Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:33:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Jose Nelo.pdf: 986765 bytes, checksum: bdf40fb7708be5c453cc91decbdb3f0f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This thesis aims 1) generally at contributing studies on the laughable and laughter both in verbal texts and texts expressed by semiotic means other than the multimodal ones; and, 2) more specifically at examining whether the laughable is a discursive or textual genre; at identifying the functions and actions performed by the speaker and interlocutor as participants of a discursive context; at evaluating the argumentative strategies used by the speaker, who, intending to secure the interlocutor s laughter causes him/her to accept a new opinion; at investigating the intersection of the intertexts and interdiscourses in the production of the laughable and laughter. In considering that both laughter and the laughable have been dealt with in uni and interdisciplinarity, this thesis places both laughter and the laughable in the intersection of intertexts and interdiscourses, forming an integrative view, once it is crucial to tackle them by a muldisciplinary view, viewing the cognitive sciences as transdisciplinarity. Thus, an integrative model was chosen, so as to discuss enunciative, textual, discursive, historic, interactional, anatomical/physiological and cultural aspects.In this sense, this research has adopted the following methodological procedures: 1) theoretical/analytical procedure: theoretical review of the different treatments given to laughter and the laughable, besides other studies concerning text and discourse, with socio-interactional point of view; 2) selection of the corpora; the material selected for the analysis comprises jokes, stories, chronicles of daily life and editorial cartoons. The findings suggest that intertexts and interdiscourses form the actions which integrate the illocutionary act provoking laughter with the perlocutionary act of the one who laughs / Esta tese tem por objetivo geral contribuir com os estudos do risível e do riso tanto em texto verbais, quanto os expressos por outras semióticas além dos multimodais; e, por objetivos específicos: 1) verificar se o risível é um gênero discursivo ou textual; 2) identificar as funções e as ações praticadas pelo locutor e pelo interlocutor, enquanto participantes de um contexto discursivo; 3) examinar as estratégias argumentativas utilizadas pelo locutor que, ao objetivar o riso de seu interlocutor, leva-o a aceitar uma opinião nova; e, 4) investigar a intersecção dos intertextos e interdiscursos na produção do risível e do riso. Ao considerar que o riso e o risível têm sido tratados na uni e interdisciplinaridade, esta tese situa tanto o riso quanto o risível na intersecção de intertextos e interdiscursos, numa visão integradora, visto que é fundamental tratá-los por uma visão multidisciplinar, tendo por transdisciplinaridade as ciências da cognição. Assim, optou-se por um modelo integrador de forma a tratar de aspectos: enunciativos, textuais, discursivos, históricos, interacionais, anatômico- fisiológicos e culturais. Nesse sentido, a pesquisa adotou os seguintes procedimentos metodológicos: 1) procedimento teórico-analítico: revisão teórica dos diferentes tratamentos sobre o risível e o riso, e outros estudos relativos a texto e discurso, com o ponto de vista socio-interacional; 2) seleção dos corpora, o material selecionado para análise é composto de chistes, histórias, crônicas do cotidiano e charges jornalísticas. Os resultados indicam que os intertextos e os interdiscursos compõem as ações que integram o ato ilocucional de provocar o riso com o ato perlocucional de quem ri

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-22T17:26:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marcia Pinho.pdf: 1039564 bytes, checksum: 618bf8e8247f56f2cc82a1541d03b32c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-30 / Although reading and writing are essential practices to foster learning and disseminate culture, they have been the subject of recurring debate and criticism in Brazil, not only as a result of low rates achieved in education statistics, but also because of the significant weaknesses faced by citizens in the exercise of social practices mediated by written texts. Despite the existing paradigm of universal basic education in Brazil, it is clear that the mere association of formal education with reading and writing does not ensure full mastery of such skills, which is crucial if citizens are to fully perform their roles as social protagonists. Given the above-mentioned context, the debate on literacy has gained increased relevance ever since it started spreading in the academic environment in the 1980s, when it approached the idea of functional literacy. It has gradually extended to all educational settings, from early childhood education programs to both graduate and undergraduate programs. This study particularly focuses on literacy in undergraduate programs, and aims to analyze the linguistic features of texts produced by undergraduate students by identifying the strategies revealed in observable socio-cognitive criteria of textuality on the textual surface. Hence this study drew upon the following theoretical references: the scenario of higher education in contemporary society, its perplexities and challenges; the concept of reflexivity in teacher education, coupled with cognitive strategies related to metacognition and metalanguage; the socio-cultural approach to literacies, as well as specificities of academic literacies; text linguistics from the knowledge-based socio-interactional perspective, focusing on the textuality mechanisms of written texts; finally, studies on social cognitive text processing. This study takes a quali-quantitative and interdisciplinary approach to reveal recurring linguistic features in texts written by students majoring in Pedagogy at the Catholic University of Pelotas, Brazil. Their texts were produced during an event on academic literacy coordinated by this researcher in 2011 and later analyzed for linguistic evidence of textuality - particularly the rates of cohesion and coherence, which were verifiable in the communicative modalities of these students, in accordance with their intended use. The analysis showed the prevalence of cognitive strategies related to the linguistic structure of colloquiality. There was little impact of metalinguistic mechanisms connected to self-reflexivity, hence compositional structures which are typical of beginning writers were highly observed, with little occurrence of strategies such as textual self-monitoring and overt concern with interlocutor s understanding, to the detriment of textual coherence development. This research expects to contribute to the processes of continuing teacher education and academic-pedagogic planning within teaching institutions. It also aims to contribute to future studies in the areas of university pedagogy, academic literacy, teacher education or other specific approaches that may rely on similar objects of study and/or the methodological framework adopted by the present study / A leitura e a escrita, enquanto práticas fundamentais ao aprendizado e à propagação da cultura, têm sido alvo de recorrentes debates e críticas no cenário nacional, seja em função da precariedade de seus índices nas estatísticas educacionais, ou pelas expressivas fragilidades enfrentadas pelos cidadãos no exercício de práticas sociais mediadas por textos escritos. Ainda que se conviva com o paradigma da universalização da escolaridade básica no país, nota-se que a mera vinculação com a educação formal não assegura o domínio pleno da leitura e da escrita para o desempenho fecundo de seu protagonismo social. Nesse contexto, a discussão do letramento, amplamente difundida no ambiente acadêmico a partir da década de 80, ao se aproximar da ideia de alfabetização funcional, tem sua pertinência ampliada, passando a abranger todos os contextos educacionais, da educação infantil aos programas de pós-graduação, passando pela educação superior, sobre a qual se detém o presente estudo. Tendo como referência a abordagem de letramentos, a pesquisa tem como objetivo geral analisar a caracterização linguística das produções escritas de alunos de nível superior, por meio da observação das estratégias sociocognitivas reveladas nos critérios de textualidade observáveis na superfície textual. Para tanto, são privilegiados estudos sobre o cenário da educação superior na contemporaneidade, suas perplexidades e desafios; o conceito de reflexividade na formação docente, associando-o às estratégias cognitivas ligadas à metacognição e à metalinguagem; a concepção sociocultural dos letramentos, bem como as particularidades dos letramentos acadêmicos; a linguística textual na perspectiva sociointeracional de base cognitiva, enfocando os mecanismos de textualidade das produções escritas; e, finalmente, os estudos sobre processamento sociocognitivo de textos. A partir de uma abordagem quali-quantitativa e interdisciplinar, a investigação procura desvelar características linguísticas recorrentes nas manifestações escritas de alunos concluintes do curso de Pedagogia da Universidade Católica de Pelotas, produzidas durante um evento de letramento acadêmico coordenado pela pesquisadora no ano de 2011, analisando-se os indícios linguísticos de textualidade particularmente os índices de coesão e coerência verificáveis nas modalidades comunicativas desses estudantes, em conformidade com as suas finalidades de uso. As análises demonstram a prevalência de estratégias cognitivas próprias à coloquialidade, com pouca incidência de mecanismos ligados à autorreflexividade, de forma que se sobressaem as estruturas composicionais típicas de escritores iniciantes, nas quais se percebem escassas estratégias de automonitoramento textual, além de não revelarem preocupação explícita com a compreensão do interlocutor, em prejuízo, portanto, da construção da coerência textual. Considerando-se as recorrências linguísticas verificadas, bem como os questionamentos educacionais suscitados por esses achados, a pesquisa pretende contribuir também com futuros estudos correlatos nas áreas de pedagogia universitária, letramento acadêmico, formação de professores ou outras abordagens específicas que se possam valer de semelhantes objetos investigativos e/ou da estrutura metodológica adotada pelo estudo ora realizado .

This thesis aimed to extend the existing psychological and neural basis of social processing in Major Depressive Disorder. This investigation was an attempt to resolve current conflicts and gaps in the social affective neuroscience literature regarding social functioning in depression. Chapter 1 consisted of a general introduction to the current evidence-base and theoretical frameworks surrounding social processing more generally, and in depression more specifically. ‎Chapter 2 provided an exploration of the systemic behavioural biases in in those with depression compared to mentally healthy individuals using a range of social, affective and process measures implemented across the remaining chapters. Then followed a behavioural and neural investigation into self-relevant social processing in depression. Chapter 3 described the process of memory generation implemented across ‎ Chapter 4-6 using a script-driven paradigm. It further discussed the ecological validity of this paradigm using social autobiographical memories. Chapter 4 investigated the neural and behavioural responses to self-relevant autobiographical memories of social rejection and social inclusion in individuals with depression and in healthy controls. The next two chapters discussed the behavioural and neural basis of social processing in depression in response to others’ memories of social rejection and inclusion, using traditional and novel fMRI analysis methodologies in ‎Chapter 5 and ‎‎Chapter 6, respectively. The latter applied a novel intersubject correlation analysis to the same population of depressed and healthy controls as in Chapter 5. Then, Chapter 7 presented a future application of the script-driven imagery paradigm by investigating the effectiveness of different emotion regulation strategies in response to socially salient autobiographical memories in a population of healthy controls. Finally, Chapter 8 provided a general discussion bringing together behavioural and neural findings to provide a clearer understanding of social processing in Major Depressive Disorder. Current theoretical frameworks were used to guide the interpretation of these findings.

La cognition sociale a récemment connu un intérêt croissant en neuropsychologique clinique. Cet engouement s’explique notamment par le caractère transdiagnostique mais aussi invalidant des troubles. Cependant, ce construit se heurte encore à de nombreux écueils, tant conceptuels que méthodologiques. Ainsi, dans la schizophrénie, les données de la littérature internationale divergent. Nous faisons l’hypothèse que ces contradictions peuvent être sous-tendues par : 1) le manque de considération pour le caractère multidimensionnel de la cognition sociale, et 2) l’hétérogénéité interindividuelle du fonctionnement. L’objectif général de ce travail de thèse était de réaliser une étude comparée des profils de fonctionnement en cognition sociale dans la population générale et dans la schizophrénie. Pour ce faire, une première étape a été consacrée à une revue systématique des études sur la structure factorielle de la cognition sociale en neuropsychologie clinique (Article 1). Cette revue a permis de proposer un modèle bidimensionnel de la cognition sociale, où les processus de bas et de haut niveau croisent les processus affectifs et cognitifs. Une deuxième étape a consisté à fournir des éléments de validation supplémentaires au PECS-B, une batterie d’évaluation de la cognition sociale composée de sept tâches évaluant cinq dimensions (Article 2). Les résultats ont révélé des qualités psychométriques satisfaisantes en population générale (N = 131) comme dans la schizophrénie (N = 101). Enfin, la troisième étape a consisté à réaliser des analyses en clusters pour explorer l’hétérogénéité interindividuelle dans ces mêmes populations (Article 3). Trois profils différents dans l’échantillon population générale ont été mis en évidence, dont deux caractérisés par des faiblesses spécifiques. En revanche, les trois profils obtenus dans l’échantillon schizophrénie étaient caractérisés par trois niveaux de fonctionnement en cognition sociale : capacités efficientes (similaires aux témoins), moyennes et faibles. Ces deux derniers niveaux étaient également caractérisés par des difficultés d’ordre alexithymique ou neurocognitive. Dans une perspective de pratique basée sur la preuve, ces résultats ont des implications importantes tant pour l’évaluation de la cognition sociale que pour l’orientation des interventions thérapeutiques. / Social cognition has received a growing interest in clinical neuropsychology. This popularity can be explained by the transdiagnostic and negative outcome of social cognition disorders. However, this construct faces many difficulties, conceptual as well as methodological. Thus, concerning schizophrenia, data from the international literature is inconsistent. We hypothesize that these contradictions may be underpinned by: 1) a lack of consideration for the multidimensionality of social cognition, and 2) interindividual heterogeneity of functioning. The overall goal of this thesis was to explore and compare the social cognition functioning profiles in the general population with those for schizophrenia. To do this, a first step was devoted to a systematic review of studies that explored the factor structure of social cognition in clinical neuropsychology (Article 1). This review allowed the proposition of a two-dimensional model of social cognition, in which low and high-level processes cross affective and cognitive ones. A second step was to provide additional validation elements to the PECS-B, a social cognition assessment battery with seven tasks assessing five dimensions (Article 2). The results reported satisfactory psychometric qualities in the general population (N = 131) as well as in schizophrenia (N = 101). Finally, the third step was to carry out cluster analyses to explore interindividual heterogeneity in these same populations (Article 3). Three different profiles in the general population sample were highlighted, of which two were characterized by specific weaknesses. In contrast, the three profiles in the schizophrenia sample were characterized by three levels of social cognition functioning: good (similar to controls), medium and low. The last two levels were also characterized by alexithymic or neurocognitive difficulties. From an evidence-based practice perspective, these findings have important implications for both the assessment and the direction of therapeutic interventions.

This thesis aims to disentangle the concept of culture; more specifically it identifies different facets of cultural orientations. It looks at how cultural and national groups differ on these dimensions and their impact on individuals and societies. It is argued that we need a more nuanced and multifaceted understanding of culture that goes beyond focusing on values. Chapter 1 discusses definitions of culture and identifies three significant facets of culture—values, beliefs and constructions of the self. It is noted that research into the latter two facets is far less developed. Chapter 2 outlines research into cross-cultural variation in beliefs, more specifically beliefs about personhood, and notes that little is known about beliefs that define individualism-collectivism (I-C). Chapter 3 reviews self-construal theory and highlights a range of remaining issues which point to the need to explore self-construals further. Chapter 4 provides a methodological overview of the research. Chapter 5 reports results from two large-scale cross-cultural questionnaire studies and presents the construct, and a measure, of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of the context in understanding people. Contextualism is shown to be a facet of cultural collectivism and a predictor of national variation in ingroup favouritism, trust and corruption. Chapter 6 presents a new seven-dimensional model of self-construals, which can be organised into three higher-order dimensions at the cultural level of analysis: self-differentiation, other-focus and self-containment. Variation in self-differentiation is shown to be best explained by differences in I-C, other-focus by differences in national wealth and self-containment by religious heritage. Based on a smaller study in four nations, Chapter 7 investigates the seven self-construal dimensions at the individual level and tests how they differentially predict outcomes related to socio-emotional adjustment. Chapter 8 summarises the findings and discusses implications and directions for future research.

Being "deaf" is defined as the inability to hear, but it can also be defined as a culture centered around sensibilities and shared life experiences. This endeavor seeks to integrate the hearing-impaired and hearing communities through the application of "Deaf Space" and other design theories. The result is an inspiring, empowering, and lively solution.

<p>In what ways and under what circumstances can a movie be a resource for individuals and their thoughts about existential matters? This central research question has been investigated using a both quantitative and qualitative approach. First, a questionnaire was distributed amongst 179 Swedish students to provide a preliminary overview of film habits. The questionnaire was also used as a tool for selecting respondents to individual interviews. Second, thirteen interviews were conducted, with viewers choosing their favourite movie of all time. In the study socio-cognitive theory and a schema-based theoretical tool is adopted to analyze how different viewers make use of movies as cultural products in an interplay between culture and cognition in three contexts; a socio-historic process, a socio-cultural interaction with the world and inner psychological processes. Summarizing the interviews some existential matters dominated. Matters of immanent orientation were in the foreground. Transcendental questions received much less attention. Summarizing the schema-based theoretical question, assessing which cognitive schema structures the narratives were processed through, the study found an emphasis on a combination of two main cognitive structures, person schema and self schema. Detailed person schematic cognitive processes about fictitious characters on the screen and their role model behaviour were combined by the respondents with dynamic cross-references to detailed self schematic introspections about their own characteristics, related to existential matters at some very specific moments in their lives. The viewers in the study seem to be inspired by movies as a mediated cultural resource, promoting the development of a personal moral framework with references to values deeply fostered by a humanistic tradition. It is argued that these findings support theories discussing individualised meaning making, developing ‘self-expression values’ and ‘altruistic individualism’ in contemporary western society.</p>

Heuristiken der Urteilsbildung umfassen bottom-up bzw. schemagesteuerte Strategien innerhalb der sozialen Informationsverarbeitung, mit deren Hilfe trotz unsicherer Datenlage hinreichend genaue Urteile gefällt werden können. Die Anker- und Anpassungsheuristik als eine Form solcher Faustregeln beschreibt im Wesentlichen die Wirkung von vorgegebenen Zahlen (den so genannten Ankerwerten) auf numerische Schätzungen. Urteile unter Unsicherheit sind zum Beispiel im Bereich der Rechtsprechung zu beobachten, wobei die Entscheidungsprozesse hier eher normativ auf der Basis der vorliegenden Informationen, d.h. einer datengesteuerten Verarbeitung, erfolgen sollten. <br><br> In einer Serie von drei Experimenten wurde die Ankerheuristik auf den Bereich der Rechtsprechung übertragen. Mit Hilfe der Vignettentechnik wurden <i>N</i> = 229 Rechtsreferendare sowie <i>N</i> = 600 Studierende der Rechtswissenschaften zu ihrem Strafverhalten befragt. Im Mittelpunkt standen drei Zielsetzungen: (1) die Replikation und Erweiterung der Ankereffekts in Bezug auf eine größere Gruppe von Deliktarten; (2) die Analyse individueller Unterschiede in der Ankernutzung unter Berücksichtigung verschiedener Persönlichkeitsvariablen (Need for Cognition und Need for Cognitive Closure) sowie (3) die Anregung zu verstärkter systematischer Informationsverarbeitung durch die Indizierung einer Genauigkeitsmotivation. <br><br> Der Ankereffekt in der juristischen Urteilsfindung konnte für die verschiedenen Deliktgruppen repliziert werden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die wahrgenommene Schwere der geschilderten Taten mit dem Strafmaß korrelierte. Dieser Zusammenhang wurde durch die Einführung von Ankerwerten deutlich reduziert. Entgegen den bisherigen Untersuchungen war zwar auch bei den Rechtsreferendaren ein Ankereffekt zu beobachten, der jedoch geringer ausfiel als bei den Studierenden der Rechtswissenschaften. Im Hinblick auf die Persönlichkeitsmerkmale konnte die Erwartung bestätigt werden, dass ein geringes Kognitionsbedürfnis sowie ein hohes Geschlossenheitsbedürfnis mit höherer Anfälligkeit für die Ankerheuristik einhergehen. Die Erzeugung eines Rechtfertigungsdrucks dagegen veranlasste die Probanden, sich intensiver mit den Materialien zu beschäftigen und eher datengeleitet vorzugehen. Implikationen für die juristische Praxis werden diskutiert. / Decisions are usually based on beliefs about the likelihood that an uncertain event will occur (i.e., the results of an election or the liability of the accused). In estimating the likelihood of those events people often revert to heuristics as a theory-driven processing strategy in order to reduce the effort of the decision-making process. On the one hand heuristics might be quite helpful in controlling information processing; on the other hand they can lead to systematic biases in judgments. Anchoring and adjustment describe a judgmental heuristic, where individuals gauge numerical size by starting from an initial arbitrary or irrelevant value (an anchor) and adjusting it during the subsequent course of judgment to arrive at their final judgment. However, the adjustment of the judgment typically remains insufficient, thus leading to judgments that are biased in the direction of the starting value. <br><br> The concept of judgmental heuristics can be applied to legal decision making. Legal decision-making is normatively defined as data-driven, which means that judgements about the culpability of a defendant need to be corroborated by evidence specific to the case at hand. Individuals involved in this process are required to assess the evidence without being affected by personal feelings and beliefs or by extraneous evidence. <br><br> A series of three experiments tested the impact of anchoring and adjustment on legal decision making. Using the vignette technique, <i>N</i> = 229 junior barristers and <i>N</i> = 600 law students evaluated scenarios describing criminal offences. Apart from replicating the anchoring effect in different samples, the studies explored the impact of individual differences in personality variables (need for cognition and cognitive closure) on the anchoring effect. Further, a strategy to promote data-driven processing by inducing an accuracy motivation was evaluated. <br><br> The results clearly indicate an anchoring effect in legal decision-making. The results showed a strong correlation between the perceived severity of the cases and the recommended sentence. This correlation was significantly reduced when an anchor was introduced. In contrast to previous studies, junior barristers showed a less extreme bias in their judgments compared to law students. In terms of individual differences regarding the readiness to engage in elaborate information processing the results showed a higher susceptibility for the anchoring information when need for cognition was low and need for cognitive closure was high. Introducing an accuracy motivation prompted the participants to engage in more data-driven processing, thus reducing the anchoring effect. The implications for social cognition research and legal practice are discussed.

This dissertation clarifies the role and relevance of the body in social interaction and cognition from an embodied cognitive science perspective. Theories of embodied cognition have during the past two decades offered a radical shift in explanations of the human mind, from traditional computationalism which considers cognition in terms of internal symbolic representations and computational processes, to emphasizing the way cognition is shaped by the body and its sensorimotor interaction with the surrounding social and material world. This thesis develops a framework for the embodied nature of social interaction and cognition, which is based on an interdisciplinary approach that ranges historically in time and across different disciplines. The theoretical framework presents a thorough and integrated understanding that supports and explains the embodied nature of social interaction and cognition. It is argued that embodiment is the part and parcel of social interaction and cognition in the most general and specific ways, in which dynamically embodied actions themselves have meaning and agency. The framework is illustrated by empirical work that provides some detailed observational fieldwork on embodied actions captured in three different episodes of spontaneous social interaction in situ. Besides illustrating the theoretical issues discussed in the thesis, the empirical work also reveals some novel characteristics of embodied action in social interaction and cognition. Furthermore, the ontogeny of social interaction and cognition is considered, in which social scaffolding and embodied experience play crucial roles during child development. In addition, the issue what it would take for an artificial system to be (socially) embodied is discussed from the perspectives of cognitive modeling and technology. Finally, the theoretical contributions and implications of the study of embodied actions in social interaction and cognition for cognitive science and related disciplines are summed up. The practical relevance for applications to artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction is also outlined as well as some aspects for future work.

Background It has long been acknowledged that hearing impairment may increase the risk for psychotic experiences. Recent work suggests that young people in particular may be at risk, indicating a possible developmental mechanism. Method The hypothesis that individuals exposed to hearing impairment in early adolescence would display the highest risk for psychotic symptoms was examined in a prospective cohort study of a population sample of originally 3021 adolescents and young adults aged 14–24 years at baseline, in Munich, Germany (Early Developmental Stages of Psychopathology Study). The expression of psychosis was assessed at multiple time points over a period of up to 10 years, using a diagnostic interview (Munich Composite International Diagnostic Interview; CIDI) administered by clinical psychologists. Results Hearing impairment was associated with CIDI psychotic symptoms [odds ratio (OR) 2.04, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.10–3.81], particularly more severe psychotic symptoms (OR 5.66, 95% CI 1.64–19.49). The association between hearing impairment and CIDI psychotic symptoms was much stronger in the youngest group aged 14–17 years at baseline (OR 3.28, 95% CI 1.54–7.01) than in the older group aged 18–24 years at baseline (OR 0.82, 95% CI 0.24–2.84). Conclusions The finding of an age-specific association between hearing impairment and psychotic experiences suggests that disruption of development at a critical adolescent phase, in interaction with other personal and social vulnerabilities, may increase the risk for psychotic symptoms.