Emotional Priming and Spontaneous Facial Mimicry of Asian and Caucasian Faces: An Investigation Using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS)

Spontaneous facial mimicry refers to the phenomenon of imitating emotional facial expressions that are seen in other people, without being explicitly told to do so. Deficits in the automatic component of spontaneous facial mimicry are often found in individuals with autism spectrum disorders, leading some researchers to believe that facial mimicry plays a causal role in empathy. The facial feedback hypothesis suggests that imitating the muscle configuration of another individual’s face activates neural circuits for underlying emotions associated with that expression. Previous studies have found an important role for attention, as well as a facilitating effect of affinity for the target individual, when predicting rates of facial mimicry. The goal of the current study was to investigate the effect of explicit motivation on rates of facial mimicry. Participants viewed a series of videos of Asian or Caucasian individuals expressing three emotional facial expressions, and for each the participants were primed beforehand with either the question How old is this person? or How does this person feel? which the participants answered after viewing the video clip. Facial mimicry, as measured using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), was found to occur significantly more often when participants were explicitly instructed to infer the target individual’s emotion. This suggests that they were using facial mimicry as a tool to understand emotions—supporting the facial-feedback hypothesis. Participant ethnicity did not have any effect, suggesting further evidence for the universality of facial mimicry and its utility. Participants mimicked Asian target faces to a greater degree than White target faces, which may be explained by a distinctiveness effect for minority faces. KEYWORDS: facial expression, FACS, social cognition, emotion, empath

At the end of Magnolia Street: five chapters of Southern magical realism with a craft essay

“At the End of Magnolia Street” is a magical realism novel set in a fictional rural town in Middle Tennessee, taking place from the early 1990s through the 2000s. The novel explores the challenges a family can both create and endure together, following the lives of two girls as they struggle through difficult childhoods, living under the shadow of shared family history, and a fatal curse that has haunted the town for generations. The narrative alternates between Noble Williams and Liberty Allen as they struggle with unique abilities, ostracization, loss, guilt, and the need for the love and support of their family while simultaneously trying to escape the restrictions of their roots. My craft essay explores the use of counterpointed characterization to create conflict and tension as well as to develop and progress plot based upon Charles Baxter\u27s essay “Counterpointed Characterization” and exploring works that have influenced my own writing

Charge Transfer Reactions in Porous Materials

Porous materials, such as sol-gels and zeolites, contain nanometer-scale spaces in which molecules are confined, leading to significant changes in their chemical dynamics. In this dissertation, the effects of confinement on chemical behavior are studied. By understanding how the properties of a material affect functionality, the rational design of porous materials for applications such as catalysis may be achieved. The study of entropy and free energy of a nanoconfined model dye molecule with Monte Carlo methods is discussed in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, infrared spectra of a model proton-transfer complex calculated using mixed quantum-classical molecular dynamics are calculated. These studies indicate that charge transfer dynamics and equilibria are spatially-dependent in nanoconfined systems. This is reflected in the time-dependent fluorescence and infrared spectra, discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, respectively. Chapter 4 describes quantum chemical studies of a carbon acid being developed for use in Friedel-Crafts acylation as a solid acid catalyst

Trait Emotional Intelligence of student sonographers : is it learnt or inherent?

INTRODUCTION This poster presents the findings of a study undertaken in partial fulfillment of the BSc (Hons) Diagnostic Radiography award. Despite the increasing popularity of both research and practice on emotional intelligence (EI), it remains a debateable psychological construct. The definition of the construct differs widely under different theoretical frameworks, with some models defining EI as a related set of abilities and some models defining EI as a mixture of behaviours, motivations, beliefs, and attitudes (MacCann et al. 2014). For many years the EI intelligence of student sonographers has been a stumbling block for the introduction of undergraduate/direct entry ultrasound programmes. With this in mind, the main focus of this study was whether or not EI can be taught to student sonographers, or whether it is an individual’s intrinsic ability? METHODOLOGY Participants - First and second year student sonographers were invited to complete a demographic survey to collate personal variables such as; age, gender, profession and area of clinical study. In addition to this, the respondents were asked to complete the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire TEIQue-SF), a self-report measure. Findings: From the results demonstrated within this study, it is evident that the main statistical significances stem from the independent variables of age group and gender. Results from this study suggested that perhaps Emotional Intelligence could be learnt over time Conclusion: Whilst females have proved to be more capable and successful at encompassing Emotional Intelligence, it could be inferred that this is due to family social interactions or the expectation of society itself and thereby learnt. Studies have suggested that EI, as a part of the personality, is inherent in the person suggesting EI could be improved if that facet in your personality is present. The study indicated that obstetric sonographers scored higher in the EI test than the Abdominal sonographers which suggests a possible role for EI testing as an indicator for recruiting to specific ultrasound practice where higher EI is preferred

Uplift and Blame: Minority Parents in the Discourse of Professional Educators

This historical document analysis explores the professional discourse on minority parents in education during the Progressive (1900-1914), Post-Civil Rights/ESEA (1960-1974), and NCLB/Accountability Eras (1995-2009). Grounded theory was used to code and analyze 430 articles mentioning parents and/or home life from two peer-reviewed journals of education. Research questions asked which minority parents are of interest to educators in each era, how minority parenting roles are portrayed in the educational discourse, and why minority parents concern educators. Findings include a focus on immigrant parents in the Progressive Era and on African American and Hispanic parents in the Post-Civil Rights/ESEA and NCLB/Accountability Eras. While NCLB/Accountability Era racial/ethnic minority parents are commonly identified as Hispanic and African American, there is a shift away from racial/ethnic identifiers towards classifying parents by SES and marital status. Nonetheless, low SES and single-parent status are consistently associated with Hispanic and African-American identity, suggesting that race continues to matter in education. Across the three eras, concern with minority parent behavior and culture is portrayed as a corollary to concern with minority student outcomes. While the discourse pays some attention to structural factors affecting minority student outcomes, its overwhelming concern is with how educators can change parents. The motives for such a focus are considered in light of questions about 1) the efficacy of school-based parent programs; 2) the complex relationships among parenting style, parental involvement, SES, racial/ethnic identity, and student success; and 3) the benefits educators reap from engaging in a symbolic discourse about minority paren

To Boldly Go: E-Reserves from Home-Grown to Standalone to CMS

Presented at the 2014 Access Services Conference, November 12-14, 2014, Georgia Tech Global Learning Center and the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center, Atlanta, Georgia.Many academic libraries are abandoning standalone e-reserves systems, instead saving money and maximizing ease of access for students by utilizing whatever online course management system their campus has adopted. The University of West Georgia is also attempting to use this move to introduce faculty to the concept of using open access texts or materials already available within our subscription databases, instead of expensive textbooks