Background: Studies at the macro level (such as longer-term interventions) showed that physical activity impacts positively on cognitive-emotional processes of patients with mental disorders. However, research focusing on the immediate impact of acute bouts of exercise (micro level) are missing. The aim of the present study was therefore to investigate whether and to what extent single bouts of...

Few studies have examined relationships among neurophysiological, psychological, and behavioral factors with regard to their effects on sleep quality. We used a structure equation model to investigate behavioral and psychological factors that influence neurophysiological regulation of sleep in shift workers. Using a cross-sectional study design, we tested the model with a sample of 338 female n...

The influence of mood states on the propensity to use heuristics as expressed in stereotypes was examined using signal detection statistics. Participants experienced happy, neutral, or sad moods and "remembered" whether names connoting race (African American, European American) belonged to social categories (criminal, politician, basketball player). Positive mood increased reliance on heuristic...

Recent research suggests that affective and motivational processes can influence age differences in memory. In the current study, we examine the impact of both natural and induced mood state on age differences in false recall. Older and younger adults performed a version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM; Roediger & McDermott, 1995 , Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and ...

The natural time course of mood includes both acute responses to stimuli and spontaneous fluctuations. To date, neuroimaging studies have focused on either acute affective responses or spontaneous neural fluctuations at rest but no prior study has concurrently probed both components, or how mood disorders might modulate these processes. Here, using fMRI, we capture the acute affective and neura...

While studying body postures in relation to mood is not a new concept, the majority of these studies rely on actors interpretations. This project investigated the temporal aspects of naturalistic body postures while users listened to mood inducing music. Video data was collected while participants listened to eight minutes of music during two sessions (happy and sad) in a within-subjects design...

Mood instability is characteristic of bipolar (BD) and borderline personality (BPD) disorders. However, the optimal method(s) for measuring mood not clear. One approach to develop a generative model describing why changes over time estimate states using an ideal Bayesian observer. We describe such here use it infer cause in BD BPD patients as well characterising effect lithium on instability.

The present study investigated the influence of personality on exercise-induced mood changes. It was hypothesised that (a) exercise would be associated with significant mood enhancement across all personality types, (b) extroversion would be associated with positive mood and neuroticism with negative mood both pre- and post-exercise, and (c) personality measures would interact with exercise-ind...