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No description available.

To study of cognitive fear networks and associations, indirect experimental paradigms like the Implicit Association Test (IAT, Greenwald et al., 1998) or the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST, De Houwer, 2003) may be helpful, as they promise to assess the structure of specific associations using a performance based approach without having to ask the participant for a verbal report. Three studies investigated the usefulness and characteristics of IAT and EAST. The aim of the first study was to measure fear associations towards spiders among spider phobic and non-phobic participants as well as in a group of spider enthusiasts. Results indicate that the IAT paradigm is sensitive to the strength of fear relevant associations and able to predict anxious behavior beyond the predictions of direct measures such as questionnaires. The second study focused on some of the mechanisms that underlie IAT effects. With a newly developed masked IAT, these experiments investigated the influences of individual stimuli and superordinate categories on IAT performance. Besides theoretical implications, the results also provide practical, relevant applications for the use of IAT experiments. A third study applied the EAST to investigate how different context conditions lead to differential activation of cognitive schemata in fear of spiders. One can conclude that the impact of automatic threat associations depends on the activated context, and that the EAST is suitable for the assessment of fear associations and their current activation level. This dissertation leads to the conclusion that the performance based methodology of the IAT and EAST is a useful and practical approach to reflect fear associations in phobia indirectly. At this point, the use of indirect measures is still at its beginning, and requires intensive methodological and theoretical efforts. These paradigms, however, may become useful for possible implications in psychopathology and other fields of psychology.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory states that individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) can be identified by a deficit in empathy (social skills, communication skills, and theory of mind) and a propensity for systemizing (islets of ability, obsessions with systems, and repetitive behavior). This theory has been tested in various contexts, but never with adolescents between the ages of 12 and 16. The EQ-A (Empathizing Quotient for Adolescents) and the SQ-A (Systemizing Quotient for Adolescents) were administered to 47 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 16 who had been diagnosed with ASC and 97 adolescents with no reported physical or mental disorders to discover differences in empathizing and systemizing. To test the specific elements and predictions of the E-S theory, the EQ-A was divided into a set of three subscales derived by conceptually mapping items to factors corresponding to the concepts theoretically underlying the scale. The SQ-A was divided into subscales using factor analysis. It was found that all four subscales resulting from the factor analysis on the SQ-A were associated with obsessions with systems. A weak positive correlation was found between the SQ-A and the EQ-A. Although the EQ-A was able to differentiate significantly between individuals with an ASC and those without, the SQ-A was not. In addition, although the EQ-A and EQ-A subscales scores correlated with similar subscales scores of the GARS-2 (a well-validated existing autism screening test), the SQ-A and its subscales did not. Implications for the E-S Theory are discussed.

This thesis considers the understudied issue of genetic engineering as it has been deployed in the literature of the late 20th century. With reference to the concept of the enlightened gender hybridity of Cyborg theory and an eye to ecocritical implications, I read four texts: Joan Slonczewski's 1986 science fiction novel A Door Into Ocean, Octavia Butler's science fiction trilogy Lilith's Brood – originally released between 1987 and 1989 as Xenogenesis – Simon Mawer's 1997 literary novel Mendel's Dwarf, and the first two books in Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction MaddAddam series: 2003's Oryx and Crake and 2009's The Year Of the Flood. I argue that the inclusion of genetic engineering has changed as the technology moves from science fiction to science fact, moving from the fantastic to the mundane. Throughout its recent literary history, genetic engineering has played a role in complicating questions of sexuality, paternity, and the division between nature and culture. It has also come to represent a nexus of potential cultural change, one which stands to fulfill the dramatic hybridity Haraway rhapsodized in her "Cyborg Manifesto" while also containing the potential to disrupt the ecocritical conversation by destroying what we used to understand as nature. Despite their four different takes on the issue, each of the texts I read offers a complex vision of utopian hopes and apocalyptic fears. They agree that, for better or for worse, genetic engineering is forever changing both our world and ourselves.

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No description available.

Cette recherche a pour titre Fonctionnement du triangle de la subjectivité intériorisée dans le roman moderne. Elle a pour but d’étudier la parole et les pensées intérieures du sujet de l’énonciation dans des œuvres romanesques souvent marquées par le décrochage et le "brouillage" des pistes énonciatives. Les trois procédés discursifs et narratifs ciblés sont le monologue intérieur (MI), le discours indirect libre (DIL) et le point de vue (PDV). L’examen des trois piliers du langage intérieur prend appuie sur les apports de la linguistique de l’énonciation, de la polyphonie et de la pragmatique. Cette recherche cible neuf œuvres romanesques que nous plaçons sous l’étiquette de "roman moderne". Ces romans appartiennent à trois auteurs français qui ont développé des récits dont la source locutrice et énonciatrice pose problème. La difficulté de traiter de l’énonciation romanesque dans un corpus choisi en l’occurrence est due essentiellement à l’effacement des frontières entre discours citant et discours cité. Marcel Proust, Claude Simon et Nathalie Sarraute n’appartiennent certes pas aux mêmes courants esthétiques et idéologiques, mais ils ont ceci de commun qu’ils offrent une configuration romanesque qui conduit à s’interroger sur le statut du locuteur et de l’énonciateur dans une forme d’expression qui n’est pas toujours verbalisée. / This research is entitled Functioning of the Triangle of Internalized Subjectivity in the Modern Novel. It aims at studying the speech and the inner thoughts of the subject of enunciation in fiction often marked by the "interference" in enunciation tracks. The three targeted discursive and narrative processes are internal monologue (MI), free indirect speech ( DIL) and the point of view (PDV) . The examination of the three pillars of the inner language relies on the contributions of linguistics of enunciation, of polyphony and pragmatic. This research targets nine novels that we can classify as belonging to the "modern novel" category. These novels belong to three French authors who have developed narratives in which the source of speaker and enunciator is a cause of ambiguity. The difficulty of dealing with the novelistic enunciation in a textual corpus chosen in this case is mainly due to the blurring of boundaries between reporting speech and reported speech. Marcel Proust, Claude Simon and Nathalie Sarraute do not belong to the same aesthetic and ideological trends, but what they have in common is that they all offer a novel configuration that makes us raise questions about the status of the speaker and the enunciator in a form of expression that is not always verbalized.

The current paper is a study of the male characters Simon and Jace from Cassandra Clare's City of Bones (2010), and the characters Tamlin and Rhysand from Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015). The main aim is to examine whether the characters in these fantasy novels for young adults have traits and functions that previously have been used to describe and portray female characters. The study discovered among other things that vulnerability and sensitivity could be found in all the characters, especially when danger was upon them or their loved ones. Simon was also the only character that was not portrayed with skills in combat, which was mocked by the other male characters but not by the female protagonist. The two male characters in A Court of Thorns and Roses were also portraited as sexual objects in the novel, and Rhysand was exposed to sexual abuse by the novel’s antagonist, which can be seen as stereotypical female trait. The male character’s function in the novels was to have a folie function to each other, and be a love interest, a confidant, and a choir to the female protagonist. The male characters in the novels were also the ones who needed to be rescued by the female characters, and thereby found themselves in a female position.

Dans la foulée de leur colonisation de l’Amérique aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, les Français ont dressé des inventaires des ressources du territoire occupé ou convoité. Apte à décrire toute cette richesse, l’histoire naturelle devint ainsi un savoir colonial par excellence et l’un des rouages centraux de la « machine coloniale » française. Aussi, le legs textuel de cette activité est-il considérable et diverses perspectives s’y expriment : un entreprenant colon, par exemple, ne verra pas les ressources de la Louisiane de la même façon qu’un officiel métropolitain de passage ou qu’un botaniste en mission. Mais le regard colonisateur est largement partagé et tous ces textes, ou presque, font acte d’appropriation des plantes, minéraux et animaux américains. La place ménagée aux indigènes et aux esclaves – qu’ils soient d’origine autochtone ou afro-américaine – comme acteurs dans le processus de création de savoir est variable selon le contexte et l’auteur. Ce mémoire se penche sur un petit nombre de textes éloquents tirés du corpus de l’histoire naturelle des colonies d’Amérique continentales françaises. Sont étudiés de près quatre auteurs qui ont œuvré ou qui ont été de passage au Canada (Kalm), en Guyane française (Barrère) et en Louisiane (Le Page du Pratz et Dumont de Montigny). Nous examinons dans un premier temps les différents contextes d’acquisition de savoirs. Par la suite, l’analyse portera sur leurs inventaires respectifs des ressources coloniales, puis leur façon de traiter leurs sources. Finalement, nous concluons cette recherche sur les manières dont ces naturalistes-écrivains transmettront à leurs lecteurs européens leurs connaissances nouvellement acquises et la portée de la diffusion que leurs écrits connaîtront. / Following their colonization of America in the 17th and 18th centuries, the French drew up inventories for the resources of the occupied or coveted territory. Being able to describe all this wealth, natural history thus became the ultimate colonial knowledge and one of the central cogs of the French Colonial Machine. Also, the textual legacy of this activity is considerable and various points of view are taken into account: an enterprising settler, for example, will not see Louisiana’s resources in the same way as a travelling metropolitan official or a botanist on assignment. However, the colonial perspective is widely spread and all these texts, or almost all of them, are evidence of the appropriation of American plants, minerals and animals. The position of indigenous people and slaves – whether of indigenous or African-American origin – as actors in the process of knowledge creation depends on the context and the author’s stance. This thesis focuses on a small number of compelling texts from the natural history corpus of the French mainland colonies in America. Four authors who worked in or visited Canada (Kalm), French Guiana (Barrère) and Louisiana (Le Page du Pratz and Dumont de Montigny) are studied in depth. We first examine the different contexts of knowledge acquisition. Subsequently, we analyze the colonial resources inventories available at that time and how the sources are managed. Lastly, we conclude by looking at how these naturalist writers transmit to their European readers their newly acquired knowledge and the impact that their work will have.