Cognitive Empathy as Imagination: Evidence From Reading the Mind in the Eyes in Autism and Schizotypy

How is cognitive empathy related to sociality, imagination, and other psychological constructs? How is it altered in disorders of human social cognition? We leveraged a large data set (1,168 students, 62% female) on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test (RMET), the Autism Quotient (AQ), and the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ-BR) to test the hypotheses that the RMET, as a metric of cognitive empathy, reflects mainly social abilities, imagination, or both. RMET showed the expected female bias in performance, though only for eyes that expressed emotions and not for neutral expressions. RMET performance was significantly, and more strongly, associated with the AQ and SPQ subscales that reflect aspects of imagination (AQ-Imagination and SPQ-Magical Ideation) than aspects of social abilities (AQ-Social, AQ-Communication, and SPQ-Interpersonal subscales). These results were confirmed with multiple regression analysis, which also implicated increased attention (AQ-Attention Switching and, marginally non-significantly, AQ-Attention to Detail) in RMET performance. The two imagination-related correlates of RMET performance also show the strongest sex biases for the AQ and SPQ: male biased in AQ-Imagination, and female biased in SPQ-Magical Ideation, with small to medium effect sizes. Taken together, these findings suggest that cognitive empathy, as quantified by the RMET, centrally involves imagination, which is underdeveloped (with a male bias) on the autism spectrum and overdeveloped (with a female bias) on the schizotypy spectrum, with optimal emotion-recognition performance intermediate between the two. The results, in conjunction with previous studies, implicate a combination of optimal imagination and focused attention in enhanced RMET performance

Spring 1958

Dedication of Turf Clippings to Robert Williams (1) Picture - Stockbridge Turf majors (2) Title page and contents (3) Greetings from Dean Sieling - College of Agriculture (4) Outstanding Men in Turfgrass Honored (4) Word From the Editor of Turf Clippings (5) Message From the 1958 Winter School President (6) Summary of 1958 University of Massachusetts Turfgrass Conference - Al Radko (6-9) Importance of Superintendences Associations - Anthony B. Caranci (10) Picture - Turf Grass Interest Stretch from Coast to Coast (11) Picture - 1958 Winter School for Turf Managers (12) Golf Courses in California - James C. Scott (13) The Constant Battle - Joseph Troll (13) Recognition of the Golf Course Superintendent - Frederick Bove (14-15) 1958 Winter School Comments (16) Maintenance of Insurance Grounds - George J. Moore Jr. (17-18) Don\u27t Get Caught Short - Bruce Silven (19-20) We Have had It - They Now Have it - These Two Shall Have it - Orville O. Clapper (21) The Golf Course Superintendent - Prof. L. S. Dickinson (22-23) Picture - Winter School Alumni Meet at Conference (24) Cartoons (25) Cost of Lawn and Golf Course Construction - Geoffrey Cornish (26-27) Turf Club News (28-29) 1957 Horticulture Show Winner (30) Frosting on the Cake (30) Number One Graduate (31) 1957 Stockbridge Turf majors - Work (32) Turf management Club Associate Memberships (32

SHANK3 Genotype Mediates Speech and Language Phenotypes in a Nonclinical Population

Mutations affecting the synaptic-scaffold gene SHANK3 represent the most common genetic causes of autism with intellectual disability, accounting for about 1-2% of cases. Rare variants of this gene have also been associated with schizophrenia, and its deletion results in the autistic condition known as Phelan–McDermid syndrome. Despite the importance of SHANK3 as a paradigmatic gene mediating neurodevelopmental disorders, its psychological effects in nonclinical populations have yet to be studied. We genotyped the nonsynonymous, functional SHANK3 SNP rs9616915 in a large population of typical individuals scored for autism spectrum traits (the Autism Quotient, AQ) and schizotypy spectrum traits (the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire, SPQ-BR). Males, but not females, showed significant genotypic effects for the SPQ-BR subscale associated with speech and language: Odd Speech. These findings, in conjunction with animal model studies showing vocalization and auditory effects of SHANK3 mutations, and studies indicating severe language alterations and speech-associated white matter tract abnormalities in Phelan–McDermid syndrome, suggest that SHANK3 differentially affects the development and expression of human language and speech. Imaging genetic and speech-language studies of typical individuals carrying different genotypes of rs9616915 should provide novel insights into the neurological and psychological bases of speech and language alterations among individuals with SHANK3 mutations and Phelan–McDermid syndrome

Exploring the design space of the effective thermal conductivity, permeability, and stiffness of high-porosity foams

With knowledge of only a few effective properties of a porous structure, the applicability of the structure for a given system can quickly be determined. This study numerically simulates the effective thermal conductivity, permeability, and stiffness of high porosity structures. Commonly used isotropic architected porous structures are compared with commercially available stochastic metal foams. The architected structures include body-centered cubic (BCC) lattice, shell-based triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS), and hybrid foam (HF) composed of beam and shell with multiple adjustable parameters. The simulated effective properties touch on the applicability in heat transfer, fluid flow, and mechanically stressful situations. The dimensionless effective properties of the structures are presented in graphical form to clearly illustrate structurally dependent properties. Compared to the stochastic metal foams, the architected structures (BCC, TPMS, and most HF) showed higher effective thermal conductivities and permeabilities. This indicates a potential to improve the efficiency of a thermal or fluid flow system by replacing the stochastic foam with architected foam. Additionally, the HF structure shows broad tunability of specific properties. All effective properties simulated were rendered dimensionless to only reflect the impact of topology, and plotted in charts to show trends. These charts can aid in the selection of porous structures in diverse applications

Procyshyn 2017 GTF2I Oxytocin Electronic Supplementary Materials from The Williams syndrome prosociality gene GTF2I mediates oxytocin reactivity and social anxiety in a healthy population

Supplementary Tables S1 - S4, Supplementary Figure S

Waterdrop removal from hot-rolled steel strip surfaces based on progressive recurrent generative adversarial networks

Abstract Automated visual inspection (AVI) instrument of surface defects for hot-rolled steel strips is conventionally installed closely before the terminal crimping machine, where the adjacent upstream process is laminar spray cooling. Waterdrops, spreading more or less over the steel strip surface, often trigger false alarms, which is a quite common problem in AVI. Stimulated by the idea of image rain removal in visual enhancement field, this article considers the surface waterdrops, pseudodefects in essence, as a conceptual “rain-like layer.” A targeted method, namely progressive recurrent generative adversarial network (PReGAN), is designed for active waterdrop tracking and fine-grained image inpainting. Meanwhile, a steel surface database (2400 raw images with the resolution of 1000×1000 ) captured from actual hot-rolling line is constructed for the first time for open evaluation of waterdrop removal. The experimental results indicate that images enhanced by the PReGAN perform the most informative and spotless, with 52.2073 peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and 0.9502 structural similarity (SSIM) index, when compared with four prestigious networks. Assisted by the PReGAN, the false alarms are proved to be reduced at least a half during the application tests using four traditional simple detection methods

Preliminary effects of a digital mental health intervention for depression and anxiety

Background: Digital mental healthcare interventions (DMHIs) have been repeatedly mentioned as a possible solution for the growing demand for accessible treatment for patients suffering from common mental health problems, i.e. depression and anxiety disorders. However, structural implementation of DMHI is sparse and results on outcome seems inconclusive. To enrich the body of evidence, this paper compares a need-driven digital mental healthcare intervention (DMHI) for patients diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorders with traditional face-to-face treatment. The digital treatment is provided using a smartphone app which provides videoconferencing, chat, calendar- and registration functions. Method: In a naturalistic retrospective cohort study patients who received DMHI are compared to patients who received traditional face-to-face treatment. Furthermore three illustrative cases were selected to demonstrate how personalization is expressed in individual treatments. Results: The first results of the DMHI compare favorably with traditional face-to-face treatment, showing comparable satisfaction rates, equal effectiveness, and a significant decrease in treatment duration in weeks. Conclusion: The DMHI has the potential to be as effective, but more efficient than traditional face-to-face treatment. Furthermore the digital treatment opens up options to fine-tune the frequency, duration, and content of care contacts to align with patients' individual situations and personal preferences