Infant-directed registers are emotion communication, conveying feelings and intentions to infants and toddlers that may facilitate and modulate attention and language learning. As infants are attracted to emotion, it is essential to understand how infants process emotional information. This study used an infant-controlled habituation paradigm to examine how 7- to 15-month-old infants discriminate changes in visual emotion, auditory emotion, or visual+auditory emotion after being habituated to a bimodal emotion display. The purpose of this study was to examine which modality (facial emotion; vocal emotion) was more salient for infants to discriminate emotions in the context of bimodal stimulation. Infants were habituated to happy audiovisual displays then received four test trials, during which neither source of emotion information was changed (control), just the auditory emotion was changed, just the visual emotion was changed, or both sources of emotion information were changed. It was predicted that infants would show the greatest recovery of attention to a change in visual emotion than when only visual information was changed, but less than when both auditory and visual information were changed. However, the results showed that infants were equally sensitive to all three types of emotion change. These results are discussed in terms of concurrent conceptualizations of how emotion processing is related to negative bias and experience with two emotions. / Master of Science / When we interact with infants, we convey feelings and intentions to infants that may facilitate and modulate attention and language learning. As infants are attracted to emotions, it is essential that we understand how infants process emotional information. While previous studies have shown that infants are capable of discriminating different kinds of emotions, no known study has been done to examine whether infants would be more sensitive to a change in facial expression or in vocal expression when they experience both facial and vocal expressions together. To examine this, infants were habituated to happy audiovisual displays. Infants then watched four audiovisual displays that were 1) the same happy audiovisual display, 2) audiovisual display with happy face and fearful voice, 3) audiovisual display with fearful face and happy voice, and 4) audiovisual display with fearful face and fearful voice. It was expected that infants would look longer when facial expression was changed than when vocal expression was change, but less than when both facial and vocal expressions were changed. However, the results showed that infants were equally sensitive to a change in facial expression, vocal expression, and both facial and vocal expressions.

Studies examining impaired emotion recognition and perceptual processing in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show inconsistent results (Harms, Martin, & Wallace, 2010; Jemel, Mottron, & Dawson, 2006), and many of these studies include eye tracking data. The current study utilizes a novel task, emotion recognition of a dynamic talking face with sound, to compare children with ASD (n=8; aged 6-10, 7 male) with mental age (MA) and gender matched controls (n=8; aged 4-10, 7 male) on an emotion identification and eye tracking task. Children were asked to watch several short video clips (2.5-5 seconds) portraying the emotions of happy, sad, excited, scared, and angry and identify the emotion portrayed in the video. A mixed factorial ANOVA analysis was conducted to examine group differences in attention when viewing the stimuli. Differences in emotion identification ability were examined using a t-test and Fisher's exact tests of independence. Findings indicated that children with ASD spent less time looking at faces and the mouth region than controls. Additionally, the amount of time children with ASD spent looking at the mouth region predicted better performance on the emotion identification task. The study was underpowered; however, so these results were preliminary and require replication. Results are discussed in relation to natural processing of emotion and social stimuli. <i>[revised ETD per Dean DePauw 10/25/12 GMc]</i> / Master of Science

Child maltreatment impacts approximately one in seven children in the United States, leading to many adverse outcomes throughout life. Adolescence is a time period that is critical for the development of self-regulation, as it is when the prefrontal cortex is actively developing. Existing research demonstrates the numerous adverse effects maltreatment may have on self-regulation, which encompasses executive function and emotion regulation abilities. However, there is little research examining how abuse and neglect may differently affect the developmental trajectories of executive function and emotion regulation throughout adolescence and into young adulthood. In the current study, 167 adolescents participated approximately annually at six time points, from ages 14 to 20. At each of the six time points, adolescents completed three executive function tasks as well as self-report questionnaires on their emotion regulation abilities and strategies. Information on maltreatment experienced from ages 1 to 13 was collected when the adolescents were approximately 18 to 20 years of age. Conditional growth curve models were utilized to test the differential effects of abuse and neglect on the growth trajectories of executive function abilities and emotion regulation difficulties and strategy use. The results revealed that neglect was associated with developmental changes in working memory abilities, such that greater amounts of neglect were associated with slower increases in working memory abilities across ages 14 to 20. Further, abuse was associated with developmental changes in difficulties in emotion regulation abilities, such that greater amounts of abuse were associated with larger increases in difficulties in emotion regulation abilities from ages 14 to 20. Finally, neglect was associated with the initial level (at age 14) of difficulties in emotion regulation abilities, such that greater levels of neglect were associated with higher initial levels of difficulties in emotion regulation abilities as compared to individuals with lesser amounts of experienced neglect. These findings suggest that working memory development during adolescence into young adulthood may be more vulnerable to childhood neglect and that both abuse and neglect in childhood may have adverse impacts on the development of emotion regulation abilities. / M.S. / Child maltreatment impacts approximately one in seven children in the United States, leading to many adverse outcomes throughout life. Adolescence is a time period that is critical for the development of self-regulation, which encompasses executive function and emotion regulation abilities. Existing research demonstrates the numerous adverse effects maltreatment may have on self-regulation. However, there is little research examining how abuse and neglect may differently affect the developmental trajectories of executive function and emotion regulation throughout adolescence and into young adulthood. In the current study, 167 adolescents participated approximately annually at six time points, from ages 14 to 20. At each of the six time points, adolescents completed three executive function tasks as well as self-report questionnaires on their emotion regulation abilities and strategies. Information on maltreatment experienced from ages 1 to 13 was collected when the adolescents were approximately 18 to 20 years of age. The results revealed that greater amounts of neglect were associated with slower increases in working memory abilities across ages 14 to 20. Further, greater amounts of abuse were associated with larger increases in difficulties in emotion regulation abilities from ages 14 to 20. Finally, neglect was associated with difficulties in emotion regulation abilities at age 14, such that greater levels of neglect were associated with higher levels of difficulties in emotion regulation abilities at age 14 compared to individuals with lesser amounts of experienced neglect. These findings suggest that working memory development during adolescence into young adulthood may be more vulnerable to childhood neglect and that both abuse and neglect in childhood may have adverse impacts on the development of emotion regulation abilities.

In the majority of the depression literature, there has been little attention paid to the mechanisms underlying the differences that occur among individuals with this label. In a theoretical paper by Shenal, Harrison, and Demaree (2003), they proposed that the differences in depression symptomology may be due to differences in the function (and dysfunction) of the right and left frontal lobes. They go on to explain that each frontal lobe may have a direct influence on patterns of depression symptomology. In the current experiment there was an effort to look at performance differences among depressed and non-depressed males on a tests of affective memory (AAVLT) and functioning for the left (COWAT) and right (RFFT) frontal lobes. Results were non-significant for group based differences but other significant effects were found. Reliable findings included a primacy effect for the recall of words from the negative word list from the AAVLT, whereas t a "normal" primacy and recency effects were found for the recall of positive and neutral word lists. There were also significant differences (across trials) for both groups suggesting a "normal" learning curve. It is thought that the non-significant comparisons among the groups are likely due to the qualitatively mild depression scores among participants, which is likely not adequate to capture the level of dysfunction discussed in the original hypothesis. / Master of Science

Several lines of research on converge for the conclusion that high and low hostile men differ with respect to autonomic regulation of stress. The functional cerebral systems approach has provided a theoretical framework to account for this finding across the individual sensory, motor, and premotor modalities. The current experiment extends and elaborates upon a functional cerebral systems based model that posits a role for the right frontal region in regulation of sympathetic tone after stress. The experiment builds upon prior work illustrating the utility of this model to stress by positing mild dizziness as a potential frontal lobe stressor demonstrating hostility group differences in sympathetic arousal. Dizziness was induced by brief clockwise angular rotation about the vertical neuroaxis. Consistent with vestibular research indicating clockwise rotation impacts the right hemisphere (relative to counterclockwise rotation), it was expected that hostile individuals would exhibit higher skin conductance levels after rotation compared with low hostile individuals. The experiment also included a dichotic listening task both before and after rotation to examine the effects of rotary stress on dichotic phoneme identification. The experiment was conducted in three blocks: A dichotic listening task comprised the first block, followed by application of rotary stress as the second block, and a follow-up dichotic listening task post- rotary stress. It was predicted that rotation would induce an auditory perceptual shift towards the left ear. Results confirmed expected group differences in sympathetic response to rotary stress. High hostiles had greater overall skin conductance immediately following rotation. High hostiles failed to habituate skin conductance levels to mild rotation 7 minutes post-rotary stress. Lateralized effects of skin conductance remain unconfirmed at this time. No group differences were found for either block of the dichotic listening task. Overall, results are interpreted to support a model of frontal region capacity limitation for regulation of stress, including vestibular dysfunction. / Master of Science

Although the advance of social media has enabled people to build social connections much more easily than ever before, loneliness—an aversive feeling of being isolated and disconnected—persists in modern society. In this dissertation, I examine when, how, and why loneliness influences consumer behavior. First, I develop an experimental method to induce loneliness and identify a circumstance that experimenters can obtain a successful loneliness priming effect. Across three experiments, I demonstrate that the same loneliness primes produce different loneliness responses based on the availability of cognitive resources. Specifically, participants who are cognitively depleted tend to rely on responses evoked by the loneliness primes (showing the intended loneliness priming effect) while those with abundant cognitive resources are not affected by the loneliness primes. Building on the findings from Experiments 1-3, I investigate how loneliness affects consumer behaviors in two different marketing contexts, nostalgic product consumption and charitable giving by focusing on how consumers cope with loneliness through consumption. In Experiments 4-5, I demonstrate that consumers who lack cognitive resources tend to form positive attitudes toward nostalgic products when experiencing loneliness. In Experiments 6-7, I show that lonely consumers with limited cognitive resources are likely to donate money to a charitable organization. Additionally, I find that consumers can regulate feelings of loneliness by spending money either for themselves (i.e., nostalgic products) or for others (i.e., charitable giving). This dissertation contributes to our understanding of loneliness in marketing by identifying a circumstance in which such emotional distress significantly influences consumer behavior and by showing how consumers spend money to cope with loneliness. / Ph. D. / Although the advance of social media has enabled people to build social connections more easily than ever before, loneliness—an unpleasant feeling of isolation and disconnection—persists in modern society. The purpose of this dissertation is to expand our understanding of how consumers behave when faced with the unpleasant feeling of loneliness. Specifically, in this dissertation, I examine when, how, and why loneliness influences consumption behaviors such as preference for nostalgic products and charitable giving. First, I identify a way to experimentally manipulate consumers’ feelings of loneliness. I then apply this methodology in order to investigate behavioral differences between more and less lonely participants. Specifically, I demonstrate that lonely consumers are likely to prefer nostalgic products. This effect occurs because nostalgic consumption is associated with an expectation of positive emotions that consumers may seek out in part to reduce feelings of loneliness. In a similar vein, I show that loneliness can increase consumers’ intentions to donate to a charity. Importantly, such intentions to donate are differentially impacted by the types of charitable organizations represented. Specifically, lonely consumers are more likely than less lonely consumers to donate money to a charity supporting a person-related cause (e.g., helping children). Such an effect occurs due to the expected psychological benefits such donations will yield, such as anticipated positive emotions from helping others, which may help lonely consumers overcome their negative feelings. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of loneliness in marketing by showing that consumers may strategically spend money, either on products or via donations, to cope with their emotional distress. Several implications for marketing researchers and practitioners are discussed.

This thesis examines the notion of unseen factors that a user leaves behind once departing from a space. When properly engaged, an inhabitant forms an emotional attachment to a space. This attachment can be felt by later occupants as an experiential, phenomenological quality that cannot be removed from the space. This thesis asks questions such as: Which spaces lend themselves to what emotions? How does the architect compel a user to feel positive emotional attachment to a space? How does a building react to user changes over time? Can a building give off a "vibe" as an inanimate object? This thesis aims to investigate the following thesis statement: "What happens to the emotions in a building after its users leave?" / Master of Architecture / This thesis examines if people leave behind emotions in the places they visit and inhabit. People have emotional attachments to places, and their emotion can transform a building in an unseenway. This thesis asks questions such as: With which spaces do people bond? How does the architect play a role in someone liking a building? How do buildings change over time? Can buildings have a personality? The thesis aims to investigate the following thesis statement: “What happens to the emotions in a building after people leave?”

Toddler-aged children are expected to shift from being solely dependent on parents to regulate their emotion (e.g., Fox & Calkins, 2003) to being able to independently regulate their emotions (Calkins & Johnson, 1998). Mothers' responses to children's negative emotions are expected to influence this development. Children's temperamental negative reactivity was found to moderate the effect of mothers' socialization attempts on children's regulatory behaviors, as suggested by previous theoretical and empirical work (e.g., Putnam, Sanson, & Rothbart, 2002; Rothbart & Bates, 1998). Specifically, highly negatively reactive children showed no correspondence between their mothers' attention-shifting strategies and their own attentionshifting regulation behaviors. This finding is consistent with the proposed process by which temperamentally reactive children become overaroused and unreceptive to mothers' socialization efforts (Hoffman, 1983; Scaramella & Leve, 2004). Lastly, children's reactivity did not moderate the effects of mothers' emotion-intensifying socialization on children's emotion-intensifying regulation behaviors, a finding which deserves further study.

No description available.

The purpose of the current study was to examine the path of perceived parenting styles, emotion recognition, emotion regulation, and psychological well-being in terms of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and social anxiety symptoms consequently. For the purpose of this study 530 adults (402 female, 128 male) between the ages of 18 and 36 (M = 22.09, SD = 2.78) participated in the current study. The data was collected by a questionnaire battery including a Demographic Category Sheet, Short-EMBU (Egna Minnen Betraffande Uppfostran- My Memories of Upbringing), &ldquo / Reading the Mind in the Eyes&rdquo / Test (Revised), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Emotion Regulation Processes, Beck Depression Inventory, Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, Maudsley Obsessive Compulsive Inventory, White Bear Suppression Inventory, Thought-Action Fusion Scale, and Emotional Approach Coping Scale. The psychometric properties of Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and Emotion Regulation Processes were investigated and found to have good validity and reliability characteristics. The three sets of hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to reveal the significant associates of psychological well-being. As expected, the results of the current study revealed that perceived parenting styles, different emotion regulation strategies and processes had associated with psychological well-being in terms of depression, obsessivecompulsive disorder and social anxiety symptoms. The findings, and their implications with suggestions for future research and practice, were discussed in the light of relevant literature.