Predator mimicry refers to a peculiar and rarely investigated example of Batesian mimicry in nature. This mimicry scenario exists between predator and prey in which prey resembles the form, behaviour or signals exhibited by the predator to avoid or reduce risk of predation. In the Lepidoptera, there are many micromoth taxa that are phylogenetically unrelated and geographically widespread exhibiting colour patterns that are putatively involved in jumping spider mimicry. In the present study, we aimed to answer the following questions: (1) what kinds of colour pattern and display behaviour could really allow the moths to participate in jumping spider mimicry? (2) does the moth receive different predation pressure from male and female spiders? (3) why is the mimetic moth not immediately taken by the spider? Is it really because the spider sees the moth as another spider? (4) Is there any evidence justifying any visual signal displayed by the moth participated in the jumping spider mimicry? The experimental results showed that the predation rates on mimetic moths of jumping spider were significantly lower than the non-mimetic moths, and spiders exhibited specific behaviour that was displayed for conspecific communication. But not all the presuming mimicking moths can decrease predation from the spiders. Female spiders show significantly higher predation rate to the mimicking moths, while male spiders tend to display more frequently to the moth. In behaviour comparison test in male jumping spiders, we found the behaviour displayed toward mimicking moths are closer to conspecific or heterospecific female spiders, suggesting that female spiders are more likely to be the model of the mimicry systems. Previous studies have shown that UV and fluorescent signals are important in courting behaviour of jumping spider, so we block the UV reflectance signals on the wing pattern of the mimetic moths. The results show that the predation rate of moths without the UV signals is significantly higher than control group which blocked the non-ultraviolet patterns. However, there were still several jumping spiders displayed to the UV-blocking moth, suggesting the UV signals are not the only feature participate in the jumping spider mimicry system.

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Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 128-140). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Syntheses, spectral, electrochemical, and spectroelectrochemical studies of iron, cobalt, and manganese phthalocyanines are reported. The novel coordination of cobalt tetracarboxy metallophthalocyanine to an electrode premodified with aryl radicals and its use in the detection of thiocyanate are reported. This work describes the catalytic activity of cobalt phthalocyanine (CoPc) derivatives adsorbed onto glassy carbon electrodes for the electrocatalytical detection of nitrite, Lcysteine, and melatonin. The modified electrodes efficiently detected nitrite. The CoPc derivative modified electrodes proficiently detected L-cysteine whereas an un-modified electrode could not. This work presents the innovative electrochemical detection of melatonin using electrodes adsorbed with CoPc derivatives. These electrodes detected melatonin at more favorable electrochemical parameters relative to an un-modified gold electrode. The limits of melatonin detection of the modified electrodes lay in the 10⁻⁷ to 10⁻⁶ M region. The modified electrodes accurately detected capsule melatonin concentrations as specified by the supplier and could differentiate between a mixture of melatonin, tryptophan, and ascorbic acid. They reliably detected nitrite, L-cysteine, and melatonin in the 10⁻⁴ to 10⁻² M region. Metallophthalocyanine complexes substituted with thio groups were employed as self assembled monolayers (SAMs). Voltammetry, impedance, atomic force microscopy, and scanning electrochemical microscopy proved that the SAMs all act as selective and efficient barriers to ion permeability. All the SAMs in this work can be used as effective electrochemical sensors of nitrite and L-cysteine in the 10⁻⁴ to 10⁻² M region with competitive limits of detection whereas an un-modified electrode cannot detect Lcysteine. The manganese phthalocyanine SAM modified electrodes are arguably better nitrite and L-cysteine electrocatalysts relative to their iron and cobalt counterparts. Manganese phthalocyanines were used as superoxide dismutase (SOD) mimics. All manganese phthalocyanine complexes in this work acted as SOD mimics in an enzymatic system of superoxide production. From cellular studies, complexes 6d, 6e, 8d, 8e act as intracellular SOD mimics and are without significantly high cellular toxicity.

No description available.

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) has been regarded as a dysfunctional coping strategy for managing intensely difficult feelings and is a growing area of concern in clinical and non-clinical populations alike. Individuals who engage in NSSI often report significant interpersonal difficulties, with studies showing that they have impaired social interactions. Attending to the emotional expressions of others is important for appropriate social functioning, and subtly mimicking the expressions of others is an unconscious behaviour that encourages empathy and interpersonal bonding. Differences in emotion recognition and reflection can impact social behaviour, yet little research has assessed how individuals with a history of NSSI (HNSSI) process facial expressions of emotion. In this thesis, the results of three studies designed to investigate potential differences in emotion recognition and emotion mimicry in individuals with a history of NSSI compared to controls are reported. Results from Study 1 revealed that when presented with colourful, dynamic morphing stimuli showing emotional expressions, HNSSI participants were able to correctly categorize negative expressions like anger, disgust, sadness, and the ambiguous emotion of surprise at a lower stimulus intensity compared to controls; They also correctly categorized fear with greater accuracy, though at the same intensity as controls. However, in Study 2, when static, greyscale images were obscured with varying levels of fractal noise, HNSSI individuals did not show superior signal-proportion thresholds. These results may suggest that higher-order elements of visual and cognitive processing are evoked by more realistic social stimuli. In the third study, HNSSI participants were found to produce significantly less electrical activity in the corrugator muscle in response to viewing angry stimuli, and significantly less of an expected relaxation in muscle activity in response to viewing happy stimuli. Complementing these results, it was found that endorsing social influence as a motivator for engaging in NSSI was associated with less mimicry, whereas endorsing emotion regulation as a motivator was associated with greater incongruent muscle response when viewing happy faces. These observed differences in facial mimicry between HNSSI and controls may be related to some of the observed relationship difficulties experienced by this group. Results from this research may help us to better understand NSSI behaviour, as well as help to inform and further develop therapies intended to address it.

No description available.

Behavioural mimicry refers to an unconscious and automatic tendency for people to copy each other’s actions and mannerisms, while engaging in an interaction. Behavioural mimicry in dyadic interactions leads to an increase in liking, rapport and prosocial behaviour. Given that behavioural mimicry carries a social benefit within the dyad, in the first experiment, we wanted to explore the social consequence of behavioural mimicry in a larger social environment by introducing a third person. The third person was in the background of an interacting dyad (consisting of the participant and a neutral in demeanour confederate) and either (1) mimicked the participant, (2) anti-mimicked the participant, or (3) kept a neutral position throughout the interaction. The results indicated that when one of the interacting partners is anti-mimicked, they report liking their non-mimicking interaction partner more than in either of the other two conditions. In experiment two, we set out to determine whether motor similarity of movement or temporal contingency of movement led to the affiliative judgements often reported in the mimicry literature. We had a research assistant either anatomically mimic (same effector), specularly mimic (different effector) or anti-mimic the participant during a task at either a short or long time delay, and collected participant’s likeability judgements of the research assistant. We discovered that anatomical mimicry leads to higher affiliative judgement at short time delay compared to long time delay, that specular mimicry leads to a higher affiliative judgement at long time delay compared to short time delay, and that anti-mimicry leads to the same affiliative judgement regardless of time delay. In experiment three, we wanted to explore the neurocognitive significance of behavioural mimicry. A previous study demonstrated that anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the inferior frontal cortex (IFC) increased mimicry in a subsequent interaction. We wanted to replicate this finding with one change: we used a computer task rather than a naturalistic interaction. Following anodal tDCS to the IFC, control site or sham stimulation, the participants watched a video of a female model that touched her face every few seconds. We wanted to determine whether the participant would touch their face more often following the IFC stimulation compared to the other two conditions. Our results were not similar to the previous finding: participants touched their face at similar rates regardless of the stimulation site. Nonetheless, in this thesis, we report a novel social manipulation of behavioural mimicry (mimicry emanating from outside the interacting dyad) that impacts the affiliative feelings within the interacting dyad. We also report a novel form of a mimicking behaviour, that goes beyond the traditional definition, to impact the perception of the interaction partner at a longer time delay. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / This thesis describes empirical research that explores the nature of behavioural mimicry and the impact it has on how people perceive one another. Behavioural mimicry refers to the natural tendency for people to copy one another’s behaviours and mannerisms in an interaction. This tendency builds rapport and likeability between the interacting pair. Across three experiments, we expand on previous behavioural mimicry literature. By using novel mimicry manipulations, we demonstrate that behavioural mimicry detection (experiment one) and recognition (experiments two and three) systems are more complex than previously believed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

In Critical Practice, Catherine Belsey states how traditionally, classic realism is interpreted as a genre that"presents individuals whose traits of character, understood as essential and predominantly given, constrain the choices they make" (Belsey 74). Belsey's claim is significant in that it articulates what is often the locus of tension and conflict in the genre: rigid, essentialist identitary discourse.In summarizing and considering the various identitary discourses at play within Mordecai Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and The Street and Gérard Bessette's La bagarre and Les pédagogues, the purpose of this thesis is to analyse how issues surrounding constructions of identity are dramatized in these classic realist, satirical texts in order to show how their cultural work in terms of identity can be understood as being more ambivalent than has heretofore often been thought. The thesis' theoretical focus is rooted primarily in post-colonial theory, especially the ways it interrogates representations of cultural and ethnic struggles for recognition and power that are a result of colonial and/or cultural hegemonic domination. More specifically, the thesis discusses and appropriates the theory and concepts of the post-colonial critic Homi K. Bhabha, particularly in terms of how the selected primary texts can be said to exemplify Bhabha's notions of ambivalence, hybridity and a Third Space of identity; how the narratives' main conflicts and tensions around identity can be better understood by looking at how some of the characters can be said to inhabit a Third Space. However, the thesis will also show that while Bhabha's claim that instances of ambivalence, hybridity and the Third Space in the selected texts can be said to represent" neither the one [...], nor the Other [...] but something else besides which contests the terms and the territories of both [i.e. of competing identities]," (Bhabha 41) their concomitant essentialist discourses can be said to trouble the idealism of Bhabha's faith in such notions.In short, this thesis posits that though the selected texts perform important cultural work via their complex problematizations of the ambivalence of said discourses, they also satirize and critique essentialist and ethnocentric discourses.