Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and other people. In this thesis, I present a new paradigm, the Self/Other Differentiation task, which was designed to assess ToM abilities – specifically, the ability to attribute belief states to the ‘Self' and ‘Other' – in typically developed, healthy adults. By focussing on fully developed ToM abilities, we aimed to increase understanding of how the ToM mechanism is structured and functions in everyday life, and how individual ToM components may differentially relate to executive functioning (EF) abilities. The Self/Other Differentiation task is a computerized false-belief task utilizing a matched- design to allow direct comparison of self-oriented versus other-oriented belief- attribution processes. Using behavioural (response times/error rates) and electrophysiological (EEG) methods, the work presented in this thesis provides evidence of a clear and distinct differentiation in the processing of ‘Self' versus ‘Other' perspectives in healthy ToM. We established a key role of perspective-shifting in ToM, which we hypothesize plays a crucial role in day-to-day communications; shifting from the Self-to-Other perspective was significantly harder (longer and more error prone) than shifting from the Other-to-Self perspective, suggesting that the ‘Self' forms the stem of understanding the ‘Other'. EEG analysis revealed these effects were present across fronto-lateral and occipital-lateral areas of the brain, particularly across the right hemisphere in parietal regions. We provide evidence of these features as universal, core components of the ToM mechanism, with data collected from both Chinese and Western cultures illustrating similar patterns of results. Results regarding the relationship between ToM and EF were mixed, with one study finding that affective EF positively correlates with ToM task performance, whilst non-affective EF does not, and a further two studies finding no such differential relationship. The Self/Other Differentiation task provides the opportunity to establish the features of ‘typical' ToM processes in healthy adults, to further our understanding of how the mature ToM mechanism functions.

Social cognition - the ability to identify, perceive, and interpret socially relevant information - is an important skill that plays a significant role in successful interpersonal functioning. Social cognitive performance seems to be impaired in several mental disorders. The relationship with major depressive disorder is less well understood. The aim of the thesis was to present a comprehensive overview of current knowledge on social cognition in depression as well as to contribute with results of our own research. Two original video-methods presenting difficult and complex social situation were developed in this study. Acutely depressed patients (n = 20) and healthy controls (n = 20) were examined with the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and with Lie or True and Rendez-views video-methods. We found no difference in the performance in our video-methods between the tested groups. Evidence of The Depressive Realism Hypothesis was not proven in this study. Further research in this area is needed. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Master Thesis, Master of Science in Innovation through Business, Engineering and Design with specialisation in Business Administration Field of research: Business Administration, School of Business & Economics University: Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden. Course code:5FE07E Semester: Spring 2017 Author: Juan Sebastian Duque L. Examiner: Saara Taalas Tutor: Soniya Billore Title: Social media influence Subtitle: Qualitative study of Colombian consumer attitude toward social media and its influence Background: The reason for conducting this master thesis in the field of Colombian consumer perspective and the influences on social media, was due to the realisation that there was a need for an increased understanding of the influences that social media is making on Colombian consumer. Besides, the main question is why Colombia? This country is a developing country that its level of growth in multiple sectors is remarkable. It is a market that is attracting multinational companies and expanding with prestigious national brands. The furniture industry is one of the most competitive businesses in this country, therefore using every single resource to acquire customers is a relevant aspect to take into consideration. However, the digital marketing and e- commerce are just emerging. Therefore, there is a need to understand how the Colombian consumer perceives and is influenced by the social media. Also, as Colombia is ranked number 15 with the most daily active users worldwide, meaning that the digital market on social media has a high potential. Colombian consumers are different than European consumer regarding online and social media purchase. Therefore, it is important to understand their attitudes and cognition about this subject. Research question: Q1: How do Colombian consumers perceive the purchase of furniture products through social media? Q2: In which way social media influence Colombian consumer’s attitudes toward purchasing furniture? Purpose: Identify what is the Colombian consumer’s attitude and perception toward purchase furniture through social media. Also, recognising how does social media influence Colombian consumer attitudes toward buying furniture. Method: The research design was qualitative and abductive manner. The empirical data was collected through Semi-structure interviews. It was essential for this study to settle in the ontological part as consumers’ behaviour was examined. Conclusion: This research found that Colombian consumers have a negative attitude towards social media. Nevertheless, this first attitude tends to change when it comes to the influences that social media have in their final decision making when purchasing furniture. Also, the Colombian consumer is seeking for information on social media for every purchase they make. Reviews are a key aspect that they take into consideration when purchasing an item of furniture. These reviews have the power to influences their perception of products and their final decision either to positive or negative.

The maintenance of social/emotional information in working memory (SWM/EWM) has recently been the topic of multiple neuroimaging studies. However, some studies find that SWM/EWM involves a medial frontal-parietal network while others instead find lateral frontal-parietal activations similar to studies of verbal and visuospatial WM. In this study, we asked 26 healthy volunteers to complete an EWM task designed to examine whether different cognitive strategies- maintaining emotional images, words, or feelings- might account for these discrepant results. We also examined whether differences in EWM performance were related to general intelligence (IQ), emotional intelligence (EI), and emotional awareness (EA). We found that maintaining emotional feelings, even when accounting for neural activation attributable to maintaining emotional images/words, still activated a left lateral frontal-parietal network (including the anterior insula and posterior dorsomedial frontal cortex). We also found that individual differences in the ability to maintain feelings were positively associated with IQ and EA, but not with EI. These results suggest that maintaining the feelings of others (at least when perceived exteroceptively) involves similar frontal-parietal control networks to exteroceptive WM, and that it is similarly linked to IQ, but that it also may be an important component of EA.

Non-cognitive features including personality changes are increasingly recognized in the three PPA variants (semantic-svPPA, non fluent-nfvPPA, and logopenic-lvPPA). However, differences in emotion processing among the PPA variants and its association with white matter tracts are unknown. We compared emotion detection across the three PPA variants and healthy controls (HC), and related them to white matter tract integrity and cortical degeneration. Personality traits in the PPA group were also examined in relation to white matter tracts. Thirty-three patients with svPPA, nfvPPA, lvPPA, and 32 HC underwent neuropsychological assessment, emotion evaluation task (EET), and MRI scan. Patients' study partners were interviewed on the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR) and completed an interpersonal traits assessment, the Interpersonal Adjective Scale (IAS). Diffusion tensor imaging of uncinate fasciculus (UF), superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) and inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), and voxel-based morphometry to derive gray matter volumes for orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), anterior temporal lobe (ATL) regions were performed. In addition, gray matter volumes of white matter tract-associated regions were also calculated: inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), posterior temporal lobe (PTL), inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and occipital lobe (OL). ANCOVA was used to compare EET performance. Partial correlation and multivariate linear regression were conducted to examine association between EET and neuroanatomical regions affected in PPA. All three variants of PPA performed significantly worse than HC on EET, and the svPPA group was least accurate at recognizing emotions. Performance on EET was related to the right UF, SLF, and ILF integrity. Regression analysis revealed EET performance primarily relates to the right UF integrity. The IAS subdomain, cold-hearted, was also associated with right UF integrity. Disease-specific emotion recognition and personality changes occur in the three PPA variants and are likely associated with disease-specific neuroanatomical changes. Loss of white matter integrity contributes as significantly as focal atrophy in behavioral changes in PPA.

Background: Social cognitive deficits are considered to be central to the interpersonal problems experienced by individuals with a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome, but existing research evidence regarding mentalising ability and emotion recognition ability is difficult to interpret and inconclusive. Higher levels of mental health problems are experienced in Asperger Syndrome than in the general population, including depression, general anxiety and anxiety-related disorders. Clinical accounts have described symptoms of psychosis in individuals with autism spectrum disorders, including Asperger syndrome, and a number of research studies have reported elevated levels of delusional beliefs in this population. Investigations of social cognition in psychosis have highlighted a number of impairments in abilities such as mentalising and emotion recognition, as well as data-gathering and attribution biases that may be related to delusional beliefs. Similarly, a number of factors, including theory of mind difficulties, self-consciousness and anxiety, have been associated with delusional beliefs in individuals with Asperger syndrome, but there is a lack of agreement in the existing research. A preliminary model of delusional beliefs in Asperger syndrome has previously been proposed, which needs to be tested further and potentially refined. The current study aimed to further investigate social cognitive mechanisms in individuals with Asperger syndrome and to explore potential links with the development of paranoia. Method: Participants with a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome were recruited through a number of voluntary organisations and completed screening measures, the Autism Spectrum Quotient and the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, to ensure their suitability for the study. Participants in the control group were recruited through the university and local community resources and were matched group-wise with the Asperger syndrome group for age, sex and IQ scores. The study compared the Asperger syndrome group (N=30) with the control group (N= 30) with regard to their performance on four experimental tasks and their responses on a number of self-report questionnaires that were delivered as an online survey. The experimental tasks included two theory of mind measures, one designed to assess mental state decoding ability (The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test) and one designed to assess mental state reasoning ability (the Hinting Task). The recognition of emotions was evaluated through the Facial Expression Recognition Task. The Beads Task was administered to assess data-gathering style and specifically to test for Jumping to Conclusions biases. The self-report questionnaires were employed to measure levels of depression, general anxiety, social anxiety, self-consciousness and paranoid thoughts. Results: The Asperger syndrome group performed less well than the control group on tasks measuring mental state decoding ability, mental state reasoning ability and the recognition of emotion in facial expressions. Additionally, those with Asperger syndrome tended to make decisions on the basis of less evidence and half of the group demonstrated a Jumping to Conclusions bias. Higher levels of depression, general anxiety, social anxiety and paranoid thoughts were reported in the AS group and levels of depression and general anxiety were found to be associated with levels of paranoid thoughts. Discussion: The results are considered in relation to previous research and revisions are proposed for the existing model of delusional beliefs in Asperger syndrome. A critical analysis of the current study is presented, implications for clinical practice are discussed and suggestions are made for future research.

La désignation est le geste de montrer un objet à une autre personne. La structure de la désignation est similaire à celle du discours verbal : la première personne « je » communique avec la seconde personne « tu » à propos de l'objet « il ». A partir de la description neuropsychologique d'un trouble acquis de la désignation, l'hétérotopagnosie ou incapacité à désigner le corps d'autrui, nous jetons les bases d'un nouveau modèle de la désignation impliquant la notion de seconde personne « tu ». Nous proposons et validons l'hypothèse que toute désignation implique de se représenter le point de vue de l'interlocuteur « tu » grâce à un référentiel hétérocentré. De plus, chez les patients hétérotopagnosiques comme chez les volontaires sains, désigner le corps d'autrui est plus difficile que désigner les objets. Nous expliquons ce phénomène par le fait que seul le corps humain vivant peut être à la fois sujet de communication et objet de communication. Poursuivant notre investigation sur la notion de seconde personne, nous montrons chez une patiente et chez les sujets sains que le corps des femmes est également plus difficile à désigner que celui des hommes. Les femmes seraient plus facilement considérées comme des sujets que les hommes. Enfin, nous avons recherché comment l'humain percevait la désignation réalisée par autrui comme témoignant d'une intention de communication à propos d'un objet. L'engagement dans une relation avec la seconde personne « tu » est nécessaire à cette compréhension. Au total, cette thèse apporte les premiers éléments expérimentaux sur les mécanismes de la relation de communication avec la seconde personne « tu ». / Pointing is used to communicate about an object with another person. This skill has a triadic structure similar to speech: the first person “I” communicate with the second person “you” about an object of interest “it”. From the neuropsychological description of an acquired deficit in pointing, heterotopagnosia which is the inability to point at another person's body parts, we build a new cognitive model involving the notion of a second person to explain pointing behaviour. We bring experimental evidence that pointing requires taking the addressee's perspective through the elaboration of a heterocentric reference frame. Furthermore, we show that in heterotopagnosic patients and in healthy subjects pointing at another person's body is more difficult than pointing at objects. We hypothesize that it is because only the living human body of other can be a subject to communicate with and an object to communicate about. In addition, we show that heterotopagnosic patients and healthy subjects find it more difficult to point at female body parts than at male ones, perhaps because women are more easily considered as subjects. Finally, we explore the behavioural and neural bases of the perception of pointing. We confirm that the relationship with the second person is necessary to understand the communicative intention of the addressee about the object. As a whole, this work provides the first cognitive and neural evidence for the notion of a second person in the brain.

No description available.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(情報学) / 甲第22095号 / 情博第705号 / 新制||情||121(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院情報学研究科知能情報学専攻 / (主査)教授 西田 豊明, 教授 河原 達也, 教授 黒橋 禎夫 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DFAM

Satisfying interpersonal relationships are an important and beneficial part of life. However, despite that fact that most people desire close interpersonal relationships, some people are less successful at forming and maintaining these relationships than others. One plausible explanation for such individual differences is that people differ in their levels of interpersonal competence – their ability to consistently enact behaviors that are effective, socially appropriate, and satisfying to others. The present research sought to examine different approaches to understanding and assessing interpersonal competence. A comparison of these approaches led to the creation of an Integrated Interpersonal Competence Model (IICM) that sought to maximize the strengths of each individual approach. This new model was tested in two studies (total N = 348) with the goal of understanding why people receive higher (or lower) interpersonal competence (IC) scores and how competence is related to successful interpersonal functioning. Both Studies 1 and 2 examined how the individual components of the IICM contributed to one’s overall IC score. Both studies found that the ability to accurately process social information was related to one’s likelihood of receiving a high IC score. In addition, how an individual evaluated response options seemed to play the largest role in determining whether or not the person would enact the response. Finally, IC appeared to be composed of a blend of interpersonal warmth and dominance. Study 1 also examined the relationship between IC and daily life outcomes. Results showed that higher competence individuals tended to experience a greater frequency of positive events, higher levels of prosocial feelings and satisfaction, and enacted fewer hostile and submissive behaviors on a daily basis. Study 2 investigated how IC was perceived by others. Individuals who were higher in IC were perceived to have fewer antisocial feelings, and be less selfish by peers and parents, and had higher quality relationships with their parents. Interestingly, processing abilities were unrelated to daily and informant-reported outcomes, but personality-like tendencies toward enacting friendly and hostile behaviors were consequential. Overall, the integrated model produced insights into interpersonal competence and can provide a useful guide for future investigations of interpersonal competence.