The purpose of this thesis was to create and test a proof-of-concept novel ambulatory EEG system to monitor emotional valence in real-time. A qualitative comparison of a wireless EEG acquisition system by the imec group to a gold standard laboratory EEG system was successfully performed. A new wireless transmission system was created using the Texas Instruments’ ADS1299 EEG front-end chip and quantitatively compared to the gold standard system. This system and the ADS1299 performance demonstration kit were used to evaluate several equations for emotional valence classification. Three of these equations were able to correctly classify emotional valence on a positive-neutral vs. negative basis over 90% of the time on the performance demonstration kit and over 90% of the time on the wireless system. The wireless data was acquired and saved on a novel BlackBerry application that also allowed emotional self-assessment by the user during testing.

The purpose of this thesis was to create and test a proof-of-concept novel ambulatory EEG system to monitor emotional valence in real-time. A qualitative comparison of a wireless EEG acquisition system by the imec group to a gold standard laboratory EEG system was successfully performed. A new wireless transmission system was created using the Texas Instruments’ ADS1299 EEG front-end chip and quantitatively compared to the gold standard system. This system and the ADS1299 performance demonstration kit were used to evaluate several equations for emotional valence classification. Three of these equations were able to correctly classify emotional valence on a positive-neutral vs. negative basis over 90% of the time on the performance demonstration kit and over 90% of the time on the wireless system. The wireless data was acquired and saved on a novel BlackBerry application that also allowed emotional self-assessment by the user during testing.

Collective memory is a socially shared representation of the past. History, contrastingly, strives to be an unbiased, objective, and critical account of the past. Many researchers have argued that the so-called “history” found in school textbooks and curriculums align more with collective memory; however, many individuals do not know of the pervasiveness of collective memory in supposed “history” texts. To examine perceptions of accuracy and preference of American “history” textbook passages, individuals from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (n= 404) participated in an online study where they were randomly assigned to read one passage that was either negatively biased, neutral, or positively biased regarding the U.S. dropping the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Participants rated their emotional valence of the event and their perceptions of accuracy and preference for the passage. The results suggest that individuals perceive negatively biased passages as less accurate and less preferable, even if their emotional valence matches the bias within the text. Individuals also showed the hypothesized interaction for preference; those who perceived the event as not negative preferred the positive text to the neutral and negative texts. The findings support evidence that individuals are motivated to prefer history passages consistent with their attitudes and rate higher accuracy among positive and neutral texts. The results have broader implications on reporting or dismissing human rights violations within collective memory.

Dėmesio mirksėjimo efektas – tai plačiai žinomas reiškinys dėmesio tyrimuose. Jis atspindi dėmesingo informacijos apdorojimo ribas, kadangi greitai (10 stimulų per sekundę dažniu) toje pačioje regos lauko vietoje pateikus stimulų seką dažniausiai žmonės nepastebi ir/ arba neatsimena antrojo reikšminio stimulo. Tai įvyksta tuo atveju, kai šis pasirodo 200-500 ms intervale nuo pirmojo reikšminio stimulo pateikimo. Neseniai Martens ir kolegos (2006) nustatė, jog kai kuriems žmonėms dėmesio mirksėjimo efektas nepasireiškia, jie buvo pavadinti „nemirksinčiais“. Manoma, kad individualius skirtumus lemia nevienodai efektyvus gebėjimas iš nereikšmingos informacijos srauto išsirinkti reikšmingą. Šiame darbe siekta patikrinti, ar individuali darbinės atminties talpa, tiriamojo emocinė būsena ir tiriamojo asmenybės bruožai turi įtakos dėmesio efekto išreikštumui. Naudojant parametrizuotą dėmesio mirksėjimo efekto analizės būdą, nustatyta, kad didesnė darbinės atminties talpa sąlygoja mažesnį dėmesio mirksėjimo efektą. Šie rezultatai patvirtina nuomonę, kad dėmesio mirksėjimo efektas yra darbinės atminties talpos ribotumo pasekmė. Taip pat nustatyta, kad tiriamojo emocinio sužadinamumo būsena yra susijusi su dėmesio mirksėjimo efekto stiprumu, o asmenybės bruožai – su trukme. / The attentional blink is a well-known phenomenon in the study of attention. It reflects the impaired ability to identify the second of two targets presented in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of events if it appears between 200 and 500 ms after the first target. Recently Martens et al. (2006) reported that about 5% of the population (referred to as “non-blinkers”) shows little or no attentional blink under conditions in which most people (“blinkers”) do show. It is proposed that aforementioned differences are determined by individual differences in efficiency of ignoring irrelevant information. Thus, the aims of this master’s thesis were to investigate the impact of working memory capacity, emotional state and personality traits on attentional blink effect. Using parameterized attentional blink analysis method, based on curve fitting, the negative correlation between the size of attentional blink and working memory capacity was revealed. These findings support the idea that individual processing limitations and working memory play a key role in attentional blink. Also it was demonstrated that emotional arousal has impact on the strength of attentional blink and personality traits have effect on the span of attentional blink.

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Earlier research has repeatedly shown that individuals with autism spectrum disorders are significantly impaired in emotional recognition of biological motion. This study adopted an approach where the typically developed and the autistic participants rated emotional valence and recognition of isolated gestures in Point-light display. Results revealed that participant groups did not differ in their emotional valence of the gestures but differed in recognition of the gestures. The method of using isolated gestures in Point-light display has not been used in autism emotional research earlier and this paper functions as a pilot of this technique. The results are discussed from a perspective that individuals with autism perceive the world differently and hence understand and interact differently with the world.

Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 29-37).

It has long been held that concrete material has a processing advantage over abstract material, as predicted by Dual Coding Theory (Paivio,1991), although this has been challenged. For example, based on evidence for behavioural and neuroscientific studies, Kousta,, Vigliocco, Vinson, & Del Campo, (2011) proposed that emotional valance had a greater influence in the processing of abstract words, and that under some circumstances there may be no concreteness effect and might even be an abstractness effect. This would not be predicted by DCT. In addition, Isen and Daubman (1984) have claimed that emotional valence, and particularly positive emotion can influence cognitive processing. Specifically, they demonstrated that positive emotion was associated with more inclusive categorization of ambiguous category members. This current study was a 2 x 2 between group design to investigate the effect of positive and negative valence on recognition memory for concrete and abstract words and on categorization. Contrary to what was predicted by Dual Coding Theory, abstract words were generally better recognized than concrete, with there being an additional interaction with valence. A significant interaction between word type and valence on categorization was also found. Results partially support Kousta et al. (2011).