Susceptibility to emotional contagion for negative emotions improves detection of smile authenticity

A smile is a context-dependent emotional expression. A smiling face can signal the experience of enjoyable emotions, but people can also smile to convince another person that enjoyment is occurring when it is not. For this reason, the ability to discriminate between felt and faked enjoyment expressions is a crucial social skill. Despite its importance, adults show remarkable individual variation in this ability. Revealing the factors responsible for these huge individual differences is a key challenge in this domain. Here we investigated, on a large sample of participants, whether individual differences in smile authenticity recognition are accounted for by differences in the predisposition to experience other people's emotions, i.e., by susceptibility to emotional contagion. Results showed that susceptibility to emotional contagion for negative emotions increased smile authenticity detection, while susceptibility to emotional contagion for positive emotions worsened detection performance, because it leaded to categorize most of the faked smiles as sincere. These findings suggest that susceptibility to emotional contagion plays a key role in complex emotion recognition, and point out the importance of analyzing the tendency to experience other people's positive and negative emotions as separate abilities

Elaine Frantz Parsons, Ku-Klux: The Birth of the Klan during Reconstruction

Il libro di Elaine Frantz Parsons, professoressa associata della Duquesne University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) fornisce il primo resoconto dettagliato delle origini e dell’affermazione del Ku Klux Klan all’indomani della Guerra Civile. A differenza di altri episodi di violenza razziale che caratterizzarono gli anni immediatamente successivi alla sconfitta degli Stati del Sud, il Klan si affermò come un fenomeno radicalmente diverso, poggiando allo stesso tempo su di un forte radicamento loca..

Élites, modernización y redes de negocio transnacional en Colombia (1920-1935)

Mitjançant un anàlisi relacional de diverses entitats comprobarem els vincles que les elits econòmiques colombianes van usar per influir les polítiques de prèstec amb els països estrangers. La influència dels Estats Units fou una tònica a tenir en compte pel que fa al desenvolupament d'aquestes operacions i aquest treball mostrarà un procés particularment interessant, no només per l'impacte que va tenir en l'economia colombiana, sino també per la seva connexió amb els programes de desenvolupament econòmic financiats per les agències internacionals al país, a la segona meitat del segle XX.By means of a relational analysis of diverse entities, we will verify the associations through which the Colombian economic elites influenced policies of lending with foreign countries. The influence of the USA must be considered in the development of these operations, and this study will highlight a particular process of interesting not only for its impact on the Colombian economy, but also for its relationship with programs of economic development financed by the international agencies in the country in the second half of twentieth century.Por mediación de un análisis relacional de diversas entidades, comprobaremos los vínculos que las elites económicas colombianas influenciaron en las políticas de préstamos con los países extranjeros. La influencia de los Estados Unidos será una tónica a tener en cuenta en el desarrollo de estas operaciones y este trabajo mostrará un proceso particularmente interesante no solo por el impacto que tuvo en la economía colombiana, sino también por su conexión con los programas de desarrollo económico financiados por las agencias internacionales en el país, en la segunda mitad del siglo XX

Laure Quennouëlle-Corre, La place financière de Paris au XXe siècle. Des ambitions contrariées

L’opera traccia il percorso del mercato finanziario di Parigi dalla Prima guerra mondiale alla fine degli anni Ottanta, seguendo una prospettiva internazionale. Sono ricostruite le diverse fasi di affermazione e declino della borsa di Parigi rispetto alle altre borse internazionali, attraverso un’analisi sia dei principali attori che vi operavano, sia dell’insieme di pratiche e regole che organizzavano il mercato dei titoli. In particolare, l’autrice si concentra sulle banche e sulla loro att..

Arnault Skornicki, Jérôme Tournadre, La nouvelle histoire des idées politiques

A partire dagli anni Settanta, le metodologie per la ricostruzione della storia delle idee politiche sono cambiate radicalmente. Con “la nuova storia delle idee politiche”, si afferma la necessità di superare uno studio delle idee dei grandi classici del pensiero politico in quanto fonte di riflessione su una determinata problematica, per giungere a un’analisi del contesto storico in cui determinate teorie sono state pensate. Secondo questo approccio, quindi, l’idea politica, «non esiste indi..

Lorenzo Perilli, Domenico Fiormonte (a cura di), La macchina nel tempo. Studi di informatica umanistica in onore di Tito Orlandi

La raccolta di saggi curata da Lorenzo Perilli e Domenico Fiormonte in onore di Tito Orlandi, dal suggestivo titolo La Macchina nel Tempo intende ripercorrere l’evoluzione del rapporto tra la “macchina” computer e gli studi umanistici. L’esperienza nata dal confronto con Tito Orlandi costituisce il filo conduttore delle analisi raccolte. Egittologo ed esperto in lingua e civiltà copta, Tito Orlandi è tra i pionieri internazionali delle applicazioni informatiche nelle scienze umane, coniando, ..

Individual Differences in the Recognition of Enjoyment Smiles: No Role for Perceptual–Attentional Factors and Autistic-Like Traits

Adults show remarkable individual variation in the ability to detect felt enjoyment in smiles based on the Duchenne marker (Action Unit 6). It has been hypothesized that perceptual and attentional factors (possibly correlated to autistic-like personality traits in the normative range) play a major role in determining individual differences in recognition performance. Here, this hypothesis was tested in a sample of 100 young adults. Eye-tracking methodology was employed to assess patterns of visual attention during a smile recognition task. Results indicate that neither perceptual–attentional factors nor autistic-like personality traits contribute appreciably to individual differences in smile recognition

Nota introduttiva n. 13 – aprile 2013

Contrabbandieri, pirati e frontiere: per una storia delle pratiche informali nell’America Centrale (XVII-XXI secolo) …y pasó la tarde esperando su hora grande en los vericuetos del puerto negrero, entre la salsamuera humana del Caribe, pero tan absorto en su aventura que no se detuvo como siempre frente a las tiendas de los hindúes a ver los mandarines de marfil tallados en el colmillo entero del elefante, ni se burló de los negros holandeses en sus velocípedos ortopédicos, ni se asustó como ..

UX Evaluation of a Tractor Cabin Digital Twin Using Mixed Reality

Understanding user experience (UX) is essential to design engaging and attractive products, so nowadays has emerged an increasingly interest in user- centred design approach; in this perspective, digital technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) could help designers and engineers to create a digital prototype through which the user feedback can be considered during the product design stage. This research aims at creating an interactive Digital Twin (DT) using MR to enable a tractor driving simulation and involve real users to carry out an early UX evaluation, with the scope to validate the design of the control dashboard through a transdisciplinary approach. MR combines virtual simulation with real physical hardware devices which the user can interact with and have control through both visual and tactile feedback. The result is a MR simulator that combines virtual contents and physical controls, capable of reproducing a plowing activity close to reality. The principles of UX design was applied to this research for a continuous and dynamic UX evaluation during the project development