JCLL News

How do Subjective Internal and External Factors Facilitate Multiple Health Behavior Change? (Defense of the PhD Proposal)

Julian Wienert, Doctoral Fellow in Health Psychology (JCLL)

Performing a healthy lifestyle, including physical activity and proper dietary, across the lifespan can be seen as an important protective factor against major chronic diseases. Especially physical activity has been shown to be beneficial for cognitive functioning, satisfaction and coping with stress in all age groups. Regardless of known benefits of a healthy lifestyle, relatively few people engage in it with numbers declining throughout the lifespan. A special and valuable setting to educate and help facilitate a healthier behavior is the rehabilitation setting. Similar to the broad population, most of the patients find it hard to maintain their new lifestyle after rehab and to stick to the recommendations regarding physical activity and nutrition. Several factors influence the translation from good intentions into a healthy lifestyle. Recent theoretical models like the Compensatory Carry-Over Action Model (CCAM) propose how these change processes in different behaviors occur in concert. However, very little empirical evidence on multiple behavior change exists. Further, only little is known about subjective internal and external constructs like subjective age (e.g., feel age) and culture (e.g., stereotypes) and how these interrelate with each other within the health behavior change process.

Within my dissertation I will focus on this research gap. Subject of this dissertation will be to examine multiple health behavior changes on basis of the CCAM, as well as the impacts of subjective age and stereotypes on the health behavior change process. This will be realized in the context of a multicenter e-health intervention study within three countries – Germany, the Netherlands and China. Its goal is to transfer positive effects of health promoting behaviors from the rehabilitation setting into the daily life. No studies could be found which performed comparisons of subjective age between different cultures and how these interrelate with the health behavior change process. However, it can be assumed that culture has an impact on the self-perception of subjective age via stereotypes.

Time: Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 4:30 pm
Place: Seminar Room, Research V, Jacobs University Bremen

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Neurophysiological Correlates of Tactile Perception: Age-Related Differences in Tactile Perception and Tactile Learning (Presentation of First Thesis Results)

Eva-Maria Reuter, Doctoral Fellow in Neuroscience and Human Performance (JCLL)

Tactile perception is an important prerequisite for the dexterous manipulation of objects. Both spatial and temporal tactile information have to be encoded by the central nervous system to allow for accurate tactile feedback and are regarded as main domains of tactile perception. With increasing age one’s tactile perception decreases in both domains beginning in middle-aged adults. However, it can be improved through specific interventions at any age. Little is known, however, about age- and learning-related differences in the neurophysiological correlates of tactile perception in adults during their working life span.

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the processing of spatial and temporal tactile information as well as tactile learning in different age groups of the working life span (young, middle-aged, and older workers). Tactile learning was induced by means of a hebbian co-activation protocol. For spatial and temporal tactile perception, behavioral (discrimination performance in tactile two-choice discrimination tasks with unequal probability of stimuli and tactile thresholds) and neurophysiological [Electroencephalography (EEG)] data were analyzed. EEG analysis focused on age- and intervention related differences in event-related potentials (ERPs).

Regarding age-related differences, data analysis revealed that tactile discrimination performance declines with increasing age in both the spatial and temporal domain of tactile discrimination. Also neurophysiological measures differed between age-groups and showed e.g. a reduction in amplitude of the ERP component P3 in parietal electrode sites in older in comparison to younger adults. This supports the assumption of a posterior–anterior shift of brain activation in aging and might be interpreted as a marker of change in conscious stimulus processing.

Preliminary analysis of data from the tactile learning experiment indicates that the intervention primarily affected reaction times rather than tactile thresholds or discrimination accuracy. Moreover, first analysis of early somatosensory event-related components, in the spatial discrimination task, indicates that latencies shorten after the intervention, especially for less frequently presented stimuli. Together, this hints to faster processing of somatosensory information after the intervention.

Time: Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 5:30 pm
Place: Seminar Room, Research V, Jacobs University Bremen

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