<p>When developing the driver interface in their trucks, Scania is highly concerned with creating a certain feeling. When pressing a push-button this Scania feeling shall be perceived. It is not obvious what the Scania feeling really is and there is no predefined method to create it. This Master Thesis takes aim at providing the means to improve the process of creating this feeling.</p><p>First, the Scania feeling was studied via the results of an already made survey at Scania. This survey focused on subjective properties of push-buttons, rotary knobs and levers and related the properties to whether these objects had a Scania feeling or not. This existing data was analyzed statistically. The main task of this Master Thesis, however, was to create an environment where the feeling of a push-button could be tried out and described. This environment was created with a tool from Reachin Technologies AB. The environment is a virtual representation of a push-button module, created with computer haptics and graphics. The environment lets the user interact with a three dimensional view collocated with a force feedback device. The force feedback device lets the user feel what is seen through a pen like interface. The “tip” of the pen is used to touch what is seen in the 3D view. The virtual push-buttons was built from blueprints of real push-buttons to be able to evaluate to what extent the virtual buttons resembled the real ones.</p><p>The statistical analysis made in this project does not support the notion of describing the Scania feeling with a set of subjective values. The virtual environment created proved to be very life like. The real push-button feeling could be recreated with high precision. When evaluated, the majority of test persons argued that it could be used in the development process.</p>

When developing the driver interface in their trucks, Scania is highly concerned with creating a certain feeling. When pressing a push-button this Scania feeling shall be perceived. It is not obvious what the Scania feeling really is and there is no predefined method to create it. This Master Thesis takes aim at providing the means to improve the process of creating this feeling. First, the Scania feeling was studied via the results of an already made survey at Scania. This survey focused on subjective properties of push-buttons, rotary knobs and levers and related the properties to whether these objects had a Scania feeling or not. This existing data was analyzed statistically. The main task of this Master Thesis, however, was to create an environment where the feeling of a push-button could be tried out and described. This environment was created with a tool from Reachin Technologies AB. The environment is a virtual representation of a push-button module, created with computer haptics and graphics. The environment lets the user interact with a three dimensional view collocated with a force feedback device. The force feedback device lets the user feel what is seen through a pen like interface. The “tip” of the pen is used to touch what is seen in the 3D view. The virtual push-buttons was built from blueprints of real push-buttons to be able to evaluate to what extent the virtual buttons resembled the real ones. The statistical analysis made in this project does not support the notion of describing the Scania feeling with a set of subjective values. The virtual environment created proved to be very life like. The real push-button feeling could be recreated with high precision. When evaluated, the majority of test persons argued that it could be used in the development process.

The purpose with this study is to enhance the understanding of how a companies in the ICT industry can increase customer value in the new environment enabled by 5G. Furthermore, the study concretizes the interactions and experiences between different actors on the market, with focus on the subjective values, or as we call them, the non-functional differentiators. To be able to fulfil the purpose, the study explored the routines regarding the non-functional differentiators in the environment of 5G. In order to conduct this study, an exploratory research with an inductive qualitative approach was used. A single case-study design was chosen on the company of Ericsson. In total 25 interviews were held within five different business areas at Ericsson. The interviews were of semi-structured character and the data was analysed through a thematic analysis. The findings from the study revealed five different themes. The first two represent the new ecosystem with the key actors and the new environment. The next two themes illustrate the most important routines in this new environment. Lastly, the findings present the importance of relationship experience and which of the non-functional differentiators that has the most impact. The study has enhanced the understanding of how customer value could be increased by identifying the routines of the interactions between different actors and how they should be acclimatized in the new environment. This study contributes to the literature regarding the environment of the ecosystem, the routines of the co-creation process and experiences of the relationship in it. Furthermore, the study concretizes the routines in the co-creation process which will assist the managers in their work of generating customer value. However, the study is limited due its single case-study were only one of the key-actors was investigated. A suggestion for future research is to do a multi-case study, which includes the perspectives of not just one key-actor, but the other key-actors as well, i.e. Ericsson’s customers. An approach like this could validate our findings and thereby ensure the findings transferability.

Les mécanismes cérébraux engagés dans la prise de décision sont loin d’être compris. Ils peuvent cependant être décomposés en plusieurs étapes : il s’agit premièrement d’assigner une « valeur » aux options considérées, c’est-à-dire une quantification subjective du désir d’obtenir chacune d’entre elles. Ensuite, il faut les comparer afin d’être capable de sélectionner celle qui a la plus grande valeur. L’assignation d’une valeur à un objet semble être effectuée par un réseau cérébral qui recoupe le réseau de la récompense identifié chez l’animal et il a été logiquement nommé le « système cérébral des valeurs ». Le travail réalisé dans cette thèse s’intéresse à la notion de valeur et aux moyens d’y avoir accès, aux propriétés du réseau cérébral d’évaluation et à son implication dans le processus de décision. La première étude a montré que les moyens utilisés pour mesurer les valeurs pouvaient être considérés comme équivalents. La deuxième étude, réalisée sur des données d’intra-électroencéphalographie humaine, a permis d’étudier la dynamique neurale du réseau cérébral d’évaluation, mais aussi d’étudier ses propriétés. La dernière expérience, faite en IRMf propose une solution générale sur l’implémentation neurale du processus de décision et révèle des mécanismes sources de biais dans le comportement jusqu’ici inexplorés. Les résultats de ces études considérés dans leur ensemble mettent en lumière certains mécanismes cognitifs de la prise de décision en explorant les propriétés neurales d’assignation de valeurs mais également en proposant un nouveau cadre d’implémentation de la décision elle-même. / Neural processes engaged in decision-making remain unclear. A decomposition of these processes might help us to understand the involved mechanisms. Indeed, first we need to assign what we will call a ‘subjective value’ to each option – i.e. the quantification of how much we like each of these options. Then, we need to compare those values to finally being able to select one of them. Assigning a value seems to be the function of an interesting brain network which overlaps the reward circuitry identified in animal studies – and which is called the Brain Valuation System (BVS). In the first study of this PhD thesis, we investigated and compared three behavioral ways to have an access to these ‘subjective values’. We found that subjective values were relatively robust to the way they were elicited. In the second study, we investigated the specific properties of the Brain Valuation System established through fMRI in humans in a large dataset of intra-EEG recordings in epileptic patients. Finally, in the last study we investigated how this brain network was involved during a binary choice in fMRI. Altogether, our findings shed light on the distinct cognitive mechanisms underlying value-based decision-making i) by exploring the neural properties of value assignment and ii) by proposing a general solution to the neural implementation of the comparison between option values. We believe this demonstration points to hidden default policies as sources of bias in choices.

In our daily lives, we encounter a multitude of emotional challenges in various contexts, necessitating the use of diverse emotion regulation strategies for adaptive responses (Aldao et al., 2015; Bonanno and Burton, 2013). These strategies require cognitive control, making them cognitively demanding processes (Gross, 2015b; Ochsner et al., 2012). Yet, it remains unknown whether different strategies impose different levels of cognitive effort. This thesis aims to address this gap in the literature by conducting a comparative analysis of the cognitive effort required for specific emotion regulation strategies. Our research takes a comprehensive approach to evaluating effort, utilizing physiological and subjective measures. In the field of emotion regulation choice, the role of effort remains less explored. We seek to deepen the understanding by not only investigating the self-reported reasons behind participants’ choice behaviour, but also by employing rigorous statistical analyses to identify the factors that influence these choices. Prior studies on the determinants of emotion regulation choice have faced certain limitations. While some determinants favouring specific strategies have been identified, there is a lack of information regarding the strategies that are not chosen. Additionally, it is unclear to what extent individuals prefer their chosen strategy over other available options. These issues can be addressed by assigning subjective values to all choice options, as these values are central to the decisionmaking process. This thesis has developed and validated a novel paradigm that measures the individual subjective values associated with emotion regulation strategies. We not only examined whether these values can effectively predict actual choice behaviour, but also delved into the variables that predict these subjective values, offering a holistic perspective on the complex interplay between cognitive effort and emotion regulation choice. To enhance comprehension on the impact of cognitive effort on emotion regulation, Study 1 and Study 2 aimed to compare the necessary effort between the two emotion regulation strategies distancing and expressive suppression. To our knowledge, this was the first work striving to comprehensively examine effort during emotion regulation by assessing it through various means. Two studies were carried out to examine the impact of cognitive effort on emotion regulation choice. Specifically, it was explored whether decision-making behaviour is more influenced by the cognitive effort required to implement the strategy or the effectiveness of the strategy. To answer these research questions, cognitive effort and effectiveness of distancing and suppression were quantified through subjective (ratings) and physiological (pupillometry, heart rate) measures. To explore choice behaviour, participants were instructed to finally employ either of the strategies again. Our findings highlight that the strategies did not differ substantially in terms of physiological effort, yet they did exhibit substantial disparities in the subjectively perceived effort. These differences between strategies also manifested in their choice behaviour: Two thirds of the participants opted for suppression once again, despite its lower effectiveness. Participants cited lower effort as the reason for their choice. By measuring effort through various means, these two studies provide a comprehensive understanding of the cognitive effort involved in emotion regulation. Furthermore, the results on the determinants of emotion regulation choice not only enrich research, but also provide starting points for practical applications. Paradigms commonly employed in emotion regulation choice research - as in Study 1 and Study 2 - suffer from a drawback as they entail a loss of information, providing only binary data concerning whether or not a strategy was chosen. However, it is unclear to what extent the favoured strategy was preferred compared to the alternative options. In Study 3, a registered report, the objective was to develop a novel paradigm to determine the subjective values attributed to each emotion regulation strategy at hand. The cognitive effort discounting paradigm by Westbrook et al. (2013) provided the foundation, but was developed and extended further. Participants completed an emotion regulation paradigm whereby they were prompted to employ three strategies - distraction, distancing, and expressive suppression. Next, we conducted our novel discounting paradigm to determine the subjective value of each strategy. In our study, we were not only able to show that subjective values predict subsequent choice behaviour, but that, in addition to self-assessed utility, subjective effort in particular was predictive of subjective values. Our innovative paradigm has extensive potential applications, even beyond the field of emotion regulation. By utilising this paradigm, it becomes feasible to ascertain subjective values of demand levels that lack any objective effort hierarchy. In summary, the present thesis makes an important contribution to deepen the understanding of the role of cognitive effort in emotion regulation and emotion regulation choice. Cognitive effort and regulatory success were comprehensively examined by assessing trait measures (questionnaires), subjective ratings and peripheral physiological measures (pupillometry, electromyography, electrocardiogram). Our main finding, which could be replicated across three pre-registered studies, shows that the use of strategies is associated with different levels of subjective effort for individuals. This leads to the majority of individuals choosing the strategy that is associated with less effort for them, rather than the strategy that is more effective. Finally, the thesis outlines a novel paradigm that enables the calculation of individual subjective values attributed to emotion regulation strategies. This facilitates a more comprehensive evaluation of the determinants of emotion regulation choice, as well as the strength of their preference for such strategies. Thus, it adds to the expanding literature on the field of emotion regulation flexibility by presenting starting points for assessing individuals’ flexibility and adaptability.:Contents Summary Preface 1. Theoretical Background 1.1. Fundamentals of emotions and emotion regulation 1.1.1. Emotions 1.1.2. Emotion regulation 1.2. The cognitive control of emotions 1.2.1. Cognitive control and cognitive effort 1.2.2. Cognitive effort and emotion regulation 1.3. Peripheral physiological consequences of intentional emotion regulation 1.4. Flexible emotion regulation 1.4.1. The extended process model of emotion regulation 1.5. Emotion regulation choice 1.5.1. A conceptual framework of emotion regulation choice 1.5.2. Determinants of emotion regulation choice 2. Scope of the thesis and study overview 3. Effort beats effectiveness in emotion regulation choice: Differences between suppression and distancing in subjective and physiological measures (Study 1 and 2) 3.1. Theoretical Background 3.1.1. Effort and emotion regulation 3.1.2. The present study 3.2. Study 1 3.2.1. Method 3.2.2. Results 3.3. Study 2 3.3.1. Method 3.3.2. Results 3.4. Exploratory analyses 3.4.1. Statistics 3.4.2. Results 3.5. Discussion 3.5.1. Effort plays a crucial role in the selection of an ER strategy 3.5.2. Individual differences in personality traits do not explain individual differences in arousal and effort 3.5.3. Subjective arousal and effort are not reflected in physiological arousal and effort 3.6. Limitations 3.7. Conclusion 4. Estimating individual subjective values of emotion regulation strategies 4.1. Introduction 4.2. Method 4.2.1. Ethics information 4.2.2. Pilot data 4.2.3. Design 4.2.4. Sampling plan 4.2.5. Analysis plan 4.3. Results 4.3.1. Participants and descriptive statistics 4.3.2. Confirmatory analyses 4.3.3. Exploratory analyses 4.4. Discussion 4.4.1. Ecological validity of subjective values of emotion regulation strategies 4.4.2. Trait character of subjective values 4.4.3. Limitations 4.4.4. Conclusion 5. General Discussion 5.1. Summary of results 5.2. The role of cognitive effort in emotion regulation 5.2.1. Effects of effort in the selection stage 5.2.2. Effects of effort in the implementation stage 5.2.3. Post-regulation effects of effort 5.3. Regulatory goals in emotion regulation 5.3.1. The interaction of regulatory goals and cognitive effort 5.4. Individual subjective values of choice options 5.4.1. Factors influencing subjective values 5.4.2. Subjective values: States or traits? 5.5. Methodological considerations 5.5.1. Experimental design 5.5.2. Assessment of physiological effort and arousal 5.6. Future directions 5.7. Conclusion References Appendix A. Supplementary Information Study 1 and Study 2 Appendix B. Supplementary Information Study 3 List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations Erklärung