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Treasure Box Funding for Julie Poirier (A16)

Julie Poirier had just finished her master’s thesis when she already got the okay for her job as a doctoral student in subproject A16, and now she is not even registered at university in Bochum, but already has her first treasure chest grant in her pocket. Congrats!

While her project, A16, examines infants Julie experienced during the testing session once more how difficult it is to get the babies’ attention for the test duration. For the investigation of older children or even teenagers there was no agenda yet, and that has kept her busy. Together with a graphic designer friend, she now realizes an idea how a wide range of ages can be won for her tests! They are building a scientific pinball machine, a behavioural study box that the test persons will really enjoy. Julie explains her idea like this:

Title: “Candy Mountain Treasure Hunt – Assessing Appetitive Extinction in Human Childhood and Adolescence”
For most pupils, learning seems easy, forgetting sometimes much more difficult. During extinction learning, information is not just simply deleted in the brain – but what happens instead? To assess the mechanisms and the development of extinction learning during childhood, an appetitive operant conditioning paradigm, the “Candy Mountain Treasure Hunt”, was designed. It allows the examination of acquisition, extinction and renewal in children using a “Skinner Box”, typically utilized in animal studies, which was modified to fit children’s interests. The box will be manufactured in a mechanistic way to enable a real-life experience and to further validate the virtual Balloon Popping Task (adapted from Happaney & Zelazo, 2004) used in the subproject 16 studies. Furthermore, applying the task in children aged four to six we will be able to extend the preconceived age range in the A16 project, thus covering another critical, sensitive period during human development. Moreover, the box allows the establishment of a methodological link towards animal studies such as in pigeons and rodents, leading to enhanced translation of results between the human and animal domains. Overall, the box itself and the related self-reliant paradigm will enable the author to gain important additional insight to extinction learning and underlying behavioral processes in children. In future studies, the box can be applied in older children and adolescents as well to cover further important developmental periods.

To the best of my knowledge, there are currently no studies on appetitive extinction in adolescenct humans. Despite the general lack of studies on appetitive extinction in human adolescents, leastwise some evidence has emerged from studies in rodents: Kim et al. (2011) conducted a study assessing changes in adolescent rats by examining conditioned fear extinction. Adolescent rats exhibited an almost complete failure to maintain extinguished behavior thus showing heightened renewal as compared to preadolescent and adult rats. We want to transfer this finding into the animal domain to examine whether this U-shaped extinction learning curve proves true in human children and adolescents as well.

Happaney, K., & Zelazo, P. D. (2004). Resistance to extinction: A measure of orbitofrontal function suitable for children? Brain and Cognition, 55(1): 171–184. doi:10.1016/S0278-2626(03)00270-7

Kim, J. H., Li, S., & Richardson, R. (2011). Immunohistochemical analyses of long-term extinction of conditioned fear in adolescent rats. Cerebral cortex, 21(3): 530–538. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhq116

 

 

The SFB 1280 has set up a budget for the realization of its young researchers’ own research ideas. With the “treasure chest” we finance convincing and independent study concepts of young scientists.

New Year, New Me: The Facts

As the calendar turns to a new year, millions of people around the world commit to New Year’s resolutions, making promises to use the new year as a fresh beginning and an opportunity for transformation. In 2024, almost three-quarters of the British population set themselves New Year’s resolutions — that’s around 40 million people (or the entire population of Canada). This tradition was particularly strong among younger generations, with 96% of Generation Z (aged 18-27) planning resolutions, compared to just 35% of the Silent Generation (aged 79+).

Most common new years resolutions:

  1. Saving more money (52%)
  2. Eat healthier (50%)
  3. Exercise more (48%)
  4. Lose weight (37%)
  5. Spend more time with family/friends (35%)

How long do most resolutions normally last before being broken?

  • Data from America (2016) shows that 75% of individuals maintain their resolutions through the first week. 
  • 64% of individuals maintain their resolutions through the first month. 
  • 46% of individuals in America keep their resolutions past the 6-month mark.

What makes resolutions stick?

Oscarsson et al. (2020) conducted research into what makes New Year’s resolutions stick. Biggest success rates depended on how people phrased their goals. Participants who set approach-oriented goals (trying to move toward or maintain a desirable outcome or state) than those with avoidance-oriented goals (trying to move toward or maintain a desirable outcome or state) were significantly more successful (58.9% vs. 47.1%) at sticking to their goals.

The study also investigates the effects of outside support. These participants received monthly follow-ups and emails with information and exercises for coping with hurdles when striving toward personal goals, and were also encouraged to set goals using the SMART technique and to set interim goals. The group that received some support was exclusively and significantly more successful compared to the groups who received a lot of support or no support at all. 

Additionally, you might feel more successful if you set goals that are measurable in numbers. While success for a person striving to quit smoking or lose weight could easily be measured in the number of cigarettes smoked or body mass index, the success for a person striving to “take better care of themselves” could be highly subjective and possibly impossible to measure.

So as we enter 2026, let’s remember to work with our brain’s natural learning system: Frame your goals positively, break them into manageable steps, and celebrate small wins along the way.