An experimental investigation of existential concerns in point-of-care testing for cardiovascular disease using a terror management theory framework

Recent research in Terror Management Theory (TMT) has found that mortality reminders below conscious awareness can lead to avoidant responses towards cancer-screening. Following this, the current research programme used a TMT framework to evaluate if mortality reminders could result in analogous responses towards a novel device for indicating Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) risk; the ―CVD Risk Biochip‖. Three central studies (Studies 1, 2 and 4) were designed to examine if various mortality reminders would elicit more avoidant responses towards the ―CVD Risk Biochip‖ than control topics. The third of these studies (Study 4) also investigated whether or not the nature of the device itself served to dissociate an individual towards CVD, thereby moderating existential concerns. An additional study (Study 3) examined whether or not one of the mortality reminders from the first two studies (Heart Attack Salience) leads to the suppression of death-related thoughts. When taken together, the results of these studies demonstrate that devices like the CVD Risk Biochip may have a beneficial effect on the potential uptake of screening behaviours generally and highlight the potential for cross-cultural variability in responses towards TMT methodologies. The findings of the programme also suggest some unique recommendations for the future study of TMT, including the performance of initial qualitative investigations of the cultural worldviews of a particular cohort before examining TMT processes and the necessity of controlling for the confounding effects of word frequency and word ambiguity in future "death-thought accessibility" research

Insights from the application of computational neuroimaging to social neuroscience

A recent approach in social neuroscience has been the application of formal computational models for a particular social-cognitive process to neuroimaging data. Here we review preliminary findings from this nascent subfield, focusing on observational learning and strategic interactions. We present evidence consistent with the existence of three distinct learning systems that may contribute to social cognition: an observational-reward-learning system involved in updating expectations of future reward based on observing rewards obtained by others, an action-observational learning system involved in learning about the action tendencies of others, and a third system engaged when it is necessary to learn about the hidden mental-states or traits of another. These three systems appear to map onto distinct neuroanatomical substrates, and depend on unique computational signals

Out of This World: A University Partnership Model for Functional Clothing Design

University collaborations with external partners can be difficult to initiate, especially in early-stage or emerging topics. External collaborators may be reluctant to commit the level of funding required to ensure that the topic is given adequate attention, and low-stakes mechanisms are relatively rare. Here, we present a successful model for collaboration between universities and NASA, which uses existing project-based coursework as a vehicle for exploration of emerging topics. This model leverages existing structures, reducing the financial and intellectual commitment of both University and NASA research partners, and facilitating pilot investigations for exploration of potential areas for more in-depth research. We outline the logistical structure and benefits for University and NASA partners over 1.5 years of collaboration

Design as communication in micro-strategy — strategic sensemaking and sensegiving mediated through designed artefacts.

This paper relates key concepts of strategic cognition in microstrategy to design practice. It considers the potential roles of designers' output in strategic sensemaking and sensegiving. Designed artifacts play well-known roles as communication media; sketches, renderings, models, and prototypes are created to explore and test possibilities and to communicate these options within and outside the design team. This article draws on design and strategy literature to propose that designed artifacts can and do play a role as symbolic communication resources in sensemaking and sensegiving activities that impact strategic decision making and change. Extracts from interviews with three designers serve as illustrative examples. This article is a call for further empirical exploration of such a complex subject

Anterior Insula Activity Reflects the Effects of Intentionality on the Anticipation of Aversive Stimulation

If someone causes you harm, your affective reaction to that person might be profoundly influenced by your inferences about the intentionality of their actions. In the present study, we aimed to understand how affective responses to a biologically salient aversive outcome administered by others are modulated by the extent to which a given individual is judged to have deliberately or inadvertently delivered the outcome. Using fMRI, we examined how neural responses to anticipation and receipt of an aversive stimulus are modulated by this fundamental social judgment. We found that affective evaluations about an individual whose actions led to either noxious or neutral consequences for the subject did indeed depend on the perceived intentions of that individual. At the neural level, activity in the anterior insula correlated with the interaction between perceived intentionality and anticipated outcome valence, suggesting that this region reflects the influence of mental state attribution on aversive expectations

A Gauge-Gravity Relation in the One-loop Effective Action

We identify an unusual new gauge-gravity relation: the one-loop effective action for a massive spinor in 2n dimensional AdS space is expressed in terms of precisely the same function [a certain multiple gamma function] as the one-loop effective action for a massive charged scalar in 4n dimensions in a maximally symmetric background electromagnetic field [one for which the eigenvalues of F_{\mu\nu} are maximally degenerate, corresponding in 4 dimensions to a self-dual field, equivalently to a field of definite helicity], subject to the identification F^2 \Lambda, where \Lambda is the gravitational curvature. Since these effective actions generate the low energy limit of all one-loop multi-leg graviton or gauge amplitudes, this implies a nontrivial gauge-gravity relation at the non-perturbative level and at the amplitude level.Comment: 6 page

Committed to burnout: An investigation into the relationship between sport commitment and athlete burnout in Gaelic games players

This study examined the relationship between sports commitment, outlined in the hierarchical Sport Commitment Model, and athlete burnout in men and women playing Gaelic games, for the first time. These athletes experience a number of unique challenges, including playing with numerous teams simultaneously, significant personal commitment despite their amateur status, and the societal and cultural importance of their sports. This study also involved piloting a novel commitment measure of ‘team importance’ for team-sport athletes. Two-hundred-and-one male and female Gaelic games players completed the Sports Commitment Questionnaire, team importance measure and Athlete Burnout Questionnaire. Hierarchical Multiple Regression analyses revealed a negative relationship between sport enjoyment, social support (emotional) and desire to excel and particular burnout components; a positive relationship between other priorities and personal investments and particular burnout components; and enthusiastic commitment was associated with lower burnout, while constrained commitment was linked to higher burnout. The team importance measure was also found to be a reliable and valid measure of sports commitment. These findings provide important insight into how sports commitment can contribute to, or guard against, burnout in male and female athletes

Neural and Hormonal Systems Underlying Human Reward-Seeking Behavior

Our evolutionary history has endowed us with biological systems for identifying those elements of the environment that contribute to our biological fitness and for modifying our behaviors to allow us to acquire them. Theoretical propositions suggest that the ability to detect changes in the statistics underlying in the environment may be useful for rapidly adapting our behaviors. However, little is known about the neural representation of the quantity representing the evidence for a change point: unexpected uncertainty. In Chapter 2, I describe a study in which humans interact with an unstable reward environment while undergoing fMRI. Representations of unexpected uncertainty were found in multiple cortical areas, as well as the noradrenergic brainstem nucleus locus coeruleus. Other unique cortical regions were found to encode estimation uncertainty, or the uncertainty in one’s estimates of the reward contingencies, and risk, or one’s estimate of the stochasticity of the environment. Collectively, these findings support theoretical models in which uncertainty computations determine the speed of learning. Although learning from direct experience in this way is vital to our survival, humans are also particularly adept at learning from conspecifics. However, it is not known whether differing computational strategies thought to support experiential learning, model-based and model-free learning, also support learning by observation. Chapter 3 describes a study in which human participants played a multi-armed bandit task that encouraged them to employ both experiential and observational learning while they underwent fMRI. Model-based learning signals are found during both observational and experiential learning in the intraparietal sulcus. However, unlike in experiential learning, model-free learning signals in the ventral striatum were not detectable during observational learning. These results provide insight into the flexibilty of the model-based learning system, and further suggest that the model-free learning system may be less flexible with regard to its involvement in observational learning. While Chapters 2 and 3 are concerned with modifying reward-seeking behavior in reponse to changes in the external environment, Chapter 4 examines a modification of reward-seeking behavior in response to changes in the internal hormonal environment. Specifically, it describes how the behavior of human males in a simple economic game was influenced by the administration of testosterone. Although a popular view on the role of testosterone in human social behaviour proposes that it increases aggression, a recent theory states that it instead promotes behaviors that enhance social status. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled between-subjects design, administration of testosterone increased punishment of players who treat the participants unfairly but also increased reward of those who treat them generously. Our findings are inconsistent with the view that testosterone simply increases aggression and provides causal evidence for the social-status hypothesis in men. In Chapter 5, I describe an investigation of the phenomenon of ‘choking under pressure’, in which reward-seeking behavior is compromised by the promise of high reward for successful performance. A novel approach to attenuating such 'choking under pressure' using cognitive reappraisal of the incentive is described and tested. When participants performed a demanding motor task under reappraisal, choking was indeed significantly reduced, with the magnitude of this reduction being predicted by the striatal BOLD response to incentive magnitude. In addition, application of the reappraisal strategy was associated with reduced sympathetic arousal during trials on which performance failed at high levels of incentive. These results suggest that reappraisal of the incentive is indeed a promising intervention for attenuating choking under pressure.</p