Search results for " Behavioral"
showing 10 items of 561 documents
Earliest Evidence for Social Endogamy in the 9,000-Year-Old-Population of Basta, Jordan
2013
The transition from mobile to sedentary life was one of the greatest social challenges of the human past. Yet little is known about the impact of this fundamental change on social interactions amongst early Neolithic communities, which are best recorded in the Near East. The importance of social processes associated with these economic and ecological changes has long been underestimated. However, ethnographic observations demonstrate that generalized reciprocity – such as open access to resources and land – had to be reduced to a circumscribed group before regular farming and herding could be successfully established. Our aim was thus to investigate the role of familial relationships as one…
Face the Hierarchy: ERP and Oscillatory Brain Responses in Social Rank Processing
2014
International audience; Recognition of social hierarchy is a key feature that helps us navigate through our complex social environment. Neuroimaging studies have identified brain structures involved in the processing of hierarchical stimuli but the precise temporal dynamics of brain activity associated with such processing remains largely unknown. Here, we used electroencephalography to examine the effect of social hierarchy on neural responses elicited by faces. In contrast to previous studies, the key manipulation was that a hierarchical context was constructed, not by varying facial expressions, but by presenting neutral-expression faces in a game setting. Once the performance-based hier…
Continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) on left cerebellar hemisphere affects mental rotation tasks during music listening.
2013
Converging evidence suggests an association between spatial and music domains. A cerebellar role in music-related information processing as well as in spatial-temporal tasks has been documented. Here, we investigated the cerebellar role in the association between spatial and musical domains, by testing performances in embodied (EMR) or abstract (AMR) mental rotation tasks of subjects listening Mozart Sonata K.448, which is reported to improve spatial-temporal reasoning, in the presence or in the absence of continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) of the left cerebellar hemisphere. In the absence of cerebellar cTBS, music listening did not influence either MR task, thus not revealing a “Moz…
Electrophysiological correlates of strategic monitoring in event-based and time-based prospective memory
2012
Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to accomplish an action when a particular event occurs (i.e., event-based PM), or at a specific time (i.e., time-based PM) while performing an ongoing activity. Strategic Monitoring is one of the basic cognitive functions supporting PM tasks, and involves two mechanisms: a retrieval mode, which consists of maintaining active the intention in memory; and target checking, engaged for verifying the presence of the PM cue in the environment. The present study is aimed at providing the first evidence of event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with time-based PM, and at examining differences and commonalities in the ERPs related to Strategic M…
Self-Relevance Appraisal Influences Facial Reactions to Emotional Body Expressions
2013
International audience; People display facial reactions when exposed to others' emotional expressions, but exactly what mechanism mediates these facial reactions remains a debated issue. In this study, we manipulated two critical perceptual features that contribute to determining the significance of others' emotional expressions: the direction of attention (toward or away from the observer) and the intensity of the emotional display. Electromyographic activity over the corrugator muscle was recorded while participants observed videos of neutral to angry body expressions. Self-directed bodies induced greater corrugator activity than other-directed bodies; additionally corrugator activity was…
Executive Functions Profile in Extreme Eating/Weight Conditions : From Anorexia Nervosa to Obesity
2012
Background: Extreme weight conditions (EWC) groups along a continuum may share some biological risk factors and intermediate neurocognitive phenotypes. A core cognitive trait in EWC appears to be executive dysfunction, with a focus on decision making, response inhibition and cognitive flexibility. Differences between individuals in these areas are likely to contribute to the differences in vulnerability to EWC. The aim of the study was to investigate whether there is a common pattern of executive dysfunction in EWC while comparing anorexia nervosa patients (AN), obese subjects (OB) and healthy eating/weight controls (HC). Methods: Thirty five AN patients, fifty two OB and one hundred thirty…
Predicting intention to participate in self-management behaviors in patients with Familial Hypercholesterolemia: A cross-national study.
2019
Rationale. Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH) is a genetic condition that predisposes patients to substantially increased risk of early-onset atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. FH risks can be minimized through regular participation in three self-management. Behaviors. physical activity, healthy eating, and taking cholesterol lowering medication. Objective. The present study tested the effectiveness of an integrated social cognition model in predicting intention to participate in the self-management behaviors in FH patients from seven countries. Method. Consecutive patients in FH clinics from Australia, Hong Kong, Brazil, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, and UK (total N = 726) completed measur…
Impact of the COVID-19 Outbreak on the Behavior of Families in Italy: A Focus on Children and Adolescents
2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed individuals' lifestyles to a great extent, particularly in Italy. Although many concerns about it have been highlighted, its impact on children and adolescents has scarcely been examined. The purpose of this study was to explore behavioral consequences and coping strategies related to the pandemic among families in Italy, by focusing on developmental ages from the caregivers' perspective, 3 weeks into quarantine. An exploratory cross-sectional online survey was conducted over 14 days. Google Forms was employed to conduct the survey. Demographic variables and pre-existing Psychological Weaknesses (PsW) were asked. Adults' sleep difficulties (SleepScore) and …
Quantitative Analysis of Gender Stereotypes and Information Aggregation in a National Election
2013
By analyzing a database of a questionnaire answered by a large majority of candidates and elected in a parliamentary election, we quantitatively verify that (i) female candidates on average present political profiles which are more compassionate and more concerned with social welfare issues than male candidates and (ii) the voting procedure acts as a process of information aggregation. Our results show that information aggregation proceeds with at least two distinct paths. In the first case candidates characterize themselves with a political profile aiming to describe the profile of the majority of voters. This is typically the case of candidates of political parties which are competing for…
Detection of a temporal structure in the rat behavioural response to an aversive stimulation in the emotional object recognition (EOR) task.
2021
Abstract Aim of the research was to investigate whether a temporal structure could be detected in the behavioural response to an aversive stimulation. A fear-related memory task was used in rats, placed in a modified version of the Novel Object Recognition task known as Emotional Object Recognition task, i.e. a behavioural assay that orbits around the declarative memory for an aversive experience. To this purpose, twelve male Wistar rats, divided in two groups (Control and Aversive memory), observed after 4 h (OR4h) and after 24 h (OR24h) from the delivery of an aversive stimulation, associated to a specific object, were used. Data were evaluated both in terms of conventional quantitative a…