The effects of dopamine D1 and D2 antagonists on conditioned place preference (CPP) and locomotor activity were assessed. A total of three experiments were conducted. In each experiment there were two conditioning days followed by a test day. The results indicate that DA D1 and D2 receptors have distictly different roles in the mediation of behavior.

Aim: This study aims to investigate the factors that influence consumers' brand preferences for instant foods focusing on the graduate-level students of Sweden and Bangladesh. Methodology: The research applied a qualitative approach. Semi-structured online interviews were conducted with ten graduate-level students from Sweden and Bangladesh. The collected primary data were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis by comparing with the literature reviewed within distinct themes. Findings and Conclusion: The main findings of the study are (1) culture, and religious values have a significant influence on Bangladeshi consumers compared to consumers in Sweden; (2) Quality plays a predominant role in determining instant food brands in both countries as it can have a direct effect on the health; (3) Eye-catchy packaging creates fascination among consumers' about a brand in both countries; (4) Price is considered as a critical factor due to limited purchasing power of Bangladeshi consumers'; whereas in Sweden, consumers' are ready to compromise with the price if they could get a superior quality. Theoretical implications: This study has developed a theoretical model that shows the effect of culture, marketing communication, brand elements, price of the brand, brand image and brand availability on consumers' brand preferences in Bangladesh and Sweden. The findings divulge the quality and packaging of a brand could play a tremendously important role in consumers' brand preferences apart from other factors. Managerial implications: The study could help managers to be accustomed to cultural values through standardization and adaptation. The research could add insights for the managers while setting the price of a brand as it has considered as a critical factor. Appropriate quality assurance is sufficiently necessary, which was reflected by the current study and will help managers while determining quality. Limitations: Only two countries were included in the study, which is considered as a limitation and challenging to apply in other countries due to cultural differences. The focused group was graduate-level students who are also a shortcoming, and it could therefore not be generalized to have implications for consumers of other age group and occupation. Suggestions for future research: A quantitative study with a more significant number of respondents in more than two countries is suggested for future research. Future research can also be carried out by consumers buying preference on other food items. Keywords: Brand preference, Instant foods, Cultural influence, Sweden, Bangladesh.

The effects of distortion has been investigated prior to this study, however most of these studies focus on the objective physicalities of a certain type of distortion or they might apply distortion in static amounts to examine effects of loudspeaker distortion. Objectively the varying types of distortion may be different, however there are little explanations on how these types subjectively might sound different. This study aimed to investigate how subjective preference and perception of the timbral attributes warmth and roughness may vary between types of distortion, and if there was a pattern between these using three different types of distortion (zero-crossing, solid state and tube), applied at two different levels (high and low) and to two different instruments (guitar and vocals). The outcome indicated that subjects most prefer tube distortion and that this distortion was considered to provide the most amounts of warmth while also the least amounts of roughness. There were also interaction effects indicating guitar being less sensitive about the level of distortion while being more sensitive about the type of distortion for the measures of preference and amounts of roughness, when compared to vocals.

abstract: ABSTRACT Individuals receiving hospice care at the end of life have a unique set of needs, requiring interdisciplinary assessment and treatment to meet their multidimensional circumstances and create a supportive and comfortable experience. Music therapy is often an integral component of hospice care utilized to treat the whole person. While there are published music therapy assessment tools for use with the hospice population, there is no assessment tool specifically aimed at understanding the role of music preference in the context of the hospice patient’s multidimensional musical ecosystem identity. The purpose of this thesis was to create an assessment tool to understand and document the individualized connections between a hospice patient’s familiar and preferred music and their musical identity, in order to increase cultural awareness and to utilize music selection with purpose while supporting and empowering the patient. The proposed music preference assessment tool utilizes an ecomap structure and combines theories and philosophies from the fields of music therapy and social work. The needs of the hospice population are identified and music therapy is discussed as a treatment modality in hospice. Existing music therapy and social work assessments are identified and examined and elements of each are utilized in the creation of the proposed music preference assessment tool. A template and example assessment tool are provided with considerations for clinical implications and uses. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Music Therapy 2020

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’enrichir la boîte à outils formelle et conceptuelle de la théorie des transformations de préférence. Pour ce faire, je modélise une procédure, la délibération partielle, par laquelle les agents changent l’ensemble des valeurs qui induisent leur relation de préférences. La délibération partielle se fonde sur l’idée qu’un tel changement résulte d’une prise de conscience (growing awareness) de ces certaines de ces valeurs. En prenant conscience de nouvelles valeurs, l’agent réalise qu’il adhère (respectivement qu’il n’adhère pas) à de mauvaises valeurs (resp. de bonnes), soit que les valeurs auxquelles il adhère sont contradictoires, soit qu’elles se renforcent mutuellement. Au travers d’une analyse critique de la littérature sur les transformations des préférences, l’introduction s’attache à dégager les principales motivations philosophiques de la délibération partielle. Le premier chapitre pose les fondations conceptuelles et formelles de cette procédure et présente, tout en les justifiant, les cinq grandes hypothèses psychologiques que suppose cette procédure. Le second chapitre axiomatise cette procédure et fournit une première interprétation du lien qu’elle entretient avec les changements de choix. Il spécifie de deux structures axiologiques sur laquelle se fonde cette procédure : une structure monotonique et une organisation partitionnelle. Le troisième chapitre, s’appuie sur la délibération partielle pour construire une théorie de la manipulation des préférences. L’idée est qu’un envoyeur choisit conjointement un projet et une stratégie de divulgation valeurs afin de manipuler les préférences d’un receveur. J’établis donc un lien entre le modèle développé au chapitre 2, je développe une théorie de la l’empathie imparfaite et de la divulgation séquentielle des valeurs. / This Ph.D. dissertation aims at providing new conceptual and formal tools in order to model preference changes. To do so, I model a mechanism that I refer to as partial deliberation. Partial deliberation is based on the idea that individuals change their preference by becoming aware of new values. Indeed, their awareness allows them either to reject values they were adhering to or to adopt new values. By critically analysis of the literature on preference changes and on rational choice theory, the introduction emphasizes the main philosophical issues of partial deliberation. The first chapter justifies the five psychological hypotheses on which this mechanism relies and discusses their relation with rational choice theory. The second chapter axiomatically deals with partial deliberation and it formalizes two specific structures : a monotonic structure and partitional structure.Then, the third chapter models a situation of preference manipulation, in which a sender jointly chooses a project and a disclosure strategy in order to manipulate the preference of a receiver. With this model, I account for imperfect empathy and sequential disclosure of values.

The evolutionary origins of human handedness are still unknown. The study of lateralized behaviour in our closest relatives, the nonhuman primates, is useful to clarify how this trait appeared and evolved in our species. In the present study, lateralized behaviour was assessed in a population of 32 free-ranging Mexican mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata mexicana) for thirteen spontaneous motor patterns, at individual and group levels, as well as the effect that age, sex and posture have on its strength and direction. The studied population of howler monkeys displayed only few significant lateral biases at the individual level with single motor patterns (Binomial tests, p≤0.05). No biases towards the use of a particular limb or side of the body were found at a population level. Therefore, even though some individuals showed significant limb/side preference with single motor patterns, no signs of task specialization, side specialization, or true handedness were found. Similarly, no effects of sex, age or posture were found on the direction or strength of lateralized behaviour. The general absence of limb/side preferences found in this population may be due to the constraints imposed by the arboreal life and/or the type of diet. Possible causal agents of the few significant individual biases found here may be the presence of handicaps and/or experience. Further research is needed in order to assess whether the lack of human-like handedness reported in this study is only specific to the studied population, a general phenomenon of the genus Alouatta or perhaps of all the Platyrrhini.

Behavioral researchers have investigated procedures for identifying preferred items for individuals with varying levels of developmental disabilities. Some researchers in this area have reported difficulties in identifying preferred items for individuals with severe to profound multiple disabilities (SPMD), in part because the individuals may not possess the motor skills needed to select and manipulate the items included within the assessment. The purpose of the current study was to address three research questions: Would differences in preference patterns be observed if individuals with SPMD could activate toys with a motor response that is within their repertoire (i.e., press a large microswitch to activate the toy) versus when they are required to perform a motor response that may not be within their repertoire (e.g., sliding knobs, twisting dials to activate a toy)? Would teaching specific skills to activate a toy result in increased toy engagement and a shift in preference toward directly operating the toy? Would teaching the participant a motor response to activate the toy directly affect the levels of microswitch engagement observed? Data were collected within a combination multiple baseline (across 2 participants) and multielement (across conditions) design. The results of this study showed that (a) differences in preference were observed when different measures of assessing preferences were conducted, (b) acquisition of specific motor skills resulted in an increase in preference toward directly manipulating items, and (c) acquisition of motor skills also resulted in a decrease in activating items via microswitches. These results extend the preference assessment literature by showing that the motor skills present within an individual's current repertoire may affect the results of preference assessments for individuals with SPMD.

To learn the uncertainty of customer preference on the attribute of new product, usually a firm needs to do market research. Developing a product on an attribute which is less preferred by customer may lead to a failure. In addition, a firm used to take efforts to design the product. In recent years, we observed a new business model in which the firm does not take effort to design new product, nor does she do market research by herself. She provides rewards to attract outside designers to design new product. Some designers may take effort and design products based on their private information of customer preference. The firm receives designs with different quality and attribute, she chooses one to produce. By solving this game model, we get the equilibrium quality of the design offered by each designer based on their private cost parameter. And we obtain the following insights: When the market size is too small, the firm gives nothing to designers; when the market size is sufficiently big, the firm only gives reward to the designer whose design is produced; otherwise the firm gives both rewards to participated designers and the designer whose design is produced. We find that when the market size is big enough or the disutility is high enough, the new business model dominates the benchmark business model. When both the disutility and market size are small enough, the firm prefers the benchmark business model. And the relative attractiveness of new business model versus benchmark model keeps the same when the market size is small enough. The impact of extra reward on relative attractiveness of new business model versus benchmark model increases with extra reward. When the extra reward is high enough, the firm always prefers the new business model.

Studies on taste perception in nonhuman primates contribute to the understanding of the evolution of the sense of taste. To assess the responsiveness of four adult spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) to a set of substances perceived as sweet by humans, two-bottle preference tests were performed to determine taste preference thresholds, and taste-induced facial responses were analyzed. The spider monkeys displayed a significant preference for concentrations as low as 0.2-1 mM acesulfame K, 0.002-0.5 mM alitame, 10-20 mM isomalt, 0.002-0.5 mM sodium saccharin, 2-20 mM galactose and 20-50 mM sorbitol over water. The spider monkeys were generally unable to perceive aspartame and, based on their facial responses, probably do not perceive it as sweet. Thaumatin and monellin were not detected, and most likely neither was the sweetness of sodium cyclamate. Sodium saccharine and sodium cyclamate were rejected at high concentrations by at least one monkey, which is congruent with the perception of a bitter side taste as reported in humans. A significant correlation was found between the ranking order of sweetening potency for the different substances of spider monkeys and humans, but not between spider monkeys and chimpanzees. The results suggest that spider monkeys may be generally more sensitive than chimpanzees and at least as sensitive as humans to the tested substances, supporting the notion that high sensitivity to sweet taste may be associated with a frugivorous dietary specialization. The lack of responsiveness to some of the substances supports the notion of a dichotomy in sweet-taste perception between platyrrhine and catarrhine primates.

Thesis (M. Ed. (Language Education)) -- University of Limpopo, 2016 / Several studies have investigated the contentious issue of language preference in the education domain, particularly in South Africa. African indigenous languages seemed to be overlooked as well in the country. As one of the scarce skills subjects, the Department of Education (DoE) developed a strategy to curb the decline of African indigenous languages by introducing Funza Lushaka Bursary Scheme. This research study sought to investigate language preferences of student teachers who specialise in English and an African language (Sepedi, TshiVenda and Xitsonga) for future employment among third and fourth year language student teachers. My assumption was that these language teachers have been in the teaching practice, hence their preference might be instigated by their experience in teaching. A purposive sampling using semi-structured interviews was selected for this study. Furthermore, a research journal and a voice recorder were used during the research interviews. The research findings illustrated that majority of participants (70%) preferred to teach African indigenous languages while the remaining percentages preferred to teach English at their future schools. These showed a promising future for the indigenous languages for being promoted and sustained. However, their preference of a particular language over the other was founded on different individual motivation or interest. It was also found that Funza Lushaka Bursary Scheme served as a motivational component for producing student language teachers. These findings provide valuable information for promoting and sustaining African indigenous languages