International Journal of Psychophysiology

The P300 amplitude reduction, or P3AR, is a decrease in the magnitude of the P300 event-related potential (ERP) waveform, typically measured via EEG during oddball tasks, and widely observed in those diagnosed with Alcohol use Disorder (AUD). Though widely acknowledged as a biological correlate of AUD, most of the extant literature on the P3AR features conventional time-domain measurement approaches, and further, the work has predominantly focused on alcohol use specifically. In order to precisely capture the nature of this association as well as assess generalizability to other substances, the current study utilized advanced time-frequency analyses to compare P3 activity in individuals with AUD, cocaine use disorder, and comorbid alcohol and cocaine use. Time-frequency analyses indexed separable theta and delta activity underlying the conventional time-domain P3. Findings revealed that in the conventional time-domain, we observed P3AR shared across alcohol and cocaine use. These findings replicate literature suggesting P3AR associated with substance use. Within time-frequency analyses, we found broad delta reductions across substances, aligning with literature suggesting that delta is mostly comprised of the P3 ERP. For theta-band activity, we found reductions in. amplitude specific to alcohol users only, with no significant diminutions present for cocaine users. As most previous literature focused on alcohol use, unique theta modulations relative to cocaine users provides theoretical clarity in terms of the association of P3AR to substance use more broadly. The findings of the current study highlight the utility of time-frequency measurement approaches in parsing overlapping activity and indexing separable processes with relevance to substance use otherwise unaccounted for in the time domain.

Facial color is associated with the perceptual evaluation of emotions, and compared with faces with original facial or greenish color, reddish angry faces are often judged as having higher emotion intensity. Although perceptual modulation by the relationship between anger and red has also been reported from the perspective of electroencephalography (EEG), how variations in perceived emotion intensity are reflected in brain activity remains unclear. This study investigated whether EEG activity associated with face and facial expression processing is modulated as a function of the interaction between facial color and perceived emotion intensity. In the experiment, we recorded EEGs while participants evaluated emotion intensity using facial stimuli created by combining morph continua from neutral to angry expressions with three types of facial color conditions (original, red, and green). The results revealed that, in the red facial color condition, the early posterior negativity (EPN) amplitude significantly increased as a function of emotion intensity compared with those in the original and green facial color conditions. These findings suggest that the early, automatic affective processing of facial expressions, reflected in the EPN, is modulated by the combination of facial color and emotion intensity. Our findings provide new evidence that early, automatic affective processing of facial expressions, as indexed by the EPN, is modulated by the congruency between high anger intensity and a reddish facial color. HighlightO_LIReddish angry faces increase the ERP component associated with emotion evaluation. C_LIO_LIThe relationship between anger and red is evident in the left hemisphere. C_LIO_LIThe interaction between facial expression and color occurs at a later cognitive processing stage than facial expression or facial color processing alone. C_LI

Emotions are dynamic experiences that unfold over time, yet most affective neuroscience studies have relied on static stimuli and laboratory-based EEG systems. This study examined whether emotional valence and arousal can be reliably decoded using a consumer-grade wearable EEG device in naturalistic contexts. Forty-three participants viewed video clips designed to elicit four core affect categories including high-arousal positive, low-arousal positive, high-arousal negative, and low-arousal negative, while EEG signals were continuously recorded. Multivariate analyses, including classification, multidimensional scaling (MDS), and intersubject correlation (ISC), were employed to assess affective representation and neural synchrony. Behavioral data demonstrated robust classification of both valence and arousal, whereas EEG data yielded consistent above-chance classification of valence but less stable decoding of arousal, particularly in within-participant analyses. MDS revealed that both behavioral and EEG responses were primarily organized along the valence dimension, with weaker separation along arousal. ISC analyses further indicated frequency- and region-specific neural synchrony, with stronger alignment in left and temporal electrodes, though overall ISC values were modest, likely reflecting the brief duration of stimuli. Taken together, these findings suggest that valence is more stably represented in both subjective and neural domains, whereas arousal may require time-resolved or longer-duration approaches for reliable decoding. This work demonstrates the feasibility and limitations of employing wearable EEG for theory-driven affective neuroscience, underscoring its potential for scalable and ecologically valid emotion research beyond laboratory settings.

Ostracism (i.e., social exclusion) threatens social security and individuals who are hypersensitive to it may face long-term negative mental health consequences. Clarifying how self-reported distress and neural responses to ostracism unfold moment-by-moment and across varying levels of individual traits may help better understand what contributes to hypersensitivity. To this objective, the current study employed a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) adapted Cyberball task and single-trial analytic techniques in a sample of 53 college students (aged 18-22 years). Results confirmed that Cyberball induced ostracism increased self-reported distress and neural activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), a region associated with emotion regulation. Self-reported distress varied with differences in social anxiety and need for belonging. Moreover, vlPFC activity sensitized across exclusion-specific trials and this neural sensitization was differentially modulated by social anxiety, need for belonging, and personality growth mindset. The current study highlights the value of single-trial approaches for capturing the nuanced temporal dynamics of ostracism responses. Additionally, it underscores the importance of examining how individual differences shape immediate responses to ostracism to better understand their association with downstream, longer-term consequences.

BackgroundSelf-compassion has shown to be an effective emotion regulation strategy, but its neural mechanisms remain understudied in adolescents with depression who suffer from social exclusion. This study employed event-related potentials to investigate the psychophysiological mechanisms underlying impaired self-compassion in adolescents with depression during social exclusion. MethodsThirty-seven adolescents with major depressive disorder (age = 16.46 {+/-} 2.02) and thirty-two demographically matched healthy controls (age = 16.54 {+/-} 2.29) completed a social exclusion scenario imagination task. This task presented participants with social exclusion scenarios, asking them to imagine themselves as the excluded individual and subsequently rate their negative emotions. The regulation session required participants to use self-compassionate statements to regulate their emotional responses while imagining and rate how much self-compassion they have engaged in; the non-regulation required them not to use those statements and rate their negative emotions immediately following imagination. EEG signals were recorded during the task, and the late positive potential (LPP) was analyzed to examine the neural responses associated with self-compassion regulation following social exclusion. ResultsCompared with the non-regulation condition, both groups showed less negative emotion during the self-compassion regulation condition. Adolescents with depression exhibited significantly lower self-compassion ratings than healthy controls, and showed a significantly smaller decrease in negative emotions. Higher self-compassion ratings were correlated with greater emotion regulation effect, particularly in adolescents with depression. Furthermore, LPP amplitudes were significantly higher in adolescents with depression than in healthy controls during both regulation and non-regulation conditions. ConclusionsAdolescents with depression were characterized by impairment in using self-compassion to downregulate negative emotions when confronted with social exclusion. LPP amplitudes were consistently elevated in adolescents with depression, underscoring their potential as a critical focus for psychophysiologically-informed therapies.

Cardiovascular regulation depends on bidirectional communication between autonomic cardiac control and cardiac afferent signals ascending to the central nervous system, forming a heart-brain loop. Cardio-auditory omission paradigms provide a non-invasive way to probe this loop in humans by withholding scheduled tones within heartbeat-contingent auditory sequences and measuring the resulting autonomic cardiac and heartbeat-related cortical responses. Previous studies have shown omission-evoked cardiac deceleration and neural responses mainly in specific contexts such as passive listening or synchrony-judgement tasks. The present study examined whether these responses also occur under the more general condition of active responses to external stimuli. We tested 40 adults in an auditory detection task in which tones were presented either 200 ms after the ECG R-peak (synch) or at pseudo-random intervals matched to each participants resting heart rate (asynch). A five-minute no-stimulation resting recording was used to generate the asynch sequence and served as the resting comparison condition. In both auditory conditions, 10% of scheduled tones were omitted, yielding synch and asynch omissions. Heartbeat-synchronous omissions induced sustained RR-interval prolongation that exceeded responses to asynch omissions, sound-present conditions, and rest. HEP amplitude was selectively enhanced in the synch-omission condition relative to all other conditions. Reaction times to the first post-omission tone were slightly delayed, whereas overall performance remained comparable across conditions. These findings show that heartbeat-synchronous auditory omissions produce a distinct autonomic-cortical response profile under active response demands, indicating that heart-brain loop dynamics continue to shape physiological responses during ongoing behaviour.

Digital behaviour change interventions have emerged as a promising approach for improving health, well-being, and performance, yet relatively few studies have evaluated their effects using objective biological and neurophysiological measures. The present study examined the effectiveness of Autonomic, a neuroscience-informed digital coaching platform designed to improve student well-being through personalized behavioural interventions targeting sleep, stress, mood, energy, and focus. Thirty university students engaged with the platform for ten weeks and completed behavioural assessments, biomarker collection, and electroencephalographic (EEG) testing at baseline, five weeks, and ten weeks. Behavioural outcomes included self-reported ratings of focus, energy, sleep, mood, and stress. Biological measures included salivary cortisol and tear fluid dopamine concentrations. EEG assessments included resting-state recordings, frontal theta activity during a working memory task, and N200/P300 event-related potentials during a visual oddball task. Significant improvements were observed in self-reported focus, energy, and sleep quality across the intervention. Electrophysiological measures demonstrated reduced frontal theta power during working memory and shorter P300 latencies during attentional processing, consistent with more efficient cognitive processing following the intervention. Although cortisol, dopamine, and resting-state EEG measures did not reach statistical significance, all exhibited changes in the predicted direction. Collectively, these findings provide converging behavioural, biological, and neurophysiological evidence supporting the effectiveness of Autonomic. More broadly, the study demonstrates the value of combining objective biomarkers and EEG with traditional behavioural assessments when evaluating digital behaviour change interventions and highlights the potential of neuroscience-informed coaching platforms to improve health, well-being, and cognitive functioning in university students.

While extensive research has been conducted on emotion recognition from facial stimuli, it remains unclear how embodied emotional cues conveyed through body postures, gestures and actions (e.g., stick figures) compare with facial (human faces) and face-like symbolic representations (emoji faces) in shaping behavioral and neural responses. We employed a multimodal approach, combining behavioral measures (accuracy and reaction time) with electroencephalography (EEG) to examine the electrophysiological correlates of emotion recognition. Overall, sixty-six (equal number of males and females; 18-30 year old) participants identified positive, negative, and neutral emotions depicted in the three formats. Behavioral results showed significant effects of both emotion and format on accuracy and reaction time. Emoji faces were recognized with the highest accuracy and fastest reaction times, followed by stick figures and then human faces (p < .001, some comparisons p < .05). Thirty-four participants (17 males and 17 females) underwent EEG, which revealed distinct patterns of event-related potentials (ERPs). The Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) amplitude showed a significant overall effect of format. Post-hoc comparisons indicated that stick figures elicited greater (more negative) EPN amplitudes than human faces during positive emotion recognition (p = .003), and greater amplitudes than both emoji faces (p = .027) and human faces (p = .007) during negative emotion recognition. No significant differences were observed between emoji and human faces. N170 and Late Positive Potential (LPP) amplitudes did not reveal significant differences (all p > .05). Correlation analyses revealed no significant associations between ERP and behavioral measures. Thus, abstract, minimalistic representations like stick figures elicit enhanced early emotion-related processing despite similar early and later processing across formats. HighlightsO_LIEmotion recognition across realistic (human faces), symbolic (emoji faces) and embodied (stick figures) modalities were compared. C_LIO_LIEmotions were recognized fastest and most accurately in emoji faces format. C_LIO_LIStick figures format elicited significantly higher EPN compared to other two formats across positive and negative emotions. C_LIO_LINo significant differences were observed in terms of N170 and LPP. C_LIO_LIEmbodied, abstract emotional cues modulate automatic emotional appraisal, rather than initial sensory encoding and sustained cognitive evaluation. C_LI

Introduction - Neurofeedback (NFB) has demonstrated efficacy in treating various disorders, often achieving substantial symptom reductions. Despite its effectiveness, a significant percentage of users (non-responders), fail to benefit from NFB. Addressing this issue, the study at hand investigates the role of NFB design on neuro-physiological responses. Method - event related potentials (ERPs) are examined in response to the application of different aesthetic principles in the context of NFB stimulus design. Drawing from Self-Determination Theory and ERP studies in the field of web design, 16 feedback stimuli were developed according to specific design principles. Stimulus design effects were inspected by means of ERPs allowing for the assessment of implicit and fast electroencephalogram (EEG) reactions. Results of n = 38 participants indicated distinct ERP response patterns at time window of interest 1 (TWOI-1; 100-200 ms) and TWOI-2 (200-300 ms), predicted by beholder-based liking and complexity of stimuli. The findings align with the proposed hypotheses suggesting that aesthetic evaluation of NFB stimuli occurs rapidly and implicitly. In response to the aesthetic vs. non-aesthetic categories, the findings were mixed. The results underscore the importance of further exploration of aesthetic design guidelines in the context of NFB applications. It is discussed how NFB aesthetics relate to Processing Fluency and Affective Prediction Error Theory, while the theoretical methodological issue of the Fixed Effect Fallacy is taken into consideration. The study contributes to the broader understanding of how design elements can affect therapeutic efficacy and engagement in NFB and Human Computer Interaction in therapeutic contexts in general.

Cognitive flexibility is an executive function that allows individuals to adjust behaviour in response to changing environmental demands. We assessed volitional switching under uncertainty, without rule-based learning, in the Change Your Mind task. Nineteen patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), 19 patients with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and matched control participants (20 per group) completed the task whilst undergoing a functional MRI scan. The task was a two-alternative forced choice paradigm where each stimulus was presented twice successively, with spurious feedback following the first presentation. This allowed participants the opportunity to repeat or change their response. Participants with ADHD changed their response more frequently than controls following a previously correct response, associated with reduced accuracy on the second trial. This was accompanied with smaller differences between change and repeat trials in the superior frontal gyrus, paracingulate gyrus and frontal pole compared to controls. Participants with OCD did not differ from healthy controls in their performance but exhibited greater activity on both change and repeat trials in the pre- and postcentral gyri than controls. These results point to distinct neurobehavioural differences in patients with ADHD and OCD underlying what is often termed more broadly inflexible behaviour.

AbstractAI-generated images, videos, and news have become an inseparable part of daily life, leading to increasing skepticism toward online information. Understanding how expectations about the presence of AI-generated content influence perception is crucial for elucidating the underlying neural mechanisms and facilitating the generation of naturalistic avatars. In this study, we analyzed an existing EEG dataset (N = 29) in which participants viewed emotional facial photographs of only real individuals while being informed that upcoming faces were either real ("REAL") or AI-generated ("FAKE"). We examined pre-stimulus oscillatory activities in the one-second EEG interval before stimulus onset and found significantly lower alpha power when participants expected "FAKE" compared to "REAL" faces. This effect was region-specific, particularly in right occipito-parietal and temporo-parietal regions, as identified by both sensor- and source- level analyses. In addition, the modulation effect between pre-stimulus alpha activity and post-stimulus event-related potentials (ERPs) was measured. A significant correlation between changes in late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes and pre-stimulus alpha power was observed exclusively for "FAKE" smiling faces, consistent with our previous findings. These results suggest that AI-related expectations modulate neural preparatory states, with lower alpha activity presumably reflecting increased attentional demands for stimuli believed to be artificially generated. This study demonstrates that top-down beliefs systematically shape both pre- and post-stimulus neural dynamics, providing new insights into how cognitive expectations bias perceptual processing, with implications for understanding human-AI interaction and improving the design and evaluation of AI- generated content in real-world contexts.

The P300 event-related potential is one of the most studied electrophysiological markers of cognition, yet trial-to-trial variability within conditions has traditionally been treated as measurement error.The vP300 framework proposes that P300 variability, quantified by the coefficient of variation (CV), may reflect locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) mode dynamics. A computational simulation (N = 80) tested three hypotheses. Empirical P3 oddball data from the ERP CORE dataset (N = 39) provided partial validation. Mean amplitude and CV were orthogonal in simulation (r = -0.14, n.s.) and moderately correlated in empirical data (r = -0.418, p = .008), with 82.5% of CV variance independent of mean amplitude. CV significantly predicted cognitive flexibility (r = -0.319, p = .004) while mean amplitude did not (r = .010, p = .928). Trial- to-trial P300 variability carries information orthogonal to traditional mean amplitude, supporting a potential revision of how variability is treated in ERP research.

Can computational analysis of a brief voice recording classify depression-related anhedonia as effectively as task-based fMRI? We address this question through a pre-registered cross-modal benchmarking study (osf.io/bsvrj) that evaluates two independent classification pipelines against depression-related anhedonia operationalized via self-report. Anhedonia-- the diminished capacity to experience pleasure or motivation to pursue rewards--is a transdiagnostic marker of reward-system dysfunction that predicts treatment resistance in major depressive disorder, yet current assessment requires either expensive functional neuroimaging or subjective self-report scales, neither of which scales to routine screening. We benchmarked two independent classification pipelines: Stream A extracted 88 acoustic prosody features from DAIC-WOZ clinical interviews (n = 142) using the ClinicalWhisper pipeline (Whisper Large-v3, pyannote diarization, OpenSMILE eGeMAPS v02); Stream B extracted nucleus accumbens BOLD activation during a reward task from the UCLA ds000030 dataset (n = 272). Three classifiers (logistic regression, random forest, gradient-boosted trees) were evaluated under stratified 5-fold cross-validation with fixed, pre-registered hyperparameters. Stream A achieved a best AUC-ROC of 0.63 (random forest; permutation p = .049), confirming H1 that acoustic prosody classifies PHQ-8-defined anhedonia above chance at = .05 (uncorrected), though this result does not survive Bonferroni correction for three classifiers (/3 = .017). Bootstrap analysis of {Delta}AUC confirmed non-inferiority relative to Stream B (H2: 95% CI lower bound > -0.10). However, Stream B itself did not achieve above-chance classification (p = .057), so this non-inferiority finding reflects comparable, modest performance across both modalities rather than equivalence to a validated neural biomarker. Pitch variability features (F0) ranked among the top 5 predictors by SHAP value in the gradient-boosted trees model (H3: partially supported). An exploratory combined model (eGeMAPS + recurrence quantification analysis) reached AUC = 0.65 (GBT; p = .032), though this lift was not statistically significant by DeLong test (z = -0.44, p = .66). These results provide initial evidence that vocal prosody, acquired through a standardized, open-source pipeline, carries depression-related information comparable to fMRI-derived ventral striatal activation for binary classification. However, neither streams operationalization isolates anhedonia from general depressive symptomatology, and the cross-modal design compares different constructs across different cohorts. We refer to the classification target throughout as the "anhedonia composite" to acknowledge that PHQ-8 Items 1+2 conflate anhedonia with dysphoria. We discuss these constraints and their implications for the causal framework motivating this work.

Disordered eating attitudes exist on a continuum that extends well below clinical diagnostic thresholds, yet the cognitive correlates of this non-clinical variation remain incompletely understood. Previous research linking executive functioning to disordered eating in non-clinical samples has relied almost exclusively on self-report questionnaire measures of executive function, which show weak correspondence with performance-based assessments. This methodological reliance leaves open the question of how objective executive performance relates to eating behavior across the spectrum. The present study addressed this gap by examining the association between performance-based measures of executive function and disordered eating attitudes in a non-clinical sample of 243 university students via an online experiment, using a dimensional approach consistent with the Research Domain Criteria framework. Participants completed established neurocognitive tasks covering three executive function domains: working memory was assessed with Digit Span and an N-back task, inhibitory control with a Go/No-Go task, and cognitive flexibility with the Card Sorting Task. Disordered eating attitudes were indexed using the EAT-26 total score and its subscales. A notable correlation was identified between cognitive flexibility and disordered eating attitudes, while working memory and inhibitory control exhibited no such association. Overall, our findings provide evidence for associations between executive functioning and disordered eating attitudes in a non-clinical sample.

Previous research suggests that women and men may differ in moral decision-making involving instrumental harm. However, prior findings have yielded inconsistent explanations for these differences, suggesting effects of gender expression, empathy, action tendencies, and biological causes, such as differences in gonadal hormone levels. Yet, no data exists on the effects of endogenous estradiol and progesterone on moral decision-making, while the effects of testosterone are inconsistent. Our study aimed to close this research gap. A sample of 137 cis individuals (73 women, 64 men) completed a moral dilemma task based on the Consequences, Norms, Inaction (CNI) model either in the morning or evening. Relevant personality traits, including agreement with instrumental harm, impartial beneficence, empathy, and gender expression, were assessed via self-report. Blood samples were analyzed for estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, and cortisol. Contrary to prior literature, no behavioral differences between women and men were observed in moral decision-making. However, self-reported agreement with instrumental harm positively predicted sensitivity to consequences and negatively predicted adherence to moral norms in the whole sample. Estradiol concentration positively predicted sensitivity to consequences in the morning women group, and general inaction tendency in the morning men group. Overall, these findings highlight the joint influence of biological and personality factors on moral choices and hint towards subtle sex/gender differences.

Attention abilities, that are critical for most real-life cognitive task, can vary greatly across individuals. A plethora of behavioral and neural metric are commonly utilized to quantify attention; however, these often yield inconsistent and non-replicable results, raising questions as to which measures reliably account for and capture individual differences. To address this tension, here we employed a within-subject cross-paradigm design and quantified both behavioral and EEG-based neural measures associated with attention functioning, to test which measures converged across a gradient of artificial and ecological tasks. We found Inter-Subject Correlation (ISC), which quantifies the similarity in the pattern of neural response across individuals, captured consistent individual differences across both an artificial (Auditory Oddball) and ecological (Attention to Speech) task, with some correlation with performance. Moreover, we found that P300 neural responses to surprising events were qualitatively similar across artificial and ecological tasks, supporting their generalization across contexts. Interestingly, traditional cognitive-behavioral measures of attention - both from speeded response-time tasks and self-report of ADHD symptoms (ASRS) were not correlated with each other nor did they explain variance in neural metrics, nor were they explained by variation in general cognitive abilities (working memory or fluid intelligence). While these results demonstrate the shortcomings of many established measures of attention to generalize across contexts, they also point to the potential of neural measures, and specifically ISC, to serve as reliable indicators of individual differences and to bridge the gap between artificial and ecological studies of attention functioning.

Adapting to natural disasters requires rapid and flexible regulation of emotional and physiological responses, yet the large-scale brain dynamics supporting this process remain poorly understood. Using an immersive virtual reality (VR) earthquake simulation, we investigated real-time neural adaptation to acute environmental threat and its modulation by resilience. Seventy-six participants were randomly assigned to a VR earthquake condition (VR-ES, n = 38) or a control VR condition (VR-CTRL, n = 38). Resting-state EEG was recorded before and after the VR experience, and continuous mobile EEG was recorded during the simulation. EEG microstate analysis was used to characterize large-scale brain dynamics associated with threat exposure and recovery. Exposure to the simulated disaster induced distinct alterations in microstate dynamics, with opposing changes in microstates C (p<0.001, rb=0.55) and D (p<0.001, rb=0.52) observed specifically in the VR-ES group. Moreover, our results confirm that distinct neural patterns are activated during the recovery resting-state phase following VR-ES. Critically, resilience and childhood adversity moderated the patterns of associations with emotional recovery, such that individuals with higher resilience exhibited more adaptive microstate configurations associated with improved recovery outcomes. These findings suggest that flexible reorganization of large-scale brain states supports adaptation to acute environmental stress and that resilience shapes the neural dynamics underlying recovery. This work highlights the value of ecologically valid VR paradigms combined with mobile neurophysiology for understanding individual differences in responses to environmental threat and their adaptive neural mechanisms.

Creative performance fluctuates from moment to moment, suggesting that it depends partly on transient internal states present before creative thinking begins. Although such fluctuations have been identified in central neural activity, it remains unclear whether they are also reflected in autonomic physiology. We examined whether cardiac and electrodermal activity during a brief pre-trial resting period was associated with subsequent creative performance. Photoplethysmography, electrocardiography, and electrodermal activity were recorded while 28 participants completed the Alternative Uses Test and Fusion Innovation Test, assessing divergent and convergent creative thinking, respectively. Data from 27 participants was included in the analyses. Heart rate, heart rate variability, tonic skin conductance level, and phasic skin conductance activity were extracted from observation windows ranging from 11 to 30 s within a 30-s pre-trial rest period. Trial-level creativity was evaluated using GPT-based ratings of novelty, feasibility, and goal attainment. Linear mixed-effects models showed that higher pre-trial tonic skin conductance level was consistently associated with better subsequent creative performance across tasks, with overall model fit peaking at a 21-s observation window. Permutation-based feature-importance analysis provided convergent support for the contribution of tonic skin conductance, whereas the cardiac and phasic electrodermal indicators showed no reliable independent associations. However, the model explained only a small proportion of behavioral variance. These findings suggest that tonic sympathetic arousal reflects a momentary physiological state associated with creativity potential, while autonomic signals alone remain insufficient for accurate individual-level prediction.

Recent research has suggested that the availability of non-instrumental information about the outcome of a risky choice increases risk appetite. In this study, we aimed to perform a conceptual replication of these findings and to examine the cognitive mechanisms underlying this effect. Across two experiments (N = 150, 102), we presented participants with mathematically fair gambles and allowed them to choose the size of their bet. Between trials, we varied the presence of non-instrumental information that would reveal the outcome ahead of time. In both experiments, we did not find consistent evidence for an effect of the availability of non-instrumental information on bet size. These findings suggest that the previously reported effects of non-instrumental information on risk appetite may have been an idiosyncratic feature of experimental design, rather than a more general phenomenon that characterises human decision making under risk.

Recurrent theft, such as shoplifting, is a devastating social problem that poses a significant economic burden on society. However, the neurobehavioral mechanisms underlying such criminal offenses remain barely understood. Here we investigated the behavioral economic profiles of theft recidivists (TR) with and without kleptomania. To identify the decision-making processes underlying stealing behaviors, the hypothetical purchase task and the balloon analogue risk task (BART) structured with gain and loss frames were administered, along with concurrent measurement of prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity during the BART using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. TR with kleptomania demonstrated heightened loss aversion and price sensitivity (elasticity) compared to TR without kleptomania and control subjects with no criminal records, with a significant correlation between these factors, suggesting that heightened loss aversion may contribute to higher elasticity. Moreover, the relative loss-to-risk aversion ratio was found to be positively and negatively associated with the right and left PFC, respectively, suggesting that an imbalance between left and right PFC activity may be involved in the altered behavioral economic profiles. These findings challenge the conventional view of theft as a reward-seeking behavior, revealing that an abnormally inflated fear of monetary loss may play a role in recurrent stealing in kleptomania. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTTheft-related crimes, such as shoplifting, constitute a serious social issue that results in significant economic losses. However, little is known about the neurobehavioral mechanisms underlying theft actions. This study found that individuals who repeatedly steal due to kleptomania exhibited excessive loss aversion, making them hypersensitive to price fluctuations when purchasing goods. Furthermore, the study revealed a potential link between this excessive loss aversion and an imbalance in left and right prefrontal cortical activity. These findings suggest that some cases of habitual thieves stem from altered behavioral economic characteristics that differ significantly from the conventional image of theft driven by the pursuit of profit.