Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

In Search Of The Neurobiological Substrates For Social Playfulness In Mammalian Brains, Stephen M. Siviy, Jaak Panksepp

Psychology Faculty Publications

Play behavior is a fundamental and intrinsic neurobehavioral process in the mammalian brain. Using rough-and-tumble play in the juvenile rat as a model system to study mammalian playfulness, some of the relevant neurobiological substrates for this behavior have been identified, and in this review this progress. A primary-process executive circuit for play in the rat that includes thalamic intralaminar nuclei, frontal cortex and striatum can be gleaned from these data. Other neural areas that may interact with this putative circuit include amygdala, ventral hypothalamus, periaqueductal gray (PAG), and deep tectum, as well as ascending dopamine systems which participate in all …

Language-Specific Tuning Of Audiovisual Integration In Early Development, Juliana Flynn

Honors Scholar Theses

According to the perceptual narrowing hypothesis, older infants look longer towards speech in a native language than towards a non-native language. We presented speech in English, Spanish, and mis-matched English and Spanish speech, and recorded looking-time towards the speech. Results suggest that the synchrony of speech plays a strong role in infants' attention to speech, whereas nativeness of language does not.

Deficits In Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorders When Processing Multiple Objects In Dynamic Scenes, Kirsten O'Hearn, Laura Lakusta, Elizabeth Schroer, Nancy Minshew, Beatriz Luna

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

People with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) process visual information in a manner that is distinct from typically developing individuals. They may be less sensitive to people's goals and, more generally, focus on visual details instead of the entire scene. To examine these differences, people with and without ASD were asked to detect changes in dynamic scenes with multiple elements. Participants viewed a brief video of a person or an inanimate object (the "figure") moving from one object to another; after a delay, they reported whether a second video was the same or different. Possible changes included the figure, the object …

Understanding The Processes That Regulate Positive Emotional Experience: Unsolved Problems And Future Directions For Theory And Research On Savoring, Fred B. Bryant, Erica D. Chadwick, Katharina Kluwe

Psychology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this paper, we focus on unanswered questions and future directions in positive psychology, with a special emphasis on savoring processes that regulate positive emotions. To advance our understanding of the savoring processes underlying positive experience, we highlight three unresolved issues that must be addressed: (1) discriminating the distinctive neuropsychological profiles associated with different savoring processes; (2) developing viable methods of measuring and analyzing the mediational mechanisms involved in real-time savoring; and (3) clarifying the developmental processes through which people acquire different strategies to savor positive experiences across the life span. We propose several potentially fruitful lines of attack aimed …

Relationships Among The Behavioral Inhibition System, Response Inhibition, Heart Rate Variability, And Anxiety Sensitivity Between Older Adolescents With And Without Significant Anxiety, Erin Tarcza Reuther

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Differences in the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS; Gray, 1982), response inhibition, and cardiac vagal control are evident between individuals with anxiety and nonclinical control participants. In this study, the role of inhibition in anxiety was examined, as well as relationships between the primary indexes of inhibition including the behavioral inhibition system (BIS), response inhibition, and cardiac vagal tone (or heart rate variability) at rest and during tasks of response inhibition. Additionally, anxiety sensitivity, an established risk factor for developing anxiety disorders, was examined and how it relates to indexes of inhibition. As expected, inhibition and anxiety sensitivity were found to …

Children's Reinforcement-Induced Suggestibility: Its Developmental Trajectory And Relation To Individual Differences, Elizabeth Rose Uhl

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Research has shown that reinforcement by interviewers can lead children to make false allegations of wrong doing (e.g., Garven, Wood, & Malpass, 2000). The current study examined the developmental trajectory of reinforcement-induced suggestibility and its relation to individual differences among children. Forty-eight kindergarteners, 52 second graders, and 54 fourth graders viewed a science demonstration by a young man introduced as "Paco Perez." One week later they were interviewed about the visit with misleading questions that suggested Paco had engaged in wrongdoing. Half of the children were interviewed using reinforcement; the other half did not receive reinforcement. Two weeks after Paco's …

Prenatal Maternal Stress Programs Infant Stress Regulation, Elyssia Poggi Davis, Laura M. Glynn, Feizal Waffarn, Curt A. Sandman

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Objective: Prenatal exposure to inappropriate levels of glucocorticoids (GCs) and maternal stress are putative mechanisms for the fetal programming of later health outcomes. The current investigation examined the influence of prenatal maternal cortisol and maternal psychosocial stress on infant physiological and behavioral responses to stress.

Methods: The study sample comprised 116 women and their full term infants. Maternal plasma cortisol and report of stress, anxiety and depression were assessed at 15, 19, 25, 31 and 36 + weeks' gestational age. Infant cortisol and behavioral responses to the painful stress of a heel-stick blood draw were evaluated at 24 hours after …

Rat Pup Social Motivation: A Critical Component Of Early Psychological Development, Howard C. Cromwell

Howard Casey Cromwell

Examining the role of the offspring in early social dynamics is especially difficult. Human developmental psychology has found infant behavior to be a vital part of the early environmental setting. In the rodent model, the different ways that a rodent neonate or pup can influence social dynamics are not well known. Typically, litters of neonates or pups offer complex social interactions dominated by behavior seemingly initiated and maintained by the primary caregiver (e.g., the dam). Despite this strong role for the caregiver, the young most likely influence the litter dynamics in many powerful ways including communication signals, discrimination abilities and …