Emotional face recognition in autism and in cerebral visual impairments: In search for specificity

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties in the social domain, but also by hyper- and hypo-reactivity. Atypical visual behaviours and processing have often been observed. Nevertheless, several similar signs are also identified in other clinical conditions including cerebral visual impairments (CVI). In the present study, we investigated emotional face categorization in groups of children with ASD and CVI by comparing each group to typically developing individuals (TD) in two tasks. Stimuli were either non-filtered or filtered by low- and high-spatial frequencies (LSF and HSF). All participants completed the autism spectrum quotient score (AQ) and a complete neurovisual evaluation. The results show that while both clinical groups presented difficulties in the emotional face recognition tasks and atypical processing of filtered stimuli, they did not differ from one another. Additionally, autistic traits were observed in the CVI group and symmetrically, some visual disturbances were present in the ASD group as measured via the AQ score and a neurovisual evaluation, respectively. The present study suggests the relevance of comparing ASD to CVI by showing that emotional face categorization difficulties should not be solely considered as autism-specific but merit investigation for potential dysfunction of the visual processing neural network. These results are of interest in both clinical and research perspectives, indicating that systematic visual examination is warranted for individuals with ASD.     

Social status and friendship in peer victimization trajectories

Background/Objective: Most studies have evaluated victimization at a single time point, making it difficult to determine the impact of the time during which an individual is victimized. This longitudinal study aims to examine the differences in the levels of social status (social preference and perceived popularity) and friendship in peer victimization trajectories, and to analyse if there were changes over time in the levels of social status and friendship in each trajectory. Method: The final sample was composed of 1,239 students (49% girls) with ages between 9 and 18 (M = 12.23, SD = 1.73), from 22 schools in southern Spain. Peer nominations were collected. Results: The General Linear Model results associated the highest levels of social preference, perceived popularity and friendship with the sporadic victimization profile and the lowest levels of these dimensions with the stable profile. Conclusions:The results are discussed based on important personal aspects of stable victimization that confirms social rejection, unpopularity, and the low social support that victimization causes. This contribution is discussed in terms of health and social welfare in adolescence.     

DISCUSSION: BEHAVIORAL PROCEDURES FOR TRAINING DIRECT CARE STAFF IN FACILITIES SERVING DEPENDENT POPULATIONS

Behavioral training techniques of direct care staff have helped institutions serving dependent populations to progress from custodial settings to therapeutic environments. Most of the recent literature on staff training has focused on contingency management procedures, especially feedback procedures. Long-term studies of these procedures suggest that individual verbal feedback on the performance of the staff member is the best assurance of maintenance of these procedures.     

Sex differences in the perceived causal structure of date rape: A preliminary report

The present study examines the perceived causes of date rape by the use of network analysis. The 142 subjects in the study were presented with grids containing 9 causes listed by row and column. They were asked to indicate if they belived there was a causal link between each of the 72 causal pairings. The resulting network placed emphasis on male and female drunkenness, norms of dating, and society's attitude to date rape as distal causes of date rape. Misunderstanding of behavior by men, male attitude that date rape is unimportant, and need by males for dominance were seen as proximal causes. Further networks for each sex were constructed: these showed clear division of opinion on the causes of date rape. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Termination of information evaluation in auditing

A screening decision is about whether a candidate fails to meet a decision maker's criteria and must be rejected, or whether it meets the criteria and can be accepted. Image theory contends that screening decisions are based on a simple, noncompensatory process that focuses solely upon the candidate's negative attributes. This contention has received empirical support in a job screening context in which students role-played a hypothetical person seeking a job. But how robust is image theory's prediction? The present work was done in the context of professional auditors screening prospective clients. The client screening context is a particularly interesting setting to test the implications of image theory. If auditors reject clients with negative attributes, as predicted by image theory, this will indicate that some clients are being denied access to a socially useful service. Further, auditors can accept prospective clients with negative attributes and simply adjust the audit plan and fees to compensate for the client's riskiness. Thus, it is not clear that the preliminary findings obtained in a job screening context will generalize to the audit context. On the other hand, results consistent with the image theory prediction would suggest a robust theory. Even in the client screening context, where auditors used their own criteria to screen prospective clients, we found overwhelming support for image theory's view of screening. The results indicate the potential payoffs of image theory as a robust framework to address audit and other substantive problems. Implications of a noncompensatory, negative oriented, client screening strategy are discussed.     

Showing-off behaviour of nursery children

Assertive behaviours like showing-off have an important role for a child in getting attention from other children in a class without being aggressive. This study presented the showing-off behaviour in an English nursery school, and later it was discussed in comparison with that in the German kindergartens reported by Hold-Cavell. As a result, the English children performed showing-off behaviours at only one-half the frequency of German children. No sex difference was seen in either showing-off or physical aggression in the nursery class. The frequency of showing-off did not correlate with that of physical aggression; this result is discussed in terms of Hinde's motivational postulate. Showing-off behaviour is deserving of the further studies cross-culturally and onto-genetically.     

Defensive reactions of “wild-type” and “Domesticated” wild rats to approach and contact by a threat stimulus

Selective breeding of wild rats over many generations on the basis of low or high defensive threat and attack to human approach and contact has produced highly polarized “domesticated” and “wild-type” animals. Because the selection procedure selectively involves these two defense patterns, and these clearly differ in the two groups, it is of interest to determine if other, nonselected, defensive behaviors to threat stimuli also change. “Domesticated” and “wild-type” rats of the thirty-fifth generation were run in a fear defense test battery (F/DTB) to systematically evaluate defensive behaviors to a variety of present threat stimuli. “Domesticated” rats showed reduced avoidance and slower flight speed to an approaching experimenter, reduced jump/startle response to handelap and dorsal contact, less vocalization and boxing to vibrissae stimulation or to an anesthetized conspecific, and reduced defensiveness to an attempted pickup by the experimenter. These results indicate that selective bi-directional breeding for defensive threat and attack to human approach and contact produces group differences in a variety of defensive behaviors, and in defensiveness to stimuli other than those on which the selection was based. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.