Understanding Differences in Social Learning

Previous research has shown that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) appear to learn from social and non-social rewards at different rates compared to typically developing individuals. Several hypotheses have been developed to explain these differences, including the social motivation hypothesis, the weak central coherence hypothesis and hypotheses related to probabilistic learning ability. However, in all cases, the literature shows only mixed support for these ideas. This dissertation focuses on identifying which assumptions from these hypotheses replicate and what replication successes and failures mean for the study of autism-spectrum traits within the general population. This work takes a “spectrum” approach to autism that assumes ASD-related traits occur on a scale continuum. It therefore is designed to test the central predictions of each of these hypotheses amongst participants sampled from the general population. The use of general population samples confers the considerable advantage of allowing adequate statistical power for hypothesis tests. In addition to these hypotheses, this dissertation explores how social behavior and interaction outcomes relate to ASD-traits and task outcomes. Interestingly, results ran contrary to many of the previous findings in the literature. Despite evidence of associations within the general population and ASD-traits, I failed to find clear associations between ASD-traits and predictions made by the Social Motivation Hypothesis, the Weak Central Coherence Hypothesis or hypotheses related to probabilistic learning ability. Despite these results, data on real social behavior and social outcomes did vary as a function of ASD-relevant traits. Specifically, the interaction partners of individuals who reported higher levels of ASD-traits experienced them as less likable and reported worse interaction quality. Additionally, individuals reporting higher levels of ASD-related traits were less expressive than those reporting fewer traits. Overall, while predictions about ASD-traits and cognitive/motivational processes did not appear to replicate within the general population, ASD-traits do appear to be related to real-life social behavior and interaction outcomes associated. Together, these findings document subtle social behavior differences associated with ASD traits in the absence of social cognitive differences and suggest that major theories of autism may not sufficiently explain the causes of altered social behavior in those with autism-spectrum conditions

A 4-study replication of the moderating effects of greed on socioeconomic status and unethical behaviour.

Four replications of Piff and colleagues\u27 study examined the moderating effects of greed attitudes on the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and unethical behaviour (Study 7). In the original study, the researchers found that both greed and SES predicted increased propensity to engage in unethical behavior. Furthermore, this association was moderated such that the effects of SES on unethical behaviour were no longer present in the greed prime condition versus the neutral condition. In replication 1 of the original study main effects of greed attitudes and SES were found, but no interaction was found. Main effects for greed emerged in replications 3 and 4. However no main effects for SES or interactions emerged for replications 2-4. A meta-analysis was conducted with all replications and the original study, and found no moderating effect of greed on the relationship between SES and unethical behavior

Maria Cosway’s Hours: Cosmopolitan and Classical Visual Culture in Thomas Macklin’s Poets Gallery

Thomas Macklin’s Gallery of Poets opened at the Mitre Tavern in Fleet Street in 1788 with the aim to ‘display British Genius’ through ‘Prints Illustrative of the Most Celebrated British Poets’. Early newspaper coverage promised ‘a monument of the powers of the pencil in England, as the Vatican is at Rome’. The incongruous juxtaposition between Fleet Street and the Vatican spells out the cosmopolitan ambition of the literary gallery phenomenon through its real and imagined geographies of display. Through the format of the paper gallery of prints, Macklin’s Poets offered the inventions of British Poets as a repository of painting. This chapter examines how the cosmopolitan idiom of the paper gallery is negotiated in the first number of Macklin’s Poets. This essay examines the extent to which this ambition was achieved in the first Number of Macklin’s Poets which carried an engraving of Maria Cosway’s The Hours, originally a painting with an impressively European iconographic heritage. The painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1783, and was retroactively associated by Macklin with Thomas Gray’s ‘Ode on the Spring’. The trope of the Hours brought with it a weighty provenance derived from classical marble bas-relief, through the antiquarian pages of Pietro Santi Bartoli and Bernard de Montfaucon to Flaxman’s designs for Wedgwood plaques and vases. Cosway’s name also imported into Gray’s poem her reputation as a cosmopolitan, cultured woman who had completed the Grand Tour and who moved in elite circles including those of the Prince of Wales in London and the Duke of Orleans, Pierre d’Hancarville and Thomas Jefferson in Paris. The iconographies of the painting, the print, and the poem articulate a European cosmopolitan tradition for British Art

Multivariate assessment of vaccine equity in Nigeria: A VERSE tool case study using demographic and health survey 2018

Nigeria experiences wide heterogeneity in vaccination rates by vaccine and region. However, inequities in vaccination status extend beyond just geographic covariates. Traditionally, inequity is represented by a single metric pertaining to socioeconomic status. A growing body of literature suggests that this view is limiting, and a multi-factor approach is necessary to comprehensively evaluate relative disadvantage between individuals.The Vaccine Economics Research for Sustainability and Equity (VERSE) tool produces a composite equity metric, which accounts for multiple factors influencing inequity in vaccination coverage. We apply the VERSE tool to Nigeria’s 2018 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) to cross-sectionally evaluate equity in vaccination status for national immunization program (NIP) vaccines over the following contributing covariates: age of child, sex of child, maternal education level, socioeconomic status, health insurance status, state of residence, and urban or rural designation. We also assess equity for zero-dose, fully immunized for age, and completion of NIP.Results show that socioeconomic status contributes substantially to variation vaccination coverage, but it is not the most substantial factor. For all vaccination statuses, except for NIP completion, maternal education level is the greatest contributor towards a child’s immunization status among model variables. We highlight the outputs for zero-dose, fully immunized at infancy, MCV1 and PENTA1. The percentage point gap in vaccination status between the top and bottom quintiles of disadvantage, as ranked by the composite indicator is 31.1 (29.5–32.7) for zero-dose status, 53.1 (51.3–54.9) for full immunization status, 48.9 (46.9–50.9) for MCV1, and 67.6 (66.0–69.2) for PENTA1. Though concentration indices indicate inequity for all statuses, full immunization coverage is very low at 31.5% suggesting significant gaps in reaching children after initial doses for routine immunizations. Applying the VERSE tool to future Nigeria DHS surveys can allow decisionmakers to track changes in vaccination coverage equity, in a standardized manner, over time

Li-Fraumeni syndrome:Report of a clinical research workshop and creation of a research consortium

Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) is a rare dominantly inherited cancer predisposition syndrome that was first described in 1969. In most families, it is caused by germline mutations in the TP53 gene and is characterized by early onset of multiple specific cancers and very high lifetime cumulative cancer risk. Despite significant progress in understanding the molecular biology of TP53, the optimal clinical management of this syndrome is poorly defined. We convened a workshop on November 2, 2010, at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, bringing together clinicians and scientists, as well as individuals from families with LFS, to review the state of the science, address clinical management issues, stimulate collaborative research, and engage the LFS family community. This workshop also led to the creation of the Li-Fraumeni Exploration (LiFE) Research Consortium