Alex Vo
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 380950 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Alex Vo |
| PRENOMES | Alex |
| SOBRENOME | Vo |
| ASSINATURA | VO A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Heidelberg University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4499-3660 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 28 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 71 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 28 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2007 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Associative and categorical priming in a word-picture paradigm
When we perceive language cues, they are processed with a high degree of automaticity and can thus guide the processing of subsequent perceptions. We investigated here how associated and categorically congruent prime words influence responses in a semantic picture categorization task. A hierarchical diffusion model is applied to disentangle the underlying cognitive processes. In the experiment, participants were asked to categorize target picture…
Stop frowning, it ́s true
In line with the feelings-as-information theory, a body of research demonstrates more positive (negative) judgments in positive (negative) affective states. Similarly, it has been shown that people who experience positive (negative) affect also tend to judge incoming information as more likely being true (false). Following the argumentation of affect-congruent judgments, we assume that judging information as being true itself possesses a positive…
The illusory certainty
People not only judge repeatedly perceived information as more likely being true (the so-called truth effect) they also tend to be more confident after judging the validity of repeated information. These phenomena are assumed to be caused by a higher subjective feeling of ease (i.e., fluency) when processing repeated (vs. new) information. Based on the suggestion that a higher number of coherent mental activations is promoting a fluency experienc…
Age Differences in Everyday Emotional Experience
As our results provide only partial support for SST, we revisit the phenomena that are at its foundations and provide suggestions on how to refine the theory
Mindfulness-Based Student Training Improves Vascular Variability Associated With Sustained Reductions in Physiological Stress Response
In today's fast-paced society, chronic stress has become an increasing problem, as it can lead to psycho-physiological health problems. University students are also faced with stress due to the demands of many courses and exams. The positive effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on stress management and self-regulation have already been studied. We have developed a new mindfulness intervention tailored for students—the Mindfulness-…
Is it all about the feeling? Affective and (meta-)cognitive mechanisms underlying the truth effect
People are more likely to judge repeatedly perceived statements as true. A decisive explanation for this so-called truth effect is that the repeated information can be processed more fluently than new information and that this fluency experience renders the information more familiar and trustworthy. Little is known, however, regarding whether and how affective states and dispositional cognitive preferences influence the truth effect. To this end,…
Affect dynamics and well-being
based on affective states in combination with daily events. Everyday affective experience was measured with a high temporal resolution, multiple indicators of well-being (e.g. life satisfaction, depression) were assessed, and the incremental value of the MIVA model parameters in predicting well-being was determined. The MIVA model parameters reflect essential processes that accounted for observed fluctuations in affective experience. Incremental …
Impact of Meditation–Based Lifestyle Modification on HRV in Outpatients With Mild to Moderate Depression
Our results suggest a benefit in selected HRV parameters for outpatients with mild to moderate depression participating in the MBLM program. For further investigations, we propose analysis of complete 24-h HRV recordings and additional continuous pulse wave or blood pressure analysis to assess long-term modulations and cardiovascular effects
Mental speed is high until age 60 as revealed by analysis of over a million participants
Pretty crowds are happy crowds
Empirical findings predominantly support a happiness superiority effect in visual search and emotion categorization paradigms and reveal that social cues, like sex and race, moderate this advantage. A more recent study showed that the facial attribute attractiveness also influences the accuracy and speed of emotion perception. In the current study, we investigated whether the influence of attractiveness on emotion perception translates into a mor…
Age differences in diffusion model parameters
Older adults typically show slower response times in basic cognitive tasks than younger adults. A diffusion model analysis allows the clarification of why older adults react more slowly by estimating parameters that map distinct cognitive components of decision making. The main components of the diffusion model are the speed of information uptake (drift rate), the degree of conservatism regarding the decision criterion (boundary separation), and …
Processing emotional expressions under fear of rejection
In the mood-of-the-crowd task, participants have to classify crowds of emotional faces according to the predominant emotions. We examined 2 possible moderators of a previously found positivity bias in this task: fear of rejection and threat of social exclusion. Participants (Study 1: N = 84, Study 2: N = 126) received bogus feedback on their future social relationships that was either negative (frustration group) or positive (satisfaction group).…
Age differences in emotion perception in a multiple target setting
Research focusing on the association between age and emotion perception has revealed inconsistent findings, with some support for an age-related positivity effect, as predicted by socioemotional selectivity theory. We used the mood-of-the-crowd (MoC) task to investigate whether older adults judge a crowd consisting of happy and angry expressions to be dominated by happy faces more frequently. The task was to decide whether an array of faces inclu…
Interindividual differences in the intraindividual association of competence and well‐being
OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study is to assess whether people differ in the degree to which their well-being is affected by fulfillment of the need for competence. Specifically, we want to examine (a) whether interindividual differences in the within-person coupling of competence satisfaction and well-being (competence satisfaction effect) and of competence dissatisfaction and well-being (competence dissatisfaction effect) exist, and (b) wh…
Judging the mood of the crowd
Previous research on valence biases in face perception revealed inconsistent findings either proposing angry or happy faces to be detected more efficiently. We argue that the typical experimental task in this field, the face-in-the-crowd (FiC) paradigm, leads to ambiguous results. In the present paper, we introduce a new task, the mood-of-the-crowd (MoC) paradigm that can complement existing FiC findings. In the new task, participants have to dec…
Exploring need dynamics within and across days in everyday life
The role and utilisation of public health evaluations in Europe
The study identified an upward trend in the number of hand hygiene campaigns implemented in Europe. It is likely that the availability of the internationally-accepted evaluation methodology developed by the WHO contributed to the evaluation of more hand hygiene campaigns in Europe. Despite this rise, hand hygiene campaigns appear to be under-evaluated. The development of simple, programme-specific, standardised guidelines, evaluation indicators a…
Big and broad social data and the sociological imagination
In this paper, we reflect on the disciplinary contours of contemporary sociology, and social science more generally, in the age of ‘big and broad’ social data. Our aim is to suggest how sociology and social sciences may respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by this ‘data deluge’ in ways that are innovative yet sensitive to the social and ethical life of data and methods. We begin by reviewing relevant contemporary methodological d…
Tweeting the terror
Little is currently known about the factors that promote the propagation of information in online social networks following terrorist events. In this paper we took the case of the terrorist event in Woolwich, London in 2013 and built models to predict information flow size and survival using data derived from the popular social networking site Twitter. We define information flows as the propagation over time of information posted to Twitter via t…
Diffusion Models in Experimental Psychology
Stochastic diffusion models ( Ratcliff, 1978 ) can be used to analyze response time data from binary decision tasks. They provide detailed information about cognitive processes underlying the performance in such tasks. Most importantly, different parameters are estimated from the response time distributions of correct responses and errors that map (1) the speed of information uptake, (2) the amount of information used to make a decision, (3) poss…
Assessing Individual Differences in the Need for Interpersonal Touch and Need for Touch
The present study investigates individual differences in the automatic use of haptic information from interpersonal touch. We present a questionnaire assessing individual differences in the need for interpersonal touch (NFIPT), which was validated within an unrelated product-evaluation task. Before entering the laboratory, participants were briefly touched on the shoulder or received no touch. Assessing confidence and frustration within the follo…
Social Influence and Perceptual Decision Making
Classic studies on social influence used simple perceptual decision-making tasks to examine how the opinions of others change individuals' judgments. Since then, one of the most fundamental questions in social psychology has been whether social influence can alter basic perceptual processes. To address this issue, we used a diffusion model analysis. Diffusion models provide a stochastic approach for separating the cognitive processes underlying s…
Assessing Individual Differences in the Use of Haptic Information Using a German Translation of the Need for Touch Scale
A German version of the Need for Touch scale (NFT) was developed and validated in two experiments. Study 1 examined moderator effects of NFT on the influence of product experience on confidence and frustration in product evaluations. As expected, only for high-NFT individuals, confidence increased and frustration decreased when haptic information was available. In Study 2, we explored the influence of NFT in a gambling task. Results showed that i…
Autonomy of Autonomic Dysfunction in Major Depression
OBJECTIVE: To investigate cardiac autonomic dysfunction in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Research in this area has faced several limitations because of the heterogeneity of the disease, the influence of medication, and methodological shortcomings. METHODS: Participants were 75 patients suffering from an acute recurrent episode of MDD and 75 matched controls. All participants were assessed at baseline for linear and nonlinear para…
Counter-regulation in affective attentional biases
We investigated whether anticipating positive or negative future outcomes during goal pursuit has a modulatory effect on attentional biases for affectively congruent and incongruent distractor stimuli. In two experiments using a flanker task, we found that distractor interference of stimuli signaling opportunities or dangers was stronger after inducing an outcome focus of the opposite valence. The second experiment provided additional evidence th…
Big and broad social data and the sociological imagination
In this paper, we reflect on the disciplinary contours of contemporary sociology, and social science more generally, in the age of ‘big and broad’ social data. Our aim is to suggest how sociology and social sciences may respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by this ‘data deluge’ in ways that are innovative yet sensitive to the social and ethical life of data and methods. We begin by reviewing relevant contemporary methodological d…
Tweeting the terror
Little is currently known about the factors that promote the propagation of information in online social networks following terrorist events. In this paper we took the case of the terrorist event in Woolwich, London in 2013 and built models to predict information flow size and survival using data derived from the popular social networking site Twitter. We define information flows as the propagation over time of information posted to Twitter via t…
Interpreting ambiguous stimuli
Interpreting ambiguous situations is not a purely data-driven process but can be biased towards positive interpretations by top-down influences. The present study tries to identify the underlying processes of these top-down influences. There are two separable types of processes that can be influenced by motivational biases: A perceptual bias affects information uptake whereas a judgmental bias affects acceptance criteria for positive and negative…
Process components of the Implicit Association Test
The authors present a diffusion-model analysis of the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In Study 1, the IAT effect was decomposed into 3 dissociable components: Relative to the compatible phase, (a) ease and speed of information accumulation are lowered in the incompatible phase, (b) more cautious speed-accuracy settings are adopted, and (c) nondecision components of processing require more time. Studies 2 and 3 assessed the nature of interindivid…
Social Influence and Perceptual Decision Making
Classic studies on social influence used simple perceptual decision-making tasks to examine how the opinions of others change individuals' judgments. Since then, one of the most fundamental questions in social psychology has been whether social influence can alter basic perceptual processes. To address this issue, we used a diffusion model analysis. Diffusion models provide a stochastic approach for separating the cognitive processes underlying s…
Mental speed is high until age 60 as revealed by analysis of over a million participants
Exploring need dynamics within and across days in everyday life
Assessing Individual Differences in the Use of Haptic Information Using a German Translation of the Need for Touch Scale
A German version of the Need for Touch scale (NFT) was developed and validated in two experiments. Study 1 examined moderator effects of NFT on the influence of product experience on confidence and frustration in product evaluations. As expected, only for high-NFT individuals, confidence increased and frustration decreased when haptic information was available. In Study 2, we explored the influence of NFT in a gambling task. Results showed that i…
Social presence effects on the stroop task
Two studies investigated boundary conditions of an effect of social presence on the Stroop task and its interpretation in terms of an attentional view (P. Huguet, M. P. Galvaing, J. M. Monteil, & F. Dumas, 1999). In this view, social presence leads to attentional focusing, enhancing participants’ ability to screen out the distracting features of Stroop stimuli. As predicted, Stroop interference was found to be reduced by social presence, but an a…
Social presence effects on the stroop task
Two studies investigated boundary conditions of an effect of social presence on the Stroop task and its interpretation in terms of an attentional view (P. Huguet, M. P. Galvaing, J. M. Monteil, & F. Dumas, 1999). In this view, social presence leads to attentional focusing, enhancing participants’ ability to screen out the distracting features of Stroop stimuli. As predicted, Stroop interference was found to be reduced by social presence, but an a…
Interpreting ambiguous stimuli
Interpreting ambiguous situations is not a purely data-driven process but can be biased towards positive interpretations by top-down influences. The present study tries to identify the underlying processes of these top-down influences. There are two separable types of processes that can be influenced by motivational biases: A perceptual bias affects information uptake whereas a judgmental bias affects acceptance criteria for positive and negative…
Process components of the Implicit Association Test
The authors present a diffusion-model analysis of the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In Study 1, the IAT effect was decomposed into 3 dissociable components: Relative to the compatible phase, (a) ease and speed of information accumulation are lowered in the incompatible phase, (b) more cautious speed-accuracy settings are adopted, and (c) nondecision components of processing require more time. Studies 2 and 3 assessed the nature of interindivid…
Counter-regulation in affective attentional biases
We investigated whether anticipating positive or negative future outcomes during goal pursuit has a modulatory effect on attentional biases for affectively congruent and incongruent distractor stimuli. In two experiments using a flanker task, we found that distractor interference of stimuli signaling opportunities or dangers was stronger after inducing an outcome focus of the opposite valence. The second experiment provided additional evidence th…
Autonomy of Autonomic Dysfunction in Major Depression
OBJECTIVE: To investigate cardiac autonomic dysfunction in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Research in this area has faced several limitations because of the heterogeneity of the disease, the influence of medication, and methodological shortcomings. METHODS: Participants were 75 patients suffering from an acute recurrent episode of MDD and 75 matched controls. All participants were assessed at baseline for linear and nonlinear para…
Assessing Individual Differences in the Use of Haptic Information Using a German Translation of the Need for Touch Scale
A German version of the Need for Touch scale (NFT) was developed and validated in two experiments. Study 1 examined moderator effects of NFT on the influence of product experience on confidence and frustration in product evaluations. As expected, only for high-NFT individuals, confidence increased and frustration decreased when haptic information was available. In Study 2, we explored the influence of NFT in a gambling task. Results showed that i…
Diffusion Models in Experimental Psychology
Stochastic diffusion models ( Ratcliff, 1978 ) can be used to analyze response time data from binary decision tasks. They provide detailed information about cognitive processes underlying the performance in such tasks. Most importantly, different parameters are estimated from the response time distributions of correct responses and errors that map (1) the speed of information uptake, (2) the amount of information used to make a decision, (3) poss…
Assessing Individual Differences in the Need for Interpersonal Touch and Need for Touch
The present study investigates individual differences in the automatic use of haptic information from interpersonal touch. We present a questionnaire assessing individual differences in the need for interpersonal touch (NFIPT), which was validated within an unrelated product-evaluation task. Before entering the laboratory, participants were briefly touched on the shoulder or received no touch. Assessing confidence and frustration within the follo…
Social Influence and Perceptual Decision Making
Classic studies on social influence used simple perceptual decision-making tasks to examine how the opinions of others change individuals' judgments. Since then, one of the most fundamental questions in social psychology has been whether social influence can alter basic perceptual processes. To address this issue, we used a diffusion model analysis. Diffusion models provide a stochastic approach for separating the cognitive processes underlying s…
The role and utilisation of public health evaluations in Europe
The study identified an upward trend in the number of hand hygiene campaigns implemented in Europe. It is likely that the availability of the internationally-accepted evaluation methodology developed by the WHO contributed to the evaluation of more hand hygiene campaigns in Europe. Despite this rise, hand hygiene campaigns appear to be under-evaluated. The development of simple, programme-specific, standardised guidelines, evaluation indicators a…
Big and broad social data and the sociological imagination
In this paper, we reflect on the disciplinary contours of contemporary sociology, and social science more generally, in the age of ‘big and broad’ social data. Our aim is to suggest how sociology and social sciences may respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by this ‘data deluge’ in ways that are innovative yet sensitive to the social and ethical life of data and methods. We begin by reviewing relevant contemporary methodological d…
Tweeting the terror
Little is currently known about the factors that promote the propagation of information in online social networks following terrorist events. In this paper we took the case of the terrorist event in Woolwich, London in 2013 and built models to predict information flow size and survival using data derived from the popular social networking site Twitter. We define information flows as the propagation over time of information posted to Twitter via t…
Interindividual differences in the intraindividual association of competence and well‐being
OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study is to assess whether people differ in the degree to which their well-being is affected by fulfillment of the need for competence. Specifically, we want to examine (a) whether interindividual differences in the within-person coupling of competence satisfaction and well-being (competence satisfaction effect) and of competence dissatisfaction and well-being (competence dissatisfaction effect) exist, and (b) wh…
Judging the mood of the crowd
Previous research on valence biases in face perception revealed inconsistent findings either proposing angry or happy faces to be detected more efficiently. We argue that the typical experimental task in this field, the face-in-the-crowd (FiC) paradigm, leads to ambiguous results. In the present paper, we introduce a new task, the mood-of-the-crowd (MoC) paradigm that can complement existing FiC findings. In the new task, participants have to dec…
Exploring need dynamics within and across days in everyday life
Processing emotional expressions under fear of rejection
In the mood-of-the-crowd task, participants have to classify crowds of emotional faces according to the predominant emotions. We examined 2 possible moderators of a previously found positivity bias in this task: fear of rejection and threat of social exclusion. Participants (Study 1: N = 84, Study 2: N = 126) received bogus feedback on their future social relationships that was either negative (frustration group) or positive (satisfaction group).…
Age differences in emotion perception in a multiple target setting
Research focusing on the association between age and emotion perception has revealed inconsistent findings, with some support for an age-related positivity effect, as predicted by socioemotional selectivity theory. We used the mood-of-the-crowd (MoC) task to investigate whether older adults judge a crowd consisting of happy and angry expressions to be dominated by happy faces more frequently. The task was to decide whether an array of faces inclu…
Pretty crowds are happy crowds
Empirical findings predominantly support a happiness superiority effect in visual search and emotion categorization paradigms and reveal that social cues, like sex and race, moderate this advantage. A more recent study showed that the facial attribute attractiveness also influences the accuracy and speed of emotion perception. In the current study, we investigated whether the influence of attractiveness on emotion perception translates into a mor…
Age differences in diffusion model parameters
Older adults typically show slower response times in basic cognitive tasks than younger adults. A diffusion model analysis allows the clarification of why older adults react more slowly by estimating parameters that map distinct cognitive components of decision making. The main components of the diffusion model are the speed of information uptake (drift rate), the degree of conservatism regarding the decision criterion (boundary separation), and …
Mindfulness-Based Student Training Improves Vascular Variability Associated With Sustained Reductions in Physiological Stress Response
In today's fast-paced society, chronic stress has become an increasing problem, as it can lead to psycho-physiological health problems. University students are also faced with stress due to the demands of many courses and exams. The positive effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on stress management and self-regulation have already been studied. We have developed a new mindfulness intervention tailored for students—the Mindfulness-…
Is it all about the feeling? Affective and (meta-)cognitive mechanisms underlying the truth effect
People are more likely to judge repeatedly perceived statements as true. A decisive explanation for this so-called truth effect is that the repeated information can be processed more fluently than new information and that this fluency experience renders the information more familiar and trustworthy. Little is known, however, regarding whether and how affective states and dispositional cognitive preferences influence the truth effect. To this end,…
Affect dynamics and well-being
based on affective states in combination with daily events. Everyday affective experience was measured with a high temporal resolution, multiple indicators of well-being (e.g. life satisfaction, depression) were assessed, and the incremental value of the MIVA model parameters in predicting well-being was determined. The MIVA model parameters reflect essential processes that accounted for observed fluctuations in affective experience. Incremental …
Impact of Meditation–Based Lifestyle Modification on HRV in Outpatients With Mild to Moderate Depression
Our results suggest a benefit in selected HRV parameters for outpatients with mild to moderate depression participating in the MBLM program. For further investigations, we propose analysis of complete 24-h HRV recordings and additional continuous pulse wave or blood pressure analysis to assess long-term modulations and cardiovascular effects
Mental speed is high until age 60 as revealed by analysis of over a million participants
Age Differences in Everyday Emotional Experience
As our results provide only partial support for SST, we revisit the phenomena that are at its foundations and provide suggestions on how to refine the theory
Psychology (21 obras) · Cognitive psychology (14 obras) · Social Psychology (13 obras) · Computer Science (10 obras) · Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies (8 obras) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (6 obras) · Cognition (6 obras) · Developmental psychology (6 obras) · Social Psychology (6 obras) · Medicine (5 obras)