Integration of cognitive and affective processes in perception and decision-making

The relationship between emotion and cognition is a topic that raises great interest in research. Recently, a view of these two processes as interactive and mutually influencing each other has become predominant. This dissertation investigates the reciprocal influences of emotion and cognition, both at behavioral and neural level, in two specific fields, such as attention and decision-making. Experimental evidence on how emotional responses may affect perceptual and attentional processes has been reported. In addition, the impact of three factors, such as personality traits, motivational needs and social context, in modulating the influence that emotion exerts on perception and attention has been investigated. Moreover, the influence of cognition on emotional responses in decision-making has been demonstrated. The current experimental evidence showed that cognitive brain regions such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are causally implicated in regulation of emotional responses and that this has an effect at both pre and post decisional stages. There are two main conclusions of this dissertation: firstly, emotion exerts a strong influence on perceptual and attentional processes but, at the same time, this influence may also be modulated by other factors internal and external to the individuals. Secondly, cognitive processes may modulate emotional prepotent responses, by serving a regulative function critical to driving and shaping human behavior in line with current goals.

The Perception of American Adolescent Culture Through the Dubbing and Fansubbing of a Selection of US Teen Series from 1990 to 2013

The present dissertation aims at analyzing the construction of American adolescent culture through teen-targeted television series and the shift in perception that occurs as a consequence of the translation process. In light of the recent changes in television production and consumption modes, largely caused by new technologies, this project explores the evolution of Italian audiences, focusing on fansubbing (freely distributed amateur subtitles made by fans for fan consumption) and social viewing (the re-aggregation of television consumption based on social networks and dedicated platforms, rather than on physical presence). These phenomena are symptoms of a sort of ‘viewership 2.0’ and of a new type of active viewing, which calls for a revision of traditional AVT strategies. Using a framework that combines television studies, new media studies, and fandom studies with an approach to AVT based on Descriptive Translation Studies (Toury 1995), this dissertation analyzes the non-Anglophone audience’s growing need to participation in the global dialogue and appropriation process based on US scheduling and informed by the new paradigm of convergence culture, transmedia storytelling, and affective economics (Jenkins 2006 and 2007), as well as the constraints intrinsic to multimodal translation and the different types of linguistic and cultural adaptation performed through dubbing (which tends to be more domesticating; Venuti 1995) and fansubbing (typically more foreignizing). The study analyzes a selection of episodes from six of the most popular teen television series between 1990 and 2013, which has been divided into three ages based on the different modes of television consumption: top-down, pre-Internet consumption (Beverly Hills, 90210, 1990 – 2000), emergence of audience participation (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1997 – 2003; Dawson’s Creek, 1998 – 2003), age of convergence and Viewership 2.0 (Gossip Girl, 2007 – 2012; Glee, 2009 – present; The Big Bang Theory, 2007 - present).