Within this thesis the role of cognitive processes in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) will be examined. A systematic review and meta-analysis of the rate of psychiatric comorbidity in IBS participants, relative to controls, was performed. Evidence supported heightened rates of psychiatric disorder. A novel hypothesis regarding overlapping cognitive vulnerability to IBS and psychiatric disorders was found to fit well with the pattern of comorbidity. Competing hypotheses and the potential moderators were examined. Overall, no single model of psychiatric morbidity in IBS could fully account for the results of the meta-analysis. The implications of this meta-analysis for a cognitive approach to IBS are discussed. Cognitive processes were directly investigated in two experiments. First, in a modified exogenous cueing task, which assessed attention to pain words, there was faster orienting towards, and engagement with pain words in IBS participants relative to controls. Next, participants completed a primed lexical decision task, which indexed interpretation biases by measuring response times to targets after ambiguous illness primes. Relative to controls, IBS participants’ responses were slower to target words presented after ambiguous illness primes, and demonstrated priming for targets related to the neutral meaning of the illness prime. In the second study, different IBS and healthy control participants completed an internet-based survey of autobiographical memory. Participants described and rated painful and emotional autobiographical events. IBS participants reported pain memories from a more observer perspective relative to controls, suggesting a possible coping strategy for pain content. Finally, three cognitive styles, alexithymia, rumination and self-blame, were evaluated using existing and novel self-report measures. Overall, when compared with healthy participants, IBS participants reported: less difficulty identifying feelings as indexed by the alexithymia measure; increased pain-focused rumination; and a general, negative self-blame. These results may imply a vigilance-avoidance model of cognitive processing in IBS.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

The thesis examines social cognition and object relations in patients with schizophrenia using Thematic Apperception Test evaluated by SCORS. The theoretical part of the thesis deals with schizophrenia, Thematic Apperception Test and its interpretation systems (especially Westen's SCORS). Attention is also paid to the theoretical background of social cognition and object relations in patients with schizophrenia. The aim of the study is to verify the assumption that patients with schizophrenia will reach pathological scores in SCORS. The study also explores the relationships between different dimensions of SCORS in this clinical population. The results indicate that patients with schizophrenia have numerous deficits in social cognition and object relations, as measured by SCORS. Significantly lower scores (that belong or are very close to pathology) were found in a total of five SCORS's dimensions. In the remaining three dimensions patients with schizophrenia achieved below-average results. Cross-correlations among SCORS's dimensions and factor analysis results which revealed a three component structure of SCORS in patients with schizophrenia are also discussed. Keywords: Schizophrenia, social cognition, object relations, SCORS, Thematic Apperception Test, correlation analysis, factor analysis.

Dans ce travail, nous nous proposons d'étudier la cognition sociale chez les sourds en distinguant les aspects perceptifs et cognitifs selon le modèle proposé par Tager-Flusberg et Sullivan (2000). La surdité nous permet d'aborder l'influence des facteurs environnementaux sur le développement des composantes socio-perceptive et socio-cognitive ; nous ciblons nos recherches sur les enfants sourds nés de parents entendants, éduqués dans des écoles ordinaires et portants des prothèses auditives. La première question à laquelle nous tenterons de répondre est la suivante : le manque de communication avec l'entourage familial pendant les premiers mois de vie, en lien avec le contexte particulier de la surdité dans un milieu entendant, a-t-il une influence sur le développement de la composante socio-perceptive ? Nous étudions cette question avec deux expériences impliquant la perception des visages et des émotions ; ces tests nous permettent de mettre en évidence les performances et les stratégies de traitement utilisées. Nous recherchons d'une part, l'utilisation du processus configural et l'effet de focalisation de l'attention sur la région des yeux au cours d'une tâche de jugement de similarité entre visages et d'autre part, l'effet de traitement automatique de la colère avec une tâche de recherche visuelle. La deuxième question soulevée est relative au développement de la composante socio-cognitive, et notamment aux capacités liées à la théorie de l'esprit. Les possibilités croissantes d'intégration du discours, notamment grâce aux prothèses auditives, permettraient-elles le développement des capacités nécessaires à la compréhension des états mentaux d'autrui ? / In this thesis, we aimed to study the socio-perceptive and the socio-cognitive components of social cognition (Tager-Flusberg et Sullivan, 2000) in deaf children. Deafness give us the possibility to assess environmental factors' influence on the development of these components. To do so, we focus our studies on deaf children born from hearing parents, equipped with auditory protheses, and educated in ordinary schools. First, one of the main issue of the current studies is to assess whether the lack of communication with family during the first months of life, in line with the particular context of deafness in a hearing environment, have a significant impact on the socio-perceptive component. Experiments 1 and 2 were designed to assess this issue. Participants had to respond with two experiences related to faces and emotion perceptions ; those tests allow us to show the performances and the strategies of the treatment used. On a side, we are looking for the inversion effect and the eyes area focus effect during a test of faces' similarities judgment, and another side the angry automatic effect with a visual search test. The second question studied is related to the development of the socio-cognitive component, and especially on capacities of theory of mind. Could the improvement of internalization of speech, using auditory protheses, permit the development of the capacities needed to understand the state of mind of another? Or in contrary, are the possibilities to exchange precociously about his own state of mind needed to develop socio-cognitive component?

This thesis examines the relationship of verbal intelligence and social cognition through verbal subtests of Wechsler intelligence scales for adults (3rd revision) and Differential Self and Complexity of representations of People and Understanding of Social Causality scales in Thematic Apercepčního Test. The theoretical part introduces the concepts of intelligence and social cognition, as well as psychological tests of intelligence tests and apperception techniques. The theoretical part also focuses on the social intelligence as an answer to the question of the relationship between intelligence and social cognition. In the empirical part of the thesis data collected from 30 probands is processed who underwent testing above mentioned psychological tests. The data are processed with correlation and factor analysis. The conclusions statistical processing are in the thesis further developed in the context of the theoretical base of scientific knowledge. The discussion points to limits of the testing and suggests options for the future researchs.

Humans are unique in their ability to flexibly and rapidly adapt their behaviour and select courses of action that lead to future reward. Several ‘component processes’ must be implemented by the human brain in order to facilitate this behaviour. This thesis examines two such components; (i) the neural substrates supporting action selection during value- guided choice using magnetoencephalography (MEG), and (ii) learning the value of environmental stimuli and other people’s actions using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In both situations, it is helpful to formally model the underlying component process, as this generates predictions of trial-to-trial variability in the signal from a brain region involved in its implementation. In the case of value-guided action selection, a biophysically realistic implementation of a drift diffusion model is used. Using this model, it is predicted that there are specific times and frequency bands at which correlates of value are seen. Firstly, there are correlates of the overall value of the two presented options, and secondly the difference in value between the options. Both correlates should be observed in the local field potential, which is closely related to the signal measured using MEG. Importantly, the content of these predictions is quite distinct from the function of the model circuit, which is to transform inputs relating to the value of each option into a categorical decision. In the case of social learning, the same reinforcement learning model is used to track both the value of two stimuli that the subject can choose between, and the advice of a confederate who is playing alongside them. As the confederate advice is actually delivered by a computer, it is possible to keep prediction error and learning rate terms for stimuli and advice orthogonal to one another, and so look for neural correlates of both social and non-social learning in the same fMRI data. Correlates of intentional inference are found in a network of brain regions previously implicated in social cognition, notably the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, the right temporoparietal junction, and the anterior cingulate gyrus.

Les difficultés à interagir dans le monde social et à s’y adapter sont une plainte centrale des personnes souffrant de troubles psychiatriques et notamment de schizophrénie ou de troubles apparentés. Ces difficultés, qui constituent un frein au processus de réhabilitation psychosociale, pourraient en partie être expliquées par un dysfonctionnement des processus regroupés sous le terme de cognition sociale. La cognition sociale est définie comme la capacité à construire des représentations sur soi-même et autrui, et sur les relations entre soi et les autres, ainsi qu’à utiliser ces représentations de manière flexible, afin de guider le comportement social ; et inclut des processus tels que le traitement des émotions, la théorie de l’esprit, le style attributionnel, la perception et les connaissances sociales. Des déficits concernant les différentes composantes de la cognition sociale ont été largement mis en évidence dans la schizophrénie et les troubles apparentés, et semblent par ailleurs avoir un lien fort avec les difficultés observées dans les domaines du fonctionnement social, mais également des relations privilégiées avec les processus neurocognitifs, même si ces deux composantes semblent relativement indépendantes. Afin de compenser ces troubles, de nombreuses prises en charge de remédiation cognitive ont été proposées ces dernières années. L’objectif de ce travail de thèse a été d’évaluer la possibilité d’améliorer les déficits touchant la sphère de la cognition sociale des personnes souffrant de troubles psychotiques à l’aide d’un outil de remédiation spécifiquement développé à cet effet, le programme RC2S. Etant donnée l’hétérogénéité des déficits touchant la sphère de la cognition sociale dans la schizophrénie, et l’importance fondamentale portée au transfert des compétences dans la vie quotidienne, RC2S a été développé comme une thérapie individualisée et flexible, qui permet aux patients de s’entraîner aux interactions sociales dans un environnement réaliste, et d’adapter la prise en charge aux difficultés spécifiques de la personne. Nous présenterons ici trois études basées sur la méthodologie du cas unique, mettant en évidence l’impact de cette thérapie sur les troubles de la cognition sociale de deux patients souffrant de schizophrénie et d’un patient présentant un trouble de la personnalité schizoïde. / In people with psychiatric disorders, particularly those suffering from schizophrenia and related illnesses, pronounced difficulties in social interactions and adaptation are a key manifestation. These disabilities, which are a serious impediment to psychosocial rehabilitation process, could be partly explained by impairments in processes grouped under the generic term of social cognition. Social cognition is defined as the ability to construct mental representations about others and oneself, and about one’s relationships to others, and to use these representations in a flexible way to guide social behavior. It includes abilities such as emotion processes, theory of mind (ToM), attributional style, and social perception and knowledge. In schizophrenia and related disorders, several components of social cognition are usually altered, and are strongly associated with functional outcome and independent but partly related to neurocognitive processes. The impact of several kinds of interventions and particularly of social cognitive remediation programs has been studied recently, and new strategies and programs in this line are currently being developed. The main objective of this doctoral thesis was to assess the feasibility of improving social cognition in people with psychotic disorders, using a cognitive remediation program specifically designed for this purpose, the RC2S program. Considering that the social cognitive deficits experienced by patients with schizophrenia are very diverse, and that the main objective of social cognitive remediation is to improve patient’s functioning in their social daily life, RC2S was developed as an individualized and flexible program, which allows patients to practice social interactions in a realistic environment, and to adapt therapy to the specificity of every patient’s profile. This manuscript present three single case studies, using specific methodology, to highlight the impact of this new therapy on social cognitive impairments of two people with schizophrenia and one patient with schizoid personality disorder.

La maladie de Huntington s’accompagne de troubles des conduites sociales perturbant les relations interindividuelles. L'objectif de ce travail de thèse était de mieux comprendre ces troubles sociaux en examinant les habiletés en cognition sociale de personnes porteuses de la mutation ou atteintes de cette maladie neurogénétique. La cognition sociale comprend notamment la reconnaissance des émotions d’autrui, les connaissances sociales et la théorie de l’esprit, soit la capacité à attribuer aux autres des états mentaux affectifs (sentiments) ou cognitifs (intentions,croyances). Nous avons étudié la cognition sociale à la phase présymptomatique et symptomatique de la maladie de Huntington à l’aide de tests neuropsychologiques et de la neuroimagerie morphologique et fonctionnelle. Ce travail a été réalisé dans le cadre d’une collaboration entre le centre national de référence pour les maladies neurogénétiques de l'adulte du CHU d’Angers et la plate-forme d’imagerie médicale Cyceron de Caen. Ce travail visait à mieux comprendre les perturbations en cognition sociale accompagnant la maladie de Huntington, leur évolution et leurs bases neurobiologiques afin d’améliorer notre compréhension des troubles du comportement accompagnant cette maladie. Nous espérons ainsi pouvoir mieux contribuer au diagnostic, au pronostic et à la prise en charge des personnes concernées par cette maladie. / Huntington's disease is accompanied by disturbances insocial behavior that disrupt inter-individual relationships.The aim of this thesis was to better understand these social disorders by examining the social cognition skills of people with the mutation or the neurogenic disease. Social cognition includes the recognition of the emotions of others, social knowledge and the theory of the mind, namely the ability to attribute to others emotional (feelings) or cognitive (intentions, beliefs) mental states. We studied social cognition in the presymptomatic and symptomatic phase of Huntington's disease using neuropsychological tests and morphological and functional neuroimaging. This work was carried out within the framework of a collaboration between the national center of reference for the neurogenic diseases of adults of the CHU of Angers and the platform of medical imaging Cyceron of Caen. This work aimed to better understand the social cognition disruptions accompanying Huntington's disease, their evolution and their neurobiological basis in order to improve our understanding of behavioral disorders accompanying this disease. We hope to be able to better contribute to the diagnosis, prognosis and care of those affected by this disease.

A Ansiedade de Performance Musical (APM) é considerada uma condição caracterizada por apreensão persistente e intensa diante da apresentação musical pública, desproporcional ao nível de aptidão, treino e preparo do músico. Os sintomas ocorrem em uma escala de gravidade contínua que em seu extremo afeta a aptidão musical devido a sintomas ao nível físico, comportamental e cognitivo, além de déficits no processamento cognitivo e cognição social, em especial na capacidade de reconhecimento de expressões faciais de emoção (REFE). Assim, intervenções que possam corrigir esses vieses com eficácia são necessárias. Nesse sentido, os objetivos dos estudos que compõem esta tese são: a) avaliar o REFE em músicos com diferentes níveis de APM; b) realizar uma revisão sistemática da literatura de forma a trazer evidências sobre os efeitos das substâncias ansiolíticas no REFE em indivíduos saudáveis; e c) conduzir um ensaio clínico, cross over, randomizado, duplo cego e controlado por placebo para testar o efeito da OCT em músicos com alto/baixo nível de APM no REFE, nos indicadores de humor/ansiedade e na cognição negativa. Método: Para se atender ao objetivo realizou-se um estudoobservacional, transversal, com 150 músicos de ambos os sexos, de diferentes estilos musicais, os quais realizaram uma tarefa de REFE, após serem classificados quanto aos níveis de APM.Para atender-se o segundo objetivo conduziu-se uma revisão sistemática da literatura seguindo-se as diretrizes do PRISMA e do Cochrane Handbook for SystematicReviewsofInterventions. Por fim, para alcançar o terceiro objetivo, 43 músicos do sexo masculino, de diferentes estilos musicais participaram de um ensaio clínico, randomizado, cross over, controlado por placebo, no qual testou-se a eficácia de 24UI de OCT intranasal. Resultados:Os resultados evidenciaram que os músicos com altos níveis de APM apresentam um prejuízo global no REFE, expresso, sobretudo pela dificuldade no reconhecimento adequado da emoção alegria, a qual está associada aos sinais de aprovação social. A revisão da literatura evidenciou que poucas substâncias foram testadas até momento, e que as alterações no REFE foram específicas e dependentes do mecanismo de ação da substância no sistema nervoso central, dose e forma de administração. O ensaio clínico apontou uma melhora no reconhecimento da emoção alegria,somente em músicos com altos níveis de APM, após o uso agudo da OCT. Conclusão:O REFE mostrou-se alterado de forma específica em músicos com altos níveis de APM, os quais podem ser corrigidos através do uso da OCT intranasal, a qual desponta como uma substância promissora para o uso clínico / Musical Performance Anxiety (MPA) is considered a condition characterized by persistent and intense apprehension in circumstances involving public musical presentation, disproportionate to the musician\'s aptitude level, training and preparation. The symptoms occur on a continuous severity scale that affects, at its extreme, the musical aptitude due to symptoms at the physical, behavioral and cognitive levels, as well as interfering with cognitive processing and social cognition, especially in the facial emotion recognition (FER) ability. Thus, interventions that can effectively correct these deviances are necessary. Therefore, the aims of the studies that compose this thesis are: a) to analyze the (FER) in musicians with different levels of MPA; b) to carry out a systematic review of the literature in order to present evidence about the effects of anxiolytic substances on FER in healthy individuals; c) to conduct a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over clinical trial to test the OT effect on musicians with high/low MPA level in FER, mood/anxiety indicators and negative cognition. Methods: To achieve the first aim of this study, a cross-sectional, observational study was conducted with 150 musicians of both sexes, of different musical styles, who performed a FER task, after being classified according to the MPA levels. As for the second aim, a systematic literature review was carried out in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines and the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. Finally, for the third aim, 43 male musicians of different musical styles have participated in a randomized, placebo-controlled, cross-over clinical trial in which the 24UI of intranasal OT efficiency was tested. Results: The results showed that musicians with high levels of MPA present a global impairment in FER, expressed mainly by the difficulty in the appropriate recognition of the emotion of joy, which is associated with signs of social approval. The review of the literature showed that few substances have been tested so far, and that the changes in FER were specific and dependent on the substance mechanism of action in the central nervous system, dose and form of administration. The clinical trial presented an improvement in the recognition of the emotion of joy, only in musicians with high levels of MPA, after the OT acute use. Conclusion: The FER was specifically altered in musicians with high levels of MPA, which can be corrected with the use of intranasal OT, which appears as a promising substance for clinical use

La cognition sociale, i.e. notre capacité à attribuer des états mentaux à autrui et à identifier ses émotions, est souvent perturbée dans certaines pathologies telles que le traumatisme crânien (TC). Cette capacité est traditionnellement évaluée à l’aide de tâches sous format « papier-crayon » n’impliquant pas le participant dans une situation d’interaction sociale. Pourtant, la cognition sociale est fondamentale dans nos interactions sociales car elle nous permet de comprendre le discours et le comportement d’autrui. Ainsi, dans ce travail de thèse, nous avons évalué les capacités d’attribution d’états mentaux et de reconnaissance émotionnelle de personnes ayant subi un TC à l’aide de tâches les impliquant activement dans une situation de communication (tâche de communication référentielle et tâche EViCog), ce qui n’a jamais été fait dans cette pathologie. La tâche EViCog (Evaluation de la cognition sociale en interaction virtuelle), créée pour cette étude, permet d’avoir des conversations audio-visuelles avec des humains virtuels, qui expriment des émotions et produisent du discours nécessitant d’inférer leurs états mentaux. Les résultats ont montré que les difficultés des personnes TC étaient encore plus importantes pour la tâche en situation d’interaction (tâche EViCog) par rapport à des tâches traditionnelles au format « papier-crayon ». Par ailleurs, en situation d’interaction, les performances de cognition sociale semblent dépendre en partie des capacités mnésiques (mémoire autobiographique et du contexte), ainsi que des fonctions exécutives, alors que pour les tâches traditionnelles, les performances ne seraient expliquées que par certaines capacités exécutives. / Social cognition, i.e. the ability to attribute mental states to others and to identify emotions, is often impaired in various pathologies, such as traumatic brain injury (TBI). This ability is traditionally assessed with “paper-and-pencil” tasks that do not involve the participant in a social interaction situation. However, social cognition is central in our daily social interactions, as it helps us understand others’ speech and behavior. Thus, in this study, we assessed mental state attribution and emotion recognition abilities of TBI participants, using tasks that involve the participant in a communication situation (referential communication task and EViCog task). The EViCog task (social cognition evaluation in virtual interaction), designed for this research, provides audio-visual conversations with virtual humans, which express emotions and produce speech requiring mental state inference. The results showed that the difficulties of the TBI participants were even more important for the task in interaction situation (EViCog task) compared to traditional tasks in paper-and-pencil format. Moreover, in interaction situation, social cognition performance seemed to rely on mnemonic abilities (autobiographical memory and context memory), and on executive functions, while for traditional tasks, performances were only explained by some executive abilities.