Although previous studies have suggested a certain degree of right hemisphere dominance for the response of extrastriate body area (EBA) during body perception, recent evidence suggests that this functional lateralization may differ between men and women. It is unknown, however, whether and how gender differences in body perception affect appreciating the beauty of the body of conspecifics. Here, we applied five 10-Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) pulses over left and right EBA and over the vertex to investigate the contribution of visual body representations in the two hemispheres on esthetic body perception. Female and male healthy volunteers were requested to judge how much they liked opposite- and same-gender virtual model bodies or to judge their weight, thus allowing us to compare the effects of right- and left-EBA rTMS on esthetic (liking) and perceptual (weight) judgments of human bodies. The analysis of the esthetic judgments provided by women revealed that right-EBA rTMS increased the liking judgments of opposite- but not same-gender models, as compared to both vertex and left EBA stimulation. Conversely, in men the liking judgments of opposite-gender models decreased after virtual disruption of both right and left EBA as compared to vertex stimulation. Crucially, no significant effect was found for the perceptual task, showing that left- and right-EBA rTMS did not affect weight perception. Our results provide evidence of gender difference in the hemispheric asymmetry of EBA in the esthetic processing of human bodies, with women showing stronger right hemisphere dominance in comparison with men.

The experiments reported within this thesis use psychophysical techniques to examine the factors which determine perceived multisensory timing in humans. Chapters 1 and 2 describe anatomical and psychophysical features of temporal processing, respectively, whilst Chapter 3 introduces the reader to psychophysical methods. Chapter 4 examines the relationship between two measures of sensory latency, reaction time (RT) and crossmodal temporal order judgment (TOJ). Despite task and attentional manipulations the two measures do not correlate, suggesting that they measure some fundamentally different aspect(s) of temporal perception. Chapter 5 examines the effects of adaptation to asynchronous stimulus pairs on perceived audiovisual (AV), audiotactile (AT) and visuotactile (VT) temporal order. Significant temporal shifts are recorded in all three conditions. Evidence is also presented showing that crossmodal TOJs are intransitive. Chapter 6 shows that concurrent adaptation to two sets of asynchronous AV stimulus pairs causes perceived AV temporal order to recalibrate at two locations simultaneously, and that AV asynchrony adaptation effects are significantly affected by observers' attention during adaptation. Finally, Chapter 7 shows that when observers are accustomed to a physical delay between motor actions and sensory events, an event presented at a reduced delay appears to precede the causative motor action. The data are well-described by a simple model based on a strong prior assumption of physical synchrony between motor actions and their sensory consequences.

published_or_final_version / Community Medicine / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

證期會於民國九十一年十一月十四日公布「公開發行公司公開財務預測資訊處理準則」，該準則中規定已公開財務預測之公開發行公司，於年度終了後一個月內須公告申報預計損益表之達成情形並說明差異原因。而且若與嗣後經會計師查核之稅前損益間之差異超過一定門檻時，亦須一併公告差異金額及原因。 本研究預期，公司為了聲譽、股價、融資受阻及溝通成本等原因，可能不希望自結損益與查核損益差異過大。另外，公司管理當局為了避免上述差異超過門檻，在公告自結損益前可能洽請審計人員進行財務報表初查或過目自結損益表；而審計人員也可能為了避免查核時調整事項過多，造成與客戶間的衝突，亦可能希望客戶在公告自結損益前能先洽請審計人員進行初查或過目自結損益表。因此，實施自結損益規定可能造成審計人員先前涉入公司之自結損益。 本研究以四大會計師事務所之合夥會計師九名及資深審計經理六十六名為對象，採取實驗的方式，探討實施自結損益規定對審計人員審計判斷的影響。並進一步探討審計人員先前涉入公司自結損益的普遍程度，及此一情形對審計人員審計判斷的影響 實驗結果顯示實施自結損益的規定的確會使得審計人員普遍先前涉入公司自結損益；審計人員調整應計損失的幅度比實施前小，尤其在其有先前涉入公司自結損益的情形下，更為明顯；且發現因設有重大差異標準而造成的門檻效果。換言之，依本研究結果推論，實施公告自結損益規定會影響審計人員的專業判斷，壓縮審計人員調整損益的空間。 / This thesis experimentally examines the effects of a regulation on audit judgments. In November 2002, the Securities and Futures Commission announced a new measure requiring listed companies that have made their financial forecast to the public to release within a month after the year end their income statements (hereafter called “pre-announced earnings”) and explain the discrepancy from the forecasted earnings. This new measure requires that the above listed companies release their earnings information earlier than the deadline for filing audited financial statements (hereafter called “audited earnings”) by three months, aiming to ask the listed companies to provide more timely information to investors. It also sets some threshold beyond which the companies and auditors are required to explain the discrepancy. The threshold dictates, among others, that the differences between the pre-announced earnings and audited earnings cannot exceed 20 percent of pre-announced earnings. The current study predicts that due to the consideration of reputation, communication costs, and stock price reaction, companies will have incentives to keep the difference, if any, between the pre-announced earnings and audited earnings within the limit. The auditors will also have similar incentives to do so to avoid the loss of clients, and communication costs. In doing so, the companies will ask auditors to involve in the process prior to pre-announcing earnings (hereafter called “pre-announcement process”), which will help narrow down the difference between pre-announced earnings and audited earnings. This study recruits 66 senior managers and nine partners from Big 4 firms to participate in an experiment in which they make audit judgment as to the adjustment required for a client’s allowance for bad debts. They are also required to generalize the client’s case to the listed companies as a whole and make similar judgments. Their perception on the extent to which auditors’ involvement in the pre-announcement process is also solicited. The data based on the experiment are used to examine the following hypotheses: H1: The adjustments required by auditors will be smaller after this new regulation than before the new regulation. H2: The degree to which auditors are involved in the pre-announcement process will be high. H3: The adjustment required by auditors will be smaller when auditors are involved in the pre-announcement process than when they are not. The results show that the adjustment required by auditors is smaller after the new regulation than before the new regulation. But the difference is not statistically significant (p = 0.133). When generalizing the client’s case to the listed companies as a whole, the difference becomes marginally significant (p = 0.074). Thus, H1 is not supported. The auditors perceive that the extent to which auditors will be involved in the process prior to pre-announcement is significantly higher than 7 on a 1-9 scale (p = 0.002), supporting H2. The results also indicate that auditor’s prior involvement in the pre-announcement process has a significant effect on the required adjustment no matter it is a specific or general case (p < 0.001). Thus H3 is supported. Combining these findings suggests that the new regulation has an effect on constraining auditors in requiring adjustments to their client’s accounting estimates to the extent that the threshold permits. This new regulation therefore poses a trade off between relevance (timeliness) and reliability (representational faithfulness) of accounting information. Meanwhile, the role of auditors in attesting financial statements may also be adversely affected.

På Lantmäteriet har frågan funnits om hur enhetlig lämplighetsprövningen av fastigheter är gällande avstånd mellan skogsskiften. Denna fråga blev än mer aktuell efter att stämpelskatten på fastighetsköp för juridiska personer höjdes 2011. En enhetlig rättstillämpning blev då än viktigare ur ett rättviseperspektiv. Syftet med denna undersökning var därför att utreda rättsläget och tillämpningen angående om det efter fastighetsreglering ska få uppstå långa avstånd mellan skogsskiften inom samma fastighet och utifrån vilka kriterier denna bedömning ska göras. Undersökningen skulle också utreda om förrättningslantmätarna bedömer att s.k. skatteförrättningar där denna fråga är aktuell blivit vanligare. Huvudsakligen har tre metoder använts för att genomföra undersökningen: Rättsläget har undersökts genom den rättsdogmatiska metoden. För att få svar på hur lämplighetsvillkoren tillämpas i denna fråga och om förrättningslantmätare bedömer att skatteförrättningar blivit vanligare har en enkätundersökning genomförts. För att få en djupare förståelse för hur skogsbruket påverkas av långa avstånd hölls en intervju med en representant för Skogsstyrelsen. Om rättsläget kunde konstateras att det både finns goda argument för, och goda argument emot, att tillåta långa avstånd mellan skogsskiften. Det starkaste för är att längre avstånd normalt inte inverkar menligt på skogsbruket. Det starkaste mot är att de ombildade fastigheterna ofta inte blir lämpliga försäljningsobjekt. Slutsatsen drogs att rättsläget är oklart. Angående rättstillämpningen kunde konstateras att denna varierar avsevärt, både vad gäller tillåtna avstånd och vilka kriterier bedömningen görs utifrån. Bedömningen är inte enhetlig och riskerar att bli alltför subjektiv. Angående skatteförrättningar bedömde tillräckligt många förrättningslantmätare att dessa ökar för att en ökning ska vara trolig. Slutligen konstaterades att tydligare riktlinjer behövs, men att vägledande rättsfall krävs för att kunna ge sådana. / At the National Land Survey of Sweden the question has emerged how uniform the judgment on suitability of real property units are regarding distance between forest lots. This question became even timelier after the Swedish stamp duty was increased on property purchase in 2011. In a fairness perspective a uniform legal application then became even more important. Therefore the aim of this research has been to investigate the legal matter and application, regarding the issue of whether long distances between forest lots within the same property are to be authorized after reallotment or not, and from which criteria this judgment should be done. The research should also investigate if cadastral surveyors assess if cadastral procedures due to stamp duty have increased in number. Mainly three methods has been used: The legal matter has been investigated according to the legal dogmatic method; to see how the stipulations regarding suitability judgment are applied in this matter and if cadastral surveyors assess they have increased in number, a survey with inquiries has been used; to get a deeper understanding in how long distances affect the forestry, an interview was held with a representative of the Swedish forest authority. Regarding the legal matter the conclusion could be drawn that there are good arguments both for and against authorizing long distances between forest lots. The strongest argument for, is that long distances normally not have an injurious effect on forestry. The strongest argument against, is that the re-formed properties often don´t become suitable objects for the real estate market. The conclusion was drawn that the legal matter is unclear. The conclusion was also drawn that the application of the legal matter is very varying, both regarding allowed distances and the criteria used in judgment. The judging is not uniform and risks being all too subjective. Regarding cadastral procedures due to stamp duty, sufficiently many cadastral surveyors assessed an increased amount for this to be probable. Finally the conclusion was drawn that plainer guidelines are needed, but a precedent is necessary for such a thing.

The duty of loyalty of a member of a business company This thesis deals with the topic closely connected with the field of corporate governance which is a part of corporate law. According to the American legal theory is duty of loyalty one of the fiduciary duties. The traditional classification of fiduciary duties is based on dualism - duty of loyalty and duty of care. But this concept is changing over time mainly due to case law. There is no settled opinion on the basic question how many fiduciary duties there are. Current opinion of the respected authority in this field - Delaware' Supreme Court is based on dualism of fiduciary duties, but not in the traditional meaning. The duty of loyalty includes according to the opinion of the judges not only conflicts of interests and self-dealing situations, but breach of good faith as well. On the other hand the traditional point of view was settled on two fiduciary duties - loyalty and care as well. Duty of loyalty was connected with conflicts of interest situations between principal and agent, when the personal financial interest of the agent was present. Duty of loyalty protected the legal position of the principal when agent managed entrusted property. The duty of care was connected with the interest of the principal and due performance of the agent with the...

The present work describes the model of heuristic judgment of Kahneman & Frederick (2002) and two experiments based upon it. According to the model people answer a question with an answer to an easier question when making a heuristic judgment. This process is called the attribute substitution because a target attribute of a question is substituted by an associated and easier accessible heuristic attribute. The first experiment investigated whether two heuristic attributes can be used simultaneously during making of a judgment. A part of participants gave 1 or 4 reasons for one of the statements in Linda problem (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983). Numbers of reasons were selected so as to produce a feeling of fluency of disfluency. Although the conjunction fallacy occurred, the writing of the reasons didn't have any influence on the assessment of the probability of the related statement. The second experiment investigated whether the priming of the relation between processing fluency and risk can influence the effect of pronounceability of a food additive name on the assessment of its harmfulness. In accord with previous study (Song & Schwarz, 2009) it was shown that food additives with less pronounceable names were considered as more harmful. The priming didn't have any effect. The present studies...

Dale Jamieson defende em seu livro Ética & meio ambiente: uma introdução a possibilidade de uma relação ética com o ambiente, e discute situações do cotidiano em que a ação individual importa para alterar o status quo, sendo uma dessas questões o uso de animais para consumo. Aliado a esse contexto, a participação da pecuária no desmatamento e degradação ambiental no Brasil torna relevante estudar como pessoas recebem e processam informações sobre o consumo de carne, bem como seus juízos sobre o assunto. Com base na Teoria dos Domínios Sociais, a pesquisa alia as necessidades do cenário socioambiental atual à necessidade de estudos sobre julgamentos de situações complexas com os objetivos de: 1) investigar quais os fatores e os pressupostos informacionais envolvidos na escolha dietética dos brasileiros, e 2) investigar se os julgamentos sobre consumo de carne de vegetarianos brasileiros estão mais focados em justificativas morais quando comparados aos julgamentos sobre consumo de carne de onívoros brasileiros. O delineamento do estudo é exploratório descritivo. Os dados foram levantados por meio de um survey de divulgação online, e a análise foi feita utilizando a análise de conteúdo de Bardin, com base na Teoria dos Domínios Sociais, e utilizando técnicas de estatística descritiva. Participaram da pesquisa 657 brasileiros, com média de idade de 28,5 anos, maioria feminina e residente do estado de São Paulo / Coordinated and collective actions, ranging from national to individual levels, will be necessary to adapt to climate changes. Dale Jamieson defends in his book Ethics and the Environment: An Introduction an ethical relationship with the environment and discusses daily individual actions that matter to change the status quo, and one of these actions is the use of animals for consumption. The cattle raisings significant share in Brazils deforestation and environmental degradation in that context makes it needed to study how people receive and process information involving meat consumption, as well as their judgment about this issue. Using the Social Domain Theory, the present research joins todays pressing social and environmental needs with the absence of studies about peoples judgments in complex situations. The study is exploratory and descriptive in nature, and used an online survey as instrument, with the purpose of 1) to investigate which factors and informational assumptions are involved in Brazilians dietary choices, and 2) to investigate if Brazilian vegetarians judgments are more focused in moral justifications than Brazilian omnivores judgment about meat consumption. Data analysis used Bardins Content Analysis based on Social Domain Theory and descriptive statistics. There were 657 respondents, with mean age of 28,5 years, mostly females and residents in the state of São Paulo

Ce travail de thèse invite à s’intéresser aux caractéristiques des comportements agressifs chez les personnes présentant une déficience intellectuelle (DI) avec ou sans trouble du spectre autistique (TSA). Pour cela, nous avons procéder à la validation de deux échelles américaines d’évaluation des comportements agressifs, « Children’s Scale of Hostility and Aggression : Reactive/Proactive » (Famer & Aman, 2009) et « Behavior Problem Inventory-S » (Rojahn et al., 2012). Les résultats ont montré de bonnes propriétés psychométriques. Cela nous a permis d’identifier des comportements hétéro et auto-agressifs différents en fonction de la présence ou non du TSA dans la DI. Enfin, l’étude du développement moral est pertinente pour mieux comprendre l'étiologie des comportements agressifs chez les personnes DI. En effet, les résultats ont mis en lumière des difficultés dans le traitement des informations (Intention – Conséquence). / This PhD work investigates the characteristics of aggressive behavior in people with intellectual disability (ID), with or without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To do this, we have validated two American Aggressive Behavior Rating Scales, "Children's Scale of Hostility and Aggression: Reactive / Proactive" (Famer & Aman, 2009) and "Behavior Problem Inventory-S". (Rojahn et al., 2012). The results showed good psychometric properties. This allowed us to identify different hetero and auto-aggressive behaviors depending on presence or absence of ASD in the ID. Finally, the study of moral development is relevant to better understand the etiology of aggressive behavior in ID people. Indeed, the results have shown difficulties in the treatment of information (Intent - Consequence) of an event.

A study was conducted to examine if people’s sensitivity to the magnitude to which somebody helps depends on how the help is framed. To test this, participants read vignettes about moral agents whose help had one of three different magnitudes: a base level, a medium level (the base level times 5) and a high level (the base level times 10). The moral agents’ help was also framed in one of three ways. They either helped victims, volunteered a number of hours, or donated an amount to charity. To measure the sensitivity, participants rated how likeable they found the agent. It turned out that if the help was framed as helping victims, the participants were not at all sensitive to the different magnitudes of help. That is, an agent was not liked more if they helped a high or medium number of victims than if they helped a low number; neither were they liked more if they helped a high number than if they helped a medium number. However, in the two other types of framing, participants were more sensitive. When help was framed as volunteering a number of hours, participants liked an agent more if they volunteered a medium or high number of hours than if they only volunteered a low number of hours. But they did not like a participant more if they volunteered a high number of hours than if they volunteered a medium number of hours. The same exact pattern was found when framing help as donating to charity. A possible explanation for the result is given in the discussion.