CONSCIÊNCIA E EMOÇÃO: O EFEITO DO PRIMING AFETIVO SUBLIMINAR EM TAREFAS DE ATENÇÃO

Esta tese revisou duas linhas de pesquisa, desenvolvidas nas últimas décadas: o estudo de efeitos de estimulação subliminar priming , e de desencadeamento de reações emocionais por estímulos controlados. Este estudo tem o objetivo de combinar tais linhas para o estudo da consciência com pré-preparo afetivo: efeito de estímulos de conteúdo aversivo, subliminares e supraliminares, sobre a cognição, pela análise do desempenho em tarefa de atenção. Três tarefas experimentais foram realizadas por 35 indivíduos em laboratório de neuropsicologia: a tarefa base onde testamos à detecção de alvo visual simples, e a mesma tarefa de base, porém com estímulos distratores aversivos intercalados, de forma supraliminar ou subliminar (500 ms ou 50 ms de duração), em blocos aleatorizados entre os indivíduos. Calcularam-se índices de detectabilidade e critério de resposta, que serviram para a comparação estatística entre condições (medidas repetidas). Os resultados mostram uma mudança significativa do índice critério , indicando mudança de estratégia na presença de distratores subliminares aversivos. Concluiu-se que a tarefa subliminar fez um efeito destruidor ou devastador na tarefa supraliminar, cometendo menos falso-alarmes protegendo a tarefa supraliminar, tendo um efeito protetor . Os resultados são discutidos no contexto da relevância de influências emocionais sobre o comportamento para a Psicologia da Saúde.

Gingipains from Porphyromonas gingivalis increase the chemotactic and respiratory burst-priming properties of the 77-amino-acid interleukin-8 variant

Porphyromonas gingivalis, a gram-negative anaerobe which is implicated in the etiology of active periodontitis, secretes degradative enzymes (gingipains) and sheds proinflammatory mediators (e.g., lipopolysaccharides [LPS]). LPS triggers the secretion of interleukin-8 (IL-8) from immune (72-amino-acid [aa] variant [IL-8(72aa)]) and nonimmune (IL-8(77aa)) cells. IL-8(77aa) has low chemotactic and respiratory burst-inducing activity but is susceptible to cleavage by gingipains. This study shows that both R- and K-gingipain treatments of IL-8(77aa) significantly enhance burst activation by fMLP and chemotactic activity (P < 0.05) but decrease burst activation and chemotactic activity of IL-8(72aa) toward neutrophil-like HL60 cells and primary neutrophils (P < 0.05). Using tandem mass spectrometry, we have demonstrated that R-gingipain cleaves 5- and 11-aa peptides from the N-terminal portion of IL-8(77aa) and the resultant peptides are biologically active, while K-gingipain removes an 8-aa N-terminal peptide yielding a 69-aa isoform of IL-8 that shows enhanced biological activity. During periodontitis, secreted gingipains may differentially affect neutrophil chemotaxis and activation in response to IL-8 according to the cellular source of the chemokine.

Attachment anxiety and friendship group identification under attachment threat:the moderating role of priming support network expectations

We examined the role of priming participants' own network expectations on their subsequent identification with their friendship group. We examined this prime alongside attachment anxiety and attachment threat, as predictors of friendship group identification. Previous research has suggested that attachment anxiety is associated with negative network expectations. In this study, we extended this work to show that when a network expectation prime was absent, higher attachment anxiety was associated with lower group identification under attachment threat, compared to a control condition. However, when expectations of support network were primed, attachment threat no longer affected group identification, so that only attachment anxiety predicted group identification. This suggests that priming participants who are high in attachment anxiety with their own network expectancies (which are negative), results in participants dis-identifying with their friendship group, regardless of whether or not they have experienced attachment threat. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.

Gender differences in the sensitivity to negative stimuli:cross-modal affective priming study

Background: There is evidence showing that men and women differ with regard to the processing of emotional information. However, the mechanisms behind these differences are not fully understood. Method: The sample comprised of 275 (167 female) right-handed, healthy participants, recruited from the community. We employed a customized affective priming task, which consisted of three subtests, differing in the modality of the prime (face, written word, and sound). The targets were always written words of either positive or negative valence. The priming effect was measured as reaction time facilitation in conditions where both prime and target were emotional (of the same positive or negative valence) compared with conditions where the emotional targets were preceded by neutral primes. Results: The priming effect was observed across all three modalities, with an interaction of gender by valence: the priming effect in the emotionally negative condition in male participants was stronger compared with females. This was accounted for by the differential priming effect within the female group where priming was significantly smaller in the emotionally negative conditions compared with the positive conditions. The male participants revealed a comparable priming effect across both the emotionally negative and positive conditions. Conclusion: Reduced priming in negative conditions in women may reflect interference processes due to greater sensitivity to negative valence of stimuli. This in turn could underlie the gender-related differences in susceptibility to emotional disorders.

Priming moral self-ambivalence heightens deliberative behaviour in self-ambivalent individuals

Background: Recent work on cognitive-behavioural models of obsessive-compulsive disorder has focused on the roles played by various aspects of self-perception. In particular, moral self-ambivalence has been found to be associated with obsessive-compulsive phenomena. Aims: In this study we used an experimental task to investigate whether artificially priming moral self-ambivalence would increase participants' deliberation on ethical problems, an index that might be analogous to obsessive-compulsive behaviour. Method: Non-clinical participants completed two online tasks designed to prime either moral self-ambivalence, general uncertainty, or neither. All participants then completed a task requiring them to consider solutions to moral dilemmas. We recorded the time participants took to respond to the dilemmas and the length of their responses; we then combined these variables to create a measure of deliberation. Results: Priming moral self-ambivalence led to increases in deliberation, but this was only significant among those participants who scored highly on a baseline measure of moral self-ambivalence. Priming general uncertainty had no significant effect upon deliberation. Conclusions: The results suggest that moral self-ambivalence may play a role in the maintenance of obsessive-compulsive behaviour. We propose that individuals who are morally self-ambivalent might respond to situations in which this ambivalence is made salient by exhibiting behaviour with obsessive-compulsive characteristics. These findings have implications for the incorporation of ideas about self-concept into theories of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Carbon Inputs from Miscanthus Displace Older Soil Organic Carbon Without Inducing Priming Soil Carbon Sequestration Below Miscanthus

Peer reviewed

Effects of emotional salience and semantic domain on cross-form priming

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Effects of emotional salience and semantic domain on cross-form priming

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

The Effect of Supportive Social Interaction Priming on Children's Prosocial Comforing Responses to Distressed Others

The ability to sensitively care for others’ wellbeing develops early in ontogeny and is an important developmental milestone for healthy social, emotional, and moral development. One facet of care for others, prosocial comforting, has been linked with important social outcomes such as peer acceptance and friendship quality, underscoring the importance of determining factors involved in the ability to comfort. Although social support has been linked with a number of important social outcomes, no study has directly examined whether felt social support can foster children’s positive behavior toward others. The purpose of the current investigation was to use an experimental priming paradigm to demonstrate that felt social support a) enhances children’s ability to respond prosocially to the distress of others and b) decreases children’s expressions of personal distress when faced with the distress of another person. Participants were 94 4-year-old children (M = 53.56 months, SD = 3.38 months; 52 girls). Children were randomly assigned to either view pictures of mothers and children in close, personal interactions (supportive social interaction condition), happy women and children in separate pictures, presented side-by-side (happy control condition), or pictures of colorful overlapping shapes (neutral control condition). Each set of 20 pictures was presented in the context of a categorization computer game that participants played 4 times throughout the course of the study. Immediately following the first three computer games, children were given the opportunity to comfort someone who was distressed; twice it was the adult experimenter working with the child, and once it was an unseen infant crying over a monitor that participants had been trained to use. Comforting behaviors and distress/arousal were coded in 10-second time segments and yielded a global comforting score and a distress proportion score for each task. Results indicated that priming condition had no effect on either prosocial comforting behavior or expressions of personal distress. I discuss these null findings in light of the available literatures on priming mental representations in children and on prosocial comforting, and suggest some future directions for continued investigation in both fields.

Synchronizing the in vitro germination of Psidium guineense Sw. seeds by means of osmotic priming.

The Brazilian guava (Psidium guineense Swartz) is seed-propagated and, being native to the Caatinga biome, may frequently have uneven germination.Thus, we aimed to evaluate the synchronization of the in vitro seed germination of three accessions of the Brazilian guava, using water, polyethyleneglycol (PEG 6000), and potassium nitrate (KNO3) at different potentials and times of osmotic priming. Seeds from three accessions of the Brazilian guava (Y85, Y93,and Y97) from the UNEB/BA Germplasm Active Bank were subjected to the following pretreatments: -0.6, -1.0, -1.4, and -1,8 MPa PEG 6000; 10 and 20% KNO3 for 24h; 10 and 20% KNO3 for 48h; water for 24 and 48h; and non-primed seeds as the control. The experimental design was therefore a 10x3+1 factorial scheme. We assessed the germination percentage (G), mean germination time (MGT), germination speed (GS), and germination speed index (GSI). Data was subjected to analysis of variance followed by a means test (Duncan at 5% probability) and regression. There was interaction between the priming treatments and accessions for all evaluated features, except G. PEG 6000 decreased the MGT (from 6 to 8 days) and increased GS and GSI of seeds from all three accessions at potentials -1.0 to -1.5 MPa.Water-priming had a positive effect on MGT, GS, and GSI of accession Y85 seeds. KNO3 negatively affected germination of seeds from all three accessions. Thereby, we could synchronize seed germination of accessions Y85 and Y97 with PEG 6000.

Efeitos de Priming Sintático Intra e Translinguístico no Processamento De Francês Como L2

No presente estudo investigamos o fenômeno de priming sintático – ou seja, a facilitação do processamento linguístico de uma estrutura sintática pela exposição prévia à estrutura semelhante – nos níveis intra e translinguístico, em bilíngues de português brasileiro (PB)-francês, durante a  compreensão de sentenças. Participaram do estudo 15 adultos, falantes nativos do português brasileiro que tinham francês como segunda língua em nível intermediário. Os efeitos de priming sintático foram obtidos através de um experimento comportamental que consistiu em uma tarefa de leitura auto-monitorada. Os resultados apontaram para o aparecimento de efeitos de priming sintático no nível intralinguístico (em francês como L2), mas não no translinguístico. Tais efeitos se mostraram dependentes da repetição do verbo principal da sentença. Esses resultados foram interpretados como evidência de que os efeitos de priming sintático no nível intralinguístico em L2 são lexicalmente dependentes, dando suporte à visão de abordagens lexicalistas, em que a informação necessária para o processamento sintático está localizada nos frames sintáticos armazenados no léxico mental. Quanto ao nível translinguístico, nossos resultados sugerem a separação dos sistemas sintáticos das duas línguas. 

Developing a supportive culture for teaching and learning : a university, faculty and school perspective

In the early 1990's the University of Salford was typical of most pre-1992 Universities in that whilst students provided much of it's income, little attention was paid to pedagogy. As Warren Piper (1994) observed, University teachers were professional in their subject areas but generally did not seek to acquire a pedagogy of HE. This was the case in Alsford. Courses were efficiently run but only a minority of staff were engaged in actively considering learning and teaching issues. Instead staff time was spent on research and commercial activity.----- In the mid-1990's the teaching environment began to change significantly. As well as Dearing, the advent of QAA and teaching quality reviews, Salford was already experiencing changes in the characteristics of its student body. Wideing access was on our agenda before it was so predominant nationally. With increasing numbers and heterogeneity of students as well as these external factors, new challenges were facing the University and teaching domain.----- This paper describes how a culture which values teaching, learning and pedagogic inquiry is being created in the university. It then focuses on parts of this process specific to the Faculty of Business and Informatics, namely the Faculty's Learning and Teaching Research Network and the establishment of the Centre for Construction Education in the School of Construction and Property Management.----- The Faculty of Business and Informatics' Learning and Teaching Research Network aims to raise the profile, quality and volume of pedagogic research across the five schools in the faculty. The initiative is targeted at all academics regardless of previous research experience. We hope to grow and nurture research potential where it exists and to acknowledge and use the existing expertise of subject-based researchers in collaborative ventures. We work on the principle that people are deliged to share what they know but need appreciation and feedback for doing so. A further ain is to surface and celebrate the significant amount of tacit knowledge in the area of pedagogy evidenced by the strength of student and employer feedback in many areas of the faculty's teaching.----- The Faculty embraces generic and core management expertise but also includes applied management disciplines in information systems and construction and property management where internationally leading research activities and networked centres of excellence have been established. Drawing from this experience, and within the context of the Faculty network, a Centre for Construction Education is being established with key international external partners to develop a sustainable business model of an enterprising pedagogic centre that can undertake useful research to underpin teaching in the Faculty whilst offering sustainable business services to allow it to benefit from pump-priming grant funding.----- Internal and external networking are important elements in our plans and ongoing work. Key to this are our links with the LTSN subject centres (BEST and CEBE) and the LTSN generic centre. The paper discusses networking as a concept and gives examples of practices which have proved useful in this context.----- The academic influences on our approach are also examined. Dixon’s (2000) work examining how a range of companies succeed through internal knowledge sharing has provided a range of transferable practices. We also examine the notion of dialogue in this context, defined by Ballantyne (1999) as ‘The interactive human process of reasoning together which comes into being through interactions based on spontaneity or need and is enabled by trust’ Social constructionist principles of Practical Authorship (Shotter, 1993, Pavlica, Holman and Thorpe, 1998)) have also proved useful in developing our perspective on learning and knowledge creation within our community of practice.

Does emotion modulate the blink reflex in human conditioning? Startle potentiation during pleasant and unpleasant cues in the picture-picture paradigm

Emotional processes modulate the size of the eyeblink startle reflex in a picture-viewing paradigm, but it is unclear whether emotional processes are responsible for blink modulation in human conditioning. Experiment 1 involved an aversive differential conditioning phase followed by an extinction phase in which acoustic startle probes were presented during CS+, CS-, and intertrial intervals. Valence ratings and affective priming showed the CS+ was unpleasant postacquisition. Blink startle magnitude was larger during CS+ than during CS-. Experiment 2 used the same design in two groups trained with pleasant or unpleasant pictorial USs. Ratings and affective priming indicated that the CS+ had become pleasant or unpleasant in the respective group. Regardless of CS valence, blink startle was larger during CS+ than CS- in both groups. Thus, startle was not modulated by CS valence.