The purpose of this quantitative and qualitative study was to determine retrospectively marital satisfaction and stability following the near-death experience (NDE) of one of the marital partners, focusing on the role of Gottman's Sound Marital House (1999) in the couple's relationship before and after the NDE. The researcher used the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Test (1959), the Weiss-Ceretto Marital Status Inventory (1980), and a modification of Gottman's Shared Meanings Questionnaire (1999). The first group of participants included 26 NDErs. To create as comparable a group as possible, the researcher designed a life-changing event (LCE) group of 26 people who used as their referent the non-NDE-related experience they considered their most life-changing one during their marriage. Sixty-five percent of the marriages in which the NDErs were involved at the time of their NDEs ended in divorce. This number is in contrast to the 19 percent of LCE participants whose marriages ended in divorce. Marital adjustment, marital stability, and meanings in marriage between retrospectively based pre-event and post-event composite scores were statistically significantly different between the NDErs and LCErs. Low effect sizes were identified for each of the instruments except the Weiss-Ceretto Marital Status Inventory, which had a moderate effect size. Strong correlations among the scores were identified. Further analysis of the results indicated strongly that the NDErs were less satisfied in their marriages, their marriages were less stable, and they did not have a strong level of shared meaning in the marriage after the NDE occurred as compared to the LCE participants. This study has serious implications for counselors who may work with NDErs. Findings from this study show that NDErs who were married at the time of their experiences have a strong possibility of experiencing marital problems. Encouraging these couples to seek professional help as soon as possible can provide a forum for them to address the potential numerous changes in their relationship. By having more information about the effects of an NDE on a marriage, counselors will be better prepared to assist those couples who are not well prepared to navigate their way through the aftereffects of the event. Through psychoeducation and the application of counseling approaches, counselors can help their clients address specific issues related to their NDEs.

This thesis was made with the goal of creating a 2D short film in the end, with mainly using a program that is not normally used for character animation: Adobe After Effects. With the usage of an originally French plugin called DuIK Bassel (v16.0.9), I was able to create a model in Adobe Photoshop and then put it into After Effects. When the files were imported, the plugin would then assist in the rigging process, wherein I would be able to create the character’s rig and make the 2D model within the program. This document discusses the entire creation of the short film that I progressed through, from the storyboarding, character creation, rigging process, and putting the elements together.

The thesis is focused on problems of bullied pupils and teachers in elementary schools. The theoretical part describes the matter of bullied pupils and teachers. The terms like bullying and cyber bullying are explained. The thesis also deals with main signals, phases and forms of bullying. It defines main actors of bullying, their relations and the consequences which bullying causes. The thesis also deals with the characteristic of bullying and its preventing. The practical part is made by the research which is focused on the issue of bullying in children collective and bullying teachers. The research instruments were questionnaires about bullying, their goals were to find out the occurence of bullying between the pupils and the teachers. The results proved that the bullying occures in a third of the pupils who were also able to describe how and how often they are hurt. It was also proved that the bullying is such an unpleasant topic between teachers that they are not able to accept its existence and that it is very problematic to find the way to solve it. The results are processed both in written form and graphic form in wiev of the theoretic knowledge from the first part.

Os tuco-tucos de Anillaco (Ctenomys cf. knighti) são roedores subterrâneos noturnos quando colocados em ciclo claro-escuro no laboratório. Com o interesse de se investigar o quanto um animal subterrâneo se expõe à luz, foi realizado um experimento de observação contínua em campo durante as horas claras do dia. Três indivíduos, um em cada estação, foram observados em uma arena semi-natural. Essas observações revelaram que os tuco-tucos não apenas saíam freqüentemente durante as horas claras do dia, como também apresentavam atividades robustas de forrageamento e remoção de terra de seus túneis. Uma vez que não se tinha conhecimento da atividade abaixo da terra ou durante à noite, foram examinados os pós-efeitos do arrastamento em campo para se investigar se o ritmo estaria sincronizado em campo e o quanto da atividade observada correspondia à atividade total do animal. Os pós-efeitos foram acessados pela transferência dos animais observados diretamente da arena para condições constantes. Surpreendentemente os animais exibiram uma atividade robusta concentrada na fase correspondente à noite ambiental sem transientes e sem traços da atividade diurna previamente observada em campo. Esse padrão foi observado em outros 10 animais trazidos dessa vez diretamente do campo e colocados em condições constantes. Além disso, não foram observadas diferenças na fase de atividade de animais com e sem acesso a rodas de atividade. Portando, nosso estudo com esses animais subterrâneos pode contribuir com elementos ecológicos nas discussões recentes sobre o significado da atividade diurna em animais que são noturnos segundo a fase do oscilador / South American subterranean rodents (Ctenomys cf. knighti), commonly known as tuco-tucos, display robust, nocturnal, wheel-running rhythms under a light-dark condition. To verify whether these subterranean and nocturnal animals ever expose themselves to light in the field, individual animals were continuously observed during light hours in a semi-natural enclosure that was constructed in their natural habitat. Observations during different seasons revealed that tuco-tucos not only emerged aboveground during daylight hours but also that their light exposure was due to robust diurnal activities of foraging and soil removal. Because of the lack of access to these animals´ subterranean and nocturnal activities in the field, the aftereffects of field entrainment were examined instead to verify the contribution of the previously observed diurnal behaviors to the total daily activity. This examination was achieved by transferring the observed animals from a field enclosure to constant laboratory conditions. Surprisingly, tuco-tucos exhibited robust activity concentrated in the phase corresponding to the external night without any trace of transients or of the diurnal activity that was observed in the enclosure. This pattern was also replicated when the aftereffects of the field entrainment of other animals trapped directly from the field were measured in the laboratory. Furthermore, no difference was detected in the activity measured with and without access to a running wheel. Our study of a wild subterranean species in its natural habitat can contribute novel ecological elements to the recently debated issue of the meaning of day-activity displayed by nocturnal rodents in the field

Os tuco-tucos de Anillaco (Ctenomys cf. knighti) são roedores subterrâneos noturnos quando colocados em ciclo claro-escuro no laboratório. Com o interesse de se investigar o quanto um animal subterrâneo se expõe à luz, foi realizado um experimento de observação contínua em campo durante as horas claras do dia. Três indivíduos, um em cada estação, foram observados em uma arena semi-natural. Essas observações revelaram que os tuco-tucos não apenas saíam freqüentemente durante as horas claras do dia, como também apresentavam atividades robustas de forrageamento e remoção de terra de seus túneis. Uma vez que não se tinha conhecimento da atividade abaixo da terra ou durante à noite, foram examinados os pós-efeitos do arrastamento em campo para se investigar se o ritmo estaria sincronizado em campo e o quanto da atividade observada correspondia à atividade total do animal. Os pós-efeitos foram acessados pela transferência dos animais observados diretamente da arena para condições constantes. Surpreendentemente os animais exibiram uma atividade robusta concentrada na fase correspondente à noite ambiental sem transientes e sem traços da atividade diurna previamente observada em campo. Esse padrão foi observado em outros 10 animais trazidos dessa vez diretamente do campo e colocados em condições constantes. Além disso, não foram observadas diferenças na fase de atividade de animais com e sem acesso a rodas de atividade. Portando, nosso estudo com esses animais subterrâneos pode contribuir com elementos ecológicos nas discussões recentes sobre o significado da atividade diurna em animais que são noturnos segundo a fase do oscilador / South American subterranean rodents (Ctenomys cf. knighti), commonly known as tuco-tucos, display robust, nocturnal, wheel-running rhythms under a light-dark condition. To verify whether these subterranean and nocturnal animals ever expose themselves to light in the field, individual animals were continuously observed during light hours in a semi-natural enclosure that was constructed in their natural habitat. Observations during different seasons revealed that tuco-tucos not only emerged aboveground during daylight hours but also that their light exposure was due to robust diurnal activities of foraging and soil removal. Because of the lack of access to these animals´ subterranean and nocturnal activities in the field, the aftereffects of field entrainment were examined instead to verify the contribution of the previously observed diurnal behaviors to the total daily activity. This examination was achieved by transferring the observed animals from a field enclosure to constant laboratory conditions. Surprisingly, tuco-tucos exhibited robust activity concentrated in the phase corresponding to the external night without any trace of transients or of the diurnal activity that was observed in the enclosure. This pattern was also replicated when the aftereffects of the field entrainment of other animals trapped directly from the field were measured in the laboratory. Furthermore, no difference was detected in the activity measured with and without access to a running wheel. Our study of a wild subterranean species in its natural habitat can contribute novel ecological elements to the recently debated issue of the meaning of day-activity displayed by nocturnal rodents in the field

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No description available.

From the simple act of picking up a glass of water while talking to someone at a party, to remembering to swing by the bike shop to pick up an inner tube while riding through traffic on our way home from the office, intentions guide and alter our behavior—often while we are busily engaged in other ongoing tasks. Particularly, performing delayed intentions, like stopping at the bike shop on our way home, relies on a set of cognitive processes summarized as prospective memory (PM) that enable us to postpone intended actions until a later point in time (time-based PM) or until specific reminders or PM cues signal the appropriate opportunity to retrieve and perform an intended action (event-based PM). Interestingly, over the past decades a growing number of studies showed that successfully completing an event-based intention does not necessarily lead to its immediate deactivation. Instead, no-longer-relevant PM cues can incur so-called aftereffects that impair task performance and sometimes even trigger erroneous repetitions of the intended action (i.e., commission errors). Although in our everyday lifes we frequently rely on both PM and intention deactivation, still relatively little is known about how our cognitive system actually manages to deactivate completed intentions, under which conditions this may fail, and how well PM and intention deactivation function under extreme conditions, like acute stress. In order to answer these questions, I first conducted a comprehensive review of the published literature on aftereffects of completed intentions. Here, I found that although intentions can incur aftereffects in terms of commission errors and performance costs that most likely result from continued intention retrieval, they generally seem to be deactivated or even inhibited at some point. Most importantly, this deactivation process does not operate like a light switch but dynamically moves along a continuum from complete reactivation to complete deactivation of intentions, and is substantially modulated by factors that also affect retrieval of intentions prior to their completion. Specifically, intention deactivation is most likely to fail when we remain within the same context in which we originally completed the intention and encounter no-longer-relevant PM cues that are extremely salient and were strongly linked to the intended action. Subsequently, in Study 1 I directly tested a dual-mechanisms account of aftereffects of completed intentions. Building on findings of impaired intention deactivation in older adults who often show deficits in cognitive-control abilities, this account posits that aftereffects and commission errors in particular stem from a failure to exert cognitive control when no-longer-relevant PM cues trigger retrieval of an intention. Accordingly, intention deactivation should hinge on the availability of cognitive-control resources at the moment we encounter no-longer-relevant PM cues. In order to test this, I assessed aftereffects of completed intentions in younger and older adults while manipulating transient demands on information processing during encounters of no-longer-relevant PM cues on a trial-by-trial basis. In Experiment 1, nominally more older adults than younger adults made a commission error. Additionally, medium demands on cognitive control substantially reduced aftereffects compared to low and high demands (i.e., u-shaped relation). In Experiment 2, which extended this manipulation but only tested younger adults, however, this control-demand effect did not replicate. Instead, aftereffects occurred regardless of cognitive-control demands. The lack of a consistent control-demand effect on aftereffects across two experiments, suggested that cognitive control either only plays a minor role for the occurrence of aftereffects or that, more likely, intention deactivation hinges on other specific cognitive-control abilities, like response inhibition. In two subsequent studies, I extended this research and tested the effects of acute stress—a potent modulator of cognitive-control functioning—on PM and intention deactivation. Previous studies showed that, under moderate demands, acute stress had no effect on PM-cue detection, intention deactivation or performance costs that presumably arise from monitoring for PM cues. Importantly, however, based on these studies it remained unclear if acute stress affects PM and intention deactivation under high demands, as has been observed, for instance, with working-memory performance. To test such a potential demand-dependence of acute stress effects on PM, I first assessed the effects of psychosocial stress induction with the Trier Social Stress Test on PM and intention deactivation when detecting PM cues and intention deactivation were either low or high demanding (Study 2). Building on this work, I then tested the effects of combined physiological and psychosocial stress induction with the Maastricht Acute Stress Test on PM and the ability to track one’s own performance (i.e., output monitoring), when PM-cue detection was difficult and ongoing tasks additionally posed either low or high demands on working memory (Study 3). Despite successful stress induction (e.g., increased levels of salivary cortisol and impaired subjective mood), both studies showed that PM-cue detection and intention retrieval were not affected by acute stress under any of these conditions. Study 2 revealed a tendency for a higher risk of making commission errors under stress when no-longer-relevant PM cues were salient and difficult to ignore. Study 3 additionally showed that acute stress had no effect on output monitoring. Most importantly, however, across the different PM tasks and stress-induction protocols in these studies, acute stress substantially reduced performance costs from monitoring for PM cues, but did so only when PM-cue detection was difficult. This effect suggested that, depending on task demands, acute stress might shift retrieval processes in PM away from costly monitoring-based retrieval towards a more economic spontaneous retrieval of intended actions. In summary, the present thesis suggests that the processes underlying prospective remembering and intention deactivation are tightly woven together and are only selectively affected by cognitive-control availability and effects of acute stress. With this, it contributed substantially to our understanding of these essential cognitive capacities and their reliability. My research showed that PM is remarkably resilient against effects of acute stress experiences when remembering intended actions is supported by external reminders. Acute stress may actually make monitoring for such reminders more efficient when they are hard to detect. Additionally, it showed that, in most circumstances, we seem to be able to successfully and quickly deactivate intentions once they are completed. It is only under some conditions that intention deactivation may be slow, sporadic or fail, which can lead to continued retrieval of completed intentions. While this seems not to be affected by transient demands on information processing during encounters of no-longer-relevant PM cues, intention deactivation might become difficult for older adults and stressed individuals when no-longer-relevant reminders of intentions easily trigger the associated action and are hard to ignore.

This exploration delves into the potential of emotional storytelling through walk cycles. Moving beyond traditional animation, it utilizes the expressive power of modern tools to explore how line, shape, stroke weight, color, texture, and sound can be manipulated to create abstract narratives that evoke deeper emotional experience for the viewer.  Drawing on a foundation of psychological principles, scientific research, and relevant articles, the walk cycles become abstract narratives, provoking introspection and emotional connection. The subjective nature of this artistic language is acknowledged, with cultural backgrounds and personal experiences influencing interpretation. The exploration raises questions about the potential for a universal language of emotion in animation, one that speaks not just to the mind, but to the heart. This ongoing journey of discovery aims to observe how viewers connect with these abstract representations and explore the potential for this approach to elevate the art of animation.