Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2003. / Advisor: Daphne Maurer. Includes bibliographical references. Also available via World Wide Web.

A idade gestacional é uma medida importante, pois quando o bebê nasce antes da 37ª semana há riscos para alterações do desenvolvimento. A relação dos bebês com pais fornece base para o desenvolvimento dos padrões de autorregulação, para o aumento da sensibilidade materna, e para o desenvolvimento do apego. Permeando a hipótese de que, a idade gestacional pode influenciar no desenvolvimento infantil, o objetivo do estudo foi verificar a influência da idade gestacional nas habilidades do desenvolvimento infantil (motora grossa, motora fina-adaptativa, pessoal-social e de linguagem) e a qualidade da interação na díade mãe-bebê, ao longo do primeiro ano de vida (três, nove e 12 meses). Cumpriram-se os princípios éticos. Participaram do estudo 28 díades mãe-bebê, com crianças nascidas entre a 32ª a 40ª semana de gestação, recrutadas ao nascimento. Aos três meses os familiares foram contatados para a primeira avaliação, que constou da aplicação do protocolo de anamnese, aplicação do procedimento Face to Face Still-Face (FFSF) e do Teste de Screnning de Desenvolvimento Denver II (TSDD-II). Aos nove meses repetiu-se a aplicação do FFSF, TSDD-II e foi verificada a qualidade da interação por meio do Child-Adult Relationship Experimental Index (CARE-Index). Aos 12 meses repetiu-se a medida do desenvolvimento TSDD-II e foi aplicada o paradigma laboratorial da Situação Estranha (SE). O tratamento estatístico constou de análise descritiva e aplicação do Teste de Correlação de Spearman, Teste exato de Fischer, Teste de Mann-Whitney e Teste Anova de Medições Repetidas. Os resultados indicaram influência da idade gestacional nas habilidades do desenvolvimento infantil (motora grossa, motora finaadaptativa, pessoal-social e de linguagem), aos três, nove e doze meses, com valor maior nível de significância aos três meses. A qualidade da interação avaliada por meio do CARE-index, indicou predomínio de mães com alto nível de sensibilidade (81,82%). Os padrões de autorregulação avaliados por meio do procedimento FFSF indicaram que 57,14% da casuística apresentaram orientação social não positiva e 42,86% orientação social positiva aos três e aos nove meses 78,57% orientação social não positiva e 21,43% orientação social positiva. O padrão de Apego, avaliado pela SE, verificou apego inseguro para 60,71% e apego seguro em 39,29% da casuística. / Gestational age is an important baseline because when the infant is born before the 37th week there are risks for developmental changes. The relationship between infants and parents provides a basis for the development of self-regulation standards, for the increase of maternal sensitivity, and for the development of attachment. Permeating the hypothesis that gestational age may influence infant development, this study aimed to verify the influence of gestational age on infants developmental skills (gross motor, fine-adaptive motor, personal-social and language), and the quality of gestational age of the mother-infant dyad interaction during the first year of life (three, nine and 12 months). Ethical principles were fulfilled. The study included 28 mother-infant dyads, with children born between the 32nd and 40th weeks of gestation, recruited at birth. At three months old the family members were contacted for the first evaluation, which included the application of the protocol of anamnesis, application of the Face to Face Still-Face (FFSF) procedure and the Denver Development Screening Test II (DDST-II). At nine months the FFSF, DDST-II was repeated and the quality of the interaction was verified through the Child-Adult Relationship Experimental Index (CARE-Index). At 12 months the DDST-II development measurement was repeated and the laboratory paradigm of the Strange Situation (SE) was applied. The statistical treatment consisted of descriptive analysis and application of Spearman\'s Correlation Test, Fischer\'s Exact Test, Mann-Whitney Test and Repeated Measures Anova Tests. The results indicated the influence of gestational age on infant\'s developmental abilities (gross motor, fine-adaptive motor, personal-social and language) at three, nine and twelve months, with a higher level of significance at three months old. The quality of the interaction evaluated through CARE-index, indicated predominance of mothers with a high level of sensitivity (81.82%). Self-regulation standards assessed through the FFSF procedure indicated that 57.14% of the case analysis had non-positive social guidance and 42.86% had positive social guidance at three, and at nine months 78.57% non-positive social guidance and 21.43% positive social orientation. The Attachment pattern, evaluated by the SE, found unsafe attachment to 60.71% and Secure attachment in 39,29% of the cases analysis.

Objective 1: To examine the influence of maternal depression and/ or anxiety on infant, maternal and dyadic FFSF task performance Objective 2: To investigate the changes in infant and maternal FFSF task performance before and after Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) treatment of maternal depression / Background: Research suggests that postpartum depression (PPD) and postpartum anxiety (PPA) impact both mothers and their infants, leading to adverse behavioural outcomes across the lifespan. The face-to-face still-face (FFSF) task is a validated observational tool used to measure the quality of mother-infant interactions. This thesis aimed to investigate the differences in responses to the FFSF task between dyads consisting of mothers with PPD and/or PPA and healthy dyads. Another goal was to examine whether PPD treatment could improve mother and infant FFSF outcomes. Methods: A systematic search was performed in PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Web of Science. Meta-analyses were conducted to examine the differences in infant, maternal and dyadic FFSF outcomes in mothers with PPD, PPA or comorbid PPD and PPA in comparison to healthy control dyads. Second, we examined whether group cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for PPD could help improve infant and maternal FFSF outcomes. A case-control design study was conducted with three different assessment points (i.e., pre-CBT treatment, immediately after CBT and three months post-CBT). Results: Meta-analyses suggested that the infants of mothers with PPD display lower levels of positive affect during the play and reunion phases compared to the infants of healthy non-depressed mothers. Also, mothers with PPD may engage less positively with their infants at the reunion phase, and mother-infant dyads affected by PPD show less positive interactive matching during the play phase compared to healthy control dyads. Finally, object/environment engagement was higher in infants of PPA mothers compared to healthy controls at still-face. Conclusion: The results suggest that mothers with PPD and/or PPD (and their infants) may exhibit different interaction patterns compared to healthy dyads. Also, it appears that the benefits of CBT for maternal PPD may extend to their infants through reductions in maladaptive infant withdrawn behaviours to normal, healthy levels. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Maternal postpartum depression (PPD) and postpartum anxiety (PPA) are the most common mental health complications of birth. Apart from unfavourable effects PPD and PPA have on mothers, it may also impact the mother-infant relationship, leading to adverse infant outcomes. Given the relatively high prevalence of maternal PPD, PPA, and comorbid PPD and PPA, this thesis aimed to examine the differences in how mothers suffering from PPD and/or PPA and their infants coordinate their behaviour, in comparison to healthy mothers and their infants using a validated observational task (face-to-face still-face [FFSF] task). Another goal of this thesis was to investigate whether the benefits of maternal treatment for PPD with cognitive behavioural therapy may extend to infants and improve mother, as well as infant behaviour. These investigations may provide new insights on how maternal PPD and/or PPA affects mother-infant interactions, and consequently, infant socio-emotional development.

Human face recognition is an important area in the field of biometrics. It has been an active area of research for several decades, but still remains a challenging problem because of the complexity of the human face. In this thesis we describe fully automatic solutions that can locate faces and then perform identification and verification. We present a solution for face localisation using eye locations. We derive an efficient representation for the decision hyperplane of linear and nonlinear Support Vector Machines (SVMs). For this we introduce the novel concept of $\rho$ and $\eta$ prototypes. The standard formulation for the decision hyperplane is reformulated and expressed in terms of the two prototypes. Different kernels are treated separately to achieve further classification efficiency and to facilitate its adaptation to operate with the fast Fourier transform to achieve fast eye detection. Using the eye locations, we extract and normalise the face for size and in-plane rotations. Our method produces a more efficient representation of the SVM decision hyperplane than the well-known reduced set methods. As a result, our eye detection subsystem is faster and more accurate. The use of fractals and fractal image coding for object recognition has been proposed and used by others. Fractal codes have been used as features for recognition, but we need to take into account the distance between codes, and to ensure the continuity of the parameters of the code. We use a method based on fractal image coding for recognition, which we call the Fractal Neighbour Distance (FND). The FND relies on the Euclidean metric and the uniqueness of the attractor of a fractal code. An advantage of using the FND over fractal codes as features is that we do not have to worry about the uniqueness of, and distance between, codes. We only require the uniqueness of the attractor, which is already an implied property of a properly generated fractal code. Similar methods to the FND have been proposed by others, but what distinguishes our work from the rest is that we investigate the FND in greater detail and use our findings to improve the recognition rate. Our investigations reveal that the FND has some inherent invariance to translation, scale, rotation and changes to illumination. These invariances are image dependent and are affected by fractal encoding parameters. The parameters that have the greatest effect on recognition accuracy are the contrast scaling factor, luminance shift factor and the type of range block partitioning. The contrast scaling factor affect the convergence and eventual convergence rate of a fractal decoding process. We propose a novel method of controlling the convergence rate by altering the contrast scaling factor in a controlled manner, which has not been possible before. This helped us improve the recognition rate because under certain conditions better results are achievable from using a slower rate of convergence. We also investigate the effects of varying the luminance shift factor, and examine three different types of range block partitioning schemes. They are Quad-tree, HV and uniform partitioning. We performed experiments using various face datasets, and the results show that our method indeed performs better than many accepted methods such as eigenfaces. The experiments also show that the FND based classifier increases the separation between classes. The standard FND is further improved by incorporating the use of localised weights. A local search algorithm is introduced to find a best matching local feature using this locally weighted FND. The scores from a set of these locally weighted FND operations are then combined to obtain a global score, which is used as a measure of the similarity between two face images. Each local FND operation possesses the distortion invariant properties described above. Combined with the search procedure, the method has the potential to be invariant to a larger class of non-linear distortions. We also present a set of locally weighted FNDs that concentrate around the upper part of the face encompassing the eyes and nose. This design was motivated by the fact that the region around the eyes has more information for discrimination. Better performance is achieved by using different sets of weights for identification and verification. For facial verification, performance is further improved by using normalised scores and client specific thresholding. In this case, our results are competitive with current state-of-the-art methods, and in some cases outperform all those to which they were compared. For facial identification, under some conditions the weighted FND performs better than the standard FND. However, the weighted FND still has its short comings when some datasets are used, where its performance is not much better than the standard FND. To alleviate this problem we introduce a voting scheme that operates with normalised versions of the weighted FND. Although there are no improvements at lower matching ranks using this method, there are significant improvements for larger matching ranks. Our methods offer advantages over some well-accepted approaches such as eigenfaces, neural networks and those that use statistical learning theory. Some of the advantages are: new faces can be enrolled without re-training involving the whole database; faces can be removed from the database without the need for re-training; there are inherent invariances to face distortions; it is relatively simple to implement; and it is not model-based so there are no model parameters that need to be tweaked.

Human face recognition is an important area in the field of biometrics. It has been an active area of research for several decades, but still remains a challenging problem because of the complexity of the human face. In this thesis we describe fully automatic solutions that can locate faces and then perform identification and verification. We present a solution for face localisation using eye locations. We derive an efficient representation for the decision hyperplane of linear and nonlinear Support Vector Machines (SVMs). For this we introduce the novel concept of $\rho$ and $\eta$ prototypes. The standard formulation for the decision hyperplane is reformulated and expressed in terms of the two prototypes. Different kernels are treated separately to achieve further classification efficiency and to facilitate its adaptation to operate with the fast Fourier transform to achieve fast eye detection. Using the eye locations, we extract and normalise the face for size and in-plane rotations. Our method produces a more efficient representation of the SVM decision hyperplane than the well-known reduced set methods. As a result, our eye detection subsystem is faster and more accurate. The use of fractals and fractal image coding for object recognition has been proposed and used by others. Fractal codes have been used as features for recognition, but we need to take into account the distance between codes, and to ensure the continuity of the parameters of the code. We use a method based on fractal image coding for recognition, which we call the Fractal Neighbour Distance (FND). The FND relies on the Euclidean metric and the uniqueness of the attractor of a fractal code. An advantage of using the FND over fractal codes as features is that we do not have to worry about the uniqueness of, and distance between, codes. We only require the uniqueness of the attractor, which is already an implied property of a properly generated fractal code. Similar methods to the FND have been proposed by others, but what distinguishes our work from the rest is that we investigate the FND in greater detail and use our findings to improve the recognition rate. Our investigations reveal that the FND has some inherent invariance to translation, scale, rotation and changes to illumination. These invariances are image dependent and are affected by fractal encoding parameters. The parameters that have the greatest effect on recognition accuracy are the contrast scaling factor, luminance shift factor and the type of range block partitioning. The contrast scaling factor affect the convergence and eventual convergence rate of a fractal decoding process. We propose a novel method of controlling the convergence rate by altering the contrast scaling factor in a controlled manner, which has not been possible before. This helped us improve the recognition rate because under certain conditions better results are achievable from using a slower rate of convergence. We also investigate the effects of varying the luminance shift factor, and examine three different types of range block partitioning schemes. They are Quad-tree, HV and uniform partitioning. We performed experiments using various face datasets, and the results show that our method indeed performs better than many accepted methods such as eigenfaces. The experiments also show that the FND based classifier increases the separation between classes. The standard FND is further improved by incorporating the use of localised weights. A local search algorithm is introduced to find a best matching local feature using this locally weighted FND. The scores from a set of these locally weighted FND operations are then combined to obtain a global score, which is used as a measure of the similarity between two face images. Each local FND operation possesses the distortion invariant properties described above. Combined with the search procedure, the method has the potential to be invariant to a larger class of non-linear distortions. We also present a set of locally weighted FNDs that concentrate around the upper part of the face encompassing the eyes and nose. This design was motivated by the fact that the region around the eyes has more information for discrimination. Better performance is achieved by using different sets of weights for identification and verification. For facial verification, performance is further improved by using normalised scores and client specific thresholding. In this case, our results are competitive with current state-of-the-art methods, and in some cases outperform all those to which they were compared. For facial identification, under some conditions the weighted FND performs better than the standard FND. However, the weighted FND still has its short comings when some datasets are used, where its performance is not much better than the standard FND. To alleviate this problem we introduce a voting scheme that operates with normalised versions of the weighted FND. Although there are no improvements at lower matching ranks using this method, there are significant improvements for larger matching ranks. Our methods offer advantages over some well-accepted approaches such as eigenfaces, neural networks and those that use statistical learning theory. Some of the advantages are: new faces can be enrolled without re-training involving the whole database; faces can be removed from the database without the need for re-training; there are inherent invariances to face distortions; it is relatively simple to implement; and it is not model-based so there are no model parameters that need to be tweaked.

Submitted by Maike Costa (maiksebas@gmail.com) on 2017-03-24T13:02:51Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 3351670 bytes, checksum: d7ffdd58b6eb19c7d97b4c7a15558b59 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-24T13:02:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 3351670 bytes, checksum: d7ffdd58b6eb19c7d97b4c7a15558b59 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-08 / Cette thèse a pour but analyser les situations sociales produites dans l'enseignement de la Langue Maternelle comme un contexte pour la formation citoyenne des apprentis. Ainsi, cette recherche vise à comprendre comment les interactions entre professeur et étudiants contribuent à la capacité d'adapter les discours de ces élèves citoyens aux conditions de production et réception de différents évènements communicatifs. Cette recherche a comme base les axes théoriques de la Sociolinguistique Interactionnelle (GOFFMAN 2011, 2012, 2013 a, b c; GUMPERZ 1982, 2013) dirigée à l'Analyse de la Conversation (KERBRAT-ORECCHIONI 2010, MARCUSCHI 2004, 2005, 2008 a, b), en particulier, l'interaction face à face dans le processus d'enseignement-apprentissage. Ces approches considèrent le langage un phénomène social, en autre, celui du langage humain qui correspond à l'utilisation langagère diverse, selon les situations sociales où elles s'insèrent (BAKHTIN, 2006, e 2010; LABOV, 2011). Ainsi, l'analyse des cours de Langue Maternelle est une ocasion d'étudier la pratique pédagogique, car il est entendu qu'elle doit favoriser l'analyse critique des réalités et des contextes qui sont historiquement et socialement construits. Il est nécessaire encore, produire des discours sensibles au pouvoir et que leur permette d'interagir avec les autres discours et formes d'interpréter et de s'assurer dans le monde, de manière à vivre des expériences multiples et participer avec des différentes positions d'interaction, favorisant donc l'expression de voix plusieurs, complexes et différentes. Il est clair que le cours est une ambiance communicative dont l'interaction face à face est faite par l'interaction verbale et aussi par les signes non-verbaux, à travers les indices de contextualisation et d'autres ressources. Dans ce contexte, quand les intentions du parlant sont reconnues par les interlocuteurs et vice versa, le succès du procès communicatif et de l'enseignement-apprentissage est assuré. Cette recherche aura une approche ethnographique, de manière prédominante, qualitative et dont l'origine est situé dans les études d'Anthropologie Culturelle et correspond à une analyse descriptive des cours dans une Escola de Referência (Grande École) situé à la ville de Recife – PE. La méthode interprétative a été utilisée, fondé en concepts de la Sociolinguistique Interactionnelle et de l'Analyse de la Conversation et à partir la collecte de données originaires d'observations, entretiens, conversations informelles, journal de terrain et analyse des documents. Par rapport aux résultats obtenus, il est considéré que la relation enseignement-apprentissage en cours n'est pas toujours favorable pour l'autonomie des étudiants, car le ce rôle social établit une relation trop spécifique avec le savoir. Cela se passe car les cours n'ont pas toujours représenté un lieu où les interactions sociales et échanges conversationnelles étaient ouvertes, ce qui donnerait force aux relations des étudiants à travers la confrontation de l'autre et en conséquent, il n'y a pas toujours de conditions de former une perception de soi-même et de sa citoyenneté. / The aim of this thesis is to analyze social situations produced in a context of mother tongue teaching as opportunities of citizenship education. The purpose of this study was to understand how does the interaction between teachers and learners help pupils to become citizens capable to adapt their discourse to different communicative events, both as a producer and receptor. This research is based on the theory of Interactional Sociolinguistics (GOFFMAN 2011, 2012, 2013 a, b c; GUMPERZ 1982, 2013), with the contribution of Conversational Analysis (KERBRAT-ORECCHIONI 2010, MARCUSCHI 2004, 2005, 2008 a, b), particularly face-to-face interaction in teaching-learning process. These views rest on the assumption that the language is a social phenomenon, i.e. a human language phenomenon related to diverse discursive practices, according to social situations (BAKHTIN, 2006 and 2010; LABOV, 2011). From this perspective, analyzing lessons is an opportunity of deliberating on teaching, assuming that the educational practices need to facilitate the critical thinking of reality and historical context socially and historically built. Furthermore, it is necessary to create sensible discourses enabled to interact with other discourses and ways of seeing and being in the world. Consequently, it will be possible to live multiple experiences and interact with people from different hierarchical positions, supporting many complex and diverse voices. For one, the classroom is a surrounding communicative place where face-to-face interaction occurs verbally and not verbally as well, through contextualization cues and other means. In this atmosphere, when the speaker‘s intentions are recognized by the listener, and vice versa, communication process and teaching-learning process are successful. This work has, mostly, an ethnographic and qualitative approach, originally from Cultural Anthropology, related to a descriptive analysis of classrooms in a Reference School located in Recife-PE-Brazil. It was used an interpretive method based on concepts in Interactional Sociolinguistics concept and Conversational Analysis, using data collected during lesson observations, interviews, informal conversation, research journal and document analysis. The results showed that teaching-learning process in the classroom not always contribute to emancipate the learners, because pupil‘s role established a very specific relation with the knowledge. Moreover, the classroom was not always a place where occurred social interactions and conversation exchanges able to consolidate learner‘s relations in a viewpoint of encountering with the other. As a result, the students are not able to foster a sense of self and their citizenship. / Esta tese tem por objetivo analisar as situações sociais produzidas no ensino de Língua Materna como espaços para a formação da cidadania dos aprendizes. Buscou-se entender como as interações entre professor e estudantes contribuem para tornar os estudantes cidadãos capazes de adequar seu discurso às condições de produção e recepção dos diferentes eventos comunicativos. Esta investigação insere-se nas bases teóricas da Sociolinguística Interacional (GOFFMAN 2011, 2012, 2013 a, b c; GUMPERZ 1982, 2013) direcionada à Análise da Conversação (KERBRAT-ORECCHIONI 2010, MARCUSCHI 2004, 2005, 2008 a, b), particularmente, a interação face a face em processo de ensino-aprendizagem. Essas linhas trabalham a linguagem enquanto um fenômeno social, ou seja, o fenômeno da linguagem humana corresponde ao exercício de práticas discursivas diversas, conforme as situações sociais em que essas práticas se inserem (BAKHTIN, 2003 e 2006; LABOV, 2008 e 2009). Nessa perspectiva, a análise de aulas é uma oportunidade para reflexão sobre o fazer pedagógico, pois se pressupõe que a prática pedagógica precisa favorecer o exame crítico das realidades e dos contextos históricos e socialmente construídos. Necessita, ainda, produzir discursos sensíveis ao poder que lhes permita interagir com outros discursos e formas de ver e estar no mundo, de modo a vivenciar múltiplas experiências e interagir com posições diferentes, favorecendo, dessa forma, a expressão de muitas, complexas e diferentes vozes. A justificativa pela temática e pelo desenvolvimento desta pesquisa parte da ideia de que as aulas em língua materna devem favorecer uma tomada de consciência da cidadania, isto é, auxiliar o estudante a saber praticá-la e compreendê-la. O domínio do uso da língua materna possibilita ao estudante uma segurança para expressar suas ideias e se posicionar quando inserido em um grupo. Nessa troca ele amplia não só o conhecimento sobre si mesmo e o outro, mas também avança em sua competência comunicativa, que é essencial para sua inserção social. Além disso, a compreensão da rotina interacional estabelecida em sala de aula viabiliza o entendimento das razões pelas quais as aulas de língua materna parecem não potencializar a apreensão de conhecimentos práticos e úteis não só à vida acadêmica dos estudantes de ensino médio, mas também às exigências de sua cultura. Nessa perspectiva, investigar as interações no processo de ensino-aprendizagem em uma sala de aula é relevante, porque a sala de aula é um espaço onde ocorrem as interações sociais e trocas conversacionais que fortalecem as relações do estudante por um viés de confrontação com o outro, construindo, assim, uma percepção de si mesmo e de sua cidadania. O presente trabalho terá uma abordagem etnográfica, predominantemente, qualitativa e corresponde a uma análise descritiva de sala de aula de uma Escola de Referência localizada na cidade de Recife – PE. Utilizou-se o método interpretativo baseado em conceitos da Sociolinguística Interacional e da Análise da Conversação, a partir da coleta de dados oriundos de observações, entrevistas, conversas informais, diário de campo e análise documental. Quanto aos resultados obtidos, considera-se que a relação ensino-aprendizagem em sala de aula nem sempre contribui para a emancipação dos estudantes, pois a responsabilidade de estudante estabelece uma relação muito específica com o saber e nem sempre a sala de aula representa um espaço onde ocorrem interações sociais e trocas conversacionais que fortalecem as relações do estudante por um viés de confrontação com o outro, não havendo, consequentemente, para ele condições de fomentar uma percepção de si mesmo e de sua cidadania.

MA, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2009 / Even though investigations of knowledge construction within CMC have been conducted (e.g. Gunawardena, Lowe and Anderson, 1997; Schellens & Valcke, 2004), no research has compared F2F communication and CMC in terms of the ability to solve complex tasks and to develop group cohesion. Group cohesion has been found to be vital for group cooperation and performance. Eight self-formed groups of 5 student participants each volunteered to participate in this study. Each group was required to solve two standardised, complex tasks in the same order. Student groups were randomly assigned to one of four medium combinations with two groups per combination. The combinations were: F2F communication for both tasks, CMC for both tasks, F2F communication for the first task and CMC for the second task, and CMC for the first task and F2F communication for the second task. Measures of knowledge construction were taken using the IAM (Gunawardena et al., 1997), group cohesion (assessed before and after the tasks) using the GAS (Evans & Jarvis, 1986), and a self-developed scale to assess satisfaction with the process and the outcome. The results showed that CMC groups produced significantly fewer contributions, and took a longer time to complete tasks, but there was no significant difference between the two mediums in terms of knowledge construction. The medium combination of F2F communication followed by CMC, achieved the least time to completion; the second most effective medium for knowledge construction, the greatest satisfaction with respect to group processes and the decision in the first task, and achieved a significantly higher level of post-manipulation group cohesion.

This thesis focuses on the experiences of videoconferencing and face-to-face counselling of clients ages 60 or older. Using qualitative methodology to provide insight into their accounts, it aims to enhance existing research in this area through the use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The phenomenological and interpretive nature of this methodology allows for an in-depth look into individual perspectives in engaging with a therapist via both videoconferencing and in-person from within and on the periphery of the session itself. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and were carried out with five individuals (who were therapists-as-clients). These individuals have had at least six sessions of therapy with a minimum of at least one session conducted via videoconferencing technology, in this case using Skype (2017) video-chat internet technology. Transcripts of the interviews were analysed using IPA. Analysis of the interviews yielded four superordinate themes. These were the salience of the physical space, suggesting that physical space remains important in videoconferencing therapy; resourcing the ending process, which indicates that both therapeutic modalities raise specific issues regarding how endings are managed. The relationship with the medium as a dynamic process emphasises that participants were able to work with videoconferencing technology despite having initial doubt. The fourth theme, the therapeutic relationship transcends the medium suggests that regardless of modality, it is the therapeutic relationship is of paramount importance. Implications of these themes are discussed both in terms of the theoretical understanding of older clients’ experiences of therapy and in terms of therapeutic practice.

Purpose Traditionally, researchers have relied on eliciting preferences through face-to-face interviews. Recently, there has been a shift towards using internet-based methods. Different methods of data collection may be a source of variation in the results. In this study, we compare the preferences for the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT) service user measure elicited using best-worst scaling (BWS) via a face-to-face interview and an online survey. Methods Data were collected from a representative sample of the general population in England. The respondents (face-toface: n = 500; online: n = 1001) completed a survey, which included the BWS experiment involving the ASCOT measure. Each respondent received eight best-worst scenarios and made four choices (best, second best, worst, second worst) in each scenario. Multinomial logit regressions were undertaken to analyse the data taking into account differences in the characteristics of the two samples and the repeated nature of the data. Results We initially found a number of small significant differences in preferences between the two methods across all ASCOT domains. These differences were substantially reduced-from 15 to 5 out of 30 coefficients being different at the 5% Level-and remained small in value after controlling for differences in observable and unobservable characteristics of the two samples. Conclusions This comparison demonstrates that face-to-face and internet surveys may lead to fairly similar preferences for social care-related quality of life when differences in sample characteristics are controlled for. With or without a constant sampling frame, studies should carefully design the BWS exercise and provide similar levels of clarification to participants in each survey to minimise the amount of error variance in the choice process.

The central goal of the current thesis was to increase our understanding of how representations of individual faces are built from instances that vary. The prototype effect was used as a tool to probe the nature of our internal face representations. In face recognition, the prototype effect refers to the tendency to recognize, or find familiar, the average image of a face after having studied a series of similar face images. The experiments presented in this thesis investigated the modulating role of different variables on the prototype effect in face recognition. In the study phase, two or more different exemplars based on the same identity were presented. In the test phase, one of the seen exemplars, the unseen prototype, and an unseen exemplar of each studied identity were presented one at a time, and participants were asked to make a recognition judgement about the prior occurrence of either the exact image or the person’s face. Variants of each face identity were either unaltered images of real people’s faces, or they were created artificially by manipulating images of faces using several different techniques. All experiments using artificial variants produced strong prototype effects. The unseen prototype image was recognized more confidently than the actually studied images. This was true even when the variants were so similar that they were barely perceptually discriminable. Importantly, even when participants were given additional exposure to the studied exemplars, no weakening of the prototype effect was observed. Surprisingly, in the experiments using natural images of real people’s faces, no clear recognition advantage for the prototype image was observed. Results suggest that the prototype effect in face recognition might not be tapping an averaging mechanism that operates solely on variations within the same identity.