260851 research outputs found
Sort by
Understanding anxiety in autistic adolescents: the predictive role of interoceptive beliefs and insight
No full textIt is well-established that anxiety and sensory differences are common among autistic adolescents. Interoception has been increasingly studied in relation to anxiety, with alexithymia also considered due to its role in emotional processing and its higher prevalence in autistic populations. This study examined the relationships between interoception, alexithymia, and anxiety in 37 autistic adolescents. Participants completed questionnaires assessing autism traits, anxiety, alexithymia, and interoceptive beliefs, along with cardiac interoception tasks measuring interoceptive accuracy and insight. Correlation, regression, and moderated mediation analyses were conducted. Interoceptive beliefs reflecting autonomic reactivity (BPQ-ANSR) significantly predicted anxiety and remained the only interoceptive variable associated with anxiety in regression models. Interoceptive insight and heartbeat counting accuracy were both associated with alexithymia, although alexithymia did not predict anxiety and did not mediate the interoception–anxiety relationship. Moderated mediation analyses showed that autism traits amplified the direct effect of interoceptive beliefs on anxiety. These findings highlight the importance of considering subjective interoceptive beliefs, particularly those perceived as distressing, rather than focusing solely on objective accuracy. They further suggest that interoceptive-affective mismatches may initially manifest as alexithymia during adolescence, potentially serving as a precursor to later anxiety. Lay summary: Autistic adolescents that reported greater attention to feelings from their autonomic nervous system (the system that controls processes in the body such as heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, and breathing), but not generally from their bodies, also reported being more anxious. The other factors explored, namely participants’ accuracy at detecting their internal bodily signals and their reported difficulty identifying and understanding their emotions (alexithymia), were not associated with anxiety. However, adolescents who were more accurate at detecting their heartbeats, or more aware of their bodily signals, tended to report greater difficulty identifying and describing their emotions. While alexithymia was not linked to anxiety in this age group, these difficulties may play a role in emotional development and could contribute to anxiety later in life. We also found that autistic traits strengthened the link between distressing bodily sensations and anxiety.</p
Data from research into how digital delivery of services excludes marginalised groups, and what types of digital social exclusion occur
No full textThis data is from a paper which explores the research question “How does digital delivery of services exclude marginalised groups, and what types of digital social exclusion occur?”. The aim of this grounded theory study was to understand the impacts of the rapid digitisation of services on communities with intermittent or poor digital connectivity. We conducted a qualitative study with 24 intermediaries who were helping digitally excluded people to gain access to services in two UK cities (London and Brighton) and one US city (New York). This research shows not only that digital exclusion is persisting, but that new forms of exclusion have emerged in which people are excluded through poverty, through being dependent on intermediaries to access digital services, by a lack of digital skills and through being forced to access poorly designed services. Drawing on these ideas and theories of social exclusion, adverse incorporation and marginalisation, our research findings suggest that digital exclusion is leading to new forms of exclusion that we conceptualise as “digital marginalisation”.</p
The need for a systems approach to better understand the linkages between natural resources and human (im)mobility
No full textTo date, much of the climate change literature express alarmist and groundless narratives. This includes simple linkages between natural resource loss, forced migration and violent conflict mediated through climate change, or attribution of natural resource decline to climate change, that rather relates to mismanagement, governance, and politics. There is also a mobility-bias where natural resource impacts upon immobile or ‘trapped’ people often get overlooked. More systems approach studies could widen our understanding of how the natural environment ties into people’s decisions to move or stay. In this article, we build on case study examples to propose how a systems approach can be a way forward to investigate the relationship between natural resources and human (im)mobility. We believe that the value of a systems lens is that it serves as a flexible, holistic, and effective way to identify policy interventions points and existing research gaps.</p
Robot metacognition: decision making with confidence for tool invention
No full textRobots today often miss a key ingredient of truly intelligent behavior: the ability to reflect on their own cognitive processes and decisions. In humans, this self-monitoring or metacognition is crucial for learning, decision making and problem solving. For instance, they can evaluate how confident they are in performing a task, thus regulating their own behavior and allocating proper resources. Taking inspiration from neuroscience, we propose a robot metacognition architecture centered on confidence (a second-order judgment on decisions) and we demonstrate it on the use case of autonomous tool invention. We propose the use of confidence as a metacognitive measure within the robot decision making scheme. Confidence-informed robots can evaluate the reliability of their decisions, improving their robustness during real-world physical deployment. This form of robotic metacognition emphasizes embodied action monitoring as a means to achieve better informed decisions. We also highlight potential applications and research directions for robot metacognition.</p
The emotional labour of labour research: reflections on Guanxi network when conducting fieldwork in mainland China
No full textThis article aims to shed light on the conditions and challenges of conducting fieldwork in China today, presenting the authors’ experiences of building and maintaining guanxi relationships with research participants in China. We explore the benefits, tensions, implications for research quality, and rigour, as well as impacts on academic labour. A central conclusion is that academics must master both sentiment and instrumental elements of their guanxi network, without breaking the professional code of conduct. We hope our article can promote more academic conversation on these challenges, considering that, in practice, guanxi networks are crucial to successful field research experiences in China, where access to valuable participants has become increasingly constrained in recent years.</p
