Social-communication impairments in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often ascribed to deficits in empathy. I argue that social-communicative deficits in ASD stem from impairments in specific aspects of empathy, rather than a general empathy impairment. Empathy is defined as the sharing of another's emotion (affective empathy), understanding others' mental states (cognitive empathy), and regulation of one's own emotional state (self-regulation). Empathy can also lead to muscle mimicry and empathic concern for another's wellbeing. I argue that empathy should be measured on multiple levels: cognitive, subjective and physiological. Particularly, measurement of autonomic regulation can contribute to characterising the empathy profile in ASD. Furthermore, confounding factors such as lack of understanding of one's own emotions, or alexithymia, must be accounted for when measuring empathy. I measured subjective trait empathy ratings in people with varying levels of autism traits (N₁ = 519 & N₂ = 98, ages 14 - 45). I also investigated the association between physiological arousal, trait empathy, and empathic concern for (1) sensory pain and (2) facial pain expressions, controlling for alexithymia (N = 98); and examined the evidence for atypical autonomic arousal at rest and during empathy-induction in individuals with ASD. Autism traits were negatively correlated with cognitive empathy and self-regulation, but were not associated with atypical affective empathy per se. However, individuals with poor self-regulation showed heightened subjective affective states, whereas alexithymic individuals showed reduced affective empathy to facial pain expressions. Regarding the autonomic regulation of empathy, there was a significant association between autonomic arousal and affect regulation: Low sympathetic arousal and concurrent high parasympathetic arousal at rest predicted smaller changes in personal distress during pain observation than did autonomic co-inhibition. However, resting state arousal did not predict absolute affective state levels or dispositional empathy, and was not associated with amount of autism traits. In conclusion, the findings do not support the hypothesis of global empathy deficits in ASD. The results suggest that interventions focusing on own-emotion identification and self-regulation skills are important, but caution against the over-hasty adoption of interventions targeting resting state autonomic arousal, which was not related to either ASD or dispositional empathy.

This experiment tested hypotheses linking the right cerebral regulation of hostility and cardiovascular reactivity. First, replication of previous research supporting heightened cardiovascular reactivity (mean arterial pressure, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate) among high-hostile participants was attempted. Second, dynamic variations in functional cerebral asymmetry in response to pain (cold pressor stressor) and affective verbal learning (positive and negative valenced word lists) were measured. High- and low-hostile participants (n = 64) were identified using the Cook Medley Hostility Scale. Participants completed either the cold-pressor stressor condition or the no-stress control condition as well as the negative and the positive affective verbal learning test. Cardiovascular measures (MAP, SBP, DBP, and HR) before and after the stress or no-stress condition and before and after the negative and the positive affective learning tasks were recorded. The results demonstrated that high-hostiles had difficulty processing emotional stimuli. High-hostiles were reliably impaired in emotional word learning. Further, results suggested that negative affective learning produced proactive interference for the learning or recall of subsequently presented information. Positive affective learning produced diametrically opposite effects with retroactive interference for the recall of previously presented information. Also, high-hostiles' cardiovascular reactivity to a physical stressor was independent of the valence of the learning task. In contrast, low-hostiles' cardiovascular reactivity was valence dependent with activation to both the positive list concurrent with stress and to the negative list concurrent with no stress. Finally, the results indicated that the effect of the affective learning lists, on the heart, is stress dependent. Neuropsychological theories of ANS regulation and emotion are discussed in relation to the primary findings and a new model of lateralized regulation is proposed. / Ph. D.

The goal of this study is to advance the utility of functional brain imaging as a tool for the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders by creating a statistical database of functional MRI (fMRI) brain activation patterns collected from neurologically and psychiatrically unimpaired subjects. Continuous fMRI scans have been obtained from each subject while s/he performed a variety of cognitive tasks that are commonly found in standard neurological and cognitive assessment batteries. The collected fMRI data has been processed, analyzed, and converted into database which can be used as a reference of reliable indices of normal brain activity patterns for a wide range of cognitive functions.

This study used an archival data set of 26 healthy adult immigrants from a sub-Saharan African country to the United States (Mage 39.0, SD = 11.36; Meducation 16.33, SD = 2.88; 40.7% male). Additional archival data was used for 32 healthy African American adults (Mage 34.06, SD = 11.18; Meducation 16.16, SD = 2.49; 53.1% male). A bivariate correlation indicated that acculturation to African culture, as measured by the mBIQ (M 49.29, SD = 8.66), was significantly positively correlated with ethnicity, r = .632, p = .000, ηp2 = 0.399. Two-way ANOVAs revealed that African Americans were able to name more animals than African immigrants (F(1, 54) = 4.82, p = 0.32, ηp2 = 0.82) and exhibited greater organizational skills during a task of cognitive set shifting and problem solving than African immigrants, regardless of level of acculturation (F(1, 54) = 4.47, p =.039, ηp2 = 0.078). In contrast, African immigrants scored higher than African Americans on indigenous fruit (F(1, 54) = 7.60, p =.008, ηp2 = 0.123) and object naming (F(1, 54) = 5.59, p =.022, ηp2 = 0.094). Results of the study concluded that there are small variance effects in language tasks as well as strategy-based approaches to tasks of novel problem solving. Implications of these findings are discussed relative to future research as well as clinical practice in the assessment of culturally dissimilar people across a racially homogenous population by pushing the field forward with diversified approaches to neuropsychological testing.

No description available.

This study investigated the relationship between cluster B personality disorder characteristics and neuropsychological test performance. Specifically, the study examined whether neuropsychological test patterns could be used to support personality disorder diagnoses. The participants were 109 university students who were given a neuropsychological test battery and personality assessment. When controlling for Axis I psychopathology, no relationship was found between neuropsychological performance and borderline characteristics. However, narcissistic characteristics were associated with poorer working memory, divided attention, and verbal associative memory, and greater cognitive flexibility. Histrionic characteristics were associated with better list learning and selective auditory attention. This study suggests that some cluster B characteristics are associated with neuropsychological performance, but additional research is needed to clarify the nature of this relationship.

No description available.

No description available.

Everyday activities are necessary for independent and productive living, and errors in everyday tasks are associated with a multitude of negative consequences, from increasing stress and frustration to serious safety concerns. Current rehabilitation strategies for improving everyday functioning focus on improving deliberate planning of everyday tasks, however many fundamental questions remain regarding everyday action planning. Few studies have examined both plan formulation and plan execution during everyday task performance, included multiple traditional neuropsychological planning measures, and evaluated competing neurocognitive models of planning in one study. This study addressed several gaps in the literature by examining the extent to which individuals planned before beginning an everyday task and whether planning facilitated performance. Additionally, the study was designed to identify optimal measures of planning abilities and the neurocognitive processes that are crucial for planning skills. A sample of 92 healthy participants completed complex everyday tasks (2x3 Multi-Level Action Test; Buxbaum et al., 1998; Schwartz et al., 1998) as well as a neuropsychological battery consisting of traditional neuropsychological tests of planning (e.g., Tower Test; Delis et al., 2001) and executive functioning (e.g., Haylings Test; Burgess & Shallice, 1997), episodic memory (e.g., WAIS- IV Logical Memory; Wechsler, 2009a), and working memory (e.g., Automated Symmetry Span; Barch et al., 2009). Contrary to hypotheses, deliberate planning prior to a task did not improve performance, traditional neuropsychological measures were not significantly related to naturalistic planning variables, and neither executive functions nor episodic memory were strongly associated with planning skills. The results suggest that investigators must use caution when selecting planning variables for research and when drawing conclusions about everyday functioning from traditional neuropsychological planning measures. Further research is also needed to expand current neurocognitive models of planning to account for performance on complex everyday tasks. / Psychology / Accompanied by one .pdf file: Appendix.

Bipolar Disorder is frequently associated with a number of poor outcomes including, but not limited to, a significant impairment in the ability to return to premorbid levels of occupational and psychosocial functioning, often despite the remission of mood symptoms. An extensive line of research has pointed toward deficits in cognitive functioning as playing an important role in this persistent disability, with a number of studies demonstrating the presence of numerous cognitive impairments during the inter-episode period. Also present during affective episodes as well as the inter-episode periods are reports of pervasive sleep disturbance. Sleep disturbance has been associated with the onset of manic episodes and is an oft-reported prodrome of illness onset. Despite the presence of deficits in these two domains of functioning during affective episodes as well as the inter-episode phase, there has been no evaluation of the degree to which these systems may interact to maintain such high rates of functional disability. The current study attempted to integrate these three separate lines of research to examine the role sleep disruption plays in both cognitive and occupational functioning in individuals with bipolar disorder. Seventy-two males and females with bipolar disorder in the euthymic phase (n=24), primary insomnia (n=24) or no psychological or medical diagnoses (n=24) completed a week of prospective assessment of sleep disruption via self-report and actigraphy. At the culmination of the sleep assessment period, all participants were administered a battery of neuropsychological tests of executive functioning, working memory, verbal learning, and attention. Additionally, participants completed self-reports of mood symptoms and current and lifetime occupational functioning. Results were mixed relative to hypotheses. Data supports persistent sleep disturbance among individuals with bipolar disorder when assessed via self-report, but no significant differences were observed compared to controls when assessed via actigraphy. Bipolar participants exhibited significantly poorer performance on measures of verbal learning and working memory, but no other cognitive deficits were observed relative to insomnia and control participants. Bipolar participants had a greater lifetime history of being fired compared to insomnia or control participants, and deficits in executive inhibition and switching were associated with increased lifetime firings across the sample. Sleep disturbance, either subjective or objective, failed to mediate this association. Findings are partially consistent with previous reports of persistent sleep disturbance and cognitive impairment among individuals with BD in the euthymic phase. More research should be conducted to better understand the underpinnings of functional impairment in BD. / Psychology