Threat and Uncertainty

Threatening environments are, by their very nature, unpredictable. Although we can speak about the fight or flight response, the hows, whys, and whens of fighting or fleeing vary dramatically across situations and over time. We are interested in how the mind, body, and brain handle these ever-changing demands. We have developed virtual worlds (The Underwood Project and Room 101) to simulate the dynamic nature of the threat response. We are also using real-world sampling techniques to explore threat responses in everyday life.

Relevant publications:

Hildebrandt, L. K., McCall, C., & Singer, T. (2018). Socio-affective versus socio-cognitive mental trainings differentially affect emotion regulation strategies. Emotion.

Hildebrandt, L. K., McCall, C., Engen, H. G., & Singer, T. (2016). Cognitive flexibility, heart rate variability, and resilience predict fine‐grained regulation of arousal during prolonged threat. Psychophysiology, 53(6), 880–890.

McCall, C., Hildebrandt, L. K., Hartmann, R., Baczkowski, B. M., & Singer, T. (2016). Introducing the Wunderkammer as a tool for emotion research: Unconstrained gaze and movement patterns in three emotionally evocative virtual worlds. Computers in Human Behavior, 59, 93–107.

McCall, C., Hildebrandt, L., Bornemann, B., & Singer, T. (2015). Physiophenomenology in Retrospect: Memory Reliably Reflects Physiological Arousal During a Prior Threatening Experience. Consciousness and Cognition, 38, 60–70.

Kane, H., McCall, C., Collins, N., & Blascovich, J.B. (2012). Mere presence is not enough: Responsive support in a virtual world. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,  48(1), 37–44.

McCall, C., Tipper, C., Blascovich, J., & Grafton, S.T. (2011). Attitudes Trigger Motor Behavior Through Conditioned Associations:  Neural and Behavioral Evidence. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7(7), 841–849.

McCall, C. & Blascovich, J. (2009) How, when, and why to use digital experimental virtual environments to study social behavior. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 3: 744–758.

McCall, C., Blascovich, J., Young, A, Persky, S. (2009) Using immersive virtual environments to measure proxemic behavior and to predict aggression. Social Influence, 4, 138–154.