Axiom, anguish, and Amazement: How autistic traits modulate emotional mental imagery

Cerca con AIRE(opens in a new window)|View at Publisher| Export | Download | Add to List | More... Frontiers in Psychology Volume 7, Issue MAY, 2016, Article number 757 Open Access Axiom, anguish, and Amazement: How autistic traits modulate emotional mental imagery (Article) Esposito, G.ab , Dellantonio, S.a, Mulatti, C.c, Job, R.a a Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy b Division of Psychology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore c Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padua, Padua, Italy View additional affiliations View references (49) Abstract Individuals differ in their ability to feel their own and others' internal states, with those that have more autistic and less empathic traits clustering at the clinical end of the spectrum. However, when we consider semantic competence, this group could compensate with a higher capacity to imagine the meaning of words referring to emotions. This is indeed what we found when we asked people with different levels of autistic and empathic traits to rate the degree of imageability of various kinds of words. But this was not the whole story. Individuals with marked autistic traits demonstrated outstanding ability to imagine theoretical concepts, i.e., concepts that are commonly grasped linguistically through their definitions. This distinctive characteristic was so pronounced that, using tree-based predictive models, it was possible to accurately predict participants' inclination to manifest autistic traits, as well as their adherence to autistic profiles - including whether they fell above or below the diagnostic threshold - from their imageability ratings. We speculate that this quasi-perceptual ability to imagine theoretical concepts represents a specific cognitive pattern that, while hindering social interaction, may favor problem solving in abstract, non-socially related tasks. This would allow people with marked autistic traits to make use of perceptual, possibly visuo-spatial, information for "higher" cognitive processin

Trophic habits of Muscardinus avellanarius (Mammalia Gliridae) as revealed by multiple stable isotope analysis

Multiple stable isotope analysis was used to investigate the diet of the common dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius in a mixed Mediterranean forest. δ13C and δ15N values of dormouse tissues compared to those of the vegetal and animal sources available in the area showed that the isotopic composition of both adult and juvenile M. avellanarius could be explained by a mixture of vegetal and animal organic matter. The isotopic composition of the assimilated nitrogen was mostly explained by the organic matter from flora. Among the vegetal components, flowers of Fagus silvatica, Quercus robur, and the rarer Crataegus oxyacantha, berries of Ilex aquifolium and acorns of Q. robur were found in the adult diet, while juveniles relied mainly on flowers of F. silvatica and acorns of Q. robur. Organic matter from eggs of passerines (Parus caeruleus and P. major) sharing nest-boxes affected the carbon isotopic signals in the assimilated fraction. The common dormouse in the mixed holly forests of the northern Sicily feeds primarily on the vegetal species which are abundant in its habitat. However, the diet of this small arboreal mammal cannot be fully characterised without considering the contribution of animal organic matter represented by bird eggs

Hydrodynamic effects on the origin and quality of organic matter for bivalves: an integrated isotopic, biochemical and transplant study

Different hydrodynamic conditions can affect both the origin and the quality of organic matter available to bivalve molluscs. I chose 2 environments with very different hydrodynamics (a Mediterranean lagoon open to flow and a closed pond), but similar with regard to temperature, salinity, depth, wind exposure and algae coverage, to investigate this. The lagoon was characterised by active flow and bivalve molluscs, whereas the pond was closed off from the lagoon’s main flow but characterised by mussel beds of the highest density ever observed in the western Mediterranean. Biochemical features, 13C and 15N contents of particulate and sedimentary organic matter, and isotopic signatures of dominant organisms, were used as descriptors of the trophodynamics in both systems. In the lagoon, intense lateral drifting forces moved organic matter far from production sites, thereby depleting the water column of resuspended sedimentary organic matter. In the pond, winddriven conditions enhanced the coupling between the water column and the sediments, enriching the pond with resuspended sedimentary products. Integrating results, it was deduced that mussels in the pond could exploit, over time, organic matter produced in loco, continually rearranged in loco by means of wind-driven resuspension and consumed in loco with an efficiency able to sustain a massive secondary production. In contrast, under lagoon conditions, the benthic and pelagic habitats were uncoupled, so that each had its own independent status with its own dynamics and production. This reduced the suitability of this habitat for high levels of secondary production

Internationalisation in the household appliances sector in Fabriano (Italy). A case study

This paper analyses the household appliances district of Jesi-Fabriano. It shows how the internationalisation strategies of many enterprises are gradually modifying the organizational structure of the local production system. The diverse goals that have led the internationalisation processes and the strategies chosen by enterprises to effectively approach far away markets are at the core of the paper that includes a broad review of the fragmentation actions of the local enterprises. Special attention is paid to the effects of the internationalisation process on the relationships among actors along the whole filire and on the models of internal enterprise management. After an analysis of the history of the district and its current transformations, the main conclusions focus on possible scenarios regarding external and endogenous factors, on the main opportunities that enterprises should seize in order to successfully complete the ongoing internationalisation process and on the important role of local and national institutions in supporting the evolution of the model of local economic development.Internationalisation, Iinternational Fragmentation, Industrial Districts, Household Appliance Industry

Comunicación simétrica y asimétrica en los blogs de divulgación jurídica: entre modalidad epistémica y modalidad deóntica

 This paper aims at investigating some discursive features of blawgs, namely legal blogs in which legal experts disseminate and popularise their expertise. More specifically, it involves a corpus-assisted discourse study of the ways in which situational contexts affect the practices and strategies used to represent, construct and communicate legal knowledge. A comparison is drawn between two corpora representative of two different types of communication: a selection of posts written by legal experts for other experts (symmetrical communication) and posts written by legal experts for laypersons (asymmetrical communication). Combining qualitative and quantitative observations, the analysis shows that, in symmetrical communication, the emphasis is on the blogger’s subjective interpretation of legal texts and on his role as knowledge disseminator, as indicated by the predominance of epistemic modality. In asymmetrical communication, on the other hand, the prevalence of deontic modality shifts the focus on to the reader as addressee of the advice, instructions and information provided by the legal expert

Bayesian regression discontinuity designs: Incorporating clinical knowledge in the causal analysis of primary care data

The regression discontinuity (RD) design is a quasi-experimental design that estimates the causal effects of a treatment by exploiting naturally occurring treatment rules. It can be applied in any context where a particular treatment or intervention is administered according to a pre-specified rule linked to a continuous variable. Such thresholds are common in primary care drug prescription where the RD design can be used to estimate the causal effect of medication in the general population. Such results can then be contrasted to those obtained from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and inform prescription policy and guidelines based on a more realistic and less expensive context. In this paper we focus on statins, a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs, however, the methodology can be applied to many other drugs provided these are prescribed in accordance to pre-determined guidelines. NHS guidelines state that statins should be prescribed to patients with 10 year cardiovascular disease risk scores in excess of 20%. If we consider patients whose scores are close to this threshold we find that there is an element of random variation in both the risk score itself and its measurement. We can thus consider the threshold a randomising device assigning the prescription to units just above the threshold and withholds it from those just below. Thus we are effectively replicating the conditions of an RCT in the area around the threshold, removing or at least mitigating confounding. We frame the RD design in the language of conditional independence which clarifies the assumptions necessary to apply it to data, and which makes the links with instrumental variables clear. We also have context specific knowledge about the expected sizes of the effects of statin prescription and are thus able to incorporate this into Bayesian models by formulating informative priors on our causal parameters.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, 2 table

Saharan dust deposition may affect phytoplankton growth in the mediterranean sea at ecological time scales

The surface waters of the Mediterranean Sea are extremely poor in the nutrients necessary for plankton growth. At the same time, the Mediterranean Sea borders with the largest and most active desert areas in the world and the atmosphere over the basin is subject to frequent injections of mineral dust particles. We describe statistical correlations between dust deposition over the Mediterranean Sea and surface chlorophyll concentrations at ecological time scales. Aerosol deposition of Saharan origin may explain 1 to 10% (average 5%) of seasonally detrended chlorophyll variability in the low nutrient-low chlorophyll Mediterranean. Most of the statistically significant correlations are positive with main effects in spring over the Eastern and Central Mediterranean, conforming to a view of dust events fueling needed nutrients to the planktonic community. Some areas show negative effects of dust deposition on chlorophyll, coinciding with regions under a large influence of aerosols from European origin. The influence of dust deposition on chlorophyll dynamics may become larger in future scenarios of increased aridity and shallowing of the mixed layerPostprint (published version

Thinking beyond organism energy use: A trait-based bioenergetic mechanistic approach for predictions of life history traits in marine organisms

The functional trait-based bioenergetic approach is emergent in many ecological spectra, from the conservation of natural resources to mitigation and adaptation strategies in a global climate change context. Such an approach relies on being able to exploit mechanistic rules to connect environmental human-induced variability to functional traits (i.e. all those specific traits defining species in terms of their ecological roles) and use these to provide estimates of species life history traits (LH; e.g. body size, fecundity per life span, number of reproductive events). LHs are species-specific and proximate determinants of population characteristics in a certain habitat. They represent the most valuable quantitative information to investigate how broad potential distributional boundaries of a species are, and to feed predictive population models. There is much to be found in the current literature that describes mechanistic functional trait-based bioenergetics models, using them to test ecological hypotheses, but a mathematical framework often renders interpretation and use complicated. Here, we wanted to present a simpler interpretation and description of one of the most important recent mechanistic bioenergetic theories: the dynamic energy budget theory by Kooijman (Dynamic Energy Budget Theory for Metabolic Organisation, 2010, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge). Our main aim was to disentangle those aspects that at first reading may seem too mathematically challenging to many marine biologists, ecologists and environmental scientists, and present them for use in mechanistic applications

Influence of non-aqueous phase liquid configuration on induced polarization parameters: Conceptual models applied to a time-domain field case study

Resistivity and induced polarization (IP) measurements on soil contaminated with non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) show a great variety in results in previous research. Several laboratory studies have suggested that the presence of NAPLs in soil samples generally decrease the magnitude of the IP-effect, while others have indicated the opposite. A number of conceptual models have been proposed suggesting that NAPLs can alter the pore space in different ways, e.g. by coating the grain surfaces and thus inhibiting grain polarization, or by changing the pore throat size and thus affecting the membrane polarization mechanism. The main aim of this paper is to review previously published conceptual models and to introduce some new concepts of possible residual NAPL configurations in the pore space. Time domain induced polarization measurements were performed at a NAPL contaminated field site, and the data were inverted using the Constant Phase Angle (CPA) model and the Cole–Cole model respectively. No significant phase anomalies were observed in the source area of the contamination when the CPA inverted profiles were compared with soil sampling results of free-phase contaminant concentrations. However, relatively strong phase and normalized phase anomalies appeared next to the source area, where residual free-phase presence could be expected according to the chemical data. We conclude that depending on the NAPL configuration, different spectral IP responses can be expected. In previous research, the NAPL configurations in different samples or field sites are often unknown, and this may to some extent explain why different results have been achieved by different authors. In our field case, we believe that the NAPL forms a more or less continuous phase in the pore space of the source zone leading to an absence of IP anomalies. The increase in phase and normalized phase angle observed next to the source zone is interpreted as a degradation zone. The ongoing biodegradation may have led to a fractionation of the continuous NAPL in the outer part of the original source zone, leading to residual presence of isolated NAPL droplets in the soil pores. With such NAPL configurations, an increased polarization can be expected according to the electrochemical- and membrane polarization mechanisms. More research is needed to confirm the effects of different NAPL configuration on spectral IP parameters