Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr. John Patrick Kline, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, School of Psychology. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 6, 2003). Includes bibliographical references.

A lack of empathy is considered to be a hallmark feature of psychopathy. However, remarkably little research has specifically examined the relationship between psychopathy and empathy, and what does exist relies solely on self-report measures, which is problematic given psychopaths' propensity for dishonesty. This research signifies an attempt to develop an objective measure of empathy, using psychophysiological indices of emotional experience as indicators of an empathic response. Specifically, corrugator and zygomatic facial muscle activity, event-related heart rate, and acoustic startle reflex responses were measured while participants viewed brief films of individuals experiencing happy and sad emotional events.Pilot investigations of the films suggest they are appropriate for eliciting happy and sad empathic emotion, and the pattern of responses by undergraduates with high and low trait levels of empathy indicates the validity of the approach, and the promise of utilizing psychophysiological indices of emotional responding to measure situational empathy in an objective manner. In particular, participants demonstrated patterns of psychophysiological responses to the empathy-inducing films which both matched their self-reported emotional experiences as well as the emotional valence of the stimuli. Moreover, several of the psychophysiological indices were able to discriminate high and low empathy individuals, whereby low empathy participants exhibited less facial expressiveness and less modulation of the acoustic startle reflex to the empathy-inducing stimuli than their high empathy counterparts.The paradigm was then extended to a sample of male undergraduates with high and low levels of psychopathic traits, as assessed by the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised. Results suggest a significant negative relationship between self-reported psychopathy and self-reported dispositional empathy, with high levels of psychopathy associated with low levels of dispositional empathy, particularly with respect to affective empathy. However, despite differences in dispositional empathy, psychopathic and non-psychopathic undergraduates were not easily discriminated on subjective or objective measures of situational empathy, with the exception of an anomalous pattern of zygomatic EMG activity exhibited by the psychopathic participants. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the nature of the empathic capabilities of psychopaths, as well as considerations of the methodological limitations of the current study and directions for future research.

The behaviours of eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus) in response to aerial predators were studied in the field using trained kestrels (Falco sparverius) flying over a food patch where animals of known gender, age and burrow location categories were foraging. Their typical response was to flee toward a nearby refuge while producing a trill. After a few seconds, chipmunks usually emerged and started to produce long (but sometimes interrupted) series of chucks while facing the predator. Acoustical analysis showed that the trill consisted of a rapid series of usually high pitched and variable notes while most chucks consisted of two partially overlapping components differing mainly in frequency range. No differences were observed between individuals of different categories for most antipredator responses. Various observations suggest that the trill functions to startle the predator and that the chuck deters the predator from hunting in the area.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of British Columbia, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 154-170).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Florida, 2004. / Typescript. Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 65 pages. Includes Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 44-55).

The aim of this study was to investigate whether daily handling in the form of tactile stimulation can ifluence behaviour of adult common voles (Microtus arvalis). The voles were tested in three types of behavioural experiments - Acoustic startle test, Open Field test (OFT), and Elevated Plus Maze test (EPM). No significant impact of handling on personality traits was detected.

Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-27T18:26:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2015-03-25. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2018-07-27T18:29:50Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000865781.pdf: 17935151 bytes, checksum: 7ceb972aa90983bb4105def9cb38d793 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / O reflexo auditivo de sobressalto (RAS) é uma reação motora rápida e evidente frente a um estímulo acústico intenso e inesperado. Trata-se de um reflexo acústico-motor do tronco encefálico que está presente em muitas espécies de mamíferos, incluindo o homem. Possui caráter tanto defensivo frente a uma possível agressão quanto de alerta frente a aconteci-mentos não esperados. Além do RAS resultar em uma resposta sobre a musculatura esque-lética, possui ação sobre o sistema nervoso autônomo promovendo aumento da pressão arterial e da freqüência cardíaca. No rato o circuito neural elementar do RAS é constituído por: neurônios do gânglio espiral, neurônios da raiz coclear (CRN), neurônios reticuloespi-nais do núcleo reticular caudal da ponte (PnC) e motoneurônios da medula espinal. O RAS pode ser modulado pela habituação, sensibilização, inibição por estímulo prévio (PPI) e pela potenciação por um estímulo adverso. Estas modulações podem ocorrer mediante a influên-cia de diversas substâncias neuroativas sobre os componentes deste circuito. Neste traba-lho avaliamos a origem de aferências monoaminérgicas (serotonina e noradrenalina) e CART-érgicas para os CRN e PnC. Para isso foram utilizados 54 ratos Wistar, adultos fê-meas, que foram submetidos a injeções de traçadores neuronais anterógrados e retrógrados para mapeamento de vias nervosas e a identificação imuno-histoquímica de substâncias neuroativas. Todos os protocolos experimentais foram aprovados pela Comissão de Ética no Uso de Animais do Instituto de Biociências de Botucatu - UNESP (protocolo no 17/08). Nos-sos resultados demonstram que o grupamento noradrenérgico A5 é uma fonte de aferências noradrenérgicas e CART-érgicas para os CRN e PnC, enquanto que o núcleo dorsal da rafe (DR) é a origem de aferências serotoninérgicas para estas regiões. Existem conexões recí-procas entre o DR, o A5 e o PnC. Além disso,... / The acoustic startle reflex (ASR) is a rapid motor reaction elicited by a sudden intense acoustic stimulus. This is an acoustic-motor reflex of brainstem conserved across mammal's species including man. Moreover the ASR is defensive behavior against both possible ag-gressive and alert to unexpected events. The ASR evokes responses of skeletal muscles as well as of autonomic nervous system with elevation of blood pressure and acceleration of the heart rate. In the rat, the elementary neural circuitry of ASR is mediated by ganglion cells of the organ of Corti, the cochlear root neurons (CRN), the pontine caudal reticular nucleus (PnC) and motoneurons of the spinal cord. The ASR could be modulated by habituation, sensitization, prepulse inhibition (PPI), and fear potentiation. These modulations were medi-ated by the influence of neuroactive substances on components of neuronal circuitry of ASR. In this work we evaluate the origin of monoaminergic (serotonin and noradrenaline) and CART-ergic afferents to CRN and PnC. Adult Female Wistar rats (n=54) were submitted to injections of retrograde and anterograde neuronal tracers in track-tracing experiments and identification of neuroactive substances in brain by immunohistochemistry technique. All ex-perimental protocols are according with Ethics Committee on Animal Use (protocol: 17/08). Our results demonstrate that noradrenergic area A5 (A5) is a source of noradrenergic and CART-ergic afferents to CRN and PnC, and dorsal raphe nucleus (DR) is origin of seroto-ninergic afferents to these regions. There are reciprocal connections between DR, A5 and PnC. Furthermore, after 14 and 21 days of lesion in A5, the percentage of PPI increased during intervals of 100 and 150 milliseconds without modification of ASR. This data suggest that A5 have direct action on elementary circuit of ASR evidenced his connections and modulation of PPI. Moreover, A5 and DR connections bring new insights about modulation ... / FAPESP: 08/02771-6

I denna studie har tio undersökningsdeltagare sett tio klipp från skräckfilmer som alla innehåller jumpscare-scener, det vill säga scener med plötsliga förändringar som används för att ge tittare en skrämselupplevelse. Undersökningsdeltagarna har för varje klipp fått värdera både i ett bildformulär och i ord hur pass skrämda de blev och vad de tror var anledningarna till det. Jumpscare-scenerna som användartestet bestod av har alla olika komponenter som utmärker dem för att det skulle vara möjligt att se vilka komponenter som bidrog mest till att skrämmas. Begreppen pre-scare, precise-scare och post-scare har utvecklats och använts i undersökningen för att förklara de olika temporala delarna av en jumpscare-scen. Studien utgår bland annat från den så kallade Startle reflexen, som utlöses på grund av plötslig och stark stimuli och audio-visuellinriktad litteratur som exempelvis Chions Audio-Vision. Resultaten visar bland annat att de mest skrämmande jumpscare-scenerna har långa, obehagliga uppbyggnader med lågfrekventa ljud eller musikstycken i prescare- momentet och ett så starkt, oväntat, högfrekvent ljud i precise-scare-momentet som möjligt. De innehåller ofta dissonant och oregelbunden musik och röster samt skrik förstärker även skrämseleffekten eller den så kallade startle-reflexen.

Previous investigations comparing direct versus indirectly cued movements have consistently shown that indirectly cued movements take longer to prepare (Neely and Heath, 2010) and involve the recruitment of additional brain areas (Connolly et al., 2000). This increase in processing time has been associated with the additional cognitive transformations required of the task (Neely and Heath, 2010). In the present study we investigated whether differences between direct versus indirectly cued movements are also reflected in the time course of motor preparation. Participants performed a targeting task, moving directly to the location of a visual cue (i.e., directly cued movement) or to a location that differed by 60˚, 90˚, or 120˚ with respect to the visual cue provided (i.e., indirectly cued movements). Participants were instructed to initiate their movements concurrently with an anticipated go-signal. To examine the time course of motor preparation, a startling acoustic stimulus (SAS, 124dB) was randomly presented 150 ms, 500 ms, or 1000 ms prior to the go-signal. Results from the startle trials revealed that the time course of motor preparation was similar regardless of the angle of rotation required and hence whether it was a direct or indirectly cued trial. Specifically, motor preparation was delayed until less than 500 ms prior to movement initiation for both direct and indirectly cued movements. These findings indicate that similar motor preparation strategies are engaged for both types of cued movements, suggesting that the time to prepare a motor response may be similar regardless of whether a cognitive transformation is required.