The effects of repetitive traumatic experiences on emotion recognition, facial mimicry and autonomic regulation

The present dissertation focuses on the influence of childhood experiences on social development. We aim to chart how the dynamic interplay of biological, social, and emotional influences shapes developmental trajectories. Specifically, we investigated the influence of childhood protracted conditions of maltreatment and neglect on the explicit recognition of facial expressions of emotions, along with, Facial Mimicry and vagal regulation in response to facial expressions of emotions - as physiological measures of humans’ empathic resonance and self-regulation in social context, respectively. In four successive experiments, Sierra Leonean street-children and street-boys, exposed to high and protracted conditions of maltreatment and neglect, were compared to age-matched controls. In the first three experiments we revealed, both in children and adolescents, a significant influence of childhood maltreatment and neglect on explicit recognition of facial expressions of emotions, on Facial Mimicry and on vagal regulation. Trauma exposure induced a response bias for angry facial expressions recognition both in street-boys and street-children populations. Street-boys were also characterized for a significant suppression of overall Facial Mimicry responses, as well as, for a reduced and incoherent vagal regulation in response to facial expressions of emotions. Differently, street-children showed alterations of lower entities. Hence, instead of a general Facial Mimicry suppression, they presented an impaired Facial Mimicry modulation between positive and negative facial expressions of emotions. Moreover, street-children manifested an earlier development of the functional synchronization between vagal regulation and threatening stimuli in external environment with respect to age-matched controls. These different patterns of results showed by street-boys and street-children, suggested a possible and differentiated additive effect of trauma exposure. This last point was specifically addressed in the last experiment in which we evaluated the impact trajectories of prolonged experiences of maltreatment and neglect on the explicit recognition of facial expressions of emotion, Facial Mimicry and vagal regulation. We demonstrated that prolonged conditions of maltreatment and neglect not progressively influence the explicit recognition of facial expressions of emotions which appeared independent from the duration of trauma exposure. Moreover, we demonstrated that protracted trauma exposure induces specific alterations in Facial Mimicry and vagal regulation to others’ facial expressions of emotions, which follow different impact trajectories. Longer trauma exposure accentuated an incoherent Facial Mimicry and a lower vagal regulation, particularly in response to angry facial expression of emotions. Differently, a compensatory vagal recruitment during the first years of trauma exposure was found, giving important suggestions about temporal windows in which rehabilitative interventions can likely contrast the occurrence of chronic outcomes. In conclusion, the present dissertation provides new and further evidence of the influence of childhood experiences on social development by confirming and better described the huge impact of prolonged experiences of maltreatment and neglect on the understanding of emotions, empathic resonance, and self-regulation in social contexts. It clearly appears that if, as Aristotle wrote, “Man is by nature a social animal” and, as recent neuroscientific evidence suggested the human mind is ontogenetically interpersonal and wired to be social, the early traumatic experiences negatively influence physiological mechanisms supporting our social nature

Measuring the Shadow Economy with the Currency Demand Approach - A Reinterpretation of the methodology, with an application to Italy

We contribute to the debate on how to assess the size of the shadow economy by proposing a reinterpretation of the traditional Currency Demand Approach (CDA) a là Tanzi. In particular, we introduce three main innovations. First, we take a direct measure of cash transactions (the flow of cash withdrawn from bank accounts relative to total noncash payments) as the dependent variable in the money demand equation. This allows us to avoid using the Fisher equation, overcoming two severe critiques to the traditional CDA. Second, we include among covariates two distinct measures of ‘detected’ tax evasion, in place of the tax burden level. Finally, we control also for a new ‘criminal’ component of the shadow economy, considering money demand for illegal activities like drug dealing and prostitution. We propose an application of this ‘modified – CDA’ to a panel of 91 Italian provinces for the years 2005-2008.Shadow economy, Currency demand approach, Cash transactions, Evasion, Crime

Post-Conflict Affiliative Behaviors Towards Humans in Domestic Dogs (Canis familiaris)

Social species need conflict-resolution mechanisms to maintain group cohesion and diminish aggression. Reconciliation (affiliative contact between opponents) and consolation (affiliative contact between the victim and an uninvolved third party) have been postulated for this function in various species. The purpose of this work is to study post-conflict affiliative behaviors toward humans in domestic dogs. This study has looked into post-conflict affiliative behaviors in domestic dogs toward their owners. To this end, a conflict situation was created where the animal was scolded by one of the owners for “stealing” human food. Behaviors were recorded along a period of 3 min and 30 s before and after the scolding. Results show that dogs exhibit affiliative behaviors (significant increase in closeness, gazing, and tail wagging) as well as appeasement behaviors (averting eyes, low tail carriage, lowered ears, lip licking, and crouching) toward the owner that scolded them (reconciliation). In other words, this is the first work that presents reconciliation in dogs in a conflict situation with humans. It discusses the importance of this phenomenon in the dog-human bond.Fil: Cavalli, Camila María. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Grupo de Investigación del Comportamiento en Cánidos; ArgentinaFil: Dzik, Marina Victoria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas; ArgentinaFil: Carballo Pozzo Ardizzi, Fabricio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Ciencias Biológicas y Biomédicas del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Biología, Bioquímica y Farmacia. Instituto de Ciencias Biológicas y Biomédicas del Sur; ArgentinaFil: Bentosela, Mariana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas; Argentin

E-like ascospore excision mutants in Neurospora tetrasperma resistant to either p-DL-fluorophenylalanine or methyl benzimidazol-2-y1 carbamate

E-like ascospore excision mutants in Neurospora tetetrasperma resistant to either p-DL-fluorophenylalanine or methyl benzimidazol-2-y1 carbamat

Card versus cash: empirical evidence of the impact of payment card interchange fees on end users’ choice of payment methods

Interchange fees in card payments are a mechanism to balance costs and revenues between banks for the joint provision of payment services. However, such fees represent a relevant input cost used as a reference price for the final fee charged to the merchants, who may be reluctant to accept cards and induce the cardholder to withdraw cash. In this paper, we empirically verify for the first time the effect of the interchange fee on the decision to withdraw cash and compare it with that of paying with payment cards, considering a balanced panel data set of Italian issuing banks. Finally, results show that there is a positive correlation between the cash usage and the level of the interchange fees. Accordingly, regulation of the multilateral interchange fee level may be an effective tool in reducing cash payments at the point of sale, although there is no clear evidence that a zero interchange fee rate (or a close-to-zero rate) would be optimal

The Impact of the Microchip on the Card Frauds

The issue of frauds through payment cards has received a great deal of attention from authorities. A large share of card frauds can be ascribed to the phenomenon of counterfeiting of debit cards, widely used payment instrument in “face-to-face” transactions. With the advent of the Single Euro Payment Area, the European banking community has shared and almost reached the ambitious goal of replacing all the cards (and accepting terminals) with chip compatible ones, which are supposed to be harder to clone than the magnetic stripe card. Using a bi-annual balanced panel data of over one hundred Italian banks, in this paper we estimate for the first time the real impact on card frauds caused by the chip card migration. The results confirm the positive effects of the new technology: the ratio between fraud and ATM-POS transactions (card fraud loss rate) is reduced significantly if the chip card is present

Card versus cash: empirical evidence of the impact of payment card interchange fees on end users’ choice of payment methods

Interchange fees in card payments are a mechanism to balance costs and revenues between banks for the joint provision of payment services. However, such fees represent a relevant input cost used as a reference price for the final fee charged to the merchants, who may be reluctant to accept cards and induce the cardholder to withdraw cash. In this paper, we empirically verify for the first time the effect of the interchange fee on the decision to withdraw cash and compare it with that of paying with payment cards, considering a balanced panel data set of Italian issuing banks. Finally, results show that there is a positive correlation between the cash usage and the level of the interchange fees. Accordingly, regulation of the multilateral interchange fee level may be an effective tool in reducing cash payments at the point of sale, although there is no clear evidence that a zero interchange fee rate (or a close-to-zero rate) would be optimal

The Impact of the Microchip on the Card Frauds

The issue of frauds through payment cards has received a great deal of attention from authorities. A large share of card frauds can be ascribed to the phenomenon of counterfeiting of debit cards, widely used payment instrument in “face-to-face” transactions. With the advent of the Single Euro Payment Area, the European banking community has shared and almost reached the ambitious goal of replacing all the cards (and accepting terminals) with chip compatible ones, which are supposed to be harder to clone than the magnetic stripe card. Using a bi-annual balanced panel data of over one hundred Italian banks, in this paper we estimate for the first time the real impact on card frauds caused by the chip card migration. The results confirm the positive effects of the new technology: the ratio between fraud and ATM-POS transactions (card fraud loss rate) is reduced significantly if the chip card is present

The role of Embodied Cognition in action language comprehension in L1 and L2

In this study we carried out a behavioral experiment comparing action language comprehension in L1 (Italian) and L2 (English). Participants were Italian native speakers who had acquired the second language late (after the age of 10). They performed semantic judgments on L1 and L2 literal, idiomatic and metaphorical action sentences after viewing a video of a hand performing an action that was related or unrelated to the verb used in the sentence. Results showed that responses to literal and metaphorical L1 sentences were faster when the action depicted was related to the verb used rather than when the action depicted was unrelated to the verb used. No diferences were found for the idiomatic condition. In L2 we found that all responses to the three conditions were facilitated when the action depicted was related to the verb used. Moreover, we found that the diference between the unrelated and the related modalities was greater in L2 than in L1 for the literal and the idiomatic condition but not for the metaphorical condition. These fndings are consistent with the embodied cognition hypothesis of language comprehension