Research Project

Electrophysiological correlates of emotional perception and learning: the impact of chemosignals and fear induction

I am interested in the affective perception of emotional stimuli and moreover in their effects on learning. Therefore, I am conducting conditioning studies with the magnetoencephalogram, in which emotional stimuli are associated with a large number of images of faces (“MultiCS-conditioning”; Steinberg et al., 2013).
Emotionally arousing stimuli automatically draw attention and compete for processing resources (Müller, Andersen, & Keil, 2008). Typical neurophysiological correlates of this “emotional attention” include the Early Posterior Negativity and the Late Positive Potential (EPN & LPP; Schupp, Flaisch, Stockburger, & Junghöfer, 2006).
Hence, I expect these correlates of “emotional attention” for faces that have been conditioned with emotional stimuli. For example, compared to faces associated with neutral human body odors, faces associated with body odors proposed to serve as affective chemosignals could be processed preferentially.
Furthermore, the perception of faces should differ, depending on the subject’s emotional state. Therefore, phasic and sustained fear will be induced, according to the paradigm developed by Grillon, Baas, Lissek, Smith and Milstein (2004)

This work is supported by the German Research Association (DFG; SFB-TRR58-C1).

Promotion Committee

apl. Prof. Dr. Markus Junghöfer

Prof. Dr. Pienie Zwitserlood

PD Dr. Christian Dobel

Conference Contributions

Klinkenberg, I., Bröckelmann, A.-K., Dobel, C., Kirschbaum, C., Plessow, F., & Junghöfer, M. (2011, September). Scent of a man – pheromone-enhanced processing of male faces. Poster session presented at the XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

Klinkenberg, I., Dobel, C., & Junghöfer, M. (2013, March). Olfactory conditioning as a powerful method to investigate emotional processing – cognitive and neurophysiological mechanisms. In C. Dobel, & K. T. Lübke (Chair), Olfaction in everyday life: Chemosensory communication, social learning and olfactory disorders. Symposium conducted at the 55th Conference of Experimental Psychologists (TeaP 2013), Vienna, Austria.

Klinkenberg, I., Bröckelmann, A.-K., Dobel, C., Kirschbaum, C., Plessow, F., & Junghöfer, M. (2013, April). Scent of a man – chemosignals enhance the processing of male faces. Poster session presented at the 7th PPRU Workshop (Person Perception Preserved and Impaired - Neuroscientific, Clinical, Experimental and Computational Evidence), Jena, Gemany.

Klinkenberg, I., Dobel, C., Steinberg, C., Rehbein, M., & Junghöfer, M. (2013, October). Does human sweat contain differentiable chemosignals? Neurophysiological correlates of olfactory conditioning. Poster session presented at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Society for psychophysiological research (SPR), Florence, Italy.

CV

*1987 Aachen, Germany

2007-2010 Bachelor of Science Psychology, University of Münster, Germany

2010-2013 Master of Science Psychology, University of Münster, Germany

March 2013 Beginning of PhD research project at the Institute of Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis, University Hospital Münster

July 2018 Thesis Defense, Institute of Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis, University Hospital Münster