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Fig. 3 | Trials

Fig. 3

From: Effects of the pattern of glucocorticoid replacement on neural processing, emotional reactivity and well-being in healthy male individuals: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Fig. 3

Tasks of controlled block design used during the functional neuroimaging protocol. a During the implicit facial expression processing task, individuals are exposed to alternating visual stimuli (pictures) consisting of 30-second blocks of human faces with a particular facial expression (fear -F- or happiness -H- or sadness -S). Each block corresponds to one kind of facial expression, where 10 different human faces, male or female, with the same facial expression are presented for 0.1 second with a 2.9-second inter-stimulus interval. Blocks are divided from each other by resting state periods (lasting 30 seconds). Each kind of block (F, H, S) is repeated four times. The paradigm starts and finishes with a resting state period. Participants are given a button box and explicitly instructed to press a corresponding button depending on whether the face they see each time is male or female (gender discrimination). Both accuracy and response time are recorded. b During the flashing checkerboard task, individuals are visually exposed to a flashing checkerboard (a checkerboard whose cells alternate between white and black colours with a frequency of 7.5 Hz) for 16 seconds followed by a resting period of 15 seconds before the next flashing checkerboard visual stimulation initiates. The resting period-flashing checkerboard alternation is repeated 10 times. Subjects are instructed to have their eyes open and look at the screen all the time

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