Cognitive impairment is a key characteristic of schizophrenia and is a clear predictor of functional outcome. This thesis explores the relationship between cognitive ability relating to social and non-social processing. Schizophrenia patients demonstrate an impaired ability to recognise, label and discriminate emotional expression within the face. The underlying mechanisms behind this social cognitive impairment are not yet fully understood. This thesis explores the notion that a basic perceptual impairment in processing facial information adversely impacts on the perception of more complex information derived from faces, such as emotional expression. Face perception relies on processing the featural characteristics of a face as well as the relationship between these features. Information pertaining to the spatial distances between features is referred to as configural information. / A group of schizophrenia patients and healthy control participants completed a battery of tasks that assessed basic neurocognition, facial emotion processing and configural face processing. A model of face processing was proposed and used to systematically pinpoint specific deficits that may contribute to impaired face processing in schizophrenia. The results indicated that schizophrenia patients show impairments on three broad constructs; basic neurocognition, facial emotion processing, and most pertinently, deficits in configural processing. It was revealed that although neurocognitive and face processing both explained a significant proportion of the variance in facial emotion processing, the effect of neurocognition was indirect and mediated by face processing. / To investigate the diagnostic specificity of these findings, a group of bipolar disorder patients was also tested on the task battery. The results indicated that bipolar disorder patients also show social and non-social cognitive impairments, however, not as severe as that demonstrated by the schizophrenia patients. Furthermore, the effect of neurocognitive performance on facial emotion processing appeared more direct for bipolar disorder patients compared to schizophrenia patients. Although deficits in face processing were observable in bipolar, they were not specific to configural processing. Thus, deficits in emotion processing were more associated to neurocognitive ability in bipolar disorder patients, and more associated to configural face processing in schizophrenia patients. The configural processing deficits in schizophrenia are discussed as a lower-order perception problem. In conclusion, the results of this thesis are discussed in terms of their implication for treatment.

<p>People  have  different  strategies  to  regulate  and  control  their  own emotions.  For  short-term  emotion  regulation  of  visual  stimuli, cognitive reappraisal and attentional deployment are of relevance. The present  study  used  self-ratings  and  eye-tracking  data  to  replicate previous  findings  that  eye  movements  are  effective  in  emotion regulation.  25  participants  (6  males)  watched  positive  and  negative pictures in an attend condition and a decrease emotion condition. They rated  their  emotional  experience  and  their  eye  movements  were followed  with  an  eye-tracker.  Ratings  showed  that  they  perceived pictures as less emotional in the decrease condition as compared to the attend condition both for positive and negative pictures. This decrease in  ratings  of  emotional  response  was  larger  for  positive  than  for negative  pictures.  Eye-tracking  data  showed  no  significant  effect  of emotion  regulation condition. Further  research  is proposed  to  include self-ratings  in  studies  of  physiological  changes  due  to  emotion regulation,  to  differentiate  between  strategies  of  emotion  regulation potentially used by participants.</p>

<p>This study is an attempt to conceptually replicate a study by Ramakers, Stevens and Morris (2005) using a measure of electrodermal activity skin conductance (EDA) to evaluate the possibility of telepathy occurring between biologically and/or emotionally related senders and receivers. Ten negatively valenced and highly arousing target pictures were mixed with 10 blank control pictures in 10 blocks, with one of each kind in each block. The order of presentation of the target and control pictures within the block was determined randomly by a computer program. The series of 20 pictures were shown for the sender on a computer screen. Relaxation for the receiver was facilitated by soft music. It was hypothesized that there would be significantly more variance in the receiver EDA when the sender was exposed to negative arousing pictures, than to blank pictures. The results failed to show a significant difference in EDA variance between negative arousing and blank pictures, and did thus not support the telepathy hypothesis. It was recommended that future replications allocate more time for relaxation for the receiver.</p>

<p>The aim of this study is to elucidate the process in which psychology was separated from philosophy and established itself as a distinct academic discipline in Sweden. I argue that the concept of <em>will</em>, as well as the concepts of <em>thinking </em>and <em>emotion</em>, have a lot to tell us about the rise of academic psychology in Sweden. This is done through an analysis of psychology textbooks, encyclopaedia-articles and academic texts on the themes <em>will </em>and <em>psychology</em>, from around 1800 till 1950.</p><p>Prior to the establishment of the first chair of psychology in Uppsala 1948, the discipline was above all a part of the philosophical discipline. For psychology to become a science of its own, it was crucial to obtain a position among the empirical sciences. It thus had to distance itself from philosophy, and in particular from metaphysics. In that respect the concept of will, thinking and emotion posed a problem. On the one hand, these concepts seamed necessary for a science of the psyche but on the other, they were traditionally associated with philosophy and especially with metaphysics.</p><p>From around 1900, the concept of will underwent an empirisation process in which it distanced itself from the metaphysical content of meaning. The idea of thinking, emotion and will as <em>faculties </em>was criticised and replaced by a way of speaking of them in terms of single <em>acts</em>, able to be analysed in a more empirical manner. This change was in accordance with the new demand on empiricism. Within psychology, however, practicians of the trade still spoke in terms of will, thinking and emotion, as well as of classical philosophical problems such as that of the <em>free will</em>, albeit in a more empirical manner.</p><p>A second, more profound change, occurred in the 1940s when the concepts of thinking, emotion and will, as well as the problem of the free will were sorted out from the psychological discourse. In light of their long time as an integral part of the psychological discourse it was a significant change that the human psyche was no longer to be discussed in terms of will, thinking and emotion. The most likely explanation of this change is that the institutional split between psychology and philosophy after 1948 also signified a separation between philosophical and empirical-psychological questions. After 1948 it was possible to pursue scientific studies in psychology without any knowledge of philosophy and hence, without an urge to pose philosophical questions.</p>

<p>The aim of this thesis was the exploration of shame. Four experiments are among the very first to empirically test the validity of Tomkins' shame concept. The relation between internalized shame and memories of early interactions was examined, as well as Tomkins' concept of shame as an innate, momentary emotion. The influence of internalized shame as a personality trait on momentary shame emotion was also explored. Thirdly, how momentarily activated shame influences perception of self and others was studied. Finally, consequences of conscious versus unconscious shame activation was compared. </p><p>Data from two survey studies implied that memories of ignoring and abandoning behaviors from mother are those that correlate most strongly with internalized shame. In the four experimental studies, internalized shame did not seem to influence momentary shame emotion, although two experiments implied different reactions to the praise that constituted part of the shame activating sequence depending on degree of internalized shame. Two experiments in part supported Tomkins’ notion of shame as a consequence of impeded positive emotion. However, participants with a high degree of internalized shame reacted with shame emotion to the praise feedback intended to elicit positive emotion. Therefore Tomkins’ concept of shame was successfully tested only with participants with a low degree of internalized shame. With this group, Tomkins’ conceptualization, however, received support. In addition these two experiments implied different processes for consciously versus unconsciously activated shame, since consequences for social perception and self-image following shame were reversed depending on whether the activating circumstances were conscious or not. The two subsequent experiments did not support the conclusions from the previous two, but gave some implications that shame activation, its consequences, and the effects of conscious versus unconscious activation are highly dependent on personal characteristics and social context. </p><p>Taken together, data give some support to the validity of Tomkins’ shame conceptualization, but implies that it might be far too general, and that shame emotion might be primarily socially dependent.</p>

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Comparative Religion, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-61).

There is much evidence that people are inaccurate in predicting the impact of future situations on their emotions. At the same time, affective forecasts have important implications for behavior, decision-making, and current mood, and may play an important role in the maintenance of emotional disorders. This study investigated two factors that influence affective forecasting: (1) Whether affective forecasting is associated with depressive symptoms and (2) Whether strategies people use to regulate their current affect influence their predictions of future emotional responses. Participants ruminated or reappraised in response to a sad mood and completed a measure of depressive symptoms (BDI). Results indicated that severity of depression symptoms was related to forecasts of greater sadness and anger to positive scenarios, as well as negative appraisals of future negative events. As expected, both BDI score and habitual use of emotion regulation strategies were correlated with participants' predictions about use and effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies in response to future scenarios. Results reinforced the usefulness of examining future-oriented cognitive processes in depression, providing insight into the role of hopelessness in the disorder. This study also shed light on the relationship between depression and predictions about the use and effectiveness of various emotion regulation strategies.

Patients with schizophrenia have extremely high levels of depression and suicide (Carlborg et al., 2008), thus, a better understanding of factors associated with poor quality of life (QoL) for this population is sorely needed. A growing body of research suggests that cognitive functioning in schizophrenia may be a strong predictor of overall QoL (Green et al., 2000), but individual domains of QoL have not been examined. Indirect evidence also suggests that emotion perception may underlie the relationship between neurocognition and QoL, but this hypothesis has also yet to be tested. Using a sample of 92 clinically stable schizophrenia patients, the current study explores the relationship between neurocognition, namely attention and working memory, and the following sub domains of QoL: social, vocational, intrapsychic foundations and environmental engagement. The current study also examines whether emotion perception mediates this relationship. In partial support of hypotheses, patients with more deficits in working memory reported decreased Occupational QoL and, although only marginally significant, decreased Total QoL. There was also a trend for poorer working memory to be associated with poorer Intrapsychic Foundations QoL. Contrary to hypotheses, emotion perception was not found to mediate the relationship between working memory and QoL. Current findings suggest that interventions that specifically target working memory may also improve many other aspects of schizophrenia patients? QoL.

The SCQ is a popular screener for ASDs derived from the gold-standard diagnostic interview. This study examined the validity of the SCQ in a Hispanic sample. Additionally, the mother's expressed emotion toward her child with ASD was examined. Participants included 217 Hispanic and non-Hispanic white mothers of children with and without ASDs ages 4-10. The actual diagnostic status of all children was determined using a historical review of records. ROC curve analysis yielded much lower sensitivity and specificity than the original validation study, with very little difference found between the 15 and 22 cutoffs. A cutoff score of 12 performed the best with a sensitivity of .86 and specificity of .54 in distinguishing between ASD and Non-ASD. There were no significant findings in expressed emotion between Hispanics or Whites, nor did it predict SCQ score. Limitations included a small non-Hispanic White sample. Findings of this study corroborate recent validation results.

Infants with older siblings on the autism spectrum (ASD-sibs) are at risk for socio-emotional difficulties. ASD-sibs were compared to children of typically developing siblings (TD-sibs) in the Face-to-Face/Still-Face (FFSF) at 6 months and the Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS) at 8, 10, 12, 15, and 18 months. ASD-sibs exhibited non-significant trends to smile less and display more neutral affect than TD-sibs during the FFSF. There was a significant status by gender interaction such that male ASD-sibs showed less smiling and lower affective valence compared to male TD-sibs. Additionally, ASD-sibs showed a lack of emotional continuity in the FFSF. ASD-sibs displayed less initiating joint attention, initiating behavioral requesting, and responding to joint attention over time than TD-sibs. Results are discussed with respect to the social orienting model of autism.