Gaze cuing of attention in snake phobic women: the influence of facial expression

Only a few studies investigated whether animal phobics exhibit attentional biases in contexts where no phobic stimuli are present. Among these, recent studies provided evidence for a bias toward facial expressions of fear and disgust in animal phobics. Such findings may be due to the fact that these expressions could signal the presence of a phobic object in the surroundings. To test this hypothesis and further investigate attentional biases for emotional faces in animal phobics, we conducted an experiment using a gaze-cuing paradigm in which participants\u2019 attention was driven by the task-irrelevant gaze of a centrally presented face. We employed dynamic negative facial expressions of disgust, fear and anger and found an enhanced gaze-cuing effect in snake phobics as compared to controls, irrespective of facial expression. These results provide evidence of a general hypervigilance in animal phobics in the absence of phobic stimuli, and indicate that research on specific phobias should not be limited to symptom provocation paradigms

Protective factors for externalising behaviour problems in children and adolescents living in out-of-home care: A systematic review

This item is only available electronically.Children and adolescents in out-of-home care (OOHC) often display disproportionate levels of externalising behaviour problems compared to the general population, which are further linked with detrimental outcomes. Yet, despite similar levels of vulnerability, not all children and adolescents in OOHC develop these behaviours. To inform effective prevention and intervention strategies, it is important to understand individual, familial, and environmental factors that are associated with reduced risk for externalising behaviour problems for children and adolescents living in OOHC. This systematic review aimed to identify and synthesise knowledge on protective factors for externalising behaviour problems in children and adolescents between 0 and 19 years old residing in OOHC. A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase, CINAHL, and the Proquest Social Abstracts and Social Services databases, with 28 included studies (n=6814). Findings were synthesised in accordance with the Ecological Systems Framework (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; 1994; 2005). Results indicated that protective factors associated with fewer externalising behaviour problems in the microsystem included a better self-concept, active or engaged coping styles, more community interactions, higher school engagement, better school stability, and better quality relationships with biological parents, siblings, caregivers, and peers. In the young person’s exosystem, fewer children in the home and higher neighbourhood income were associated with fewer externalising behaviour problems. No studies in this review investigated protective interactions in the mesosystem, and further research is needed to understand how these could be associated with behaviour problems. Given the short and long-term consequences associated with externalising behaviours, professionals working with children and young people in OOHC should focus on identifying protective factors that can be targeted in prevention and intervention efforts. This review indicated that prevention and intervention efforts can be aimed at individual, relational, and contextual factors.Thesis (M.Psych(Clinical)) -- University of Adelaide, School of Psychology, 202

Modern monsters, old habits: relationships between nature, humans, and technology in John Steinbeck's The grapes of wrath

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente.This thesis analyzes the relationships between nature, humans, and technology; and analyzes the responsibility of each party in relation to the destruction of nature in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. The critique of technology is explicit. Technology is portrayed as possessive of monstrous qualities, as something uncanny that disrupts the familiar landscape. This critique is conveyed through the way the tractors perpetrate technological rape, in the way the men of science try to alter products' natural properties, and in the recurrent image of the road killings. Implicitly, the novel also criticizes the tenants' attitudes towards the land. By pointing out their contradictory behavior towards nature throughout the story, the novel lays bare the irony behind the tenants' pastoral speech. The pastoral ideal preached by the tenants-of how they are attached to the land, how the happiness is in the closeness with that land-is flawed, for, despite all their love and respect, they regard the earth as something to be used and exploited, without serious concern for preservation. My discussion of technology and nature in The Grapes of Wrath suggests that the novel presents a critique of both technological and human interactions with the environment, differing only in the level of explicitness in which they are portrayed. Esta dissertação analisa os relacionamentos entre natureza, seres humanos e tecnologia; e analisa a responsabilidade de cada um em relação à destruição da natureza em As Vinhas da Ira, de John Steinbeck. A crítica feita à tecnologia é explícita. Tecnologia é apresentada como possuidora de características monstruosas, como algo estranho que perturba a paisagem familiar. Esta crítica se concretiza na maneira como os tratores praticam estupro tecnológico, na maneira como os cientistas tentam alterar as propriedades naturais dos produtos, e na recorrência de cenas de atropelamento de animais na estrada. Implicitamente, o romance também critica as atitudes dos meeiros em relação à terra. Ao apontar as contradições em seus comportamentos para com a natureza ao longo da história, o romance revela a ironia oculta no discurso pastoral dos meeiros. O ideal pastoril professado pelos meeiros-isto é, seu discurso de amor à terra e de como sua felicidade está na proximidade com a terra-é falho pois, apesar de seu amor e respeito, eles vêem a terra como um recurso a ser utilizado e explorado, sem uma real preocupação com sua preservação. Minha discussão sobre natureza e tecnologia em As vinhas da Ira sugere que o romance critica tanto interações humanas quanto interações tecnológicas com o meio ambiente e que ambas diferem somente na clareza com que são retratadas

Effect of insulin glargine on cardiovascular risk analysed by mean HRV

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is an insidious disease that is increasingly present in geriatric population [1]. The greatest difficulty is represented by glycaemic control in geriatric patients often not very compliant with diet therapy and drug therapy. A new insulin glargine 300 units/ml formulation seems im- prove patient compliance due to the lower volume of insulin to be injected and improved glycaemic control over 24 hours. The HRV signal, derived from digital electrocardiographic recording, is the simplest and most imme- diate analysis that consists in calculating some temporal parameters [2]. HRV is a simple statistics derived from beat-beat intervals of sinus origin expressed as units of time in milliseconds. Data in the literature indicate that a decrease in HRV, measured with time domain analysis, denotes a worse prognosis and/or an increased risk of mortality in patients with heart disease, especially in the elderly ones

Are eyes special? Gaze, but not pointing gestures, elicits a reversed congruency effect in a spatial Stroop task

Gaze stimuli can shape attention in a peculiar way as compared to non-social stimuli. For instance, in a spatial Stroop task, gaze stimuli elicit a reversed congruency effect (i.e., faster responses on incongruent than on congruent trials) as compared to arrows, for which a standard congruency effect emerges. Here, we tested whether the reversed congruency effect observed for gaze can emerge for other social signals such as pointing gestures. Participants discriminated the direction (left or right) indicated by gaze and pointing finger stimuli that appeared leftwards or rightwards with respect to a central fixation spot. Arrows were also employed as control non-social stimuli. A reversed congruency effect emerged for the gaze, whereas a standard congruency effect emerged for both the pointing finger and the arrows. This suggests that the reversed congruency effect is specific to gaze stimuli and does not embrace all social signals conveying spatial information

Gazing left, gazing right: exploring a spatial bias in social attention

Faces oriented rightwards are sometimes perceived as more dominant than faces oriented leftwards. In this study, we explored whether faces oriented rightwards can also elicit increased attentional orienting. Participants completed a discrimination task in which they were asked to discriminate, by means of a keypress, a peripheral target. At the same time, a task-irrelevant face oriented leftwards or rightwards appeared at the centre of the screen. The results showed that, while for faces oriented rightwards targets appearing on the right were responded to faster as compared to targets appearing on the left, for faces oriented leftwards no differences emerged between left and right targets. Furthermore, we also found a negative correlation between the magnitude of the orienting response elicited by the faces oriented leftwards and the level of conservatism of the participants. Overall, these findings provide evidence for the existence of a spatial bias reflected in social orienting

Space-based and object-centered gaze cuing of attention in right hemisphere-damaged patients

Gaze cuing of attention is a well established phenomenon consisting of the tendency to shift attention to the location signaled by the averted gaze of other individuals. Evidence suggests that such phenomenon might follow intrinsic object-centered features of the head containing the gaze cue. In the present exploratory study, we aimed to investigate whether such object-centered component is present in neuropsychological patients with a lesion involving the right hemisphere, which is known to play a critical role both in orienting of attention and in face processing. To this purpose, we used a modified gaze-cuing paradigm in which a centrally placed head with averted gaze was presented either in the standard upright position or rotated 90° clockwise or anti-clockwise. Afterward, a to-be-detected target was presented either in the right or in the left hemifield. The results showed that gaze cuing of attention was present only when the target appeared in the left visual hemifield and was not modulated by head orientation. This suggests that gaze cuing of attention in right hemisphere-damaged patients can operate within different frames of reference