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Publications (156)
Objectives
Hospice family caregivers (CGs) may experience poor emotional health and diminished quality of life (QOL) secondary to stressors that accompany home-based end-of-life caregiving. Innovative flexible strategies are needed to support hospice CGs in their homes. Being outdoors in nature enhances well-being but is often not accessible to hom...
Targeting, the creation of a match between message content and receiver characteristics, is a key strategy in communication message design. Cultural targeting, or adapting message characteristics to be congruent with a group’s cultural knowledge, appearance, or beliefs of recipients, is used in practice and is a potentially effective strategy to bo...
Social gaze is a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of nonverbal communication. During conversations, it typically operates subconsciously, following automatic co-regulation patterns. However, deviations from typical patterns, such as avoiding eye contact or excessive gazing, can significantly affect social interactions and perceived relationship...
The causal chain from message exposure to reception to effects is widely accepted as the basic explanatory model for communication outcomes. Problematically, the chain's links are often studied in isolation, leaving measurement gaps that compromise the ecological validity and practical utility of experimental research. Here we introduce a VR-based...
Interactions with artificial intelligence (AI) based agents can positively influence human behavior and judgment. However, studies to date focus on text-based conversational agents (CA) with limited embodiment, restricting our understanding of how social influence principles, such as similarity, apply to AI agents (i.e., artificial social influence...
The eye is the vanguard of the reception process, constituting the point where visual information arrives and is transformed into neural signals. While we view dynamic media contents, a fine-tuned interplay of mechanisms causes our pupils to dilate and constrict over time - and putatively similarly across audience members exposed to the same messag...
Exposure is key to message effects. No effects can ensue if a health, political, or commercial message is not noticed. Yet, existing research in communication, advertising, and related disciplines often measures ‘opportunities for exposure’ at an aggregate level, whereas knowing whether recipients were ‘actually exposed’ to a message requires a mic...
The use of online media has been a natural part of everyday life for a while now.
More than 60 per cent of the world’s population used the internet in April 2021.1 Via
their smartphones, many people are online every day. In a digital society, the permanent
access we have to information and the possibility of being constantly connected with
others l...
Exposure is the cornerstone of media and message effects research. If a health, political, or commercial message is not noticed, no effects can ensue. Yet, existing research in communication, advertising, and related disciplines often fails to measure exposure and demonstrate the causal link between quantified exposure to outcomes because actual ex...
The current study explores the role of narrative content and non-diegetic music, as well as their interplay in the creation of film suspense. In a between-subjects design, three audience groups watched either the full version (audio–video) of a suspenseful short movie (Love Field) or a video-only version or listened to the audio track only. Audienc...
Interpersonal synchrony serves as a subtle, yet powerful bonding mechanism in social interactions. Problematically, the term ‘synchrony’ has been used to label a variety of distinct aspects of interpersonal coordination, such as postural similarities or movement activity entrainment. Accordingly, different algorithms have been suggested to quantify...
Event-related potentials (ERPs) capture neural responses to media stimuli with a split-second resolution, opening the door to examining how attention modulates the reception process. However, the relatively high cost and difficulty of incorporating ERP methods have prevented broader adoption. This study tested the potential of a new mobile, relativ...
Twenty years ago, we reflected on the potential of psychological research in the area of embodied conversational agents and systematized the variables that need to be considered in empirical studies. We gave an outlook on potential and necessary research by taking into account the independent variables behavior and appearance of the embodied agent,...
This study investigates how object affordances modulate approach and avoidance behaviors in virtual reality (VR). The primary hypotheses are that 1) motivational relevance shapes facilitation or inhibition of behaviors while interacting with virtual objects, and that 2) approach-avoidance can be quantified using spatial and temporal aspects of beha...
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.599703.].
The current paper addresses two methodological problems pertinent to the analysis of observer studies in nonverbal rapport and beyond. These problems concern: (1) the production of standardized stimulus materials that allow for unbiased observer ratings and (2) the objective measurement of nonverbal behaviors to identify the dyadic patterns underly...
Online-Medien sind auch in Deutschland längst selbstverständlicher Teil des Alltags geworden.
Die meisten Menschen nutzen das Internet, viele sind über das eigene Smartphone täglich online. Der quasi permanente Zugang zu Informationen und die Möglichkeit, ständig mit anderen verbunden zu sein, führen zu einem fundamentalen Wandel menschlichen Erleb...
Im vorliegenden Kapitel wird die Grundidee dieses Herausgeberwerkes vorgestellt. Ausgehend von einer Beschreibung zur Rolle des Internets für Radikalisierungsprozesse und Präventionsansätze werden die Entstehungsgeschichte und Grundidee des EU-Projektes CONTRA dargestellt. Drei wichtige Ansatzpunkte werden näher skizziert: 1) Der Fokus des Projekte...
Observing others’ gaze is most informative during social encounters between humans: We can learn about potentially salient objects in the shared environment, infer others’ mental states and detect their communicative intentions. We almost automatically follow the gaze of others in order to check the relevance of the target of the other’s attention....
Emotions of other people cannot be experienced directly but are often inferred from a variety of verbal and nonverbal information, including expressive body movement (EBM). Inferring emotional states is critical in social interaction, and questions remain about the factors contributing to ambiguity of EBM. In addressing this issue, researchers have...
Technologies for Virtual, Mixed, and Augmented Reality (VR, MR, and AR) allow to artificially augment social interactions and thus to go beyond what is possible in real life. Motivations for the use of social augmentations are manifold, for example, to synthesize
behavior when sensory input is missing, to provide additional affordances in shared en...
Others' movements inform us about their current activities as well as their intentions and emotions. Research on the distinct mechanisms underlying action recognition and emotion inferences has been limited due to a lack of suitable comparative stimulus material. Problematic confounds can derive from low-level physical features (e.g., luminance), a...
Avatars are our digital embodied alter egos. Virtual embodiment by avatars allows social interaction with others using the full spectrum of verbal and non-verbal behaviour. Still, one's avatar appearances is elective. Hence, avatars make it possible for users to discuss and exchange sensible or even problematic personal topics potentially hiding th...
Observing others’ gaze informs us about relevant matters in the environment. Humans’ sensitivity to gaze cues and our ability to use this information to focus our own attention is crucial to learning, social coordination, and survival. Gaze can also be a deliberate social signal which captures and directs the gaze of others toward an object of inte...
Movements can inform us about what people are doing and also about how they feel. This phenomenologically evident distinction has been suggested to correspond functionally with differential neural correlates denoted as mirror neuron system (MNS) and mentalizing system (MENT). To separate out the roles of the underlying systems we presented identica...
Terror management theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) posits that individuals defend against death-anxieties by striving for (symbolic) immortality. Immortality is promised by a symbolic anxiety buffer, which entails one’s (a) cultural worldview; (b) self-esteem; and (c) intimate relationships. Under conditions of mortality salience (M...
Irrespective of the numerous possibilities for avatar selection and customization, research claimed that White avatars compared to avatars from other ethnicitiesare overrepresented in online environments. The present experiment investigated how existential threats, namely the awareness of one’s own mortality (mortality salience, MS) affects the pre...
Right-wing extremists and Islamist extremists try to recruit new followers by addressing their national (for instance, German) or religious (Muslim) social identity via online propaganda videos. Two studies examined whether capitalizing on a shared group-membership affects the emotional and cognitive response towards extremist propaganda. In both s...
Research studies to date have revealed conflicting results with respect to the processing of nonverbal cues from social interactions in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the contribution of two important factors for the perception of dyadic social interactions, namely (a) the movement conting...
The perceived threat of extremist online propaganda has generated a need for countermeasures applicable to large audiences. The dissemination of videos designed to counter violent extremism (CVE videos) is widely discussed. These videos are often described as “counter-narratives,” implying that narrativity is a crucial factor for their effectivenes...
Human gaze is a crucial element in social interactions and therefore an important topic for social Augmented, Mixed, and Virtual Reality (AR,MR,VR) applications. In this paper we systematically compare four modes of gaze transmission: (1) natural gaze, (2) hybrid gaze, which combines natural gaze transmission with a social gaze model, (3) synthesiz...
Recent studies have found that digital games can be used to improve the players’ mood, especially after emotionally unpleasant experiences. We introduce competence repair as an extension of previous work on mood repair. To investigate the effects of digital games on both mood and competence repair, we conducted 3 studies using quiz games. In the qu...
Research on recovery from stress demonstrated that entertaining movies increase psychological detachment and relaxation. In addition, entertainment experiences foster feelings of vitality and thereby contribute to well-being. The current study tested whether movies can be beneficial after stressful situations in order to recover. Saliva cortisol wa...
Learning is a central ability for human development. Many skills we learn, such as language, are learned through observation or imitation in social contexts. Likewise, many skills are learned implicitly, that is, without an explicit intent to learn and without full awareness of the acquired knowledge. Here, we asked whether performance in a motor l...
Humans substantially rely on non-verbal cues in their communication and interaction with others. The eyes represent a “simultaneous input-output device”: While we observe others and obtain information about their mental states (including feelings, thoughts, and intentions-to-act), our gaze simultaneously provides information about our own attention...
Die Debatte um die Wirkung von Videos gegen die Verbreitung extremistischer Ideologien im Netz wird erbittert geführt.
Die Diskussionen drehen sich um die angenommene (Un-)Wirksamkeit von Videos gegen Extremismus, die (Un-)Sinnigkeit der häufig verwendeten Bezeichnung "Counter-Narrative", zu Deutsch "Gegen-Geschichten", sowie um die Frage, wie sol...
Many studies showed that biological (e.g., gaze-shifts or hand movements) and non-biological stimuli (e.g., arrows or moving points) redirect attention. Biological stimuli seem to be more suitable than non-biological to perform this task. However, the question remains if biological stimuli do have different influences on redirecting attention and i...
“Counter-narratives” shall serve as “antidote” against extremist propaganda online. Drawing upon narrative persuasion we present two experiments testing the effects of narrativity in propaganda and counter-videos on persuasive processing and attraction towards the groups behind the videos.
Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit Angebot und Wirkung extremistischer
Internetpropaganda. Es skizziert sowohl Erkenntnisse zur Wirkung
rechtsextremistischer als auch islamistischer Internetvideos.
Darüber hinaus werden aktuelle Ansätze zu Gegenbotschaften und
deren Wert als Präventionsmaßnahme, vor allem aufgrund der hochgeschätzten
Möglichkeit ihre...
Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit Angebot und Wirkung extremistischer Internetpropaganda. Er skizziert sowohl Erkenntnisse zur Wirkung rechtsextremistischer als auch islamistischer Internetvideos. Darüber hinaus werden aktuelle Ansätze zu Gegenbotschaften und deren Wert als Präventionsmaßnahme, vor allem aufgrund der hochgeschätzten Möglichkeit ihre...
The odds in stumbling over extremist material in the internet are high. Counter speech videos, such as those of the German campaign Begriffswelten Islam (Concepts of Islam; Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2015a) published on YouTube, offer alternative perspectives and democratic ideas to counteract extremist content. YouTube users may discus...
Poster presented at the 1st Cologne Neuroscience Day, Cologne, Germany.
As an entertainment technology, video games are a popular social activity that can allow for multiple players to cooperatively engage on-screen challenges. Emerging research has found that when people play together, the resulting teamwork can have beneficial impacts on their prosocial orientations after gameplay–especially when the players are coop...
As an entertainment technology, video games are a popular social activity that can allow for multiple players to cooperatively engage on-screen challenges. Emerging research has found that when people play together, the resulting teamwork can have beneficial impacts on their prosocial orientations after gameplay–especially when the players are coop...
Increasing a company's short-term profit seems to be still the primary responsibility of business leaders, but profit-oriented decision strategies may also elicit long-term side effects. While positive side effects might be considered as an additional benefit, negative side effects are a crucial problem calling for social responsibility. One centra...
In this paper, we present a avatar-mediated communication platform for socially immersive interaction in virtual reality (VR). Our approach is based on the combination of body tracking, facial expression tracking and "fishtank" VR. Our prototype enables two remote users to communicate via avatars.
Nonverbal expressions of emotions play an important role in social interactions. Regarding virtual environments (VEs) and the transmission of nonverbal cues in avatar-mediated communication, knowledge of the contribution of nonverbal channels to emotion recognition is essential. This study analyzed the impact of emotional expressions in faces and b...
Right-wing extremists and Islamic extremists frequently use YouTube videos to propagate their ideologies and to gain new followers. So called “counter-narratives”, videos that challenge extremists’ ideologies or transmit democratic values are proposed to serve as ‘antidote’ to extremist propaganda online. However, experimental studies on the effect...
In this paper, we compare a full body marker set with a reduced
rigid body marker set supported by inverse kinematics. We measured
system latency, illusion of virtual body ownership, and task
load in an applied scenario for inducing acrophobia. While not
showing a significant change in body ownership or task performance,
results do show that latenc...
Using a minimal group paradigm, the current study investigated the influence of group membership on the detection of negative and positive emotions from body movement. Computer animations of movement behavior expressing happiness or anger served as experimental stimuli. A pre-study served to generate and validate the stimuli. Observers were able to...
Given that banner ad investment is huge and keeps increasing, the effectiveness of banners is important for advertising practitioners and is worth attention from academics. Banner properties (e.g. format and animation) may influence the overall effectiveness of banners. However, research on how banner formats (e.g. location and orientation) affect...
Nonverbal expressions of emotions in the human face and body play an important role in social interactions. Regarding affective human-computer interfaces and the use of nonverbal cues in computer-mediated communication, knowledge about the contribution of different nonverbal channels to emotion recognition is essential. The current study analyzed t...
Research on parochial altruism demonstrated that hostility toward out-groups (parochialism) represents the dark side of the willingness to benefit one’s in-group even at own costs (altruism). Parochial aggression thereby emerged mainly under conditions of threat. Extremist propaganda videos, for instance by right-wing extremists, try to capitalize...
Driven by large industry investments, developments
of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies including
unobtrusive sensors, actuators and novel display devices
are rapidly progressing. Realism and interactivity have
been postulated as crucial aspects of immersive VR since
the naissance of the concept. However, today’s VR still
falls short from creating...
Recent research has demonstrated that the use of hedonically positive interactive media
content contributes to the satisfaction of recovery needs and is associated with recovery
outcomes such as higher levels of cognitive performance and increased energetic
arousal. The recovery effects of noninteractive media stimuli as well as of media
content wi...
Prior research found the distancing from extremist propaganda to be dependent on (a) shared group identity of propagator and recipient; and (b) educational level. Students’ evaluated ingroup propaganda more negatively than outgroup videos, apprentices showed the reversed pattern. It has been suggested that this is due to different strategies studen...
Banner ads – often placed on the right-hand side of a website – are prone to lose their effectiveness due to banner blindness. The current study investigated whether context congruency was able to increase the banner’s impact. Our study tested context congruencies (pictures or text elements or both) and their impact on awareness, retention, and att...
High-functioning autism (HFA) is a neurodevelopmental disorder, which is characterized by life-long socio-communicative impairments on the one hand and preserved verbal and general learning and memory abilities on the other. One of the areas where particular difficulties are observable is the understanding of non-verbal communication cues. Thus, in...
Recent research found that playing video games is able to serve mood management purposes as well as contribute to gratifications such as need satisfaction. Both aspects can foster the enjoyment as entertainment experience. The current study explores the question of how in-game success as a prerequisite for satisfying the need for competence and aut...
There is ample evidence that human primates strive for social contact and experience interactions with conspecifics as intrinsically rewarding. Focusing on gaze behavior as a crucial means of human interaction, this study employed a unique combination of neuroimaging, eye-tracking, and computer-animated virtual agents to assess the neural mechanism...
In the present study, we investigated whether cultural stereotypes activated through the physical appearance of avatars would influence the perception of positive and negative affect in in- and out-group members. In a first study, forty-three German and forty Arab participants saw short video clips of a German and an Arab avatar displaying ambiguou...