in MS patients. Our results suggest that MS-related changes in cognition and fatigue may be associated with changes in arousal and the autonomic regulation of task-related pupillary responses. This supports the theory of a link between cognition and fatigue in MS.

• Hagen, Thomas & Laeng, Bruno (2017). Animals Do Not Induce or Reduce Attentional Blinking, But They Are Reported More Accurately in a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Task. i-Perception. 8(5), s. 1–25. doi: 10.1177/2041669517735542. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that modern humans have evolved to automatically direct their attention toward animal stimuli. Although this suggestion has found support in several attentional paradigms, it is not without controversy. Recently, a study employing methods customary to studying the attentional blink has shown inconclusive support for the prioritization of animals in attention. This showed an advantage for reporting animals as second targets within the typical window of the attentional blink, but it remained unclear whether this advantage was really due to a reduction of the attentional blink. We reassessed for the presence of a reduced attentional blink for animals compared with artifacts by using three disparate stimuli sets. A general advantage for animals was found but no indication of a reduction of the attentional blink for animals. There was no support for the prediction that animal distractors should lead to spontaneous inductions of attentional blinks when presented as critical distractors before single targets. Another experiment with single targets still showed that animals were reported more accurately than artifacts. A final experiment showed that when animals were first target, they did not generate stronger attentional blinks. In summary, we did find a general advantage for animal images in the rapid serial visual presentation task, but animal images did not either induce or reduce attentional blinks. This set of results is in line with conclusions from previous research showing no evidence for a special role of animals in attention.

• Stocker, Kurt & Laeng, Bruno (2017). Analog and Digital Windowing of Attention in Language, Visual Perception, and the Brain. Cognitive Semantics. ISSN 2352-6408. 3, s. 158–181. doi: 10.1163/23526416-00302002. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Prete, Giulia; Laeng, Bruno & Tommasi, Luca (2016). Modulating adaptation to emotional faces by spatial frequency filtering. Psychological Research. ISSN 0340-0727. 82(2), s. 310–323. doi: 10.1007/s00426-016-0830-x. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• D'Ascenzo, Stefania; Iani, Cristina; Guidotti, Roberto; Laeng, Bruno & Rubichi, Sandro (2016). Practice-induced and sequential modulations in the Simon task: evidence from pupil dilation. International Journal of Psychophysiology. ISSN 0167-8760. 110, s. 187–193. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2016.08.002. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Martarelli, Corinna S.; Chiquet, Sandra; Laeng, Bruno & Mast, Fred W. (2016). Using space to represent categories: insights from gaze position. Psychological Research. ISSN 0340-0727. s. 1–9. doi: 10.1007/s00426-016-0781-2. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno; Eidet, Lise Mette; Sulutvedt, Unni & Panksepp, Jaak (2016). Music chills: The eye pupil as a mirror to music’s soul. Consciousness and Cognition. ISSN 1053-8100. 44, s. 161–178. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2016.07.009. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Miozzo, Michele & Laeng, Bruno (2016). Why Saturday could be both green and red in synesthesia. Cognitive Processing. ISSN 1612-4782. s. 1–19. doi: 10.1007/s10339-016-0769-2. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno; Suegami, Takashi & Aminihajibashi, Samira (2016). Wine labels: an eye-tracking and pupillometry study. International Journal of Wine Business Research. ISSN 1751-1062. 28(4), s. 327–348. doi: 10.1108/IJWBR-03-2016-0009. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Chelnokova, Olga V; Laeng, Bruno; Løseth, Guro Engvig; Eikemo, Marie Helene; Willoch, Frode & Leknes, Siri (2016). The µ-Opioid System Promotes Visual Attention to Faces and Eyes. Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience. ISSN 1749-5016. 11(12), s. 1902–1909. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsw116. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Hagen, Thomas & Laeng, Bruno (2016). The Change Detection Advantage for Animals: An Effect of Ancestral Priorities or Progeny of Experimental Design? i-Perception. 7(3), s. 1–17. doi: 10.1177/2041669516651366. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The “animate monitoring” hypothesis proposes that humans are evolutionarily predisposed to recruit attention toward animals. Support for this has repeatedly been obtained through the change detection paradigm where animals are detected faster than artifacts. The present study shows that the advantage for animals does not stand up to more rigorous experimental controls. Experiment 1 used artificially generated change detection scenes and counterbalanced identical target objects across two sets of scenes. Results showed that detection performance is determined more by the surrounding scene than semantic category. Experiment 2 used photographs from the original studies and replaced the target animals with artifacts in the exact same locations, such that the surrounding scene was kept constant while manipulating the target category. Results replicated the original studies when photos were not manipulated but agreed with the findings of our first experiment in that the advantage shifted to the artifacts when object categories replaced each other in the original scenes. A third experiment used inverted and blurred images so as to disrupt high-level perception but failed to erase the advantage for animals. Hence, the present set of results questions whether the supposed attentional advantage for animals can be supported by evidence from the change detection paradigm.

• Zak, Monika; Laeng, Bruno & Simon-Liedtke, Joschua Thomas (2015). Can the recognition of emotional expressions be enhanced by manipulating facial skin colour? I Pedersen, Marius & Thomas, Jean-Baptiste (Red.), 2015 Colour and Visual Computing Symposium (CVCS). IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). ISSN 9781479917655. doi: 10.1109/CVCS.2015.7274897. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Conducting surveillance impact assessment is the first step to solve the "Who monitors the monitor?" problem. Since the surveillance impacts on different dimensions of privacy and society are always changing, measuring compliance and impact through metrics can ensure the negative consequences are minimized to acceptable levels. To develop metrics systematically for surveillance impact assessment, we follow the top-down process of the Goal/Question/Metric paradigm: 1) establish goals through the social impact model, 2) generate questions through the dimensions of surveillance activities, and 3) develop metrics through the scales of measure. With respect to the three factors of impact magnitude: the strength of sources, the immediacy of sources, and the number of sources, we generate questions concerning surveillance activities: by whom, for whom, why, when, where, of what, and how, and develop metrics with the scales of measure: the nominal scale, the ordinal scale, the interval scale, and the ratio scale. In addition to compliance assessment and impact assessment, the developed metrics have the potential to address the power imbalance problem through sousveillance, which employs surveillance to control and redirect the impact exposures.

• Prete, Giulia; Capotosto, Paolo; Zappasodi, Filippo; Laeng, Bruno & Tommasi, Luca (2015). The cerebral correlates of subliminal emotions: An eleoencephalographic study with emotional hybrid faces. European Journal of Neuroscience. ISSN 0953-816X. 42(11), s. 2952–2962. doi: 10.1111/ejn.13078. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Nygaard, Gro Owren; Benavent, Sigrid Aune de Rodez; Harbo, Hanne Flinstad; Laeng, Bruno; Sowa, Piotr & Damangir, Soheil [Vis alle 13 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2015). Eye and hand motor interactions with the Symbol Digit Modalities Test in early multiple sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders. ISSN 2211-0348. 4(6), s. 585–589. doi: 10.1016/j.msard.2015.08.003. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Purpose Eye and hand motor dysfunction may be present early in the disease course of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), and can affect the results on visual and written cognitive tests. We aimed to test for differences in saccadic initiation time (SI time) between RRMS patients and healthy controls, and whether SI time and hand motor speed interacted with the written version of the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (wSDMT). Methods Patients with RRMS (N=44, age 35.1±7.3 years), time since diagnosis <3 years and matched controls (N=41, age 33.2±6.8 years) were examined with ophthalmological, neurological and neuropsychological tests, as well as structural MRI (white matter lesion load (WMLL) and brainstem lesions), visual evoked potentials (VEP) and eye-tracker examinations of saccades. Results SI time was longer in RRMS than controls (p<0.05). SI time was not related to the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT), WMLL or to the presence of brainstem lesions. 9 hole peg test (9HP) correlated significantly with WMLL (r=0.58, p<0.01). Both SI time and 9HP correlated negatively with the results of wSDMT (r=−0.32, p<0.05, r=−0.47, p<0.01), but none correlated with the results of PASAT. Conclusions RRMS patients have an increased SI time compared to controls. Cognitive tests results, exemplified by the wSDMT, may be confounded by eye and hand motor function.

• Prete, Giulia; D'Ascenzo, Stefania; Laeng, Bruno; Fabri, Mara; Foschi, Nicoletta & Tommasi, Luca (2015). Conscious and unconscious processing of facial expressions: Evidence from two split-brain patients. Journal of Neuropsychology. ISSN 1748-6645. 9(1), s. 45–63. doi: 10.1111/jnp.12034. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Simon, Thomas; Farup, Ivar & Laeng, Bruno (2015). Evaluating color deffciency simulation and daltonization methods through visual search and sample-to-match: SaMSEM and ViSDEM. I Eschbach, Reiner; Marcu, Gabriel G. & Rizzi, Alessandro (Red.), Color Imaging XX: Displaying, Processing, Hardcopy, and Applications;. SPIE - The International Society for Optics and Photonics. ISSN 9781628414851. doi: 10.1117/12.2079504. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Color deficient people might be confronted with minor difficulties when navigating through daily life, for example when reading websites or media, navigating with maps, retrieving information from public transport schedules and others. Color deficiency simulation and daltonization methods have been proposed to better understand problems of color deficient individuals and to improve color displays for their use. However, it remains unclear whether these color prosthetic" methods really work and how well they improve the performance of color deficient individuals. We introduce here two methods to evaluate color deficiency simulation and daltonization methods based on behavioral experiments that are widely used in the field of psychology. Firstly, we propose a Sample-to-Match Simulation Evaluation Method (SaMSEM); secondly, we propose a Visual Search Daltonization Evaluation Method (ViSDEM). Both methods can be used to validate and allow the generalization of the simulation and daltonization methods related to color deficiency. We showed that both the response times (RT) and the accuracy of SaMSEM can be used as an indicator of the success of color deficiency simulation methods and that performance in the ViSDEM can be used as an indicator for the efficacy of color deficiency daltonization methods. In future work, we will include comparison and analysis of different color deficiency simulation and daltonization methods with the help of SaMSEM and ViSDEM.

• Alnæs, Dag; Sneve, Markus Handal; Richard, Geneviéve´; Skåtun, Kristina Cecilie; Kaufmann, Tobias & Nordvik, Jan Egil [Vis alle 10 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2015). Functional connectivity indicates differential roles for the intraparietal sulcus and the superior parietal lobule in multiple object tracking. NeuroImage. ISSN 1053-8119. 123, s. 129–137. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.08.029. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bochynska, Agata & Laeng, Bruno (2015). Tracking down the path of memory: eye scanpaths facilitate retrieval of visuospatial information. Cognitive Processing. ISSN 1612-4782. 16, s. 159–163. doi: 10.1007/s10339-015-0690-0. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Valuch, Christian; Pflüger, Lena; Wallner, Bernard; Laeng, Bruno & Ansorge, Ulrich (2015). Using eye tracking to test for individual differences in attention to attractive faces. Frontiers in Psychology. 6(42). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00042. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Okubo, Matia; Ishikawa, Kenta; Kobayashi, Akihiro; Laeng, Bruno & Tommasi, Luca (2015). Cool Guys and Warm Husbands: The Effect of Smiling on Male Facial Attractiveness for Short- and Long-Term Relationships. Evolutionary Psychology. 13(3), s. 1–8. doi: 10.1177/1474704915600567. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Falasca, Nicola Walter; D'Ascenzo, Stefania; Domenico, A Di; Onofrij, Marco; Tommasi, Luca & Laeng, Bruno [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2015). Hemispheric lateralization in top-down attention during spatial relation processing: a Granger causal model approach. European Journal of Neuroscience. ISSN 0953-816X. doi: 10.1111/ejn.12846. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Prete, Giulia; Laeng, Bruno; Fabri, Mara; Foschi, Nicoletta & Tommasi, Luca (2015). Right hemisphere or valence hypothesis, or both? The processing of hybrid faces in the intact and callosotomized brain. Neuropsychologia. ISSN 0028-3932. 68, s. 94–106. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.01.002. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Sulutvedt, Unni & Laeng, Bruno (2014). The self prefers itself? Self-referential versus parental standards in face attractiveness. PeerJ. 2014(1). doi: 10.7717/peerj.595. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ham, Ineke van der; Postma, Albert & Laeng, Bruno (2014). Lateralized perception: The role of attention in spatial relation processing. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. ISSN 0149-7634. 45, s. 142–148. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.05.006. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• D'Ascenzo, Stefania; Tommasi, Luca & Laeng, Bruno (2014). Imagining sex and adapting to it: Different aftereffects after perceiving versus imagining faces. Vision Research. ISSN 0042-6989. 96, s. 45–52. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2014.01.002. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Suegami, Takashi; Aminihajibashi, Samira & Laeng, Bruno (2014). Another look at category effects on colour perception and their left hemispheric lateralisation: No evidence from a colour identification task. Cognitive Processing. ISSN 1612-4782. 15(2), s. 217–226. doi: 10.1007/s10339-013-0595-8. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno; Ilona, Bloem; D'Ascenzo, Stefania & Tommasi, Luca (2014). Scrutinizing visual images: The role of gaze in mental imagery and memory. Cognition. ISSN 0010-0277. 131, s. 263–283. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.01.003. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno & Sulutvedt, Unni (2014). The Eye Pupil Adjusts to Imaginary Light. Psychological Science. ISSN 0956-7976. 25(1), s. 188–197. doi: 10.1177/0956797613503556. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ellingsen, Dan Mikael; Wessberg, Johan; Chelnokova, Olga V; Olausson, Håkan; Laeng, Bruno & Leknes, Siri Graff (2014). In touch with your emotions: Oxytocin and touch change social impressions while others' facial expressions can alter touch. Psychoneuroendocrinology. ISSN 0306-4530. 39(1), s. 11–20. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2013.09.017. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Prete, Giulia; Laeng, Bruno & Tommasi, Luca (2014). Lateralized hybrid faces: Evidence of a valence-specific bias in the processing of implicit emotions. Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition. ISSN 1357-650X. 19(4), s. 439–454. doi: 10.1080/1357650X.2013.862255. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Hofsten, Olov von; Hofsten, Claes von; Sulutvedt, Unni; Laeng, Bruno; Brennen, Tim & Magnussen, Svein (2014). Simulating newborn face perception. Journal of Vision. 14:16(13). doi: 10.1167/14.13.16. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Mikalsen, Åse Kristine Rognmo; Folstad, Ivar; Yoccoz, Nigel Gilles & Laeng, Bruno (2014). The spectacular human nose: An amplifier of individual quality? PeerJ. 2014(1). doi: 10.7717/peerj.357. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Amplifiers are signals that improve the perception of underlying differences in quality. They are cost free and advantageous to high quality individuals, but disadvantageous to low quality individuals, as poor quality is easier perceived because of the amplifier. For an amplifier to evolve, the average fitness benefit to the high quality individuals should be higher than the average cost for the low quality individuals. The human nose is, compared to the nose of most other primates, extraordinary large, fragile and easily broken—especially in male–male interactions. May it have evolved as an amplifier among high quality individuals, allowing easy assessment of individual quality and influencing the perception of attractiveness? We tested the latter by manipulating the position of the nose tip or, as a control, the mouth in facial pictures and had the pictures rated for attractiveness. Our results show that facial attractiveness failed to be influenced by mouth manipulations. Yet, facial attractiveness increased when the nose tip was artificially centered according to other facial features. Conversely, attractiveness decreased when the nose tip was displaced away from its central position. Our results suggest that our evaluation of attractiveness is clearly sensitive to the centering of the nose tip, possibly because it affects our perception of the face’s symmetry and/or averageness. However, whether such centering is related to individual quality remains unclear.

• Alnæs, Dag; Sneve, Markus Handal; Espeseth, Thomas; Endestad, Tor; Pavert, Steven van de & Laeng, Bruno (2014). Pupil size signals mental effort deployed during multiple object tracking and predicts brain activity in the dorsal attention network and the locus coeruleus. Journal of Vision. 14(4), s. 1–20. doi: 10.1167/14.4.1. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Chelnokova, Olga V; Laeng, Bruno; Eikemo, Marie; Riegels, Jeppe Kjær; Løseth, Guro Engvig & Maurud, Hedda [Vis alle 8 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2014). Rewards of beauty: the opioid system mediates social motivation in humans. Molecular Psychiatry. ISSN 1359-4184. doi: 10.1038/mp.2014.1. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno (2013). Representation of Spatial Relation. I Ochsner, Kevin & Kosslyn, Stephen M. (Red.), The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 1: Core Topics. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780199988693. s. 28–50. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199988693.013.0003. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno; Vermeer, Oddrun & Sulutvedt, Unni (2013). Is Beauty in the Face of the Beholder? PLOS ONE. 8(7). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068395.g001. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Opposing forces influence assortative mating so that one seeks a similar mate while at the same time avoiding inbreeding with close relatives. Thus, mate choice may be a balancing of phenotypic similarity and dissimilarity between partners. In the present study, we assessed the role of resemblance to Self’s facial traits in judgments of physical attractiveness. Participants chose the most attractive face image of their romantic partner among several variants, where the faces were morphed so as to include only 22% of another face. Participants distinctly preferred a ‘‘Self-based morph’’ (i.e., their partner’s face with a small amount of Self’s face blended into it) to other morphed images. The Self-based morph was also preferred to the morph of their partner’s face blended with the partner’s same-sex ‘‘prototype’’, although the latter face was (‘‘objectively’’) judged more attractive by other individuals. When ranking morphs differing in level of amalgamation (i.e., 11% vs. 22% vs. 33%) of another face, the 22% was chosen consistently as the preferred morph and, in particular, when Self was blended in the partner’s face. A forced-choice signal-detection paradigm showed that the effect of self-resemblance operated at an unconscious level, since the same participants were unable to detect the presence of their own faces in the above morphs. We concluded that individuals, if given the opportunity, seek to promote ‘‘positive assortment’’ for Self’s phenotype, especially when the level of similarity approaches an optimal point that is similar to Self without causing a conscious acknowledgment of the similarity.

• Suegami, Takashi & Laeng, Bruno (2013). A left cerebral hemisphere’s superiority in processing spatial-categorical information in a non-verbal semantic format. Brain and Cognition. ISSN 0278-2626. 81(2), s. 294–302. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2012.10.012. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Prete, Giulia; D'Ascenzo, Stefania; Laeng, Bruno; Fabri, Mara; Foschi, Nicoletta & Tommasi, Luca (2013). Conscious and unconscious processing of facial expressions: Evidence from two split-brain patients. Journal of Neuropsychology. ISSN 1748-6645. doi: 10.1111/jnp.12034. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Palumbo, Rocco; Laeng, Bruno & Tommasi, Luca (2013). Gender-specific aftereffects following adaptation to silhouettes of human bodies. Visual Cognition. ISSN 1350-6285. 21(1), s. 1–12. doi: 10.1080/13506285.2012.753970. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

Se alle arbeider i NVA

• Hope, Mikael; Nielsen, Nanette & Laeng, Bruno (2026). Audiovisual Rhythms in Narrative Film: How Music Affects Attention, Memory and the Experience of Time. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Music is known to shape viewer experiences in film, yet how it affects the cognitive processes underlying viewer engagement remains unclear. This study investigated music's role in modulating temporal experience, memory, and attention in film viewing across two complete narratives. We conducted complementary online and laboratory experiments using animated films with different musical conditions: original music with tension-release patterns aligned to visual narrative, the same original music rearranged in a different temporal order, constant-intensity music, and no music. Laboratory results revealed that music with congruent narrative structure led to significantly shorter duration estimates, enhanced temporal order memory, better recognition of narrative details, and higher absorption ratings compared to reordered music. These effects were absent in the online experiment, suggesting that viewing context moderates music's impact. The findings demonstrate that music's narrative structure, and not just its presence or emotional content, modulates temporal experience, narrative memory, and attention during film viewing.

• Abrahamsson, Liv Merve Akca; Bishop, Laura; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Laeng, Bruno (2024). Are human voices special in the way we attend to them? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Oddekalv, Kjell Andreas & Laeng, Bruno (2024). LAB.prat #2: Professor Bruno Laeng - Vi lytter med øynene. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Abrahamsson, Liv Merve Akca; Bishop, Laura; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Laeng, Bruno (2024). Are human voices ‘special’ in the way we attend to them? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bishop, Laura; Høffding, Simon; Lartillot, Olivier Serge Gabriel & Laeng, Bruno (2023). Mental effort and expressive interaction in expert and student string quartet performance. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bishop, Laura; Høffding, Simon; Laeng, Bruno & Lartillot, Olivier (2023). Mental effort and expressive interaction in expert and student string quartet performance. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno & Vemøy, Silje Kilmork (2022). Pupillens hemmeligheter. [Radio]. radio.nrk.no. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Pupillens hemmeligheter At øynenes er sjelens speil, er kanskje en mer presis observasjon enn mange er klar over. Den sorte pupillen kan fortelle en hel del om oss mennesker, for eksempel om hvordan vi har det.

• Spiech, Connor; Hope, Mikael; Câmara, Guilherme Schmidt; Sioros, Georgios; Endestad, Tor & Laeng, Bruno [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2022). PredicTAPbility: Sensorimotor Synchronization Increases Groove. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bishop, Laura & Laeng, Bruno (2022). Expertise modulates the relationship between musical demands and mental effort. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Otterdijk, Marieke van; Saplacan, Diana; Laeng, Bruno & Torresen, Jim (2022). Explorative Study on Human Intuitive Responses to Observing Expressive Robot Behavior. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Akca, Merve; Bishop, Laura; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Laeng, Bruno (2022). Tracing the Temporal Limits of Auditory Information Processing with Pupillometry. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bishop, Laura; Jensenius, Alexander Refsum & Laeng, Bruno (2021). Quartet Body Motion and Pupillometry Dataset. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4888176. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This dataset contains performance data collected during an experiment with a string quartet, and listening data collected during a follow-up experiment using recordings from the performance experiment. Performance data were collected in December 2019 as part of an experiment on how communicative body motion is affected by the presence of an audience and manipulations of visual contact between musicians. The experiment also investigated how different performance demands affect musicians' mental effort. A string quartet comprising advanced music students played pieces from their repertoire in rehearsal and concert conditions.

• Spiech, Connor; Laeng, Bruno; Sioros, George; Danielsen, Anne & Endestad, Tor (2021). More Than Meter’s The Eye: Divergent Roles of Pickups and Syncopation in Groove. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bishop, Laura; Sanchez, Victor Evaristo Gonzalez; Laeng, Bruno; Jensenius, Alexander Refsum & Høffding, Simon (2021). Social context affects head motion and gaze in string quartet rehearsal and concert performance. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno & Alnæs, Dag (2019). Pupillometry. I Klein, Christoph & Ettinger, Ulrich (Red.), Eye Movement Research. Springer Nature. ISSN 9783030200831. s. 449–502. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-20085-5_11. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Tørresen, Jim & Laeng, Bruno (2018). UiO/ROBIN – Toyohashi University of Technology/Japan seminar. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Seminar with collaborators from University of Technology, Japan: Shigeki Nakauchi <https://www.tut.ac.jp/english/schools/faculty/cs/169.html> og Tetsuto Minami <https://www.tut.ac.jp/english/schools/faculty/eiiris/573.html> and their students.

• Minami, Tetsuto & Laeng, Bruno (2018). Brightness perception while looking up or down. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno (2018). The "face race lightness illusion": An effect of the eyes and pupils? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Walle, Kjersti Mæhlum; Kyler, Hillary Lynn; Nordvik, Jan Egil; Becker, Frank & Laeng, Bruno (2018). Corrigendum to "Binocular rivalry after right-hemisphere stroke: Effects of attention impairment on perceptual dominance patterns" [Brain Cogn. 117 (2017) 84–96]. Brain and Cognition. ISSN 0278-2626. 123, s. 89–91. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2018.03.001. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Sato, Fumiyaki; Laeng, Bruno; Nakauchi, Shigeki & Minami, Tetsuto (2018). Pupil dilation reflects "Viewing from above bias" in the effort to control perception. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Suzuki, Yuta; Minami, Tetsuto; Laeng, Bruno & Nakauchi, Shigeki (2018). The differential effect of glowing appearance in the glare illusion: evidence from pupillometry. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Jo, Skaansar; Laeng, Bruno & Anne, Danielsen (2017). Pupil response reflects processing of microtiming in musical grooves: a study of musicians and non-musicians. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno (2017). The pupil as a window to music's soul. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Sato, Fumiyaki; Laeng, Bruno; Nakauchi, Shigeki & Minami, Tetsuto (2017). Pupil dilation during perception of the Necker cube reflects the viewing-from-above bias. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laeng, Bruno (2015). Blåtime. Arkitektur N. ISSN 1504-7628. 1, s. 82–89. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bochynska, Agata & Laeng, Bruno (2015). Tracking down the path of memory. Eye scanpaths facilitate retrieval of visuospatial information. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bochynska, Agata & Laeng, Bruno (2015). Re-enactment of eye movements’ sequences facilitates retrieval of visuospatial information. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bochynska, Agata; Eifring, Halvor Bøyesen; Laeng, Bruno & Lobben, Marit (2015). The role of visual attention in the semantic processing of item, container and default numeral classifiers in Chinese. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bochynska, Agata & Laeng, Bruno (2014). The Sequence Matters. An Experimental Study of the Functional Role of Eye Movements in Long-term Visuospatial Memory. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Chelnokova, Olga V; Laeng, Bruno; Eikemo, Marie Helene; Riegels, Jeppe; Løseth, Guro & Maurud, Hedda [Vis alle 8 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2014). Rewards of beauty: The opioid system mediates social motivation in humans. Molecular Psychiatry. ISSN 1359-4184. 19(7), s. 746–747. doi: 10.1038/mp.2014.1. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Zelechowska, Agata; Jensenius, Alexander Refsum; Laeng, Bruno & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina (2020). Irresistible Movement: The Role of Musical Sound, Individual Differences and Listening Context in Movement Responses to Music. Universitetet i Oslo. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This dissertation examines the phenomenon of spontaneous movement responses to music. It attempts to grasp and illustrate the complexity of this behaviour by viewing it from different perspectives. Unlike most previous studies on music and body movement, this dissertation places the focus on barely visible manifestations of movement, such as those that may occur when listening to music while standing still. The point of departure is a reflection on movement responses to music and why such responses are considered universal among humans. This is followed by a discussion on the different approaches to studying how music ‘inspires’ movement, and an overview of the different factors that can potentially contribute to the emergence of movement responses to music. The first goal of the empirical research was to verify the common conception that ‘music makes us move’ and examine whether such movement responses can be involuntary. Three of the five included papers show that music can, indeed, make people move, even when they try to stand as still as possible. The second goal is to explore different factors that contribute to movement responses to music. Throughout the included papers, several topics are examined, including rhythmic complexity, tempo, music genres, individual differences and playback systems. The theoretical chapters show how these topics fit into three broader components of the music experience: music, listener and context. Overall, the results suggest that several factors seem to increase movement responses to music: the clear underlying pulse in the sound stimuli, the rhythmic complexity, a tempo of around 120 beats per minute, listening on headphones rather than speakers and high empathy of the listener. All in all, this dissertation contributes to bridging several gaps in the literature on music-related body movement. It also broadens the perspective on why, how and when music moves us.

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