Dutch Translation of the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire | Nederlandstalige vertaling van de Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire

This Dutch translation of the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (PAQ) was translated from the original English version. An initial translation from English to Dutch was conducted and refined by the authorship team. These Dutch items were then back-translated into English by a NAATI approved translator. Minor refinements to some of the Dutch items were made by the authorship team on the basis of this back-translation, resulting in the final Dutch version of the PAQ presented in this document. Our team is currently conducting a psychometric study on this Dutch PAQ to examine its validity and reliability. Deze Nederlandstalige vertaling van de Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (PAQ) is vertaald vanuit de oorspronkelijke Engelse versie. Een eerste vertaling van het Engels naar het Nederlands werd uitgevoerd en verfijnd door het auteursteam. Deze Nederlandstalige items werden vervolgens terugvertaald naar het Engels door een door NAATI erkende vertaler. Op basis van deze hervertaling zijn door het auteursteam kleine verfijningen aangebracht in enkele Nederlandstalige items, wat heeft geleid tot de definitieve Nederlandstalige versie van de PAQ die in dit document wordt gepresenteerd. Ons team voert momenteel een psychometrische studie uit op deze Nederlandstalige PAQ om de validiteit en betrouwbaarheid te onderzoeken

Habituation of the electrodermal response - A biological correlate of resilience?

urrent approaches to quantifying resilience make extensive use of self-reported data. Problematically, this type of scales is plagued by response distortions–both deliberate and unintentional, particularly in occupational populations. The aim of the current study was to develop an objective index of resilience. The study was conducted in 30 young healthy adults. Following completion of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale..

Information dynamics in cardiorespiratory time series during mental stress testing

In this study, we assessed the information dynamics of respiration and heart rate variability during mental stress testing by means of the cross-entropy, a measure of cardiorespiratory coupling, and the self-entropy of the tachogram conditioned to the knowledge of respiration. Although stress is related to a reduction in vagal activity, no difference in cardiorespiratory coupling was found when 5 minutes of rest and stress were compared. The conditional self-entropy, on the other hand, showed significantly higher values during stress, indicating a higher predictability of the tachogram. These results show that entropy analyses of cardiorespiratory data reveal new information that could not be obtained with traditional heart rate variability studies. \uc2\ua9 2014 IEEE

Respiratory variability preceding and following sighs : A resetter hypothesis

Respiratory behavior is characterized by complex variability with structured and random components. Assuming that both a lack of variability and too much randomness represent suboptimal breathing regulation, we hypothesized that sighing acts as a resetter inducing structured variability. Spontaneous breathing was measured in healthy persons (N=42) during a 20min period of quiet sitting using the LifeShirt(®) System. Four blocks of 10 breaths with a 50% window overlap were determined before and after spontaneous sighs. Total respiratory variability of minute ventilation was measured using the coefficient of variation and structured (correlated) variability was quantified using autocorrelation. Towards a sigh, total variability gradually increased without concomittant changes in correlated variability, suggesting that randomness increased. After a sigh, correlated variability increased. No changes in variability were found in comparable epochs without intermediate sighs. We conclude that a sigh resets structured respiratory variability, enhancing information processing in the respiratory system.status: publishe

Snort acoustic structure codes for positive emotions in horses

International audienceWhile the vocal coding of human and animal internal states has been widely studied, the possible acoustic expression of “positive” emotions remains poorly known. Recent studies suggest that snorts (non-vocal sounds produced by the air expiration through the nostrils) appear to be reliable indicators of positive internal states in several ungulate species. Here, we hypothesised in horses that the acoustic structure of the snort could vary with the subjects’ current emotional state. Indeed, a preliminary sound analysis of snorts let us suggest structure variations related to the presence of pulsations. We recorded snorts from 20 horses living in a riding center. Auditory playbacks run with 20 humans first confirmed the existence of two snort subtypes, i.e. one pulsed and one non-pulsed. Observations were then conducted to compare the distribution of these two subtypes according to the location (stall/pasture) of the signaller as a contextual determinant of its internal state and to its ears’ position as a reflection of its emotional state. We found that both subtypes were preferentially observed in positive contexts, but that pulsed snorts were even more associated with highly appreciated situations (in pasture and with ears forward). This study is a step further in the identification of indicators of positive emotions in horses and more generally in the understanding of the acoustic emotions’ coding