Earlier studies suggest that emotion affects long duration estimates of 3-7 seconds and more, but how emotions affect shorter events is not well known. The aim of the thesis was to investigate how emotion, in terms of emotional Valence and Arousal, affects subjective time estimates of short (sub-second) and long (half-a-minute) durations. Participants (N= 26) were exposed to neutral and emotive video clips resembling the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; Bradley, 1995) while making time discrimination judgments (short duration estimates: PSE). Afterwards they made long duration estimates (Long Time Estimates: LTE) and ratings of Valence and Arousal of every video clip. Significant results were that Arousal affected LTE estimates, with longer LTE estimates, the higher the Arousal level. The results indicate that Arousal, but not Valence, affects subjective time perception both of short and long durations. / Tidigare studier antyder att emotioner påverkar uppskattningen av långa durationer på 3-7 sekunder, men hur emotioner påverkar kortare durationer är mindre känt. Studiens syfte var att undersöka hur emotioner, i form av emotionell Valens och Arousal, påverkar subjektiva tidsestimat av korta (sub-sekund) och långa (halv-minuts) durationer. Deltagare (N= 26), exponerades för stimuli i form av neutrala och emotionellt laddade videosekvenser utvalda att efterlikna the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; Bradley, 1995) och utförde samtidigt intervalldiskriminationer (korttidsestimat: PSE). Efteråt utförde de långa durationsestimat (långtidsestimat: LTE) och skattningar av Valens och Arousal för samtliga videoklipp. Signifikanta resultat var att Arousal gav längre durationsskattningar för LTE estimaten, med längre LTE estimat, ju högre Arousal-nivå. Resultaten indikerar att Arousal, men inte Valens, påverkar subjektiv tidsuppfattning för både korta och långa durationer.

Psychopathy is a rare and unique disorder, primarily associated with an emotional deficiency and an inclination towards violent antisocial behavior. Among the various symptoms, the affective experience of the incapacity for love has received little empirical attention, despite having been established as one of Cleckley's 16 classic characteristics. Moreover, the role of physiological responding in their romantic experiences has yet to be examined. The proposed study examined physiological reactivity (i.e., heart rate, HR; skin conductance, SC) as a mediator and moderator in the relationship between psychopathic features and romantic experiences (i.e., passionate love, companionate love, Ludus love, relationship satisfaction, relationship history) in college men. As hypothesized, physiological reactivity mediated and moderated the relationship between psychopathic features and romantic experiences. Specifically, low physiological arousal for the partner partially mediated the relationship between psychopathic features and passionate love. Also, it was found that the interaction between low physiological arousal for the significant other and high physiological arousal for the opposite-sex friend moderates the relationship between psychopathic features and deficient romantic experiences. By gaining a better understanding of the impact on their romantic experiences, this study is intended to contribute to improved identification and assessment of psychopathic men. / Ph. D.

Research on marital abuse indicates that abusive husbands attribute greater negative intent and responsibility to their partner's behavior and report greater anger arousal during conflictual situations with their partner than do nonabusive husbands (Dutton &amp; Browning, 1988; Holtzworth-Munroe &amp; Hutchinson, 1993). Research also shows that measures of anger arousal (e.g., blood pressure and heart rate) are significantly greater during situations of provocation or threat than neutral or nonprovocative situations (Smith &amp; Allred, 1989). However, research has not attempted to measure abusive and nonabusive males' anger arousal and cognitive attributions to provocative and nonprovocative partner behavior in conflictual situations. Two studies examined attributional responses and one study examined anger arousal in high and low abusive dating males to highly provocative (e.g., girlfriend is flirting with another man) or minimally provocative (e.g., girlfriend wants to talk) partner behavior. A major hypothesis was that abusive males would attribute greater negative intent and responsibility as well as evidence greater blood pressure and heart rate reactivity to their partner's behavior in provocative but not in nonprovocative situations than would nonabusive males. In Study 1, six hypothetical vignettes (4 provocative and 2 nonprovocative) of dating situations were developed or modified from existing research (Holtzworth-Munroe &amp; Hutchinson, 1993). Provocativeness of the situations was determined through pilot testing which showed that "provocative partner behavior"; yielded significantly greater attributions of negative intent and responsibility than did nonprovocative partner behavior. Undergraduate males (N = 106) were assessed for their levels of abusive relationship behaviors with the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS; Straus 1979), for their tendencies to abuse with the Propensity for Abuse Scale (PAS; Dutton, 1995b), and for their expression of anger with the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI; Spielberger, Johnson, Russell, Crane, Jacobs, &amp; Worden, 1985). Participants then listened to audio-taped situations and completed negative intent and responsibility attribution questionnaires. Results indicated that high CTS, PAS, and STAXI males attributed greater responsibility and blame to partner behavior in provocative scenes, but not in nonprovocative scenes than did low CTS, PAS, and STAXI males (p < .05). Additionally, high CTS, PAS, and STAXI males attributed greater negative intent to partner behavior in both provocative and nonprovocative scenes than did low CTS, PAS, and STAXI males (p < .05). There were no interaction effects for attributions of negative intent and responsibility based on dispositional measures and scene provocativeness. In Study 2, undergraduate males (N = 107) were screened for abusive relationship behaviors with the CTS. Screening identified 37 males as High-Abusives (n=18) and Low-Abusives (n = 19). Participants selected in the screening phase were called back and fitted with a blood-pressure cuff which recorded blood pressure and heart rate before and after each of four scenes (2 provocative and 2 nonprovocative). Following presentation of the scenes, participants completed negative intent and responsibility attribution questionnaires. Results indicated that both High- and Low-Abusives evidenced significantly greater systolic blood pressure arousal during provocative as compared to nonprovocative scenes (p<.05). Similar to Study 1, results showed that High-Abusives attributed greater negative intent and responsibility to partner behavior than did Low-Abusives (p <.05). However, blood-pressure and heart rate reactivity of High- and Low-Abusives were not significantly discrepant. The results of Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that High-Abusives attributed greater negative intent and responsibility to partner behavior than did Low-Abusives. Study 2 also showed that provocative partner behavior produced greater increases in systolic blood pressure than nonprovocative partner behavior for both High- and Low-Abusives. Overall, these studies provided partial empirical support for the relationship between negative attributions and anger arousal to provocative partner behavior among abusive and nonabusive males. Limitations and future research directions will be discussed. / Master of Science

The aim of this study is to explain the effect of arousal on consumer’s attitude towards a direct service in terms of evaluation extremity. An important element within consumer behavior is the attitude that consumers have towards products and services. After the conceptual framework was developed through an extensive literature review on arousal, attitude and services, a hypothesis was formulated stating that: Arousal has an effect on consumer's attitude towards a direct service in terms of their evaluation extremity.  An experiment was carried out within various lectures of a university in Sweden, whereas the sampling used was a convenience sample of university students. The total amount of respondents who participated in the experiment were 154, whereof 102 were valid respondents. The experimenttriggerused to influence their level of arousal was caffeinated coffee, while the control trigger was decaffeinated coffee. The Fishbein model was used to measure attitude translated into a questionnaire which was administered at the experiment, while the three adjective scale was utilized to measure the level of arousal for control. The collected data was imported into the statistics program SPSS for analysis and discussion. Quality criteria and ethics standards were adhered to  during the entire research process. At the conclusion of the research, the hypothesis was accepted. However, it should be taken into consideration that the caffeine did not have the desired effect on the level of arousal, and the study mainly used the control questions for arousal to find a significance level. The study was deemed successful though, in that after calculating positive pretests for validity, the results showed that the aroused participants had a significantly more extreme attitude than the non-aroused participants. In that the experiment and results are original, it allows for further related research. Finally, to insure the validity of the results of this study, it is pertinent that the experiment’s results are replicated by future studies.

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

No description available.

The objective of this study was to determine if eye and head based psychophysiological cues can be used to maintain screener vigilance levels during long duration tasks. In two parts, this study first explored which cues are predictive of vigilance levels. The second part of the study developed a vigilance feedback system using the cues established in part one and compared the results of subjects using the feedback system with those subjects having received no feedback or those who received random feedback.In part one, 48 participants reviewed 600 simulated x-rays to determine if any hazardous items (guns or knives) were present. Individual vigilance levels were determined by scoring the number of correct detections during eight 5-minute periods (total study length = 40 minutes). Using an eye-tracking machine, four concurrent eye and head activity measures (blinks, saccades, pupil diameter, and head position) were used to model changes in vigilance level throughout a simulated baggage screening task. At the end of the study, changes in blink and saccade rates proved to be significant predictors of an individual's ability to detect the presence of these hazardous items among other non-significant baggage items.Part two required 126 participants equally distributed across three conditions to repeat the same screening task. For one condition the monitoring system, instead of passively recording the individual's cues, provided near real-time feedback of vigilance levels to a condition. Participants in other conditions received random feedback on their vigilance levels while a third group received no feedback. At the conclusion of the study the subjects who received the real-time feedback performed significantly better than those who received no feedback. However, they did not perform better than the subjects who received random feedback. Perhaps more significantly, the subjects who received random feedback, while performing better than the no feedback group, also experienced a significantly higher number of false detects.The results of this study indicate a vigilance feedback system based upon subject psychophysiological cues may be an effective method to maintain attention levels during long duration vigilance tasks while preventing a corresponding increase in error detection rates.

Marked differences have been found in men’s and women’s sexual response patterns, contingent upon their sexual orientation; opposite- and same-gender attracted men demonstrate greatest genital and self-reported arousal to their preferred stimulus type, whereas other-gender attracted women do not, and findings of same-gender attracted women have been mixed (e.g., Chivers, Seto & Blanchard, 2007; Chivers, Bouchard, Timmers, & Haberl, 2012). Given the complex nature of sexual stimuli that are used in research paradigms involving category-specificity of sexual arousal, however, it is often unclear to what extent contextual cues (cues other than the sexual actor’s sex characteristics; body movement, level of sexual activity, etc.) influence participants’ sexual response patterns. As such, the current study attempted to parse contextual cues from sexual stimuli and examined genital, self-reported, and continuous self-reported responses of same- and other-gender attracted men and women to prepotent sexual features (stimuli believed to elicit automatic sexual arousal: erect penises and vasoengorged vulvas), nonprepotent sexual features (flaccid penises and pubic triangles) and neutral stimuli (clothed men and women). All samples were found to exhibit a category-specific pattern of genital, self-reported, and continuous self-reported sexual arousal. Similarly, genital, self-reported, and continuous self-reported arousal was generally found to be greatest to “prepotent” sexual conditions. Limitations and implications are discussed. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2013-08-30 11:37:10.216

Thesis advisor: Elizabeth A. Kensinger / Thesis advisor: Ellen Winner / Like it or not, music is everywhere. Our lives are accompanied by an omnipresent personal soundtrack—whether we are on our way to work, at the grocery store, at a movie, watching TV, or simply relaxing at home. It seems that the only way human beings have been able to tolerate this extraneous stimulus is, simply, by not consciously attending to it. Otherwise, we would most likely crash our cars, purchase the wrong items at the store, and never quite understand what happened in that movie we had just seen. Despite the technological advances in music recording and production (and, in turn, availability), very little psychological research has focused on the effects of music processing (especially at the unconscious level) on memory consolidation and storage. What previous memory research has shown is that human beings tend to exhibit an attentional enhancement for emotional stimuli when presented alongside non-emotional stimuli (Reisberg & Heuer 2004). Specifically, this finding has demonstrated that emotional events promote memory for "central" components of an event, while having a reverse effect for an event's "periphery." In the current study, I employed the medium of film in order to apply this hypothesis to our musical world. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: 1) a "no music" group, in which participants viewed a film clip in silence; 2) a "with music" group, in which participants viewed the same clip with the film's original, low-quality (and low arousal) recorded soundtrack; and 3) a "re-mastered music" group, in which participants viewed the film clip with a higher quality (and higher arousal) soundtrack. Three main results were found, all of which either aligned with or extended the findings of Reisberg & Heuer to include the domain of music as a modulatory force in the formation of emotional memories. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Psychology Honors Program.

In mammals, circadian rhythms are controlled by an endogenous clock located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). The SCN is part of a wake-promoting pathway in adults involving the dorsomedial hypothalamus (DMH) and locus coeruleus (LC), but little is known about how this circuit develops. Therefore, we examined the neural mechanisms underlying the development of circadian and ultradian sleep-wake rhythms. Circadian rhythms of sleep and wakefulness are exhibited by rats at postnatal day (P)2, but the influence of forebrain structures, including the SCN, has not been examined. In Experiment 1, although precollicular transections at P2 did not alter day-night differences in sleep and wakefulness, transections at P8 did eliminate these differences. In contrast, in Experiment 2, SCN lesions eliminated day-night differences in sleep and wakefulness at P2. These results suggest that the SCN exerts a humoral influence in newborns and gains neural control over brainstem structures over the first postnatal week. Based on the results of Experiments 1 and 2, we hypothesized that neural connections among the SCN, DMH, and LC develop over the first postnatal week. In Experiment 3, we used fluorescent tracers to reveal that connections within this circuit are strengthened and elaborated--and also become bidirectional--between P2 and P8. The results of Experiment 3 indicate that the SCN receives feedback from the LC. To explore the functional mechanisms by which the SCN receives this feedback, in Experiment 4, we deprived pups of sleep at P8 and used cFos to visualize brain areas that became active as a result of forced wakefulness. Our findings in intact pups and those injected with DSP-4, a neurotoxin that targets noradrenergic LC terminals, suggest that forced wakefulness activates the LC, which subsequently activates the DMH and SCN. After connectivity among the SCN, DMH, and LC is established, we tested the functional role of each nucleus in the modulation of sleep and wakefulness. Infants cycle rapidly between states of sleep and wakefulness, resulting in fragmented bouts. Over development, these sleep and wake bouts consolidate and circadian rhythms become evident. Analyses of the statistical distributions of sleep and wake bouts have revealed dramatic changes in the dynamics of sleep-wake activity. Sleep bouts follow an exponential distribution throughout development. In contrast, wake bouts initially follow an exponential distribution, but transition to a power-law distribution around P15. In Experiments 5, 6, and 7, we explored the contributions of the LC, SCN, and DMH, respectively, to this developmental transition. We found that lesions of each area prevented the emergence of power-law wake behavior. Lesions of the SCN and DMH also prevented the expression of nocturnality. Altogether, these findings reveal that neural connections between the SCN and brainstem develop over the first postnatal week. After this connectivity is established, the SCN-DMH-LC pathway is critical for the normal expression of power-law wake behavior and circadian rhythmicity. We suggest that the development of the SCN-DMH-LC circuit is critical for pups to regulate arousal and gain independence from the mother and littermates.