Quantified Self as Epistemological Anarchism

Philosophia - The phenomenon of the quantified self, which is especially addressed by sociology and medical humanities, is still quite disregarded by philosophy. Yet, the philosophical issues it...     

Typical hierarchical processing in autistic adults

ABSTRACT

Previous research suggests that autistic individuals exhibit atypical hierarchical processing, however, most of these studies focused solely on children. Thus, the main aim of the current study was to investigate the presence of atypical local or global processing in autistic adults using a traditional divided attention task with Navon’s hierarchical figures. Reaction time data of 27 autistic and 25 neurotypical (NT) adults was analysed using multilevel modelling and Bayesian analysis. The results revealed that autistic, like NT, adults experienced a global precedence effect. Moreover, both autistic and NT participants experienced global and local interference effects. In contrast to previous findings with children, the current study suggests that autistic adults exhibit a typical, albeit unexpected, processing of hierarchical figures.     

Understanding indirect requests for information in high-functioning autism

Cognitive Processing - Few works have addressed the processing of indirect requests in High-Functioning Autism (HFA), and results are conflicting. Some studies report HFA individuals’...     

A Pilot Study of Emotion Regulation Strategies in a Psychodrama Group of Psychiatric Patients

The researcher analyzed two emotion regulation strategies in a group of adults attending psychodrama psychotherapeutic group at an outpatient psychiatric clinic. The subjects, nine men and 15 women between the ages of 19 and 63 (with 14 subjects in young and 10 in middle adulthood) self-assessed their use of reappraisal and suppression using the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire at the beginning of their treatment and at its end. They use reappraisal rarely to sometimes, regardless of their age, gender, and diagnosis. In the first assessment, the participants in middle adulthood and men reported using suppression more than young adults and women. During treatment, middle-aged adults and men succeeded to decrease their use of suppression significantly more than the young adults and women.     

“What Motivates You Doesn't Motivate Me”: Individual Differences in the Needs Satisfaction–Motivation Relationship of Romanian Volunteers

The present study examines individual differences in the relationship between two core concepts of the self‐determination theory (SDT), namely satisfaction with the autonomy, competence, and relatedness need and motivation (autonomous vs. controlled). Based on the values component of SDT we hypothesised at least two different subpopulations with different need satisfaction–motivation patterns. Data from 349 Romanian volunteers revealed that two groups (or subpopulations) of volunteers can be distinguished, supporting our hypothesis. For the first and largest group, the pattern is in line with the SDT assumption that satisfaction of the autonomy and competence need has an effect on the autonomous forms of motivation. This group is in line with people endorsing intrinsic values. The second group of volunteers, however, revealed that satisfaction with the relatedness need links up with the controlled forms of motivation, and satisfaction of autonomy and competence needs does not predict autonomous motivation. This group is expected to favor extrinsic values. Both relationship patterns were further linked to work engagement and intention to quit, in order to shed light on the practical importance of the observed differences.     

The honest mirror: Morality as a moderator of spontaneous behavioral mimicry

Two studies examined whether morality-related information has a greater impact than sociability- or competence-related information upon the spontaneous mimicry of an interaction partner. Participants were video recorded during an interaction with a confederate previously presented as moral versus lacking morality, or sociable versus lacking sociability (Study 1), or competent versus lacking competence (Study 2). Two coders rated the extent to which participants imitated the gestures of the confederate, participants’ postural openness, and the general smoothness of the interaction. When the confederate lacked moral qualities, mimicry and postural openness were lower, and the interaction was less smooth than when the confederate was highly moral, unsociable, or incompetent. Moreover, our findings showed that global impression is the key mediating mechanism driving such an effect. Indeed, knowing that another person behaved immorally resulted in a negative impression, which in turn hindered behavioral mimicry.