Evidence is accumulating that the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) can bring forth deficits in executive functioning via alterations in the dopaminergic system. Importantly, dopaminergic pathways have been shown to modulate how actions and perceptions are integrated within the brain. Such alterations in event file binding could thus underlie the cognitive deficits developing after a COVID-19 infection. We examined action-perception integration in a group of young people (11–19 years of age) that had been infected with COVID-19 before study participation (n = 34) and compared them to a group of uninfected healthy controls (n = 29) on the behavioral (i.e., task accuracy, reaction time) and neurophysiological (EEG) level using an established event file binding paradigm. Groups did not differ from each other regarding demographic variables or in reporting psychiatric symptoms. Overall, multiple lines of evidence (behavioral and neurophysiological) suggest that action-perception integration is preserved in adolescents who suffered from COVID-19 prior to study participation. Event file binding processes were intact in both groups on all levels. While cognitive impairments can occur following a COVID-19 infection, the study demonstrates that action-perception integration as one of the basic building blocks of cognition seems to be largely unaffected in adolescents with a rather mild course of the disease.

Submitted by Caroline Xavier (caroline.xavier@pucrs.br) on 2017-07-03T13:27:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DIS_FELIPE_GOULART_TOMKOWSKI_COMPLETO.pdf: 661319 bytes, checksum: 652d7011baedb676606b1b58f3f86c31 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-03T13:27:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DIS_FELIPE_GOULART_TOMKOWSKI_COMPLETO.pdf: 661319 bytes, checksum: 652d7011baedb676606b1b58f3f86c31 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-30 / A presente disserta??o tem por objetivo investigar o valor instrumental do comportamento humano para o funcionamento da democracia atrav?s da ideia de raz?o p?blica. A intera??o que existe entre governo e cidad?os ? determinante para que as pol?ticas p?blicas de um pa?s sejam condizentes com as prefer?ncias da popula??o e n?o de grupos de poder. Sendo assim, torna-se importante analisar a ideia subjacente ? democracia de "governo pela discuss?o" ? luz de teorias que nos iluminem tanto no que diz respeito ? ideia de decis?o coletiva justa, quanto, ao real comportamento humano. Para tal, primeiramente ? apresentada a ideia de raz?o p?blica a contraponto, em particular, as vis?es de Rawls e Sen, dando ?nfase para ao conceito de imparcialidade nas decis?es pol?ticas. Em seguida, na terceira se??o, trabalham-se as ideais de racionalidade, razoabilidade, introduzindo-se os conceitos de heur?sticas, vieses, e valores sociais. Assim, constr?i-se uma associa??o para se pensar sobre os resultados de diferentes tipos de comportamento humano para a democracia e como ? poss?vel refletir a partir dele sobre as ideias de objetividade posicional e transcendental. Finalmente, na se??o IV, realiza-se uma investiga??o emp?rica atrav?s da base de sobre a rela??o entre percep??es sobre informa??es e disposi??es pol?ticas e a frequ?ncia de conversa sobre pol?tica com os amigos. Utiliza-se um modelo de regress?o log?stica ordenada, com dados do Latino Bar?metro de 2015 para o Brasil, aliado ao m?todo de componentes principais para capturar dimens?es explicativas relevantes. Os seguintes resultados obtidos contradizem as hip?teses pr?vias: a falta de confian?a no governo e a percep??o de garantias faltantes n?o significativos, o ativismo dissociado a causas espec?ficas reduz, ao passo que, um senso de cidadania ao reverso aumenta as chances de se conversar sobre pol?tica com mais frequ?ncia com amigos. / The present dissertation aims to investigate the instrumental role of human behaviour for democracy through the idea of public reason. The interaction between government and citizens is decisive for a country's public policies to be in line with population preferences rather than power groups. Thus, it becomes important to analyse the idea underlying democracy of "government by discussion" in the light of theories that enlighten us both with regard to the idea of just collective decision and real human behaviour. To this end, we first counterpoint the idea of public reason, in particular, of Rawls and Sen, with an emphasis on the concept of impartiality in political decisions. Then, in the third section, we work on the notions of rationality, reasonableness, introducing the concepts of heuristics, biases, and social values. Thus, an association is constructed for thinking about the results of different types of human behavior for democracy and how the ideas of positional and transcendental objectivity fit this purpose well. Finally, in section IV, we conduct an empirical investigation based on the relationship between perceptions of relevant political information and dispositions and the frequency of political talk with friends. We use a logistic regression model, with data from the 2015 Latin Barometer for Brazil, combined with principal components method to capture relevant explanatory dimensions. The following results contradict previous hypotheses: lack of trust in the government and the perception of absent guarantees are not significant, while activism dissociated of specific causes reduces and a reverse sense of citizenship increases the chances of talking about politics more frequently with friends.

Management was once described as the art of getting things done through the efforts of oneself and other people (Follett, 1941) and is functionalised through acts of planning, organising, leading and controlling tasks and people for pre-defined objectives. These four cardinal pillars of management are translated into various models, tools and techniques of best practice of how to manage. While acknowledging that the substance of the current management models, tools and techniques have for years broadly contributed to how organisations are run, my research sheds more light on the shortcomings underlying some of the assumptions and ways of thinking behind these models and tools. My research findings based on my experience in working for the Department for International Development suggests that management practice and organisational change occur in the context of human power relationships in which people constrain and enable each other on the basis of human attributes such as identities, attitudes, values, perceptions, emotions, fears, expectations, motives and interests. I argue that these human attributes, human power relations and the totality of human emotions arise in the social, and understanding the ways in which these attributes shape local interaction and daily human relating is critical in making sense of the reality of organisational change and management. I suggest that management practice occurs in the context of everyday politics of human relating. It is that type of politics that takes place within families, groups of people, organisations, communities, and indeed throughout all units of society around the distribution of power, wealth, resources, thoughts and ideas. This way of thinking has enormous implications for the way we conceptualise management theory and practice. I am suggesting that managers do not solely determine, nor do employees freely choose their identities, attitudes, values, perceptions, emotions, fears, expectations and motives. These human dimensions arise from social relationships and personal experiences. As such, it is simply not for a manager to decide or force other employees on which of these human attributes to influence their behaviour. I am arguing that the social nature of management practice and role of human agents is inherently complex and cannot, in the scientific sense, be adequately reduced to discrete, systematic, complete and predictive models, tools and techniques without losing some meaning of what we do in management.

This dissertation explores the construction of ordinariness in the accounts of perpetrators of gross human rights violations, who commit their actions in the context of a system. A review of the literature that conceived of perpetrators in this way was undertaken. This was done whilst exploring the social constructionist paradigm, which formed the theoretical backbone to the study. Discourse analysis was the methodology adopted for the two analyses that were undertaken in the thesis. The first was the analysis of the literature review, which was undertaken in order to see how ordinariness was constructed in the literature. The second analysis was that of the transcript of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Amnesty hearing of the applicant Daniel Petrus Siebert, into the death of Steve Biko. The analyses indicate that there is much similiarity in the ways in which ordinariness is constructed in the local context, and the ways in which it is constructed in the literature. Ordinariness in the context of gross human rights violations is produced through constructions of the perpetrator and the system within which the acts were committed, as passive and active respectively. The construction of the system as the epitome of the evil that is perpetrated enables the humanity or ordinariness of the perpetrator to be kept intact. Ordinariness in the South African context, is based on racist constructions of good whiteness, and bad blackness. Further, in the local political context, the TRC provides the conditions of possibility for the production of ordinariness, and ensures that perpetrators and others who benefited during the apartheid regime, continue to do so, as issues of accountability and responsibility are not adequately addressed. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2000.

Diss. Uppsala : Univ., 2003.

In this thesis, I explore sex differences in adult human social learning, and how these sex differences might be underpinned by differences in risk-taking and confidence. The capacity for high-fidelity social learning is fundamental to the complex culture observed in humans. Examining when we choose to learn socially rather than asocially and the factors that influence these choices is valuable for understanding broader patterns of cultural evolution. In Chapter 1, I give an overview of the literature on sex differences in social learning, particularly how individual differences in risk-taking and confidence impact upon social information use. I introduce stereotype threat as a possible factor affecting women's confidence. I then use the stereotype threat literature as an example of the replication crisis in psychology, and discuss how improved methods of statistical analysis could help to elucidate the ambiguity in this literature. Chapter 2 provides an experimental investigation into when adult humans choose to use social or asocial information to solve a virtual construction task. I found that when the asocial information was made to be risky, women, but not men, preferred to learn socially. In Chapter 3, I present experimental data exploring the links between confidence and conformity. I found that lower confidence led to a greater likelihood of conforming, although I was unable to reliably alter confidence levels experimentally. In Chapter 4, I present a model of the stereotype threat literature by simulating numerous datasets and analysing them using four different statistical methods. I found that using informative priors in a Bayesian framework provided greater certainty about the presence or absence of an effect in a population. Finally, in Chapter 5 I conclude that studying the factors that lead to sex differences in social learning provides researchers with a greater understanding of the dynamics of cultural evolution.

The 21st century is characterised by globalisation, turbulent change, an information explosion and an electronic revolution. The result is organisations with decentralised structures, increased employee empowerment and growth alliances. This changing landscape calls for a more holistic, collaborative outlook on leadership, placing the emphasis on relationships, context and transformation where leadership occurs at multiple levels in organisations. While organisations work towards future sustainability in response to the demands of this landscape, leaders are faced with their own personal transition within their roles. Leadership is a socially constructed process that is co-created amidst pressure from self-expectations, follower expectations and organisational requirements. Leadership as a boundary-keeping role that functions on the periphery between the organisation and the external environment, evokes anxiety. The researcher sought to explore, describe and analyse the lived leadership role experience of 21st century leaders as it plays out above and below the surface of consciousness. At the conscious level, the normative role refers to job description and content. At the unconscious level, the existential role deals with the role in the mind of the individual, while the phenomenal role relates to what others perceive and project onto the individual fulfilling the role. The level of congruence between these three roles and its consequent impact on the individual leadership experience were explored. Hermeneutic phenomenology, using the systems psychodynamic perspective as a theoretical framework, enabled the researcher to apply in-depth description and interpretation. A case study research approach was adopted where individual cases were analysed and then consolidated into a cross-case analysis of findings. The study revealed the underlying mental activity and irrational behaviour relating to anxiety, conflict and defences that manifest for 21st century leaders. By integrating the findings with both systems psychodynamic literature and leadership literature, nine themes emerged, namely anxiety, leadership identity, boundaries, authority, role, task, containment, valence and perceived performance. These themes culminated in a research hypothesis about the constant evolution of the leadership role in the context of the current business landscape. / Psychology / Ph. D. (Consulting Psychology)

Executive functions, like the capacity to control and organize thoughts and behavior, develop from childhood to young adulthood. Although task switching and working memory processes are known to undergo strong developmental changes from childhood to adulthood, it is currently unknown how task switching processes are modulated between childhood and adulthood given that working memory processes are central to task switching. The aim of the current study is therefore to examine this question using a combined cue- and memory-based task switching paradigm in children (N = 25) and young adults (N = 25) in combination with neurophysiological (EEG) methods. We obtained an unexpected paradoxical effect suggesting that memory-based task switching is better in late childhood than in young adulthood. No group differences were observed in cue-based task switching. The neurophysiological data suggest that this effect is not due to altered attentional selection (P1, N1) or processes related to the updating, organization, and implementation of the new task-set (P3). Instead, alterations were found in the resolution of task-set conflict and the selection of an appropriate response (N2) when a task has to be switched. Our observation contrasts findings showing that cognitive control mechanisms reach their optimal functioning in early adulthood.

Today the majority of the driver assistance systems are rule-basedcontrol systems that help the driver control the truck. But driversare looking for something more personal and exible that can controlthe truck in a human way with their own preferences. Machine learningand articial intelligence can help achieve this aim. In this studyArticial Neural Networks are used to model the driver steering behaviourin the Scania Lane Keeping Assist. Based on this, trajectoryplanning and steering wheel torque response are modelled to t thedriver preference. A model predictive controller can be used to maintainstate limitations and to weigh the two modelled driver preferencestogether. Due to the diculties in obtaining an internal plant modelfor the model predictive controller a variant of a PI-controller is addedfor integral action instead. The articial neural network also containsan online learning feature to further customize the t to the driverpreference over time. / Idag används till största del regelbaserade reglersystem förförarassistanssystem i lastbilar. Men lastbilschaufförer vill ha någotmer personligt och flexibelt, som kan styra lastbilen på ett mänskligtsätt med förarens egna preferenser. Maskininlärning och artificiell intelligenskan hjälpa till för att uppnå detta mål. I denna studie användsartificiella neurala nätverk för att modellera förarens styrbeteende genomScania Lane Keeping Assist. Med användning av detta modellerasförarens preferenser med avseende på placering på vägbanan och momentpåslag på ratten. En modell prediktiv kontroller kan användas föratt begränsa tillstånd och för att väga de två modellerade preferensernamot varann. Eftersom det var mycket svårt att ta fram den internaprocessmodellen som krävdes för regulatorn används istället en variantav en PI-kontroller för att styra lastbilen. De artificiella neuralanätverken kan också tillåtas att lära sig under körning för att anpassasig till förarens preferenser över tid.

Progress towards sustainability requires changes in our individual and collective behaviour. Yet, our fundamental understanding of behaviour in relation to environmental change remains severely limited. In particular, little attention has been given to how individual and collective behaviours respond to, and are shaped by, non-linear environmental change (such as ‘regime shifts’) and its inherent uncertainties. The thesis makes two main contributions to the literature: 1) it provides one of the first accounts of human behaviour and collective action in relation to ecological regime shifts and associated uncertainties; and 2) extends the incipient behavioural common-pool resource literature that acknowledges social-ecological dynamics and ecological complexity. The overarching aim of this thesis is to further advance an empirically grounded understanding of human behaviour in social-ecological systems. In particular, the thesis attempts to unravel critical social-ecological factors and mechanisms for the sustainability of common-pool resources. This is especially relevant for contexts in which livelihoods can be more directly threatened by regime shifts. The following methods are applied: behavioural economic experiments in the lab (with students; Papers I and II) and in the field (with small-scale fishers from four different communities in the Colombian Caribbean; Paper III), and agent-based modelling empirically informed by a subset of the lab experiments (Paper IV). Paper I tests the effect of an endogenously driven regime shift on the emergence of cooperation and sustainable resource use. Paper II tests the effect of different risk levels of such a regime shift. The regime shift in both papers has negative consequences for the productivity of the shared resource. Paper III assesses the effect of different degrees of uncertainty about a climate-induced threshold in stock dynamics on the exploitation patterns; as well as the role of social and ecological local context. Paper IV explores critical individual-level factors and processes affecting the simultaneous emergence of collective action and sustainable resource use. Results cumulatively suggest that existing scientific knowledge indicating the potential for ecological regime shifts should be communicated to affected local communities, including the remaining uncertainties, as this information can encourage collective action for sustainable resource use. Results also highlight the critical role of ecological knowledge, knowledge-sharing, perceived ecological uncertainties, and the role local contexts play for sustainable outcomes. This thesis enriches the literature on social-ecological systems by demonstrating how a behavioural experimental approach can contribute new insights relevant for sustainability. Overall, these insights indicate that, given the opportunity and the willingness of people to come together, share knowledge, exchange ideas, and build trust, potential ecological crises can encourage collective action, and uncertainties can be turned into opportunities for dealing with change in constructive ways. This provides a hopeful outlook in the face of escalating environmental change and inherent uncertainties. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>