Thèses sur le sujet « Social stimili »

Secondo il filosofo greco Aristotele "L'uomo è per natura un animale sociale". Dopo 2350 anni, oggi sappiamo che questa affermazione è solo parzialmente vera. Sebbene le evidenze sperimentali abbiano messo in luce una preferenza per gli stimoli e le interazioni sociali negli esseri umani, questa conclusione non sembra applicabile a tutti gli individui e contesti. L'elaborazione degli stimoli sociali può infatti essere influenzata da caratteristiche degli stimoli sociali e non sociali, presentati in competizione, nonché da caratteristiche inter-individuali. Tra quest'ultime, il Disturbo dello Spettro Autistico è sicuramente un esempio prototipico di atipicità nei comportamenti sociali e nella cognizione sociale. Il presente lavoro di tesi era rivolta a: i. indagare se gli stimoli sociali esercitano una priorità di elaborazione negli individui a sviluppo tipico (TD), anche quando presentati in competizione con altri stimoli non sociali fortemente rilevanti (denaro); ii. Indagare se e come gli individui con ASD rispondono a stimoli sociali vs non sociali rispetto agli individui TD, prendendo in esame un duplice livello di elaborazione, cognitivo e fisiologico; iii. Indagare se le differenze tra individui TD e ASD nell'elaborazione degli stimoli sociali e non sociali possano considerarsi l'espressione di un fenotipo familiare allargato; iv. Indagare la possibilità di modificare la salienza degli stimoli sociali negli individui con ASD attraverso una metodologia di apprendimento implicito ABMT (Attention Bias Modification Treatment). La presente tesi presenta tre implicazioni: teorica, metodologica e clinica. Per quanto riguarda le implicazioni teoriche, il presente lavoro supporta solo parzialmente l'affermazione di Aristotele. I risultati infatti hanno evidenziato chiaramente che, sebbene gli stimoli sociali abbiano solitamente un accesso prioritario agli step di elaborazione, la loro valenza può essere influenzata da una varietà di variabili come le differenze individuali (e.g., tratti autistici) o caratteristiche degli stimoli non sociali presentati in competizione quelli sociali (e.g., stimoli di alto interesse autistico per l'autismo). Altresì, i risultati sottolineano la necessità di considerare le diverse fasi dell'elaborazione dello stimolo (cognitivo vs fisiologico) nell'esame delle risposte cognitive e fisologiche a diverse tipologie di stimoli. Per quanto riguarda le implicazioni metodologiche, il presente lavoro suggerisce l'integrazione di tecniche tradizionali con tecniche computazionali più avanzate (es: Machine Learning o Deep Learning). Per quanto riguarda le implicazioni cliniche, questo lavoro ha fornito un esame circa le modalità di elaborazione degli stimoli sociali in bambini e adulti ASD, sia a livello attentivo che fisiologico. In secondo luogo, ha contribuito a far ulteriormente luce sul concetto di fenotipo autistico allargato, mostrando i limiti di questo concetto e l'ipotetico ruolo di variabili ambientali nel modulare il comportamento sociale nell'autismo.
According to the Greek philosopher Aristotle “Man is by nature a social animal”. After 2350 years, we know that this statement is partially true. Although experimental evidence has reported a preference for social stimuli and social interactions in human beings, this conclusion does not apply to every individuals and contexts. Social stimuli processing can indeed be affected by stimuli and competitive non-social stimuli features as well as by inter-individual characteristics. Among the clinical conditions characterized by atypicality in social behaviours and social cognition (e.g., schizophrenia, personality disorders etc.), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the most prototypical example. The present dissertation was aimed at: i. investigating whether social stimuli are prioritized by typically developed individuals (TD) even when they attentively compete with other relevant non-social stimuli (money); ii. Investigating whether and how individuals with ASD differently respond to social vs non-social stimuli compared to TD individuals, by considering both a cognitive and a physiological level of processing; iii. Investigating whether the differences between TD and ASD individuals in social vs nonsocial stimuli processing are the expression of a familiar phenotype; iv. Investigating whether it is possible to modify the salience of social stimuli in ASD individuals through an Attention Bias Modification Treatment (ABMT) methodology. The present dissertation is expected to provide three main implications: theoretical, methodological and clinical. As concerns the theoretical implications, the present work only partially supports Aristotle statement mentioned in the introduction. Indeed, the reported findings have clearly highlighted that, although social stimuli are usually prioritized, their valence may be affected by a variety of variables such as individual differences (e.g., autistic traits) or characteristics of the non-social stimuli presented in competition with the social ones (e.g., High Autism Interest stimuli). Finally, results stress the importance of considering the different stages of stimulus processing (i.e., cognitive vs physiological) when examining human responses to social vs non-social stimuli. As regards the methodological implications, the present work provides important hints for future research on social vs non-social stimuli processing with TD and atypical development populations, by suggesting the integration of traditional techniques with more advanced computational techniques (i.e., Machine Learning). As concern the clinical implications, this work has provided a rich examination of how children and adults of ASD children process social and non-social stimuli both at an attentional level and at a physiological level. Secondly, it has contributed to further shedding light on the concept of BAP, by showing its limitations and the role played by environmental variables in shaping the parents of ASD children’s behavioral responses.

Los trastornos de ansiedad constituyen un reto para la psiquiatría y la psicología clínica. Cerca de un 30% de la población sufre, o ha sufrido, uno o más trastornos de ansiedad a lo largo de su vida, siendo dicho grupo de trastornos el más frecuente dentro del DSM-IV. Las aproximaciones teóricas basadas en los modelos de aprendizaje aversivo han ocupado un lugar muy importante entre los modelos etiológicos de dichos trastornos. A pesar de que el condicionamiento del miedo es un proceso adaptativo y de gran importancia para la supervivencia, puede acabar convirtiéndose en clínicamente relevante cuando la reactividad al Estímulo Condicionado (EC) persiste en ausencia de contingencia entre el EC y el Estímulo Incondicionado (EI). Mediante procesos de condicionamiento clásico aversivo pueda aparecer un trastorno de ansiedad durante o después de un acontecimiento traumático o en un período de estrés significativo. Sin embargo, no todas las personas expuestas a este tipo de sucesos acaban desarrollando un trastorno. Algunos estudios han demostrado un mayor condicionamiento y una mayor resistencia a la extinción en pacientes ansiosos comparados con controles sanos sugiriendo que pacientes con trastornos de ansiedad se caracterizan por una elevada condicionabilidad y que ésta es una de las razones por las que, en situaciones de exposición a incidentes aversivos, sólo algunos individuos desarrollan miedos patológicos, mientras que otros muestran una respuesta adaptativa de miedo. La mayoría de estudios han utilizado el reflejo de sobresalto como índice de procesamiento afectivo. Consiste en una respuesta defensiva súbita que presentan muchas especies animales ante un estímulo intenso e inesperado. En humanos, puede ser medido de forma bastante sencilla registrando la respuesta electromiográfica en el músculo orbicularis oculi. El incremento del reflejo de sobresalto cuando un individuo está experimentando un estado de miedo o ansiedad se denomina reflejo de sobresalto potenciado por miedo. Durante los últimos años, éste se ha convertido en una herramienta de gran utilidad para la investigación traslacional de los trastornos de ansiedad. La mayor parte de los trabajos han utilizado estímulos evolutivamente poco “preparados” y algunos no han demostrado mayor condicionabilidad en pacientes con trastornos de ansiedad. Esto nos alerta de la necesidad de emplear paradigmas que contemplen estímulos incondicionados más relevantes para el trastorno objeto de estudio. Por tanto, el objetivo general del presente proyecto fue investigar el papel del condicionamiento aversivo de estímulos socialmente relevantes como factor específico de vulnerabilidad a la fobia social, utilizando el reflejo de sobresalto en pacientes con fobia social respecto a pacientes con trastorno de pánico con agorafobia y controles sanos. Para llevarlo a cabo, se empleó un paradigma de condicionamiento diferencial desarrollado por Lissek et al. (2008) en el que imágenes de personas con una expresión facial neutra (EC) se aparearon con tres tipos de estímulos visuales/auditivos: insultos y expresiones faciales de crítica (EIneg); comentarios y expresiones faciales neutras (EIneu); y cumplidos y expresiones faciales positivas (EIpos). Los resultados del presente trabajo no demostraron una mayor condicionabilidad en pacientes con fobia social respecto a pacientes con trastorno de pánico con agorafobia y controles sanos. Es posible que otros procesos tanto asociativos (por ejemplo, extinción del miedo) como no asociativos (por ejemplo, procesos cognitivos y atencionales) tengan un papel más importante en la fobia social que un mayor condicionamiento.
Anxiety disorders represent a challenge for psychiatry and clinical psychology. Near 30 % of the population suffers, or has suffered, one or more anxiety disorder along his life, being this disorder the most frequent group of them inside the DSM-IV. The theoretical approximations based on aversive learning models have occupied traditionally a very important place among the etiological models of these disorders. Despite the fact that fear conditioning is an adaptative process of great importance for survival, it can turn into clinical relevant when the reactivity to the Conditioned Stimulus (CS) persists in absence of contingency between the CS and the Unconditioned Stimulus (US). By means of classical fear conditioning processes, an anxiety disorder could appear during or after a traumatic event or in a period of significant stress. Nevertheless, not all the persons exposed to this type of events end up developing a disorder. Some studies have demonstrated that patients with anxiety disorders are characterized by a high conditionability and resistance to extinction in anxiety patients compared to healthy controls suggesting that patients are characterized by en enhanced conditioning and that this is one of the reasons for which, in situations of exhibition to aversive incidents, only some individuals go on to develop pathological fears, whereas others show an adaptative response of fear. Many of these studies have use the startle reflex as an index of emotional activation. It consists of a defensive sudden response that many animal species present in presence of an intense and unexpected stimulus. In humans, it can be measured very simply by registering the electromyographic response in the orbicularis oculi muscle. The increase of the startle reflex when an individual is experiencing fear or anxiety is named fear potentiated startle. During the last years, it has been converted into a very useful tool for traslational investigation of anxiety disorders. Up to recent dates, most of the published studies with humans using classical conditioning paradigms have used evolutionarily “unprepared” stimuli to be conditioned, and many have not demonstrated an enhanced conditioning in anxiety patients. This alerts us of the importance to use paradigms that take into account unconditioned stimuli relevant to the disorder object of study. The overall goal of the present dissertation was to investigate fear conditioning processes in social anxiety using the fear potentiated startle in patients with social anxiety compared to patients with panic disorder with agoraphobia and healthy controls. To address this goal, we used a novel paradigm developed by Lissek et al. (2008) in which neutral facial expressions from three female actors served as the CS and were paired with one of three types audiovisual stimuli: insults and critical facial expressions (USneg); comments and neutral facial expressions (USneu); and compliments and positive facial expressions (USpos). Our results did not demonstrate an enhanced conditioning among patients with social anxiety compared to patients with panic disorder with agoraphobia and healthy controls. It is plausible that other associative (e.g. fear extinction) and non-associative processes (e.g cognitive and attentional processes) play a greater role in explaining social anxiety rather than enhanced fear conditioning.

The mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway plays an important role in the genesis of emotional arousal and behavioral activation in response to stimuli that provide a reward. This neural circuitry is also active in the early stages of learning and stabilization of addictive behavior due to substances abuse. Isolated animals have a different sensitivity to natural or artificial reinforcers. Accordingly, experimental evidences suggest that exposure to stress can deeply modify eating behavior. In light of these evidences the aim of this study was to investigate the influence of a chronic stress, like social isolation at weaning, on the sensitivity of mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic neurons to anticipation and consumption of food. Rats have been food restricted using a protocol that consists in training the animals to consume their meal for only two hours for day. Using vertical microdialysis, extracellular concentrations of dopamine in response to anticipation and consumption of food were measured both in the mPFC and the NAC. In PFC of GH rats extracellular DA increased (+180%) 80 minutes before food presentation showing the maximal increase (+350%) during food intake. On the contrary, in the NAc of GH rats no significant changes were observed. In SI animals trained to food restriction the increase in mPFC DA output observed in GH animals was completely blunted, while, in the NAc, 40 min before the presentation of the food, a significant increase in extracellular concentrations of DA was observed. Our results show that exposure to chronic stress modified the response of mesocortico-limbic dopaminergic neurons to an enjoyable stimulus and suggest that these changes might be important to explain the greater sensitivity to abuse that is observed in individuals subjected to stressful stimuli. This underlying alteration in brain function might be a crucial mechanism that predisposes individuals to impulsive behavior and increases the risk of developing addiction.

This thesis investigated with regard to the perception of abstract and social stimuli: (1) What constitutes a visual pattern? (2) Whether people possess a proclivity towards one particular pattern type. (3) When is patterning imposed or detected by the visual system? The abstract stimuli consisted of checkerboard patterns and the social stimuli consisted of faces or social groups. Initially the term "pattern" was defined as an image that contains redundant information. This was illustrated by a bias when defining patterns by members of the public towards images that contain both repeated and reflective symmetry, or a low number of possible variants and therefore reduced information content, i. e. more redundancy. Similarly reflective symmetry was identified as a key property in defining faces. The effect of symmetry type on early visual processing was investigated further in a series of backward masking experiments on both abstract and facial stimuli (Chapters 6& 7). The results of the masking experiments suggest a bias during early visual processing for patterns that contain symmetry (i. e. repetition or reflection), or share common fate compared with randomly generated patterns or distorted faces. A top-hemifield and LVF bias was observed in the early detection of patterns. Patterns that take advantage of these properties such as the eyes within the face were suggested as having a perceptual advantage. Patterning appears to be imposed at all stages of visual processing. At early stages of visual processing, repetition (and in the face the eyes) was observed as having an early perceptual advantage over reflection (and in the face the mouth). However at later stages of processing repetition appeared to be processed serially and no longer had a perceptual advantage over reflection (ISIs >42ms). Reflection was suggested as having a perceptual advantage post V1 (ISIs >96ms). Patterning continues throughout a visual scene from the local level to the global level, as such both the human face and human social groups can be perceived as patterns. This was illustrated by a series of experiments investigating the effect of patterning on the perception of images presented in the periphery of a scene (Chapter 8).

Converging evidence from several different species has led to the proposal that some newborn vertebrates, including humans and domestic chicks, have visual predispositions to attend to the head region of conspecifics (or of animals of other species that share similar characteristics) (Johnson and Horn 1988; Morton and Johnson, 1991; Sugita 2008). More specifically it has been claimed that these newborn preferences are (i) domain-relevant to the extent that other naturally occurring stimuli do not draw attention in the same way, (ii) are not based on rapid early learning, but are present from birth/hatching, and (iii) may be mediated by phylogenetically ancient brain routes common to many vertebrates. One of the most common criticisms of the work supporting domain-relevant face biases in human newborns is that the majority of the studies conducted (with some notable exceptions) regard newborns of more than a few hours old. Thus, it remains possible that very rapid early learning contributes to the specificity of some of the effects observed (Nelson, 2001). This criticisms of the data from human newborns can be addressed by testing newly hatched visually-deprived chicks whose preference for visual stimuli can be assessed prior to any other visual experience with faces, a procedure obviously not viable with human newborns for ethical reasons. The main aim of present study is thus to investigate from a new perspective and employing an animal model (the domestic chick) a long-debated issue: the specificity vs. non-specificity of the perceptual factors involved in face preferences. One central issue in cognitive science is how brain processes knowledge of specific domains, as for example the visual information regarding faces. Some existing evidences seem to indicate that faces are processed by anatomically and/or functionally dedicated domain-specific brain circuits, in humans and possibly also in animals. This idea seems also to be consistent with the striking processing abilities that human beings have demonstrated in face perception. It seems plausible that, because of the relevance of faces for social life, natural selection led to the evolution of innate face-specific devices that are available prior to any postnatal experience. In fact, a number of studies have demonstrated that, even from a few hours or minutes after birth, a schematic pattern representing an upright face elicits greater visual attention in human newborns than do similar stimuli presenting the same internal face-features in scrambled positions or arranged upside-down (see Morton and Johnson, 1991 for a review). According to Morton & Johnson (1991) this evidence would indicate that human newborns respond to the unique structural configuration of the face (i.e. to facedness) due to a face-detecting mechanism (CONSPEC) that contains a configural representation of the structure of the face’s inner features (three darker areas in an upside-down triangular configuration). Similarly, domestic chicks have been shown to posses an unlearned representation for the appearance of a social object. Such a representation would guide the imprinting process ensuring that chicks would imprint on an animate object instead of on an inanimate feature of the environment. In particular, this unlearned representation of the appearance of a social object would include a very broad structural description of the features contained in the head region of a vertebrate creature (e.g. Johnson & Horn, 1988). It has thus been hypothesised that the same mechanism described to explain face preferences in newborn babies (CONSPEC) would underlie also spontaneous preferences of visually naïve chicks (Morton and Johnson, 1991). However, in the human developmental literature it has often been debated whether newborns’ preference for faces would not be simply the secondary effect of some more general and not domain-specific visual preference displayed by newborn vertebrates. This kind of domain-general preference would direct the organism’s attention toward any stimulus presenting a certain physical attribute, regardless of whether this stimulus is a face or a non-face object (Acerra, Burnod and de Schonen, 2002; Kleiner, 1987; Macchi Cassia et al., 2008; Simion et al., 2002; Turati et al., 2002). In my thesis I will thus assess the role of three perceptual properties (that are considered influential in the developmental literature) in determining face preferences in visually naïve domestic chicks. The role of the vertical asymmetry of inner elements Recently, in the developmental literature, it has been argued that newborn infants’ preferences for faces could be a secondary effect determined by non-specific biases due to constraints imposed by the immature visual system of the child. In particular, Turati et al. (2002) provided evidence that the preference for face-like stimuli could be determined by an “up-down bias” (Simion et al., 2002) that directs the babies’ attention toward any configuration presenting more elements in its upper part (a “top-heavy configuration”, as opposed to a “bottom-heavy configuration”, presenting more elements in its lower part). Thus, we decided to investigate whether visually naive domestic chicks spontaneously prefer schematic faces or other top-heavy stimuli and whether such a preference is determined by an up-down bias, as suggested by some literature on newborn babies (Turati et al., 2002). Eggs were incubated and hatched in the darkness and after hatching, for about 24 h, chicks were placed in an uniform white cage whose walls and floor were made of opaque white paper. The only stimulus available to chicks during this rearing period was an artificial orange cardboard imprinting object that presented an identical outline with respect to stimuli that will be employed at test (the outline of a schematic face and neck), but no inner feature. Thus, the imprinting object could not provide chicks with any bias for one of the test stimuli or with any information regarding faces’ inner features. During the second day of life chicks underwent a spontaneous preference test, in which each chick had to choose between one of two stimuli that were simultaneously presented at the two opposite ends of a longitudinal runway. The runway was divided into three virtual sectors. At the beginning of the test each chick was placed in the central sector of the apparatus. In order to approach one of the two stimuli the chick had to leave the central sector of the apparatus and enter one of the two lateral sectors adjacent to the stimuli. Thus, entrance and residence of the chick in one of the side compartments indicated a preference for the adjacent object. The test lasted for 6 minutes. Stimuli employed at test were identical to the imprinting object in size, shape and colour, but presented three inner features (three black squares) that were absent in the imprinting object. The two stimuli in each test-pair differed from one another only in the configuration created by the three black squares (in line with standard stimuli used in the developmental literature). Changing the disposition of the three inner elements it was thus possible to test chicks preferences for face-like vs. non-face like objects controlling also for the role of the up-down bias. Each chick was tested only once and was thus exposed to only one pair of stimuli. With this procedure we demonstrated that chicks prefer to approach a schematic face-like configuration similar to those used in newborn studies with respect to another equally top-heavy, but non-face-like, stimulus (Exp. 1). In line with this result, in a second experiment chicks did not show any evidence of a preference for a top-heavy stimulus over a bottom-heavy stimulus, if none of them represents a face (Exp. 2). Moreover, chicks preferred to stay near a bottom-heavy and face-like stimulus over a top-heavy non-face-like one (Exp. 4). Thus, results obtained in this first cycle of experiments demonstrated that domestic chicks, that are visually naïve with respect to faces’ inner structure, show a spontaneous preference for schematic face-like stimuli that resemble the representation of a face as theorised by Morton and Johnson (1991). Moreover, the vertical asymmetry of inner elements (i.e. the up-down bias, Simion et al., 2002; Turati et al., 2002) does not seem to have a crucial role in the expression of this preference in the animal species that we tested. The role of the spatial frequencies composing stimuli During the past decades another alternative interpretation, based on the so called linear system model (LSM, e.g. Kleiner, 1987), has been proposed to explain face preferences in newborn babies, as opposed to the CONSPEC model proposed by Morton and Johnson (1991). According to this interpretation (confirmed also by the results of a recent neural network model by Acerra, Burnod and de Schonen, 2002) faces would elicit preferential attention in newborn babies simply because they happen to be composed of the range of spatial frequencies more visible to newborns. In previous studies existing in the literature, stimuli were controlled for properties such as vertical symmetry or for the presence of structure (Morton and Johnson, 1991; Farroni et al., 2005; Rosa Salva, Regolin and Vallortigara, 2009). The research conducted in similar studies already generated a good amount of evidence for the role of the above mentioned properties. We thus decided to concentrate our efforts on the role of another potentially relevant perceptual property, namely, spatial frequency composing stimuli. The use of stimuli that exactly match spatial frequencies between face-stimuli and control-stimuli, comparing faces to frequency matched visual noise, is already a common standard in works investigating neural correlates of face perception (Csibra et al., 2004; Blasi et al., 2007). However, to the best of our knowledge, this approach has not yet been systematically applied to the investigation of behavioural preferences in newborn babies and domestic chicks. We thus decided to fill this gap between behavioural and neuroimaging studies. In a recent study (Rosa Salva et al., submitted) we were able to demonstrate that newborn babies show a preference for looking at faces with respect to visual noise stimuli that were matched in terms of their component spatial frequencies. In Expt. 5 of my thesis we thus decided to run a comparative study in order to be able to directly compare data obtained in newborn babies and visually naïve domestic chicks, tested with comparable procedures and identical stimuli. The experimental procedures were the same as those described in the previous session, with the exception that no imprinting stimulus was provided to the chicks. Stimuli consisted in a colour photographic image of a human face and in a frequency matched noise stimulus. Domestic chicks displayed a clear preference for the face-like stimulus. The strength of this preference was comparable to that displayed by newborn human babies. The results of the present research demonstrated that analogue effects can be obtained in both visually deprived domestic chicks and human newborn babies, in that both species show a preference for images of faces. Moreover, such a preference is, in both species, independent from component spatial frequencies. Thus, the present study extends the existing analogy between results obtained in newborn babies and domestic chicks (Johnson and Horn, 1988; Morton and Johnson, 1991; Rosa Salva, Regolin and Vallortigara, 2009), confirming the validity of use of the domestic chick as an animal experimental model to investigate issues connected with the developmental literature. Finally, results obtained showed that the preference for faces observed in domestic chicks is not species-specific (in fact chicks’ preferences could be elicited by a human face). This confirms previous evidence suggesting the presence of a very broad template for the detection of faces in this species (Johnson and Horn, 1988). Effects originated by contrast reversal In recent years it has been demonstrated that contrast reversal eliminates the preference of newborn babies for schematic faces. The normal preference for faces can however be made to remerge by adding a pupil-like dot within the schematic face features (Farroni et al., 2005). These results have been interpreted as due to the fact that the mechanisms underling face preference have been selected to identify faces under natural (top-down) illumination. Such mechanisms are thus sensitive to the light-shadow pattern generated on faces by such conditions (the eye and mouth regions are recessed on a face and therefore appear to be darker than other parts of the face). As a consequence, infants should show no preference for face-like patterns where the elements within the face are lighter than the background, because those elements would indicate protrusions rather than recesses for their visual system (Farroni et al., 2005). We decided to investigate the effect of contrast reversal on the preference for schematic face-like configurations displayed by chicks. The experimental procedure was the same as that described for experiments 1-4. Stimuli employed were obtained from those used in Expt. 1 (where a preference for the face-like stimulus was observed), and consisted in two top-heavy configurations, of which only one represented a face. Stimuli employed in Expt. 6 were identical to those used in Expt. 1, with the relevant exception that they presented a reversed contrast (they were made of lighter inner features on a darker face background). No preference for one of the two stimuli was observed. In Expt. 7, after Farroni et al. (2005), we introduced a pupil-like dot within the lighter inner features of both stimuli. This was done in order to try to restore the initial preference for the face-like stimulus observed in Expt. 1 using stimuli with “normal” contrast polarity. On the contrary, if anything, a preference for the non-face-like stimulus was observed in the present experiment. We interpreted this result as due to the fact that chicks are innately scared of stimuli resembling a pair of eyes. This is especially true for stimuli having a darker pupil within a lighter iris, because such stimuli look predator-like to them (Gagliardi, Gallup and Boren, 1976). Chicks, would thus avoid the face-like stimulus because its two upper features would resemble a pair of predators’ eyes. We tested this hypothesis in Expt. 8, by increasing the pupil-to-iris ratio of our stimuli in order to reach the ratio that is most effective in determining a fear reaction in chicks. With this manipulation results obtained in the previous experiment were confirmed and extended, showing again a preference for the non-face-like stimulus. Moreover, in Expt. 9, we investigated brain lateralization using the same stimuli as in Expt. 8, but testing chicks in monocular vision condition (in chicks this is an effective way for limiting visual processing to the hemisphere contralateral to the eye in use). We hypothesised that the fear reaction elicited by the face-like stimulus should be more pronounced in chicks using their right hemisphere (specialized for fear reactions to the eye-gaze of predators, Rosa Salva, Regolin and Vallortigara, 2007). Some of the results obtained in Expt. 9 were in favour of this hypothesis. As a final control (Expt. 10) we presented chicks with a pair of stimuli that had the normal direction of contrast polarity for a face (i.e. presented darker inner features on a lighter background), but had also an eye-like appearance of their inner features. No preference whatsoever was observed, this was possibly interpreted as a consequence of the simultaneous presence of two opposite tendencies: a social preference for the face-like configuration, now emerged again thanks to the normal direction of contrast polarity, and a fear reaction elicited by its eye-like features. Finally, in Expt. 11 we tested monocular chicks using identical stimuli to those of Expt. 10, in order to investigate brain lateralization. In this final experiment, an opposite tendency was observed for chicks using their right hemisphere with respect to what observed in Expt. 9. In fact, chicks using their right hemisphere tended to prefer again the face-like configuration. This is not completely unexpected if two things are taken in consideration. First of all, the right hemisphere is not only dominant for fear reactions to eye gaze, but also for recognition of social partners (e.g. Daisley et al., 2009, for a review). Moreover, the face stimulus used in the present experiment was conspicuously “more social” than that used in Expt. 9, because it presented the normal direction of contrast polarity for a face. This probably caused the right hemisphere to be driven by the social nature of the stimulus rather than by its aversive predator-eye-like inner features. Results of this last cycle of experiments show that, in line with the evidence available in developmental literature, contrast reversal is effective in suppressing chicks’ preferences for schematic faces. However, adding a pupil-like eye dot on inner face features had an opposite effect in chicks with respect to newborn babies. In fact, in chicks this manipulation elicited a preference for the non-face-like stimulus, possibly due to an anti-predator fear reaction. Overall, my results are consistent with the presence in chicks of an unlearned mechanism for the detection of faces based on a very broad template representing the structure of a face (i.e. CONSPEC, Morton and Johnson, 1991). Moreover, contrary to evidence obtained in newborn babies (Turati et al., 2002), it seems that chicks’ preferences for faces are not influenced by the vertical asymmetry of inner elements. On the other hand, both chicks and human babies (Rosa Salva et al., submitted) seem to prefer faces regardless of their component spatial frequencies. Similarly, contrast reversal effectively abolishes the preference for faces in both human newborns (Farroni et al., 2005) and domestic chicks.
Sulla base di evidenze sperimentali ottenute in diverse specie animali è stato teorizzato che i piccoli di alcuni vertebrati possano avere predisposizioni precoci o innate per prestare attenzione alla regione della testa e del volto dei conspecifici (o di altri animali che ne condividano la struttura generale) (Johnson e Horn 1988; Morton e Johnson, 1991; Sugita 2008). In particolare è stato teorizzato che tali predisposizioni siano (i) di natura dominio-specifica in quanto altri stimoli presenti in ambiente naturale non attraggono l’attenzione con la stessa efficacia dei volti, (ii) non siano basate su fenomeni di apprendimento precoce, ma piuttosto siano presenti sin dal momento della nascita/schiusa, e (iii) siano mediate da sistemi neurali filogeneticamente antichi comuni a diverse specie di vertebrati. Una delle principali critiche ai lavori che hanno dimostrato la presenza di preferenze dominio-specifiche per i volti nei neonati della specie umana è legata al fatto che, per lo più, tali lavori abbiano testato neonati di alcune ore di vita. Per tale ragione non è mai stato possibile escludere il fatto che le preferenze per i volti riscontrate nei neonati fossero dovute in realtà ad effetti di apprendimento legati all’esperienza avuta dai neonati stessi con i volti (Nelson, 2001). Tale critica può essere tuttavia aggirata da studi che impieghino pulcini di pollo domestico, deprivati di esperienza visiva riguardo ai volti, come modello animale per investigare la presenza di preferenze spontanee per i volti. Lo scopo del mio lavoro di tesi è perciò quello di investigare da una nuova prospettiva ed usando un modello animale (il pulcino domestico) un problema a lungo dibattuto in letteratura: ovvero la specificità o non specificità dei fattori percettivi coinvolti nelle preferenze per i volti. Un tema centrale nelle scienze cognitive è rappresentato dalle modalità con le quali il cervello elabora la conoscenza relativa a degli specifici domini, come ad esempio l’informazione visiva riguardante i volti. Alcune evidenze presenti in letteratura sembrano indicare che i volti siano processati da circuiti cerebrali specificamente dedicati sia nell’uomo, che probabilmente negli animali. Questa idea è anche coerente con le incredibili capacità di elaborazione che la nostra specie dimostra per le informazioni relative ai volti. Sembra perciò plausibile che, a casa della rilevanza dei volti per la vita sociale, la selezione naturale abbia portato all’evoluzione di meccanismi specifici deputati all’elaborazione dei volti e disponibili in modo non appreso. Infatti, numerosi studi hanno dimostrato che neonati umani di poche ore o minuti di vita preferiscono guardare uno stimolo schematico rappresentante un volto rispetto ad uno stimolo simile in cui i medesimi elementi interni componenti il volto sono presentati in posizioni scrambled o capovolte (Morton e Johnson, 1991). Secondo il modello proposto da Morton e Johnson (1991), questi risultati indicherebbero che i neonati umani preferiscono osservare qualsiasi stimolo che presenti la peculiare struttura di un volto, grazie ad un meccanismo innato per la detezione dei volti (CONSPEC), il quale conterrebbe una rappresentazione della struttura di un volto e della disposizione spaziale delle sue componenti interne. Tale rappresentazione potrebbe semplicemente comprendere la presenza di tre aree più scure su fondo chiaro poste in corrispondenza dei vertici di un invisibile triangolo rovesciato, ovvero in posizioni corrispondenti ad occhi e bocca di un volto. In linea con il modello proposto da Morton e Johnson (1991) anche i pulcini di pollo domestico sembrano possedere una rappresentazione innata dell’aspetto di un con specifico o di un oggetto sociale in generale. Tale rappresentazione guiderebbe il processo di apprendimento noto come imprinting, assicurando che l’animale sviluppi attaccamento per un appropriato compagno sociale e non per un qualsiasi oggetto inanimato presente nell’ambiente. In particolare la rappresentazione di oggetto sociale in possesso dei pulcini includerebbe una generica e schematica descrizione strutturale relativa alla configurazione formata dagli elementi presenti nella regione della testa e del collo di un vertebrato (Johnson e Horn, 1988). E’ stato perciò teorizzato che lo stesso meccanismo descritto per spiegare le preferenze per i volti nei neonati umani (CONSPEC) stia alla base delle preferenze dimostrate dai pulcini privi di esperienza visiva (Morton e Johnson, 1991). Tuttavia, nella letteratura relativa alla psicologia dello sviluppo è stato spesso dibattuto se le preferenze per i volti riscontrate nei neonati della specie umana non siano semplicemente un effetto secondario di un qualche generico bias aspecifico, invece che essere determinate da una preferenza di tipo dominio-specifico per i volti. Questo tipo di preferenza dominio generale dirigerebbe l’attenzione del bambino verso qualsiasi stimolo che presenti un certo attributo fisico, a prescindere dal fatto che tale stimolo sia un volto oppure no (Acerra, Burnod e de Schonen, 2002; Kleiner, 1987; Macchi Cassia et al., 2008; Simion et al., 2002; Turati et al., 2002). Nel mio lavoro di tesi ho perciò deciso di investigare il ruolo di tre proprietà percettive (considerate influenti nella letteratura sulle preferenze per i volti nel neonati umano) nel determinare le preferenze espresse da pulcini di pollo domestico privi di esperienza visiva relativamente a dei volti. Ruolo dell’asimmetria verticale nella distribuzione degli elementi interni Recentemente, in psicologia dello sviluppo, è stato teorizzato che le preferenze dimostrate dai neonati umani per i volti potrebbero essere un effetto secondario determinato da dei bias attentivi di tipo non specifico, dovuti alle limitate capacità del sistema visivo immaturo. In particolare, Turati ed altri (2002) hanno prodotto dati a favore della teoria secondo la quale le preferenze per i volti sarebbero determinate dal cosiddetto “bias up-down” (Simion et al., 2002). Tale bias dirige l’attenzione del neonato verso qualsiasi configurazione che presenti più elementi nella metà superiore dello stimolo (ovvero verso qualsiasi configurazione di tipo “top-heavy”, in opposizione alle configurazioni “bottom-heavy” che presentano più elementi nella parte inferiore). Abbiamo perciò deciso di verificare se pulcini di pollo domestico privi di esperienza visiva relativa ai volti avessero una preferenza spontanea per stimoli rappresentanti volti schematici o per configurazioni di tipo “top-heavy” e se una eventuale preferenza per i volti fosse determinata dal “bias up-down”, come suggerito dalle evidenze relative al neonato umano (Turati et al., 2002). Sono stati testati pulcini nati all’interno del laboratorio da uova incubate e schiuse al buio. Durante le 24 ore successive alle schiusa i pulcini erano allevati in delle gabbie foderate di carta bianca opaca. L’unico stimolo fornito ai pulcini durante tale periodo di allevamento era un oggetto di imprinting artificiale, una sagoma di cartoncino arancione che aveva la stessa forma generale degli stimoli sperimentali poi usati in fase di test (la sagoma schematica di una testa su di un collo, creata da una forma ovoidale posta in cima ad una rettangolare), ma era privo di caratteristiche interne. L’oggetto di imprinting non poteva perciò fornire ai pulcini alcuna fonte di informazione relativa alla struttura interna di un volto. Al secondo giorno di vita i pulcini venivano testati tramite un compito di scelta spontanea nel quale ciascun pulcino doveva scegliere tra una di due configurazioni (stimoli di test) simultaneamente presenti alle due estremità di un apparato longitudinale. L’apparato di scelta era virtualmente diviso in tre settori, e all’inizio del test il pulcino veniva posto in quello centrale. Per avvicinare uno dei due stimoli sperimentali l’animale doveva lasciare il settore centrale dell’apparato ed entrare in uno dei due settori laterali, adiacenti agli stimoli. Per questa ragione l’ingresso e la permanenza del pulcino in uno dei due settori laterali era considerato un indice di preferenza per lo stimolo adiacente. Il test aveva una durata di 6 minuti. Gli stimoli impiegati erano identici all’oggetto di imprinting per forma, colore e dimensioni e differivano da esso per la presenza di tre blob neri che rappresentavano le caratteristiche interne di ciascuno stimolo. I due stimoli in ogni coppia oggetto del test differivano tra loro solo nella disposizione di tali elementi interni (in accordo con gli standard relativi agli stimoli usati in psicologia dello sviluppo per testare le preferenze per i volti). Cambiando la disposizione degli elementi interni era perciò possibile testare le preferenze dei pulcini per stimoli rappresentanti dei volti schematici rispetto a stimoli che non avevano la struttura di un volto, controllando al contempo il ruolo del “bias up-down”. Ciascun pulcino era testato soltanto una volta (partecipava perciò soltanto ad un esperimento ed era esposto solo ad una coppia di stimoli). Tramite questa procedura è stato possibile dimostrare che i pulcini preferiscono approcciare uno stimolo schematico rappresentante un volto (simile a quelli impiegati negli studi sui neonati della specie umana) rispetto ad un altro stimolo egualmente “top-heavy” ma non rappresentante un volto (Exp 1). Coerentemente con questo risultato, in un secondo esperimento i pulcini non hanno dimostrato alcun segno di preferenza per uno stimolo “top-heavy” rispetto ad uno “bottom-heavy”, quando nessuno dei due rappresentava un volto (Exp 2). Inoltre, in un ulteriore esperimento i pulcini hanno preferito stare vicino ad uno stimolo“bottom-heavy” rapprsentante un volto rispetto ad uno “top-heavy”, ma non avente la struttura di un volto (Exp 4). I risultati ottenuti in questo primo ciclo di esperimenti hanno perciò permesso di dimostrare che pulcini domestici privi di esperienza visiva al riguardo hanno una preferenza spontanea per stimoli schematici che ricordano la rappresentazione di volto teorizzata da Morton e Johnson (1991). Inoltre, la asimmetria verticale nella disposizione degli elementi interni (cioè il “bias up-down”, Simion et al., 2002; Turati et al., 2002) non sembra avere un ruolo cruciale nell’espressione di tale preferenza, almeno nella specie da noi testata. Ruolo delle frequenze spaziali componenti gli stimoli Negli ultimi decenni è stata tuttavia proposta anche un’altra interpretazione alternativa per spiegare le preferenze per i volti in opposizione al modello proposto da Morton e Johnson (1991). Tale interpretazione è basata sul cosiddetto linear system model (LSM, Kleiner, 1987). Secondo questa teoria (recentemente avvalorata dai risultati ottenuti tramite un modello neurale da Acerra, Burnod e de Schonen, 2002), i volti sarebbero osservati preferenzialmente dai neonati umani semplicemente perché composti dal range di frequenze spaziali più visibili per i neonati. In precedenti lavori esistenti in letteratura, sono stati impiegati stimoli controllati per proprietà quali la simmetria verticale o la presenza di struttura (Morton e Johnson, 1991; Farroni et al., 2005; Rosa Salva, Regolin e Vallortigara, 2009). Tali studi hanno generato sufficienti evidenze a proposito del ruolo di tali proprietà. Nella presente ricerca abbiamo perciò deciso di investigare il ruolo di un’altra proprietà potenzialmente rilevante, quale le frequenze spaziali componenti gli stimoli. L’uso di stimoli che equiparino le frequenze spaziali tra volti e stimoli di controllo è già uno standard accettato in lavori di neuroimmagine (Csibra et al., 2004; Blasi et al., 2007). Tuttavia, questo approccio non è stato ancora sistematicamente impiegato per l’investigazione di preferenze comportamentali in neonati umani e pulcini domestici. Abbiamo perciò deciso di colmare questo divario presente tra studi comportamentali e di neuroimmagine. In uno studio recente (Rosa Salva et al., sottomesso) siamo stati infatti in grado di dimostrare che neonati umani preferiscono guardare immagini di volti rispetto a stimoli che abbiano il medesimo contenuto in termini di frequenze spaziali. Nel Exp. 5 della mia tesi abbiamo perciò deciso di svolgere uno studio comparativo al fine di paragonare direttamente dati ottenuti in neonati umani e in pulcini privi di esperienza visiva, testati con procedure analoghe e stimoli identici. La procedura sperimentale era la medesima descritta nel paragrafo precedente, con l’eccezione che non veniva fornito alcun oggetto di imprinting ai pulcini. Gli stimoli consistevano in una fotografia a colori di un volto umano ed uno stimolo noise composto dalle medesime frequenze spaziali dello stimolo rappresentante un volto. In tale esperimento pulcini hanno dimostrato una chiara preferenza per lo stimolo rappresentante un volto. L’entità di tale preferenza era inoltre comparabile a quella precedentemente riscontrata nei neonati umani. Il risultato della presente ricerca dimostra che effetti analoghi possono essere ottenuti in pulcini domestici privi di esperienza relativa a dei volti, e neonati umani di pochi giorni di vita, poiché entrambe le specie hanno una preferenza per immagini rappresentanti dei volti. Inoltre, tale preferenza è in entrambe le specie indipendente dalle frequenze spaziali componenti gli stimoli. Perciò, questo studio estende ulteriormente le analogie esistenti tra risultati ottenuti nel neonato umano e nel pulcino domestico (Johnson e Horn, 1988; Morton e Johnson, 1991; Rosa Salva, Regolin e Vallortigara, 2009), confermando inoltre la validità del pulcino come modello animale per lo studio di problematiche originate nell’ambito della psicologia dello sviluppo. Infine, i risultati ottenuti mostrano che la preferenza per i volti osservata nei pulcini di pollo domestico è di tipo non specie specifico (infatti le preferenze dei pulcini potevano essere elicitate anche da un volto umano). Ciò conferma le evidenze precedenti che avevano suggerito la presenza di un template estremamente generico per la detezione dei volti in questa specie (Johnson e Horn, 1988). Effetti dell’inversione della polarità di contrasto Recentemente, è stato dimostrato che invertire la polarità di contrasto elimina le preferenze dei neonati umani per i volti schematici. La normale preferenza per i volti riemerge tuttavia aggiungendo un pupil-like-dot entro gli elementi schematici interni al volto (Farroni et al., 2005). Questi risultati sono stati interpretati come dovuti al fatto che il meccanismo responsabile delle preferenze per i volti è stato selezionato durante l’evoluzione al fine di identificare i volti come essi appaiono in condizioni di illuminazione naturale (ovvero dall’alto). Un simile meccanismo dovrebbe perciò essere sensibile al pattern di luci ed ombre che viene creato sui volti da tale tipo di illuminazione. In particolare, le aree degli occhi e della bocca sono rientranze ed appaiono perciò più scure delle aree circostanti. Per tale ragione i neonati non dovrebbero preferire stimoli rappresentanti dei volti ma aventi polarità di contrasto invertita, perché gli elementi interni del volto sarebbero in tale caso più chiari e non più scuri dello sfondo del volto stesso (Farroni et al., 2005). Abbiamo perciò deciso di studiare l’effetto dell’inversione della polarità di contrasto sulle preferenze per volti schematici che avevamo precedentemente dimostrato in pulcini di pollo domestico (Exp. 1). La procedura sperimentale era la stessa descritta per gli Exp. 1-4. Gli stimoli impiegati erano stati ottenuti manipolando quelli usati nell’Exp. 1 (nel quale era stata dimostrata una preferenza per lo stimolo rappresentante un volto) e consistevano in due configurazioni “top-heavy”, delle quali solo una rappresentante un volto. Nell’Exp. 6 sono state impiegate configurazioni identiche a quelle usate nel’Exp. 1, ma aventi opposta polarità di contrasto (tali configurazioni presentavano infatti tre blob più chiari, le caratteristiche interne del volto, disposti su di uno sfondo più scuro). In questo caso non veniva osservata alcuna preferenza. Nell’Exp. 7, seguendo la procedura di Farroni ed altri (2005), abbiamo introdotto un pupil-like-dot più scuro all’interno dei blob più chiari rappresentanti le caratteristiche interne dei due stimolo. Tale manipolazione era volta a far riemergere l’originaria preferenza per lo stimolo rappresentante il volto (che era stata osservata nell’Exp. 1 usando stimoli aventi “normale” polarità di contrasto). Al contrario, una preferenza per lo stimolo non rappresentante un volto sembrava essere presente nell’Exp. 7. Abbiamo interpretato tale risultato come dovuto al fatto che i pulcini sono spaventati in modo innato da stimoli che rassomiglino ad un paio di occhi di un potenziale predatore. Ciò è particolarmente vero per occhi aventi una pupilla scura su di un iride più chiaro, perché tali stimoli rassomigliano in modo particolare agli occhi di alcuni predatori (Gagliardi, Gallus e Boren, 1976). I pulcini da noi testati nell’Exp. 7 tenderebbero perciò ad evitare lo stimolo volto perché i suoi due elementi interni superiori rassomiglierebbero ad un paio di occhi di predatore. Tale ipotesi è stata testata nell’Exp. 8 accrescendo il rapporto tra le dimensioni di “iride” e “pupilla” fino a raggiungere il rapporto che risulta essere il più efficace nell’elicitare una risposta di paura nei pulcini (Gagliardi, Gallus e Boren, 1976). Tramite tale manipolazione sono stati ottenuti risultati che hanno confermato ed esteso quelli dell’esperimento precedente, dimostrando nuovamente una preferenza per lo stimolo non rappresentante un volto. Inoltre, nell’Exp. 9, è stata indagata la lateralizzazione cerebrale associata a tali effetti. A tal fine sono stati impiegati stimoli identici all’esperimento precedente, ma i pulcini sono stati testati in condizioni di visione monoculare (tale procedura è nella specie da noi impiegata efficace nel limitare l’elaborazione delle informazioni all’emisfero contralaterale all’occhio in uso). La nostra ipotesi era che la reazione di paura indotta dallo stimolo rappresentante un volto avrebbe dovuto essere più pronunciata nei pulcini aventi in uso l’emisfero destro (dominate nelle risposte di paura elicitate dallo sguardo di un potenziale predatore, Rosa Salva, Regolin e Vallortigara, 2007). Alcuni dei risultati ottenuti nell’Exp. 9 hanno supportato tale ipotesi. Come ulteriore controllo (Exp. 10) abbiamo inoltre presentato ai pulcini una coppia di stimoli aventi la normale polarità di contrasto attesa per un volto (cioè aventi elementi interni più scuri rispetto allo sfondo del volto), ma i cui elementi interni presentavano comunque una rassomiglianza con gli occhi di un potenziale predatore. Non è stata in questo caso osservata alcuna preferenza per uno dei due stimoli. Probabilmente ciò è stato dovuto alla compresenza simultanea di due tendenze opposte: la preferenza sociale per la configurazione rappresentante un volto (ora riemersa grazie alla normale polarità di contrasto) e la reazione di paura dovuta all’aspetto simile ad occhi degli elementi interni del volto. Infine, nell’Exp. 11, abbiamo testato pulcini monoculari usando stimoli identici a quelli impiegati nell’Exp. 10, al fine di studiare eventuali effetti di lateralizzazione cerebrale. In questo ultimo esperimento è emersa una tendenza opposta a quella osservata nell’Exp. 9. Infatti, i pulcini aventi in uso l’emisfero destro sembravano avere una preferenza per lo stimolo rappresentante un volto. Questo risultato non è così inaspettato come potrebbe sembrare, se si prendono in considerazione alcuni elementi. Per prima cosa, l’emisfero destro del pulcino non è solo dominante per le risposte di paura eleicitate dallo sguardo di un potenziale predatore, ma anche dominante per il riconoscimento dei partner sociali (review in Daisley et al., 2009). Inoltre, lo stimolo volto usato nell’Exp.11 risulta decisamente più efficace come stimolo sociale di quello usato nell’Exp. 9, poiché presenta la normale polarità di contrasto attesa per un volto. Ciò probabilmente ha fatto si che l’emisfero destro rilevasse la natura sociale di tale stimolo, piuttosto che la natura predatoria data dall’aspetto dei suoi elementi interni simili ad occhi. I risultati di tale ultimo ciclo di esperimenti mostrano come, in linea con le evidenze ottenute nel neonato della specie umana, l’inversione della polarità di contrasto sia efficace nel sopprimere le preferenze per i volti schematici nel pulcino domestico. Tuttavia, l’aggiunta di un pupil-like-dot più scuro entro gli elementi interni del volto ha effetto opposto nel pulcino rispetto alla specie umana. Infatti, nei pulcini tale manipolazione suscita una preferenza per lo stimolo non rappresentante un volto, probabilmente a causa di una reazione di tipo antipredatorio. Nel complesso i risultati da me ottenuti sono coerenti con la presenza nel pulcino di pollo domestico di un meccanismo innato per la detezione dei volti, basato su di una rappresentazione estremamente generica e schematica della struttura di un volto (come quella ipotizzata per CONSPEC, Morton e Johnson, 1991). Inoltre, contrariamente alle evidenze ottenute nel neonato umano (Turati et al., 2002), sembra che le preferenze espresse dai pulcini per i volti non siano influenzate dall’asimmetria nella disposizione degli elementi interni. D’altro canto, sembra che le preferenze per i volti, riscontrate sia nei pulcini che nei neonati umani (Rosa Salva et al., sottomesso), siano indipendenti dalle frequenze spaziali componenti gli stimoli. Similmente, in entrambe le specie l’inversione della polarità di contrasto elimina tali preferenze.

Adolescent shoplifting has provoked limited and somewhat controversial perspectives within the sociological and psychological literature. These controversies center around the empirical variables used for analysis. A companion argument focuses on the subjective and objective measurement of these variables. This research explicated variables from the sociological literature to test their relationship, using multiple linear regression, to adolescent shoplifting behavior. These variables and situational stimuli were operationalized in a simultaneous model to demonstrate a proximate occurrence of the attitude-situation-behavior reciprocal. This reciprocal is a learning theory which suggests that direct and vicarious experiences accompanied by rewards and punishment, in one's environment, lead to the acquisition of specific beliefs, attitudes and behavior toward a situation. This research contends that beliefs and attitudes toward the situation, rather than the bonding, peer association and other factors, shape adolescent shoplifting behavior. The situational stimuli variables were perceived empirically as being the major reciprocal element that maximized and/or minimized the adolescent's attitude toward shoplifting. The reciprocals are expressed as: SF = f(B, PA, PA, PR, N, N, ATT, S, Age, Race). An anonymous self-report questionnaire was administered to N = 312 Portland adolescents ranging in ages between 13 and 17. These youths were sampled at various neighborhood youths service centers, mall stores and Fred Meyer. The S-R elicited the youths' perceptions and attitudes to the explicated dimensions of the variables. The research results confirmed the situational stimuli correlate for adolescent 'snitch' shoplifting. Statistical results validate the progressive involvement and drift propositions

Perceptual load theory, together with the surround-suppression model suggest that stimulus surrounding attended stimuli is suppressed, especially if perceptual load is high. This study attempts to map surround-suppression using electroencephalography to measure neural activity related to suppression at four surrounding locations (2°, 3°, 4° and 6° from fixation). Color and orientation was used to manipulate load, and the effect of load was controlled through behavioral and neural measures using event related potentials. Our results demonstrate no statistically supported effect of load in behavioral data or SSVEP data, but unexplained increased neural amplitude of an early visual component (i.e. N1) in the (hypothesized) low load condition.

According to the DSM-IV- TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), one of the core deficits in autism is in the impairment of social interaction. Some have suggested that underlying these deficits is the reality that individuals with autism do not find social stimuli to be as reinforcing as other types of stimuli (Dawson, 2008). An interesting and growing body of literature supports the notion that symptoms in autism may be caused by a general reduction in social motivation (Chevallier et al., 2012). A review of the literature suggests that social orienting and social motivation are low in individuals with autism, and including social motivation as a target for therapeutic intervention should be pursued (Helt et al., 2008). Through our understanding of learning processes, researchers in behavior analysis and related fields have been able to use conditioning procedures to change the function of neutral or ineffective stimuli, including tokens (Ayllon & Azrin, 1968), facial expressions (Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 1992) and praise (Dozier et al., 2012). The current study aimed to use operant and respondent procedures to condition social stimuli that were empirically shown to not be reinforcing prior to conditioning. Further, this study aimed to compare the two procedures in their effectiveness to condition social stimuli to function as reinforcers, and in their maintenance of effects over time. Using a multiple-baseline, multi-element design, one social stimulus was conditioned under each procedure to compare the different response rates following conditioning. Finally, the study sought to determine if conditioning social stimuli to function as reinforcers had any effect on the social functioning of young children with autism. Six children diagnosed with autism between the ages of 18 months and 3 years participated. Results show that the respondent procedure (pairing) resulted in more robust and enduring effects than the operant procedure (Sd procedure). Results of a social communication assessment (ESCS, Mundy et al., 2003) before and after conditioning demonstrate gains in all areas of social communication, particularly in the areas of initiating and responding to joint attention.

Numerous studies have linked dispositional mindfulness to enhanced emotion regulation. The present research examined dispositional mindfulness as a predictor of emotion regulation in social affective contexts. Participants completed passive viewing and Emotional Go/No-Go tasks involving social affective stimuli (happy, neutral, and fearful facial expressions). Event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral responses were examined to discern whether dispositional mindfulness predicted differential neural and behavioral responses indexing attention to, awareness of, and inhibitory control over automatic responses to affective social stimuli. Dispositional mindfulness predicted larger (more negative) N100, N200 and No-Go N200 amplitudes during the Emotional Go/No-Go task, but was not associated with amplitude of the Late Positive Potential during the passive viewing task. Dispositional mindfulness also predicted faster response times (RT) to target stimuli that were not attributable to a speed-accuracy tradeoff. No relations were found between mindfulness and RT variability nor accuracy. Implications for understanding mindfulness and early processes of social emotion regulation are discussed.

Indirect exposure to a traumatic event is associated with the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Indeed, emerging research demonstrates that exposure to media coverage of violent acts has the potential to cause PTSD symptoms. Theoretical conceptualizations for the development and maintenance of trauma- and anxiety-related disorders suggest that avoidance behaviors of trauma-related stimuli may ultimately lead to the development and maintenance of PTSD symptoms through negative reinforcement processes. Assessing learned associations between environmental stimuli and anxiety may help identify those at risk for the development of PTSD such that those individuals with more learned associations between environmental stimuli and anxiety may engage in greater avoidance behaviors. A highly publicized traumatic event occurred in Lafayette, Louisiana in the summer of 2015. Following the trauma, the community held several vigils and slogans, and banners were displayed throughout the city to show support for the victims. For some individuals, these community support stimuli may have been associated with comfort; however, some may have developed associations between these community support stimuli and the traumatic event and anxiety. As such, the current study sought to examine the learned associations between community support stimuli and comfort and anxiety. Additionally, this study sought to explore the relation between these learned associations and avoidance behaviors, as well as PTSD symptoms. Overall, participants exhibited greater implicit associations between community support stimuli and anxiety stimuli than with community support stimuli and calm stimuli (M = 0.10, SD = 0.31, 95% CI [0.05, 0.16]). These associations did not predict PTSD symptoms or avoidance behaviors. Findings indicate that although community support stimuli were associated with anxiety, these associations may not contribute to the development and maintenance of PTSD symptoms. Rather, community support stimuli may serve to facilitate effective coping strategies through exposure to anxiety- and fear-eliciting stimuli.

The present thesis investigated the relationship between rapid facial muscle reactions and emotionally relevant stimuli. In Study I, it was demonstrated that angry faces elicit increased Corrugator supercilii activity, whereas happy faces elicit increased Zygomaticus major activity, as early as within the first second after stimulus onset. In Study II, during the first second of exposure, pictures of snakes elicited more corrugator activity than pictures of flowers. However, this effect was apparent only for female participants. Study III showed that participants high as opposed to low in fear of snakes respond with increased corrugator activity, as well as increased autonomic activity, when exposed to pictures of snakes. In Study IV, participants high as opposed to low in speech anxiety responded with a larger difference in corrugator responding between angry and happy faces, and also with a larger difference in zygomatic responding between happy and angry faces, indicating that people high in speech anxiety have an exaggerated facial responsiveness to social stimuli. In summary, the present results show that the facial EMG technique is sensitive to detecting rapid emotional reactions to different emotionally relevant stimuli (human faces and snakes). Additionally, they demonstrate the existence of differences in rapid facial reactions among groups for which the emotional relevance of the stimuli can be considered to differ.

Treating aggressive behavior has been of interest to psychologists, sociologists, and law enforcement agencies for many years. Eron (1983) concluded that research should be directed towards understanding the early determinants of aggression before it escalates out of control. The purpose of the present study was to code aversive stimuli that precede aggressive behavior in boys. The following classes were used: Physically Aversive Stimuli, Verbally Aversive Stimuli, Socially Aversive Stimuli, Frustrating Stimuli, Neutral or No Stimuli, and Arguments. It was believed that particular stimuli would facilitate a greater frequency of aggressive behavior in the subjects. Observation revealed that physically aversive stimuli preceded twice the amount of aggression than all other stimuli. Verbally aversive stimuli preceded less aggression; however, the aggressive responses that did occur were more verbal than physical. Frustrating stimuli were not recorded during the study.

Background: Schizophrenia is a devastating disorder, treated with antipsychotics acting via dopaminergic D2 blockade, and significant comorbidity impacting through social dysfunction. The neural mechanisms underlying the processing of socially salient material and the dopaminergic networks posited to be central to this social decision making remain unclear. These mechanisms are explored in this thesis. Methods: fMRI was performed on 20 healthy controls (HC) treated with single dose of a dopamine agonist, ropinirole (0.25mg); dopamine antagonist, amisulpride (400mg), and placebo. fMRI was also performed in 42 patients with schizophrenia (SZ); and a subsample of 20 patients after treatment with oxytocin (40IU) or placebo nasal spray. Participants performed a decision-making task incorporating stochastically rewarded faces of varied social valence during the fMRI. Results: The normal bias towards selecting a happy face was attenuated by all pharmacological agents (ropinirole, amisulpride and oxytocin). In HC, attenuation of bias after ropinirole administration was accompanied by an increase in neural activity within the dorsal anterior cingulate and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and attenuation in the amygdala. In SZ, attenuation of bias after oxytocin administration was accompanied by attenuation of neural activity in the temporoparietal junction and amygdala. When looking between groups, SZ showed attenuated neural activity in the thalamus, cerebellum and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). HC on amisulpride showed similar attenuation in the cerebellum to SZ. Discussion: Modulation of processing of socially salient stimuli was evident during the perturbation of the dopaminergic system, impacting both behaviour and neural processing. The key regions demonstrating change between HC and SZ were the thalamus, cerebellum and mPFC; supporting a deficit in the coordination and integration of decision-making following the cognitive dysmetria model. Oxytocin demonstrated prosocial effects in SZ, through modulation of amygdala activation; and showed some overlap with dopaminergic responsive regions, lending support to a possible action via the dopaminergic system.

The following study was conducted to find out more about a video test that could identify social activities that are motivating for individuals with disabilities. Commonly tests can be administered to find what physical items, food, toys, games and so forth, are preferred but the process becomes infinitely more difficult when social activities and interactions are involved. Research has shown that participation in reinforcing social experiences is critical for development and crucial in social skill building. In this study, a video-based test was analyzed to see how effective it was in identifying these socially preferred activities in three individuals with disabilities. The study began with a parent interview, to identify potentially reinforcing activities, and a brief pretest with each participant. The participants then completed the video test in which they were allowed to choose, via video, which activities they wanted to do. When the video test was complete, the activity that each participant liked the most and least was used in the final phase of the study. Each participant was given an individual task and in each session they were rewarded for completing tasks with their most and least preferred activities. For each of the three participants the most highly preferred activity increased their task completion and the lowest preferred did not have a significant effect. These results suggest that the video-based preference assessment was able to successfully identify social activities that were preferred and nonpreferred for each participant.

The aim of this paper is to study generational differences in social conservatism. The research centered around three questions. Firstly, have levels of political social conservatism increased in the youngest generation as compared to previous. Secondly, does the presidential era a person was brought up in, explain differing levels of social conservatism. And lastly, does the results in the previous questions change when you look within the sub-group of subjects who self-identify as being conservative. To answer these questions, this study will analyse responses to question meant to operationalize social conservatism found in the General Societal Survey(GSS). And compare responses between generational birth-cohorts socialised under different presidents. Generally the results showed a decline in levels of social conservatism between generations and the youngest generation was no exception. The role of a presidential era in determining levels of social conservatism was practically non-existent. The results from questions one and two did not seem to change when looking within the subgroup of self-identifying conservatives.

In this study, behavioral (post-error response time) and electrophysiological (ERN amplitude and latency) indices of error-monitoring were examined in individuals with autism and typical development. Participants were presented with a series of faces, and they were asked to quickly and accurately determine the gender or the affect of the faces. Younger participants showed post-error slowing for the Gender Task, while older participants showed post-error slowing for the Affect Task. With age, participants showed a greater differentiation between correct and incorrect responses on both ERN amplitude and ERN latency. For the Gender Task only, participants with typical development showed a greater differentiation between correct and incorrect responses than participants with autism on ERN amplitude. Evidence of more error monitoring on the Affect Task was associated with less autistic symptomology, fewer internalizing problems, and better social skills. Evidence of more error monitoring on the Gender Task was associated with greater autistic symptomology and fewer internalizing problems. Overall, age, regardless of diagnostic group, had a substantial effect on face processing and error monitoring abilities. Individuals with autism showed an ability to engage in error monitoring, with only mild impairments in error monitoring. The data suggest that error monitoring is not a core deficit of autism; however, individual differences in error monitoring may significantly moderate the expression of autism.

The study of social attention has in large part been constrained to studying how individuals look to images or videos of other people within highly controlled and isolated laboratory environments. The belief is that measuring responses to non-interactive images or videos of people can serve to inform and predict everyday social attentional behaviours. However, this implicit assumption has gone relatively untested. In order to better characterize how and why people pay attention to others, the present thesis explores the proposition that social attentional processes are generalizable across levels of realism and scale. In so doing, this thesis describes social attentional deployment based on whether it is oriented overtly (shifting attention with the eyes) or covertly (shifting attention without an eye movement), within both naturalistic and laboratory environments. Chapters 2 and 3 explore whether and how social attention is directed to nearby others within naturalistic environments, and identifies major departures from conclusions that were generated using computer-based laboratory tasks. In particular, the results of the first two chapters suggest a weakened role for overt orienting and a strong reliance on covert mechanisms. Chapter 4 confirms that a covert bias to social stimuli can also be observed within the lab. Chapter 5 moves away from initial selection of social stimuli within the environment to explore how attention is deployed to facial features once a person is already attended to, and demonstrates a non-volitional drive to overtly orient attention to the eyes. Finally, Chapter 6 asks whether overt and covert attentional selection of socially-relevant facial features have different behavioural effects, and reveals an important functional benefit of orienting attention overtly rather than covertly during face encoding for later recognition. Collectively, the results of this thesis support a generalized importance of attending to social stimuli and also extend upon previous work to demonstrate that the deployment of social attention is modulated by the level of selection required, as well as degree of interaction afforded by the situation.
Arts, Faculty of
Psychology, Department of
Graduate

The study assessed how stimuli that contradict pre-experimental histories affect the formation of new relations. The study also assessed whether social variables such as race would influence college students’ perceptions of people of different races and job types. Twenty-six college students at a Midwestern University participated in the study. During the pre-test, participants rated the degree of “Good” or “Bad” of various pictures of African American males, police officers, and random objects on a Likert-type scale. Next, based on their pre-test results, participants completed a match to sample task that paired pictures of African American males and police officers opposite of their initial perceptions. Afterward, all participants again completed the Likert-scale rating task. Pre-test results revealed that some participants demonstrated strong negative pre-experimental biases toward police officers and that the race of the participants influenced their pre-test ratings. Individual data showed that 22 out of 24 participants changed their perceptions for at least one stimulus. Match to sample and post-test results revealed that participants with strong pre-experimental biases took more trials to complete the task, scored less accurately when conditions included socially loaded stimuli, and were less likely to change mean ratings for police officers during the post-test rating scale.

Ur den holistiska synen på människan kommer variationen av varje individs upplevelse av hälsa att se olika ut. Med ålderdomen anländer förändringar av hälsan inom de olika hälsodimensionerna, psykologisk/emotionell, fysisk, social och spirituell. Författarna till föreliggande litteraturstudie anser att hälsopromotiva åtgärder bör vara grundade från denna teoretiska bas. Syftet med denna litteraturstudie, var att belysa hälsopromotion för äldre (65+) ur detta mångdimensionella hälsoperspektiv. Sju kvantitativa och två kvalitativa studier kvalitetsgranskades och analyserades. En teoretisk ram utvecklades av hälsodimensionerna och gav ett raster inom vilket studiernas resultat sorterades. Resultatet visade att stimuli inom de olika hälsoperspektiven ger äldre en ökad eller bibehållen upplevd hälsa. Den ökade upplevda hälsan inom en hälsodimension påverkade ofta andra dimensioner på ett positivt sätt. Att ingå i ett sammanhang, känna sig accepterad och bekräftad och känna mening i livet manifesterade äldre människors syn på den upplevda hälsan. För att ytterligare öka kunskapen och förstå vikten av det centrala i äldres upplevelse av hälsa och på vilket sätt sjuksköterskan kan implementera det i den kliniska verksamheten krävs vidare forskning.

Building on the stimulus-organism-response model, this paper aims to fill the considerable research gap by developing a deeper understanding of social commerce as a global emerging phenomenon and investigating the effectiveness of social commerce marketing stimuli and its consequences on consumer behavior on Instagram. The study adopts a mixed-methodology approach, including a web-based survey and a focus group interview, to build a deeper understanding of the phenomenon and account for the social aspects of social commerce. Based on a sample of 317 international consumers, the analysis demonstrates that all dimensions of social commerce marketing stimuli have significant effects on online brand engagement on Instagram; which consequently positively influences brand trust and online purchase intention. Moreover, the focus group interview complements the findings and provides potential explanations for the discovered relationships.

Understanding human behavioural signals is one of the key ingredients of an effective human-human and human-computer interaction (HCI). In such respect, non verbal communication plays a key role and is composed by a variety of modalities acting jointly to convey a common message. In particular, cues like gesture, facial expression, prosody etc. have the same importance as spoken words. Gaze behaviour makes no exception, being one of the most common, yet unobtrusive ways of communicating. To this aim, many computational models of visual attention allocation have been proposed; although such models were primarily conceived in the psychological field, in the last couple of decades, the problem of predicting attention allocation on a visual stimuli has started to catch the interest of the computer vision and pattern recognition community, pushed by the fast growing number of possible applications (e.g. autonomous driving, image/video compression, robotics). In this renaissance of attention modelling, some of the key features characterizing eye movements were at best overlooked; in particular the explicit unrolling in time of eye movements (i.e. their dynamics) has been seldom taken into account. Moreover, the vast majority of the proposed models are only able to deal with static stimuli (images), with few notable exceptions. The main contribution of this work is a novel computational model of attentive eye guidance which derives gaze dynamics in a principled way, by reformulating attention deployment as a stochastic foraging problem. We show how treating a virtual observer attending to a video as a stochastic composite forager searching for valuable patches in a multi-modal landscape, leads to simulated gaze trajectories that are not statistically distinguishable from the ones performed by humans while free-viewing the same scene. Model simulation and experiments are carried out on a publicly available dataset of eye-tracked subjects displaying conversations and social interactions between humans.

Present knowledge indicates the importance of one region of monkey temporal association cortex, the superior temporal sulcus (STS), in predominantly high level analysis of 'biologically' important objects. To clarify and elaborate on the function of the monkey STS, the following questions are addressed: (1) what kind of tactile processing occurs in the polymodal STS and does it compare with the complex visual processing observed; (2) does behavioural sensitivity to face and body information parallel neural sensitivity (of STS cells) to the same stimulus dimensions; (3) does monkey STS ablation result in a behavioural indication of impairments in the perception of socially relevant stimuli; and (4) are visual cells in the STS sensitive to social communicational elements of facial or postural expression? Single-unit recording studies of the macaque STS (using standard techniques in awake, behaving animals) reveal a population of somatosensory neurones, with large receptive fields, sensitive only to unexpected (unpredictable) tactile stimulation. Complex tactual-visual interactions observed stress the importance of this dimension of processing. A separate population of visual cells exhibit sensitivity to compound facial expressions and head/body postures important in primate social communication. A behavioural study of monkeys' socio-emotional responses to configurational aspects of faces, the posture of the head and the interaction of form and motion, reveal their ability to discriminate salient cues in the context of social communication/interaction. It is tentatively shown that monkeys with the STS ablated are unable to make such discriminations, so reacting inappropriately to the stimuli (a symptom of Kluver-Bucy syndrome). The combined findings show that the STS performs a multimodal perceptual analysis of socially relevant stimuli, and suggest that the STS provides a sensory input to a limbic structure, such as the amygdala, through which it mediates appropriate emotional reactive behaviour.

Aspergers syndrom beskrivs som ett tillstånd som är orsakat av en dysfunktion i hjärnan som påverkar individens kommunikationsförmåga och sociala kompetens. Hans Asperger var den första personen som beskrev syndromet, 1944 skrev han sin första avhandling kring syndromet. I omvårdnad är samtal och kommunikation en stor del av arbetet och därför viktigt för att kunna utföra en säker och god omvårdnad. Denna litteraturstudies syfte gick ut på att försöka förklara hur en individ med Aspergers syndrom fungerar kommunikativt och socialt samt hur vårdpersonal skulle kunna bemöta dessa individer utifrån deras förutsättningar. Resultatet bygger på elva analyserade artiklar från tre olika databaser. De resultat som hittades var att personer med Aspergers syndrom visade ha en fördröjning och svårigheter vid bearbetning av känslouttryck samt att de tenderade att reagera mer på negativa uttryck. De hade även svårigheter att förstå icke-kongruent information och att sätta sig in i andra individers perspektiv. Ytterligare fynd var att deltagarna med Aspergers syndrom hade en minskad användning av sina förkunskaper och hade lättare för tester innehållande objekt.
Asperger syndrome is described as a condition that is caused by a dysfunction in the brain that affected the individual's communication skills and social skills. Hans Asperger was the first person who described the syndrome, 1944 he wrote his first thesis about the syndrome. A big part of nursing is conversation and communication and therefore important in safe and good nursing care. This literature study’s aim was to try to explain how an individual with Asperger's syndrome communicated and interacted socially, and how health professionals might have to respond to these individuals based on their circumstances. The results are built on eleven analyzed articles from three different databases. The results found showed that people with Asperger syndrome appeared to have a delay and difficulties in processing the emotional expression and that they tend to react to the negative terms. They also had difficulties understanding non-congruent information and to gain an understanding of other individuals' perspectives. Another findings was that the participants with Asperger syndrome had a reduced use of their prior knowledge and were better at tests containing items.

Persistent pain conditions are a major health problem throughout the world and are one of the primary reasons that people seek medical treatment (Gureje, Von Korff, Simon, & Gater, 1998; Verhaak, Kerssens, Dekker, Sorbi, & Bensing, 1998). These conditions are characterized by complex interactions between cognitive, emotional, and physiological disturbances and are often associated with comorbid psychological disorders (Gatchel, 2004). Though previous studies have examined the effect of interventions targeting persistent pain, such as physical self-regulation interventions, few studies have examined the complex interaction between such interventions and other variables such as psychological and physiological functioning and presence of social support. The current study was designed to evaluate the effect of a physical self-regulation intervention (i.e. diaphragmatic breathing entrainment) on response to a brief physical stressor (i.e., mild thermal stimulation) as well as to evaluate whether presence or absence of a supportive partner influenced this relationship. Participant response was measured via self-report of pain intensity and unpleasantness and via physiological measures of respiration rate, blood pressure, heart rate, and heart rate variability. The study consisted of 154 female participants who participated in pairs (i.e., 77 pairs). Each participant was randomly assigned to training in diaphragmatic breathing or a control condition as well as being randomly assigned to complete the study with or without their supportive partner present. Analyses revealed that breathing entrainment resulted in significantly slower breathing rate during the thermal stressor task (p < .01). Presence of a supportive partner interacted with breathing entrainment to influence heart rate during the thermal stressor task (p < .05) such that participants who completed the study with a support person present had a lower heart rate when trained in diaphragmatic breathing than when trained in a control protocol and participants who did not have a support person present showed the opposite effect. Presence of a supportive partner also interacted with breathing entrainment to influence ratings of task unpleasantness (p < .05) such that participants who were trained in diaphragmatic breathing rated the task similarly regardless of presence or absence of a supportive partner, whereas participants who were trained in a control protocol rated the task as more unpleasant when accompanied by a supportive partner. In conclusion, the present study demonstrates the impact of training in diaphragmatic breathing and presence of social support on response to thermal stimuli as measured by both self-report (i.e., ratings of task unpleasantness) and physiological (i.e., respiration rate and heart rate) measures. This study highlights the usefulness of implementing a self-regulatory training strategy for treatment of pain and in considering the efficacy of incorporating a supportive partner into such training.

Social stimuli that function as reinforcers for most children generally do not function as reinforcers for children diagnosed with autism. These important social stimuli include smiles, head nods, thumb-ups, and okay signs. It should be an important goal of therapy for children with autism to condition these neutral social stimuli to function as reinforcers for children diagnosed with autism. There is empirical evidence to support both a pairing procedure (classical conditioning) and a discriminative stimulus procedure to condition neutral stimuli to function as reinforcers. However, there is no clear evidence as to the superiority of effectiveness for either procedure. Despite this most textbooks and curriculum guides for children with autism state only the pairing procedure to condition neutral stimuli to function as reinforcers. Recent studies suggest that the discriminative stimulus procedure may in fact be more effective in conditioning neutral stimuli to function as reinforcers for children diagnosed with autism. The present research is a further comparison of these two procedures. Results from one participant support recent findings that suggest the discriminative stimulus procedure is more effective in conditioning neutral stimuli to function as reinforcers. But the results from the other participant show no effects from either procedure, suggesting future research into conditions necessary to condition neutral social stimuli to function as reinforcers for children with autism.

Aim of the thesis is to define, characterize, structure and analyse incentives that lead firms to undergo and keep certification of the voluntary environmental standard ISO 14001. Following hypothesis was formulated in line with chosen aim: firms certify themselves with ISO 14001 mainly due to necessity of implementation of environmental elements to corporate governance in line with sustainable development. Outcome of the retrievel part of the thesis is to clearly define and well structure incentives that lead firms to certification. Subject matter experts from different certified companies assign to these incentives scales using staistical pairwise comparisons called Fuller's triangle. Based on the scales and order is confirmed or denied formulated hypothesis.

In appetitive conditioning, a neutral stimulus (CS) is conditioned to elicit a positive emotional response by pairing it with a positive/appetitive unconditioned stimulus (US). This method is useful for studying emotional disorders and emotion in general. Studying appetitive conditioning in humans has been hampered by the lack of adequate positive unconditioned stimuli. This study investigated multimodal social stimuli as potential unconditioned stimuli in an appetitive conditioning paradigm. Neutral faces (CS+’giggle’ and CS+’woohoo’) were paired with two multimodal unconditioned stimuli consisting of the same smiling face and two different sound stimuli (US‘giggle’ and US‘woohoo’). The dependent variable was participant skin conductance response (SCR) alongside participant emotional ratings of the stimuli, that together indexes the conditioned response. CS+’giggle’ was hypothesized to be rated as happier, and less fearful than CS+’woohoo’. Successful conditioning was evidenced by higher happiness ratings for both stimuli after acquisition compared to habituation. However, no effect of acquisition was found on SCR.  US’woohoo’ was also rated as more fearful and arousing and less happy and pleasant than the US’giggle’. In sum, this thesis presents a paradigm that can be used in future studies on appetitive conditioning.

During adolescence, animals leave the natal home and interact with potentially threatening stimuli (i.e. stressors), e.g. unfamiliar environments and conspecifics. Adolescent stressors can result in fewer interactions with unfamiliar stimuli in adulthood, plausibly due to sustained effects of glucocorticoid exposure on stress physiology (e.g. glucocorticoid secretion and receptor expression). The current thesis tested the hypothesis that adolescent glucocorticoid exposure and social experiences act as stressors by quantifying the effects of the adolescent experiences on behavioural responses to unfamiliar stimuli and the underlying neuroendocrine mechanisms when in adulthood using two captive species, zebra finches and rats. In study one, adolescent zebra finches were dosed with the glucocorticoid corticosterone. In adulthood, birds dosed with corticosterone in early adolescence took longer to enter an unfamiliar environment when tested individually and had lower expression of the glucocorticoid receptor GR in the hippocampus and hypothalamus, brain regions that regulate stress responses. Glucocorticoids therefore appear to be an endocrine mechanism behind the long-term effects of adolescent stress. Subsequent studies explored whether higher social density and more unfamiliar social interactions during adolescence act as stressors. In study two, early adolescent zebra finches were housed in groups varying in conspecific number and density. In adulthood, females raised in larger groups secreted a higher stressor-induced corticosterone concentration and, if raised at lower density, spent more time in an unfamiliar environment when group housed. In study three, adolescent female rats were housed in familiar pairs or exposed to unfamiliar conspecifics. Unfamiliar adolescent interactions had no effects on responses to unfamiliar environments or stress physiology in adulthood, but heightened ultrasonic call rates. In this thesis, adolescent social experiences do not act like stressors, but modulate (especially female) social behaviour. Adolescent stressors and social experiences therefore have distinct effects on responses to unfamiliar stimuli and stress physiology that are maintained into adulthood.

Elevated heart rate is considered to be an indicator of stress. Thus, noticing one’s own heartbeat can have a negative connotation. Yet, the heartbeat is simply a physiological function, neither positive nor negative in itself, that is experienced in diverse contexts, such as medical, athletic, or intimate. This study uses first-person  research through design and soma design to increase awareness of the heartbeat from both an individual and social angle and examines the potential benefits of using external sensory stimuli to convey biofeedback information. It also opens up the design space around the heartbeat and sensory stimuli and reflects upon comfort and relaxation, biofeedback and digital mindfulness, the Sensiks sensory reality pod as a tool and space, and the heartbeat as a spectrum and a way of getting to know people. The study results in four deliverables: a design critique of the Sensiks sensory reality pod, a design fiction publication, a design proposal, and an experience prototype. The study proposes the design for the Gallery of Heartbeats – a sensory experience aimed at externalising and sharing the heartbeat of self and others. The Gallery of Heartbeats supports individual reflections, providing the user with real-time numerical, graphical, and auditory biofeedback on their heart rate. It also encourages social communication of this commonly unnoticed physiological feature, allowing users to record and store their heartbeat to an archive and experience the pre-recorded heartbeats of others in a multisensory way. The evaluation of the Gallery of Heartbeats prototype shows that the design succeeds in making people more aware of their cardiovascular activity, triggers their curiosity, and increases empathy. However, the Gallery of Heartbeats also makes the users want to control or change their heart rate which goes against the mindfulness principles of presence-in and presence-with the design was inspired by. Sensory stimuli, especially sound and visuals, are assessed as beneficial for creating feelings of immersion, whereas different representations of the biofeedback information have different effects and use cases.
En förhöjd hjärtfrekvens anses vara en indikator på stress. Därför kan en hög puls tolkas som något negativt. Likväl har hjärtats pulserande enbart en fysiologisk funktion, som i sig varken har en positiv eller negativ betydelse, och som kan erfaras under olika omständigheter, såsom i medicinska sammanhang, vid fysisk träning eller under intima stunder.  Denna studie är en forskning-genom-design ur ett förstapersonsperspektiv samt soma-design för att öka medvetenheten om sina hjärtslag, både från en individuell och en social vinkel, samt en undersökning av de potentiella fördelar som kan finnas med att använda ett yttre stimuli för att ge biofeedback. Den öppnar också upp designrymden kring hjärtslag och sensorisk stimuli, reflekterar kring välbefinnande och avslappning, biofeedback och digital mindfulness, Sensiks sensoriska kapsel som ett verktyg och en plats, samt hjärtfrekvens som ett spektrum och ett sätt att lära känna människor. Resultatet av studien framställs i fyra olika delar: en designkritik av Sensiks sensoriska kapsel, en fiktiv design publikation, ett designförslag, och en prototyp av upplevelser. Detta examensarbete utmynnar i ett förslag på en design kallad “Gallery of Heartbeats” - en sensorisk upplevelse avsedd att ge en yttre form och för att dela hjärtslagen med sig själv och andra. “Gallery of Heartbeats” skapar utrymme för individuell reflektion, och ger användaren i realtid en numerisk, grafisk och ljudmässig biofeedback på sin hjärtfrekvens. Den uppmuntrar också till samtal av detta vanligtvis omärkbara fysiologiska fenomen, den möjliggör användaren att spela in och spara sina hjärtslag i ett arkiv, och användaren ges möjlighet att uppleva förinspelade hjärtslag av andra personer på ett multisensoriskt sätt. Utvärdering av prototypen för “Gallery of Heartbeats” visar att designen lyckas få människor mer medvetna om sin kardiovaskulära aktivitet, väcker deras nyfikenhet och ökar empatin. Dock gör även “Gallery of Heartbeats” att användaren vill kontrollera eller ändra sin hjärtfrekvens, vilket går emot de principerna inom mindfulness av att vara ‘presence-in’ och ‘presence-with’. Sensorisk stimuli, särskilt ljud och bild, ses som främjande av att skapa känslan av att vara absorberad, medan andra signaler från biofeedback har en annan påverkan och andra användningsområden.

The ability to accurately interpret the emotions of others is known as empathic accuracy, and in this thesis is referred to as Affect Recognition-Empathic Accuracy (AR-EA). This ability can facilitate pro-social behaviours while deficits may result in anti-social behaviours. Research has demonstrated that imagination, connectivity, and social context can all influence our ability to accurately interpret the emotions of others; however, there has been little research investigating how these specific factors might be enhanced, or influence AR-EA abilities when using photographic stimuli. There were two aims to this thesis. The first aim was to investigate the possibility of inserting specific empathy related elements, imagination, connectivity, and social context, into a set of photographic stimuli to assess the potential influence on AR-EA. The second aim was to develop an original set of photographic stimuli for use in this thesis, and to conduct psychometric evaluations on said photographs in order to develop a new photographic measure for the assessment and evaluation of AR-EA. The photographs consisted of both male and female models expressing six different basic emotions (happy, sad, fear, anger, surprise, disgust) at three different levels of intensity (low, medium and high intensity), plus one neutral expression. Imagination and connectivity were both facilitated through the insertion of a silhouette (blacked out full body figure, male or female) into the photographic stimuli. Social context was manipulated through the use of different social setting backgrounds in the photographs: a kitchen, a bar (as in a tavern), and a neutral background. Results demonstrated the silhouette inserted into the photographs to facilitate imagination and connectivity not only enhanced empathic processes, but also produced photographic-based measure of AR-EA that was superior in both reliability and validity to other presentation modes (full body only, and head and shoulders only stimuli). The different social settings of the photographs also impacted AR-EA abilities facilitating the accurate interpretation of some emotions, whilst inhibiting others. The overall findings of this thesis question past research methods as well as provide intriguing insights into the functioning of empathic accuracy processes which have not been previously reported. The testing and research also resulted in a new photographic measure for the assessment of AR-EA abilities, whilst the use of simple techniques to manipulate empathy-based elements within the photographs offers new opportunities for future research.

The capacity to acquire language is believed to be deeply embedded in our biology. As such, it has been proposed that humans have evolved to respond specially to language from the first days and months of life. The present thesis explores this hypothesis, examining the early neural and social processing of speech in young infants. In Experiments 1-4, Near-Infrared Spectroscopy is used to measure neural activation in classic “language areas” of the cortex to the native language, to a rhythmically distinct unfamiliar language, and to a non-speech whistled surrogate language in newborn infants (Experiments 1 & 2) as well as infants at 4 months of age (Experiments 3 & 4) in. Results revealed that at birth, the brain responds specially to speech: bilateral anterior areas are activated to both familiar and unfamiliar spoken language, but not to the whistled surrogate form. Different patterns were observed in 4 month-old infants, demonstrating how language experience influences the brain response to speech and non-speech signals. Experiments 5-7 then turn to infants’ perception of language as a marker of social group, asking whether infants at 6 and 11 month-olds associate the speakers of familiar and unfamiliar language with individuals of different ethnicities. Infants at 11 months—but not at 6 months—are found to look more to Asian versus Caucasian faces when paired with Cantonese versus English language (Experiments 5, 7). However, infants at the same age did not show any difference in looking to Asian versus Caucasian faces when paired with English versus Spanish (Experiment 6). Together, these results suggest that the 11 month-old infants tested have learned a specific association between Asian individuals and Cantonese language. The experiments presented in this thesis thus demonstrate that from early in development, infants are tuned to language. Such sensitivity is argued to be of critical importance, as it may serve to direct young learners to potential communicative partners.
Arts, Faculty of
Psychology, Department of
Graduate

The real estate sector in Sweden is characterized as a small market with high competition amongst homes and apartments. With that in mind the real estate companies are forced to be unique in their strategic marketing way to stand out from the competitors. The traditional marketing tools are no longer suitable in order to be successful and new strategic marketing tools are constantly improved. Sensory marketing is a phenomenon which is relatively new and it is all about satisfying the humans five senses: sight, smell, taste, hearing and feeling. A humans five senses are unique and very individual. It is scientifically proven that a human has between six to ten million receptor cells in the nose and with the help of these we can identify 2000- 4000 different types of aromas. It is clear that smell as a sense is very central, since you cannot turn off this sense unlike the four others. A human can recognize around 10 000 different fragrance combinations, although it may diffuse to define a specific scent. The use of the marketing tool is used in varying degrees depending on which sector a company operates in. Within the retail sector many companies use sensory marketing in order to satisfy the customer on a new level. There are a number of clothing and interior stores who work with sense of smell and try to develop a sense that is compatible with the concept they offer. It has been proven that various companies have succeeded with their sensory marketing and have thereby gained market shares. Within the real estate sector the way of working with the senses are relatively limited and undeveloped. Many brokers talk about the visual which means what the eye sees in a home and they also emphasize that the feeling within a home should feel right for the buyer. There are no earlier studies about how added scenes can enhance the experience of a home and this has been our main research question. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a deeper understanding of how Swedish real estate agencies currently work with fragrances and also how they can be improved. By using a qualitative research method a deeper understanding regarding sense linked to the real estate sector has been acquired. The data has been collected from six different real estate companies in Kalmar. Based on the analysis, the outcome of this study shows that senses can not stand as a single element within homes that are for sale. Although, to add the right senses can be seen as a tool to create a extended experience for a speculator who visits a property that is for sale. In combination with homestyling, an added sense can awaken awareness of potential buyers and thereby a more emotional bond to the ii home can occur. The empirical findings shows that the development of fragrances within the real estate sector is interesting as long as it is done in the right way and matches the concept. The study can be compatible for Swedish real estate brokers and agencies who want to extend their way of working and implement sensory marketing.

While it is known that primitive, low-level visual stimuli such as abrupt visual onsets or luminance changes can bias attentional orienting without willful intent on the part of the observer, comparatively little is known about how attention functions in rich, dynamic, meaningful contexts, such as those that comprise our everyday lives. The primary motivating hypothesis of this investigation is that, given our intrinsic needs as evolved social organisms, as well as our capability for behavioral flexibility, the attention system should be sensitive not only to low-level stimulus features, but also to complex stimuli that provide behaviorally relevant information. Three separate lines of research will be presented, each one providing a unique perspective on this issue. The first examined attentional orienting to socially relevant stimuli, finding that eye gaze serves as particularly potent cue for attentional orienting, driving the cortical orienting network more robustly than non-social stimuli, and resulting in a larger attention-related modulation of the early visual processing of stimuli appearing at attended locations. The second line of inquiry investigated patterns of eye movements while participants viewed naturalistic navigational scenes, revealing a dynamic interplay of orienting to the various behaviorally relevant aspects of the scene. The third set of studies specifically addressed whether, given the relevance of heading information for guiding navigational behavior, there is evidence that attention can be oriented automatically to the heading point in an optic flow field simulating the patterns of visual stimulation that accompany self-motion. Together, the results converge on the conclusion that attention can be oriented automatically in a dynamic, flexible, and continuous manner on the basis of complex visual stimuli that provide behaviorally relevant information.

På grund av det allt mer utvecklade informationssamhället och nya utmaningar inom den digitala marknadsföringen, finns det ett behov av alternativa lösningar för att nå ut med information till konsumenter på ett effektivt sätt. Denna studie ämnar därför att undersöka om och hur informativa, auditiva stimulin är en effektiv informationskälla att använda i apoteksmiljöer samt hur det påverkar konsumenters upplevelse. Studien har genomförts i två butiker inom en svensk apotekskedja, där strukturerade intervjuer med konsumenter har kombinerats med observationer och semistrukturerade intervjuer med butiksanställda. Studiens resultat tyder på att ljudmeddelanden är en effektiv informationskälla. Vidare konstateras det att auditiva stimulin generellt kan ge upphov till en överbelastning och skapa känslor av irritation, men att detta stimuli även har skapat värde för de konsumenter som har hört och uppfattat stimulit, framförallt för den yngre generationen.

Background. Previous studies have highlighted the role of the brain reward and cognitive control systems in the etiology of anorexia nervosa (AN). In an attempt to disentangle the relative contribution of these systems to the disorder, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate hemodynamic responses to reward-related stimuli presented both subliminally and supraliminally in acutely underweight AN patients and age-matched healthy controls (HC). Methods. fMRI data were collected from a total of 35 AN patients and 35 HC, while they passively viewed subliminally and supraliminally presented streams of food, positive social, and neutral stimuli. Activation patterns of the group × stimulation condition × stimulus type interaction were interrogated to investigate potential group differences in processing different stimulus types under the two stimulation conditions. Moreover, changes in functional connectivity were investigated using generalized psychophysiological interaction analysis. Results. AN patients showed a generally increased response to supraliminally presented stimuli in the inferior frontal junction (IFJ), but no alterations within the reward system. Increased activation during supraliminal stimulation with food stimuli was observed in the AN group in visual regions including superior occipital gyrus and the fusiform gyrus/parahippocampal gyrus. No group difference was found with respect to the subliminal stimulation condition and functional connectivity. Conclusion. Increased IFJ activation in AN during supraliminal stimulation may indicate hyperactive cognitive control, which resonates with clinical presentation of excessive self-control in AN patients. Increased activation to food stimuli in visual regions may be interpreted in light of an attentional food bias in AN.

Les Troubles du Spectre Autistique (TSA) forment un ensemble répandu de désordres neurodéveloppementaux qui touche environ 1% de la population. Les symptômes principaux présentés par les patients sont des déficits moyens à sévères de l’interaction sociale, des centres d’intérêt limités, des comportements stéréotypés et répétitifs, parfois accompagnés de déficiences intellectuelles et/ou cognitives. Des progrès récents en génétique humaine ont permis d’identifier de nombreux gènes de susceptibilité ; dont un grand nombre joue un rôle au sein des synapses. La délétion et des mutations de novo du gène SHANK3 ont été associées à des formes sévères de TSA chez l’homme. Cependant, les conséquences fonctionnelles de ces mutations sur les perturbations comportementales restent largement inexpliquées. Les souris porteuses d’une délétion de l’exon 21 de SHANK3 (Shank3(ΔC/ΔC)) présentent des déficits de comportement social ainsi que des altérations neurophysiologiques telles que des anomalies synaptiques. Ces phénomènes ont lieu en particulier dans l’hippocampe, siège d’une neuroplasticité intense durant le développement, et pendant les phases d’apprentissage et de mémorisation. De manière intéressante, la vulnérabilité de l’hippocampe a été mise en lumière comme facteur clé dans les TSA. De plus, il semble que cette structure joue un rôle dans la mémoire sociale. Pourtant, le lien fonctionnel entre les altérations de la structure des synapses et les déficits de comportement social dans les TSA reste à élucider. En particulier, la possibilité que l’hippocampe, plus connu pour son rôle dans la navigation spatiale (i.e. l’activité des « cellules de lieu » qui créent des cartes spatiales) et la mémoire épisodique, traite également des informations sociales n’est pas parfaitement tranchée. Nous avons par conséquent examiné (i) si et comment les cellules de lieu de l’hippocampe de souris sauvages peuvent répondre à des stimuli sociaux durant différences expériences d’interaction avec des congénères, et (ii) dans quelle mesure l’activité des cellules de lieu est altérée dans les souris Shank3(ΔC/ΔC). Nos données démontrent que l’activité des cellules de lieu de souris sauvages peut être significativement modulée par la présence de congénères dans un environnement proche. En particulier, des cellules de lieu présentent un remapping global quand la souris est exposée à un nouvel animal présenté dans une partie fixe de l’environnement. Ce phénomène est présent à la fois chez les souris sauvages et Shank3(ΔC/ΔC). Cependant, certains processus observés sont significativement modifiées chez les souris dépourvues de protéine Shank3. Ces données montrent que l’hippocampe peut jouer un rôle dans la représentation des expériences vécues en associant des informations spatiales, contextuelles, et sociales. D’autre part, ces processus peuvent être au moins en partie altérés dans notre modèle de TSA et pourraient illustrer une forme d’inflexibilité cognitive. La délétion du gène SHANK3 a également provoqué des changements significatifs de l’activité de réseau et dans l'équilibre entre excitation et inhibition ainsi qu’une perturbation de comportements fondamentaux tels que le sommeil. Ceci suggère l'importance de ses rôles physiologiques dans les phénotypes associés aux TSA
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) form a widespread neurodevelopmental disease affecting about 1% of the population. Core symptoms displayed by patients are medium to severe deficits in social interaction, limited center of interest, repetitive behavior as well as intellectual and/or cognitive deficiencies. Recent progress in human genetics enabled the identification of several susceptibility genes; many of them share common and prominent roles in the synapse. Deletion and de novo mutations of the SHANK3 gene have been associated in humans with severe forms of ASD, yet, the functional consequences of these mutations on behavioral disturbances remain largely unexplained. Mice carrying SHANK3 exon-21 deletion (Shank3(ΔC/ΔC)) display social deficits and significant neurophysiological alterations such as synaptic abnormalities, in particular in the hippocampus, a place of intense neuroplasticity during development and learning and memory process. Interestingly, even though hippocampal vulnerability has been recently highlighted as a key factor in ASD, and given its suggested role in social memory, the functional link between synaptic structural alterations and (social) behavioral impairments in ASD has not yet been elucidated. It is even unclear whether and how the Hippocampus, best known for its critical role in spatial navigation (e.g. “place cell” activity creating spatial maps) and episodic memory, can also process social information. Hence, we examined if and how hippocampal place cells in normal mice respond to social stimuli during different social experiments, and the extent to which place cell firings are altered in Shank3(ΔC/ΔC) mice. Our data demonstrate that hippocampal place cell activity of wild-type animals can be significantly modulated by the presence of congeners in the nearby environment. Notably, place cells display global remapping when the mouse is exposed to a novel animal in a blocked/fixed location in both wild-type and Shank3(ΔC/ΔC) mice. However, some of the processes observed were significantly modified in mice lacking Shank3. These elements show that the hippocampus may play a crucial role in the creation of meaningful representations of experiences, associating spatial, contextual and social information, and these processes might be altered in ASD, possibly leading to cognitive inflexibility. The SHANK3 gene deletion also produced significant changes in network behavior, excitation/inhibition balance in addition to fundamental behaviors such as sleep, suggesting the importance of its physiological roles in ASD-associated phenotypes

For cochlear implant (CI) listeners, poorer than normal speech recognition abilities are typically attributed to degraded spectral acuity. However, estimates of spectral acuity have most often been obtained using simple (tonal) stimuli, presented directly to the implanted electrodes, rather than through the speech processor as occurs in everyday listening. Further, little is known about spectral acuity for dynamic stimuli, as compared to static stimuli, even though the perception of dynamic spectral cues is important for speech perception. The primary goal of the current study was to examine spectral acuity in CI listeners, and a comparison group of normal hearing (NH) listeners, for both static and dynamic stimuli presented through the speech processor. In addition to measuring static and dynamic spectral acuity for simple stimuli (pure tones) in Experiment 1, spectral acuity was measured for complex stimuli (synthetic vowels) in Experiment 2, because measures obtained with speech-like stimuli are more likely to reflect listeners’ ability to make use of spectral cues in naturally-produced speech. Sixteen postlingually-deaf, adult CI users and sixteen NH listeners served as subjects in both experiments. In Experiment 1, frequency discrimination limens (FDLs) were obtained for 1.5 kHz reference tones, and frequency glide discrimination limens (FGDLs) were obtained for pure-tone frequency glides centered on 1.5 kHz. Glide direction identification thresholds (GDITs) were also measured, in order to determine the amount of frequency change required to identify glide direction. All three measures were obtained for stimuli having both longer (150 ms) and shorter (50 ms) durations. Spectral acuity for dynamic stimuli (FGDLs, GDITs) was poorer than spectral acuity for static stimuli (FDLs) for both listener groups at both stimulus durations. Stimulus duration had a significant effect on thresholds in NH listeners, for all three measures, but had no significant effect on thresholds in CI listeners for any measure. Regression analyses revealed no systematic relationship between FDLs and FGDLs in NH listeners at either stimulus duration. For CI listeners, the relationship between FDLs and FGDLs was significant at both stimulus durations, suggesting that, for tonal signals, the factors that determine spectral acuity for static stimuli also largely determine spectral acuity for dynamic stimuli. In Experiment 2, estimates of static and dynamic spectral acuity were obtained using three-formant synthetic vowels, modeled after the vowel /^/. Formant discrimination thresholds (FDTs) were measured for changes in static F2 frequency, whereas formant transition discrimination thresholds (FTDTs) were measured for stimuli that varied in the extent of F2 frequency change. FDTs were measured with 150-ms stimuli, and FTDTs were measured with both 150-ms and 50-ms stimuli. For both listener groups, FTDTs were similar for the longer and shorter stimulus durations, and FTDTs were larger than FDTs at the common duration of 150 ms. Measures from Experiment 2 were compared to analogous measures from Experiment 1 in order to examine the effect of stimulus context (simple versus complex) on estimates of spectral acuity. For NH listeners, measures obtained with complex stimuli (FDTs, FTDTs) were consistently larger than the corresponding measures obtained with simple stimuli (FDLs, FGDLs). For CI listeners, the relationship between simple and complex measures differed across two subgroups of subjects. For one subgroup, thresholds obtained with complex stimuli were smaller than those obtained with simple stimuli; for another subgroup the pattern was reversed. On the basis of these findings, it was concluded that estimates of spectral acuity obtained with simple stimuli cannot accurately predict estimates of spectral acuity obtained with complex (speech-like) stimuli in CI listeners. However, a significant relationship was observed between FDTs and FTDTs. Thus, similar to the measures obtained with pure-tone stimuli in Experiment 1 (FDLs and FGDLs), estimates of static spectral acuity (FDTs) appear to predict estimates of dynamic spectral acuity (FTDTs) when both measures are obtained with stimuli of similar complexity in CI listeners. Taken together, findings from Experiments 1 and 2 support the following conclusions: (1) Dynamic spectral acuity is poorer than static spectral acuity for both simple and complex stimuli. This outcome was true for both NH and CI listeners, despite the fact that absolute thresholds were substantially larger, on average, for the CI group. (2) For stimuli having the same level of complexity (i.e., tonal or speech-like), dynamic spectral acuity in CI listeners appears to be determined by the same factors that determine spectral acuity for static stimuli. (3) For CI listeners, no systematic relationship was observed between analogous measures of spectral acuity obtained with simple, as compared to complex, stimuli. (4) It is expected that measures of spectral acuity based on complex stimuli would provide a better indication of CI users’ ability to make use of spectral cues in speech; therefore, it may be advisable for studies attempting to examine the relationship between spectral acuity and speech perception in this population to measure spectral acuity using complex, rather than simple, stimuli. (5) Findings from the current study are consistent with recent vowel identification studies suggesting that some poorer-performing CI users have little or no access to dynamic spectral cues, while access to such cues may be relatively good in some better-performing CI users. However, additional research is needed to examine relationship between estimates of spectral acuity obtained here for speech-like stimuli (FDTs, FTDTs) and individual CI users’ perception of static and dynamic spectral cues in naturally-produced speech.

Cognitive functioning has historically been used to predict adaptive outcomes of individuals with autism spectrum disorders; however, research shows that it does not adequately predict these outcomes. Therefore, the current study explored the role of emotion perception in the adaptive functioning of individuals with ASDs. Emotion perception was assessed using the DANVA-2, which has audio and static face stimuli, and the DAVE, dynamic, audio-visual emotion movies. Adaptive functioning was assessed using the Vineland-II Socialization, Communication, and Daily Living domains. Results indicated that individuals with ASDs demonstrated significant impairments in both adaptive functioning and emotion perception compared to typical individuals. Findings did not demonstrate a relationship between emotion perception and adaptive functioning, controlling for IQ. Future research should broaden the approach when investigating possible mechanisms of change for adaptive outcomes to include exploration of social perception more broadly, of which emotion perception is one component, and its relationship with adaptive outcomes.

L'environnement semble jouer un rôle important dans le développement de la discrimination des stimuli sociaux. Le développement précoce de la discrimination des stimuli sociaux tels que les visages et les expressions faciales a suscité de nombreuses recherches. Par ailleurs, les individus avec autisme ne semblent pas répondre aux stimuli sociaux de la même façon que des individus au fonctionnement normal et ces différences apparaissent de manière précoce.Cependant, les recherches actuelles ne nous fournissent pas assez d'éléments dur la façon dont cette discrimination se met en place, en particulier sur les régions du visage qui sont importantes pour la discrimination. C'est ce point que nous avons choisi d'étudier au cours de cette thèse, auprès d'enfants avec autisme. Les travaux effectués dans le cadre de cette thèse ont eu pour objectifs tout d'abord de développer une tâche permettant de mesurer les éléments du visage impliqués dans la discrimination d'expressions faciales chez des enfants au développement typique et des enfants avec autisme (Etudes 1 & 2). Puis, nous avons mis en place une tâche ayant pour objectif d'évaluer l'importance des régions des yeux et de la bouche auprès d'enfants avec autisme et de montrer l'effet de la modification des patterns d'observation des visages sur la façon dont les éléments du visage exercent un contrôle discriminatif sur les réponses des enfants avec autisme (Etudes 3 & 4). Ces résultats sont discutés au regard de l'importance de l'environnement dans la mise en place de la discrimination des stimuli sociaux. Les implications concernant les recherches chez l'enfant au développement typique seront discutées, ainsi que la place de la direction du regard, en plus de l'expression des yeux, comme élément discriminatif
The role of the environment has been demonstrated in the development of the discrimination of social stimuli. The discrimination of social stimuli such as faces and facial expressions have been extensively studied during the past decades. In addition, people with autism show atypical responses to social stimuli compared to typically functioning individuals. Those discrepancies can be seen very early in life. However, there is still much to know about how this learning takes place, particularly on the face parts that are relevant for the discrimination. The focus of this work is to study more precisely how face parts come to control the responses of children with autism. The goal of our studies was first, to build a task to measure precisely which parts of the face are involved in facial expressions discrimination in children with autism and in typically developing children (Experiments 1 & 2). Subsequently, we devised a task which evaluated the role of the eyes' and mouth regions in children with autism and typically developing children in order to see the effect of the modification of observing patterns of faces on the way eyes and mouth come to control the responses of children with autism (Experiments 3 & 4). Results are discussed in line with the role of the environment in participating in the development of facial expressions discrimination. Implications for the study in early facial expression discrimination learning in typically developing children are discussed. Direction of gaze, in adition to the eyes region expression, is discussed as a relevant element for the discrimination of facial stimuli

Callous and unemotional (CU) traits in children with conduct problems have been indicated as precursors to adult psychopathy. The analysis of the sensitivity to rewards and punishment in this population may be useful in the identification of effective behavior modification programs and particularly the delineation of ineffective punishment procedures. Scores on the Child Psychopathy Scale, Inventory of Callous and Unemotional Traits, Contingency Response Rating Scale and the Sensitivity to Reward Sensitivity to Punishment – Children Revised scale were used to evaluate 20 children, aged 7-13, recruited from FIU’s Center for Children and Families. The sample comprised 14 males and 6 females displaying a range of psychopathic traits measured by the CPS, with scores from 9 to 46 (M = 28.45, SD = 10.73). Sensitivity to punishment was examined using a behavioral task in which children endured various amounts of either white noise (type I punishment) or time-out from positive reinforcement (type II punishment) in order to gain access to a demonstrated reinforcer. The sample was stratified on the basis of the magnitude of psychopathy scores, and sensitivity to rewards and punishment were evaluated using a Behavioral Activation / Behavioral Inhibition framework by examining task performance: the frequency and duration of punishment conditions selected, electrodermal activity (skin conductance response), and parent-reported measures of child sensitivity to reward and punishment. Results indicated that the magnitude of CU traits was directly proportional to hyposensitivity to punishment and hypersensitivity to reward. Children with elevated levels of CU traits elected to endure a greater frequency and duration type I punishment in order to maintain continued access to the reinforcer. Significant differences were not found between high- and low-psychopathy children in the selection of type II punishment. The findings indicate that although there may be a hyporeactivity to type I punishment in children with CU traits, the use of a type II punishment by the removal of a positive stimulus has demonstrated treatment efficacy. The difference in sensitivity to rewards and the types of effective punishment in children with CU traits may affect reinforcement based learning, leading to the ineffectiveness of traditional methods informing the development of social responses.

Narrative production and comprehension is a difficult task for children with language impairment (LI). Their stories are typically shorter and contain more grammatical errors than the stories of typically developing age-matched peers. This pilot study describes the abilities of six children with LI to produce stories from pictured stimuli. Stories were elicited from each child during a 10-week period. Stimulus pictures and coding procedures from the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument were employed to analyze the participants' story grammar (SG). Eight SG elements were assessed including character introduction, setting, initiating event (IE), internal response (IR), internal plan (IP), attempt, and outcome. The children varied highly in their production of SG elements. The SG elements that described the internal states, emotions, and motivations of the characters were the most difficult for all participants.

Research Question: What factors influence customers’ online group buying decision-making in emerging market? Research Purpose: To explore whether the factors of the Social Exchange Theory, market stimuli and e-commerce systems affect customers’ online group buying decision-making in emerging market Method: This research is a quantitative study by using survey as a research strategy. A questionnaire which designed according to theory framework is used to collect data for analysis. The questionnaires are posted in Chinese Baidu PostBar. Conclusion: In the end of data collection, 375 questionnaires have been analyzed. After analyzing empirical data, results for research questions have been answered. According to the analysis and theoretical framework, "reciprocity", "trust", "price", "word of mouth" and "website design" are attributes which have been detected to influence customers ‘online group buying decision-making in China. However, "loyalty "and "logistic services" are not attributes to influence customers ‘online group buying decision-making.

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