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LA MENTE EMPATICA NELL’AUTISMO: Validazione Italiana del Cambridge Sympathy Test (CST)
No full textI pazienti con autismo presentano un insieme eterogeneo di anomalie del neurosviluppo che comporta deficit nelle abilità sociali, delle difficoltà comunicative e la presenza di stereotipie. Tra le abilità sociali fondamentali rientra l’empatia, ovvero la capacità di condividere i sentimenti altrui osservando il loro stato affettivo, e che porta ad una risposta affettiva isomorfica nell’osservatore. L’empatia affettiva è composta da diversi componenti tra cui la compassione e il disagio personale. La compassione è la capacità di sentire la tristezza e sofferenza altrui e genera comportamenti prosociali. Il disagio personale, invece, è la capacità di un individuo di provare sofferenza personale nel sentire l’emozione dell’altro e può portare la persona a evitare l’altro per alleviare la sua sofferenza. E’ dibattuto se l’empatia affettiva sia ridotta nei soggetti con autismo e/o quale delle due componenti sia effettivamente deficitaria o intatta. Inoltre, la letteratura scientifica riporta differenze di genere legati all’empatia (le donne solitamente mostrano livelli più alti), ma questa differenza nei pazienti con autismo sembra essere ridotta.
Nonostante esistano vari strumenti per misurare l’empatia affettiva, pochi sono quelli che differenziano tra compassione e disagio personale. Uno di questi strumenti è il Cambridge Sympathy Test (CST) ideato dell’Autism Research Centre di Cambridge. Il presente studio si propone di validare il CST su un campione italiano in collaborazione con i ricercatori dell’Autism Research Centre di Cambridge.
Il campione totale è costituito da 145 soggetti divisi in due gruppi: gruppo sperimentale con autismo (ASD) e gruppo di controllo normotipico (TD). Nello specifico, 44 sono i partecipanti con autismo (33 maschi; 11 femmine; età media 23,62 (SD 8,46)) mentre 101 sono i controlli normotipici (45 maschi; 56 femmine; età media 24,72 (SD 7,07)). Tutti i partecipanti hanno completato il CST ai quali veniva chiesto di valutare delle immagini che rappresentavano scene a contenuto emotivo oppure neutre, usando una scala likert da 1-6 in base al loro vissuto compassionevole e al grado di disagio personale. Tutti i partecipanti hanno inoltre completato il Quoziente di Empatia (EQ), il Quoziente di Autismo (AQ) e le Matrici di Raven.
L’ANOVA evidenzia una differenza significativa per il fattore gruppo e un trend per il fattore genere, eppure l’interazione gruppo*genere risulta significativa. Nello specifico le femmine del gruppo di controllo riportano valori più alti se confrontati con i maschi del rispettivo gruppo sia per la compassione che per il disagio personale. Inoltre, si riscontra una differenza significativa tra le femmine del gruppo ASD e le femmine del gruppo TD sia per la compassione che per il disagio personale. Si osserva anche una correlazione positiva tra EQ e i punteggi di compassione e disagio personale in tutti i partecipanti, e una correlazione negativa tra AQ e le due componenti dell’empatia affettiva (compassione e disagio personale). Differenziando per genere, la correlazione con i valori del EQ e AQ riporta simili risultati anche per il gruppo esclusivamente femminile, tuttavia il gruppo maschile presenta una correlazione tra le due componenti dell’empatia affettiva e l’EQ, ma non con l’AQ.
In sintesi, i dati raccolti su campione italiano confermano i dati raccolti originariamente dell’Autism Research Centre di Cambridge.Patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit a heterogeneous set of neurodevelopmental anomalies that result in deficits in social skills, communication difficulties, and the presence of stereotypies. Empathy is one of the essential social abilities. the ability to share the feelings of others by observing their emotional state, leading to an isomorphic affective response in the observer. Affective empathy is composed of several components, including compassion and personal distress. Compassion is the ability to feel the sadness and suffering of others and generates prosocial behaviors. Personal distress, on the other hand, is an individual's ability to experience personal suffering when feeling the emotions of another and can lead the person to avoid the other to alleviate their own pain.
It is debated whether affective empathy is reduced in individuals with ASD and/or which of the two components is actually deficient or intact. Furthermore, the scientific literature reports gender differences related to empathy (women usually show higher levels), but this difference in patients with ASD seems to be reduced.
Despite the existence of various instrument to measure affective empathy, few of them differentiate between compassion and personal distress. One such tool is the Cambridge Sympathy Test (CST), developed by the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge. The present study aims to validate the CST on an Italian sample in collaboration with researchers at the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge.
The total sample consists of 145 subjects divided into two groups: an experimental group with ASD and a neurotypical control group. Specifically, 44 participants with autism (33 males; 11 females; mean age 23.62 (SD 8.46)) and 101 neurotypical controls (45 males; 56 females; mean age 24.72 (SD 7.07)) were included in the study. During the administration of the CST, participants were instructed to rate their compassion or distress by viewing images depicting emotional or neutral scenes on a scale of 1–6. All participants also completed the Empathy Quotient (EQ), Autism-Quotient (AQ), and Raven's Matrices.
The ANOVA revealed a significant difference for the group factor and a trend for the gender factor, yet the group*gender interaction was significant. Specifically, females in the control group reported higher values compared to males in the same group for both compassion and personal distress. Furthermore, a significant difference was found between females in the ASD group and females in the TD group for both compassion and personal distress. A positive correlation was also found between EQ and scores of compassions and personal distress in all participants, and a negative correlation between AQ and the two components of affective empathy (compassion and personal distress). Differentiating by gender, the correlation with EQ and AQ values reported similar results for the exclusively female group, however, the male group presented a correlation between the two components of affective empathy and EQ, but not with AQ.
In summary, the data collected on an Italian sample confirm the results originally collected by the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge
Giocare, narrare, agire: il loro effetto sullo sviluppo cognitivo, linguistico e motorio nei bambini in età prescolare. .
Full text linkTwo groups of preschooler children played with plush toys or construction toys telling and acting stories under the guidance of a psychologist. The aim of the study was to evaluate if the relation between story-telling and -acting im- proved cognitive and motor development of preschooler children respect to a con- trol group. Both experimental groups, regardless the type of toy, improved their non-verbal fluid reasoning competence, narrative abilities and, surprisingly, also imitating hand positions skills. Most interestingly, children who played with con- struction toy have marked improvement in their visuospatial abilities
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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