Guest lecture by Henk van Steenbergen: “Testing the role of incidental and integral arousal and pleasure on cognitive control”

On August 28 at 12:00 Henk van Steenbergen from Leiden University will give a guest lecture titled “Testing the role of incidental and integral arousal and pleasure on cognitive control”. Listeners are welcome to Näituse 2 room 102, Tartu.

In this talk, Van Steenbergen will highlight three recent studies from his lab that explored the effects of arousal, pleasant touch, and task difficulty on cognitive control. In the first study, it was examined whether alternating body postures between sitting and standing could enhance cognitive control. The results indicated that standing improved speed and cognitive performance in a flanker task, while also reducing both subjective and physiological effort costs. In the second study, it was investigated how pleasant touch, specifically slow C-tactile optimal stimulation of the forearm compared to a fast control condition, influences cognitive task performance. Slow C-tactile stimulation was associated with increased pleasure and generally improved performance, as well as a reduction in task-related corrugator activity, without affecting conflict control. In the third study, the researchers examined the impact of task difficulty on trial-by-trial adjustments in cognitive control across two online studies. They found non-linear effects of task difficulty on cognitive control, aligning with recent motivational frameworks of cognitive control. The implications of these findings will be discussed.

Henk van Steenbergen has been serving as an associate Professor in the Cognitive Psychology unit at Leiden University since 2022. He earned his BA in Philosophy of Psychology from Leiden University and graduated with honors, receiving an MPhil in Cognitive Neuroscience in 2007. He completed his PhD, also with honors, at the same institution in 2012, with a thesis titled “The Drive to Control: How Affect and Motivation Regulate Cognitive Control.” In 2012, he began his career as an assistant professor and founded the Affect, Motivation & Action Lab. Additionally, Van Steenbergen has worked as a visiting researcher at the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and at the Motivation Brain Behavior Lab at the Brain & Spine Institute in Paris, France.