Diana Castilla

Background: Using a foreign language can influence emotion modulation, but whether different psychotherapy processes would be affected by a foreign language is still unclear. The current study explored the foreign language effect on the extinction of fear. Method: During the conditioning phase, part of the neutral stimuli presented to the participants were associated with a threat, while they performed a countdown task in their native language. In the extinction phase, participants performed the same task either in their native/foreign language and were informed that the threat would no longer appear. We collected self-reports of fear, and pupil dilation and electrodermal activity as physiological measures of arousal. Results: Extinction was successful, indicated by greater self-reported fear and pupil dilation during the threat condition compared to neutral in the conditioning phase, but no significant differences during extinction. Although the foreign language group presented higher arousal, fear extinction occurred regardless of the linguistic context. Conclusions: Fear extinction via verbal instructions is equally effective in a foreign and a native language context. These results indicate that evidence should be continue to be gathered on the role of foreign languages using basic paradigms with clinical applications.

According to the principles of positive psychology (PP), social learning, therapeutic robotics and mood induction procedures (MIPs), we have developed an application to be used as part of a positive MIP in a psychological treatment context. We have used the inexpensive humanoid robot Nao because of its ease of use, which allows the proper interaction with therapists to help them on a regular basis. Our hypothesis is that a rich body language set can compensate the lack of facial expressions in such robots. We run a pilot study in the context of cognitive behavioral therapy for the treatment of Fibromyalgia. This work introduces a new way to contribute to MIPs and to the human-robot interaction (HRI).

Resumen: La poblacion actual esta cada vez mas envejecida, sin embargo tan solo un 4% de las personas de la tercera edad son usuarios de Internet, poniendo este dato de manifiesto la necesidad de tomar acciones que ayuden romper con la barrera digital que existe actualmente. La tesis doctoral que nos ocupa se enmarca dentro de la Psicologia Experimental, y mas concretamente en el campo de la ergonomia cognitiva y la usabilidad. Esta tesis tiene como objetivo principal disenar, evaluar y someter a prueba en poblacion real, un sistema basado en tecnologia Web para la tercera edad, que incluya los servicios mas populares integrados en una sola plataforma y que se adapte a las necesidades especificas de este grupo de poblacion, para que pueda ser utilizado por diferentes perfiles de usuarios (incluidos aquellos con baja habilidad tecnologica), de forma autonoma, sin entrenamiento previo y sin una figura de soporte permanente. El objetivo es que el propio sistema entrene a los usuarios de la tercera edad, y les permita una aproximacion a las TICs, adaptando el sistema a su modelo mental y su experiencia previa con el consumo de informacion tradicional. La tesis se estructura en un marco teorico y un marco experimental. El marco teorico revisa y expone los estudios sobre el tema de la tesis doctoral. El marco experimental, esta dividido en 4 estudios que presentan de forma secuencial los distintos trabajos realizados a lo largo del desarrollo del sistema. La estructura del marco experimental sigue el proceso del metodo cientifico: formulacion de los objetivos e hipotesis, diseno del estudio experimental, recogida y analisis de los datos, interpretacion y discusion de los resultados y obtencion de las conclusiones. Las conclusiones de esta tesis doctoral constituyen una contribucion al proceso de diseno de sistemas tecnologicos para la tercera edad a dos niveles: a nivel teorico, la aportacion fundamental de este trabajo es haber demostrado la importancia que tiene la variable navegacion en los sistemas orientados a la tercera edad, demostrando nuestros datos que la navegacion lineal es la mas adecuada para este tipo de usuarios. A nivel empirico constituye una vision integradora de las distintas perspectivas existentes, que han ido encajando en los diferentes momentos de desarrollo. El proceso de desarrollo completo, permite obtener una vision multidimensional del significado que la usabilidad tiene cuando nos referimos a usuarios de la tercera edad, entendiendo de este modo que todos los estudios revisados, aportan informacion sustancial para solucionar el problema que supone la tecnologia para este grupo de edad, pero que por separado, resultan insuficientes. Resenas bibliograficas: Castilla, D., Garcia-Palacios, A., Breton-Lopez, J., Miralles, I., Farfallini, L., Botella, C., Banos, R. M., Etchemendy, E. (2013). Process of design and usability evaluation of a telepsychology Web and virtual reality system for the elderly: Butler. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 71(3), 350-362. Botella, C., Etchemendy, E., Castilla, D., Banos, R. M., Garcia-Palacios, A., Quero, S., Alcaniz, M., Lozano, J. A. (2009). An e-Health System for the Elderly (Butler Project): A Pilot Study on Acceptance and Satisfaction. Cyberpsychology and Behavior, 12(3), 255-262. Preschl, B., Maercker, A., Wagner, B., Forstmeier, S., Ban?os, R. M., Alcan?iz, M., Castilla, D., ... Botella, C. (2012). Life-review therapy with computer supplements for depression in the elderly: a randomized controlled trial. Aging & Mental Health, 16(8), 964-974. Etchemendy, E., R.M. Banos, C. Botella, D. Castilla, M. Alcaniz, P. Rasal, and L. Farfallini. 2011. "An e-health platform for the elderly population: The butler system". Computers & Education, 56(1): 275-279. Lozano, JA; Alcaniz, M; Botella, C; Castilla, D; Juan, MC; de la Vega, NL; Llorca, G; Garcia-Palacios, A; Quero, S; Banos, R. (2006) Butler Project: A cognitive and emotional tele-assistance system for ederly people. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 9(6), 696-697. Etchemendy,E, Banos,R , Botella, C y Castilla, D. (2010). Programa de revision de vida apoyado en las nuevas tecnologias para las personas mayores: Una aplicacion de tecnologias positivas. Escritos de Psicologia (Internet). Botella, C., Banos, R. M., Etchemendy, E., Castilla, D., Garcia-Palacios, A., & Mariano, A. (2012). An E-Health System for Promoting Wellbeing in the Elderly: The Butler System. En A. Smedberg (Ed.), E-Health Communities and Online Self-Help Groups: Applications and Usage (pp. 57-71). Hershey, PA: Medical Information Science DOI:10.4018/978-1-60960-866-8.ch004 Descriptores ? Psicologia Experimental ? Ergonomia Cognitiva ? Usabilidad

DD Schmorrow, LM Reeves (Eds.): Augmented Cognition, HCII 2007, LNAI 4565, pp. 258–265, 2007. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007 ... EMMA: An Adaptive Display for Virtual Therapy ... Mariano Alcañiz1, Cristina Botella3, Beatriz Rey1, Rosa Baños4, Jose ...

El uso de las nuevas tecnologias y, en concreto, la difusion de internet ha sido de gran relevancia en el ambito academico. Junto a esto, el fomento de la independencia y la autonomia por parte del alumno han sugerido propuestas de metodologias docentes novedosas e innovadoras. Entre ellas, destaca la puesta en marcha de proyectos que, mediante internet, permitan una docencia no presencial que aporta una serie de ventajas tanto al estudiante como al profesorado. En este marco se engloba el objetivo principal del presente proyecto que persigue el desarrollo de un software para la aplicacion de una practica de aula no presencial de la asignatura I56 Tecnicas de Intervencion y Tratamiento Psicologicod e la licenciatura de Psicologia. Los resultados obtenidos mediante la puesta en marcha de esta practica en el curso 2008-2009 confirman los ya recogidos en proyectos anteriores. Esto es, una idoneidad de la metodologia empleada asi como la satisfaccion y valoracion positiva por parte de los estudiantes de la misma. Por ultimo, se plantea la necesidad de continuar con propuestas de este tipo que acerquen al estudiante universitario a metodologias docentes propias del Espacio de Educacion Europea.

The way monitoring is performed in health settings in general and chronic pain in particular is mostly based on traditional, episodic, onsite evaluation. This assessment method has important limitations and might be negatively impacting the effectiveness of treatments by providing non-ecological, delayed, and retrospective information about the patients’ course over treatment. This pilot study explores the feasibility and discusses the utility of using technology (i.e., a smartphone app) for daily ecological momentary assessment of chronic pain patients. Twelve individuals attending a specialized pain clinic used the app twice daily for a month. Alarms were sent to the physicians in the presence of unwanted events (i.e., side effects). Feasibility was evidenced by excellent response rates in the patients (>80%) and the physicians (>93% of alarms were responded to). Utility of daily monitoring was evidenced when graphically representing patients’ responses, in which the fluctuation of pain within and across days evidences the need for daily assessment. The utility of alarms will also be discussed, considering the number of alarms received (i.e., 96), which would have remained undetected or belatedly detected with traditional assessment. The study evidences the utility and feasibility of EMA using apps both from the patients’ and the physicians’ perspective. We believe these findings are not only important for pain settings, but also relevant for other health conditions.

Eye-tracking techniques are widely used to analyze user behavior. While eye-trackers collect valuable quantitative data, the results are often described in a qualitative manner due to the lack of a model that interprets the gaze trajectories generated by routine tasks, such as reading or comparing two products. The aim of this work is to propose a new quantitative way to analyze gaze trajectories (scanpaths) using machine learning. We conducted a within-subjects study (N = 30) testing six different tasks that simulated specific user behaviors in web sites (attentional, comparing two images, reading in different contexts, and free surfing). We evaluated the scanpath results with three different classifiers (long short-term memory recurrent neural network—LSTM, random forest, and multilayer perceptron neural network—MLP) to discriminate between tasks. The results revealed that it is possible to classify and distinguish between the 6 different web behaviors proposed in this study based...

Introduction. Time devoted to the supervision of the academic tasks by the teachers in the School of Psychology in the Universidad de Zaragoza is very high. The main reasons are the important deficiencies of the students in some general competencies: a) information seeking in scientific sources, b) analysis and synthesis of information, and c) writing scientific papers according to academic standards. Goals. The goals of the present innovation project are: 1) To use an e-learning methodology for the improvement of the teaching-learning process of the academic standards for written tasks, 2) to generate innovative teaching materials that facilitate the learning-teaching process of those standards, 3) to reduce the required time for the teachers in the review of the academic deliveries due to format errors, redaction (plagiarism and APA style) or their structure. Method. Professors participating in this project will develop a set of short tutorials (Power points with audio) including ...

Gambling Disorder is a prevalent non-substance use disorder, which contrasts with the low number of people requesting treatment. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) could help to enhance the dissemination of evidence-based treatments and considerably reduce the costs. The current study seeks to assess the efficacy of an online psychological intervention for people suffering from gambling problems in Spain. The proposed study will be a two-arm, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial. A total of 134 participants (problem and pathological gamblers) will be randomly allocated to a waiting list control group (N = 67) or an intervention group (N = 67). The intervention program includes 8 modules, and it is based on motivational interviewing, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and extensions and innovations of CBT. It includes several complementary tools that are present throughout the entire intervention. Therapeutic support will be provided once a week through a phone call with a maximum length of 10 min. The primary outcome measure will be gambling severity and gambling-related cognitions, and secondary outcome measures will be readiness to change, and gambling self-efficacy. Other variables that will be considered are depression and anxiety symptoms, positive and negative affect, difficulties in emotion regulation strategies, impulsivity, and quality of life. Individuals will be assessed at baseline, post-treatment, and 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-ups. During the treatment, participants will also respond to a daily Ecological Momentary Intervention (EMI) in order to evaluate urges to gamble, self-efficacy to cope with gambling urges, gambling urge frequency, and whether gambling behaviour occurs. The EMI includes immediate automatic feedback depending on the participant's responses. Treatment acceptance and satisfaction will also be assessed. The data will be analysed both per protocol and by Intention-to-treat. As far as we know, this is the first randomized controlled trial of an online psychological intervention for gambling disorder in Spain. It will expand our knowledge about treatments delivered via the Internet and contribute to improving treatment dissemination, reaching people suffering from this problem who otherwise would not receive help. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov as NCT04074681. Registered 22 July 2019.

Introduction Emotional disorders (anxiety and depressive disorders) are a relevant public health concern associated with high prevalence, high costs, and important disability. Therefore, research priorities include designing and testing cost-effective interventions to reach everyone in need. Internet-delivered interventions for emotional disorders are effective and can help to disseminate and implement evidence-based treatments. However, although these treatments are generally effective, not all patients benefit from this treatment format equally. Blended treatments are a new form of intervention that combines the strengths of face-to-face and Internet approaches. Nevertheless, research on blended interventions has focused primarily on individual therapy, and less attention has been paid to the potential of using this format in group psychotherapy. This study aims to analyze the feasibility of blended transdiagnostic group CBT for emotional disorders. The current article describes the study protocol for this trial. Method and analysis A one-armed pilot trial will be conducted. Participants will be 30 adults suffering from DSM-5 anxiety and/or depressive disorders. The treatment consists of a blended transdiagnostic group intervention delivered during a period of 24 weeks. Groups of 6 to 10 patients will attend a total of eight 2-hour, face-to-face sessions, alternated with the use of an online platform where they will find the contents of the treatment protocol. The intervention has four core components: present-focused awareness, cognitive flexibility, identification and modification of behavioral and cognitive patterns of emotional avoidance, and interoceptive and situational exposure. These components are delivered in 16 modules. Assessments will be performed at baseline, during the treatment, at post-treatment, and at 3-month follow-up. Clinical and treatment acceptability outcomes will be included. Quantitative and qualitative data (participants’ views about blended group psychotherapy) will be analyzed. Ethics and dissemination The trial has received ethical approval from the Ethics Committee of Universitat Jaume I (September 2019) and will be conducted in accordance with the study protocol, the Declaration of Helsinki, and good clinical practice. The results of this study will be disseminated by presentation at conferences and will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04008576. Registered 05 July 2019, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04008576