1,721,042 research outputs found
Autism spectrum disorder and early motor abnormalities: connected or coincidental companions?
No full textResearch in the past decade has produced a growing body of evidence showing that motor abnormalities in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are the rule rather than the exception. The paper by Chinello and colleagues furthers our understanding of the importance of studying motor functions in ASD by testing a non-clinical population of parents-infant triads. Chinello and colleagues' findings seem to suggest that subclinical motor impairments may exist in the typical population with inherited non-clinical ASD traits. Chinello and colleagues' discovery also urges us to ask why motor abnormalities exist in typically developing infants when their parents present some subclinical ASD traits. We believe that there are at least two possibilities. In the first possible scenario, motor impairments and ASD traits form a single cluster of symptoms unique to a subgroup of individuals with autism. A second possible scenario is that motor atypicalities are the first warning signs of vulnerability often associated with atypical development. In conclusion, Chinello et al.'s findings inform us that subclinical atypical phenotypes such as sociocommunicative anomalies may be related to subclinical motor performances in the next generation. This adds to our knowledge by shedding some light on the relation of vulnerability in one domain with vulnerability in another domain.Accepted versio
In utero testosterone exposure influences physiological responses to dyadic interactions in neurotypical adults
No full textObjective We investigated how different levels of prenatal exposure to testosterone influence physiological reactions to dyadic interactions, hypothesising that higher levels of prenatal testosterone are linked to greater physiological responses. Method Autonomic nervous system responses to dyadic interactions focussed on social or physical norms were measured. Physiological assessment of excitability (heart rate, facial temperature) and a behavioural assessment (Likert items judgements) were run on 25 neurotypical participants who had distinct testosterone exposure levels in utero. In utero exposure to testosterone was assessed measuring 2D : 4D (ratio between the lengths of the index and the ring fingers). Results Higher testosterone exposure participants showed greater physiological arousal: a greater heart rate decrease, independent from scenario type (p<0.05), and opposite facial temperature changes in response to social (increase) (vs.) physical scenarios (decrease) were found (Left-cheek: p<0.05; Right-cheek: p<0.05). Conclusion These findings suggest a long-term influence of prenatal environment on adults' physiological responses during social situations
Developmental Disabilities and Parenting Across the World: A Scientometric Review from 1936 to 2020
No full textBackground: Developmental disabilities have been largely studied in the past years. Their etiological mechanisms have been underpinned to the interactions between genetic and environmental factors. These factors show variability across the world. Thus, it is important to understand where the set of knowledge obtained on developmental disabilities originates from and whether it is generalizable to low- and middle-income countries. Aims: This study aims to understand the origins of the available literature on developmental disabilities, keeping a focus on parenting, and identify the main trend of research. Methods and procedure: A sample of 11,315 publications from 1936 to 2020 were collected from Scopus and a graphical country analysis was conducted. Furthermore, a qualitative approach enabled the clustering of references by keywords into four main areas: "Expression of the disorder", "Physiological Factors", "How it is studied" and "Environmental factors". For each area, a document co-citation analysis (DCA) on CiteSpace software was performed. Outcomes and results: Results highlight the leading role of North America in the study of developmental disabilities. Trends in the literature and the documents' scientific relevance are discussed in details. Conclusions and implications: Results demand for investigation in different socio-economical settings to generalize our knowledge. What this paper adds? The current paper tries to provide insight into the origins of the literature on developmental disabilities with a focus on parenting, together with an analysis of the trends of research in the field. The paper consisted of a multi-disciplinary and multi-method review. In fact, the review tried to integrate the analysis of the relation between developmental disabilities with a closer look at the scientific contributions to the field across the world. Specifically, the paper integrates a total of 11,315 papers published on almost a century of research (from 1936 to 2020). An initial qualitative analysis on keywords was combined to a subsequent quantitative approach in order to maximize the comprehension of the impact of almost a century of scientific contributions. Specifically, documents were studied with temporal and structural metrics on a scientometric approach. This allowed the exploration of patterns within the literature available on Scopus in a quantitative way. This method not only assessed the importance of single documents within the network. As a matter of fact, the document co-citation analysis used on CiteSpace software provided insight into the relations existing between multiple documents in the field of research. As a result, the leading role of North America in the literature of developmental disabilities and parenting emerged. This was accompanied by the review of the main trends of research within the existing literature
Exposure to Multicultural Context Affects Neural Response to Out-Group Faces: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study
Full text linkRecent migration and globalization trends have led to the emergence of ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse countries. Understanding the unfolding of social dynamics in multicultural contexts becomes a matter of common interest to promote national harmony and social cohesion among groups. The current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study aimed to (i) explore the neural signature of the in-group bias in the multicultural context; and (ii) assess the relationship between the brain activity and people’s system-justifying ideologies. A sample of 43 (22 females) Chinese Singaporeans (M = 23.36; SD = 1.41) was recruited. All participants completed the Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale and Social Dominance Orientation Scale to assess their system-justifying ideologies. Subsequently, four types of visual stimuli were presented in an fMRI task: Chinese (in-group), Indian (typical out-group), Arabic (non-typical out-group), and Caucasian (non-typical out-group) faces. The right middle occipital gyrus and the right postcentral gyrus showed enhanced activity when participants were exposed to in-group (Chinese) rather than out-group (Arabic, Indian, and Caucasian) faces. Regions having a role in mentalization, empathetic resonance, and social cognition showed enhanced activity to Chinese (in-group) rather than Indian (typical out-group) faces. Similarly, regions typically involved in socioemotional and reward-related processing showed increased activation when participants were shown Chinese (in-group) rather than Arabic (non-typical out-group) faces. The neural activations in the right postcentral gyrus for in-group rather than out-group faces and in the right caudate in response to Chinese rather than Arabic faces were in a significant positive correlation with participants’ Right Wing Authoritarianism scores (p p < 0.05). Results are discussed by considering the typical role played by the activated brain regions in socioemotional processes as well as the role of familiarity to out-group faces
Serotonin Transporter Gene Polymorphisms and Early Parent-Infant Interactions Are Related to Adult Male Heart Rate Response to Female Crying
No full textAdults' adaptive interactions with intimate partners enhance well-being. Here we hypothesized that adult males' physiological responses to opposite-sex conspecifics' distress result from an interaction between an environmental factor (early social interaction with caregivers) and a genetic factor (a polymorphism within the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene, 5-HTTLPR). We assessed heart rate changes in 42 non-married male adults to distress vocalizations (female, infant, and bonobo cries). Males' early interaction with parents was assessed using the Parental Bonding Instrument. Buccal mucosa cell samples were collected to assess their 5-HTTLPR genotype. A significant interaction emerged between early experience and genetic predisposition. Males with a genetic predisposition for higher sensitivity to environmental factors showed atypical physiological responses to adult female cries according to their experienced early maternal parenting. Environmental experiences and genetic characteristics are associated with adult males' physiological responses to socially meaningfully stimuli. Understanding the mechanisms that modulate responses to opposite-sex conspecifics may improve personal well-being and social adaptiveness
Infants’ moral expectations about authority figures
No full textExisting literature suggests that infants are able to represent a dominance relationship and hold different expectations towards the actions of dominant and subordinate individuals. However, it remains unknown whether infants’ expectations of moral principles such as fairness and care would be moderated by the social statuses of individuals. The present research investigates infants’ expectations related to the moral actions of an authority figure towards her subordinate and vice versa. In a series of eye-tracking experiments, we tested whether young infants at 18- to 33-month-old expect the authority figure to behave fairly (Experiment 1), that the authority figure should be helpful rather than harmful towards subordinates (Experiment 2), and that subordinates should be helpful instead of harmful towards authority figure (Experiment 3). Results reveal that infants expect authority figures and subordinates to be differentially guided by the principle of fairness and the principle of care. Specifically, infants expect that (a) an authority figure should be fair and altruistic, (b) an authority figure should help and not harm subordinate, (c) subordinate should not harm an authority figure, but neither are they expected to help an authority figure.Master of Art
Exploring the interplay of children's expectations of fairness and authority across cultures
No full textPast research on children’s sociomoral reasoning has widely discussed how children exercise the principles of fairness and authority respectively in reasoning about social situations. However, little research has been conducted to study how children’s expectations of fairness may interact with the principle of authority. Fairness is primarily apprehended as the allocation of resources based on equality, merit, or effort invested. Authority principle, on the other hand, involves the perception of a higher-ranked individual who is ascribed with the role of protecting and maintaining the harmony within the group. Studies in infancy have established that children have acquired the expectations of fairness at the age of 15 months old. Similarly at this age, children have developed the perception of social hierarchy to draw dominance relations. The aim of the current paper is to examine how children’s expectations of fairness will interact with the authority principle, when resource distributions are determined by an authority figure. The current paper also explores how culture plays a role in instilling the idea of authority and fairness, through the emphasis of culture-specific values.Bachelor of Art
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
What men do when a baby cries : increasing testosterone may lead to less nurturant care but more environmental vigilance
No full textInfants’ crying modulates parental behaviors, which in turn, ideally, lead to calming the infant. The mutually beneficial reciprocity between infants’ and parents’ behaviors is conserved across mammalian species. Although some studies highlight similarities in responses to infant cries across gender, other studies report differences in their behaviors and brain activity. Zeifman and colleagues in this Special Issue found that high levels of infant crying can trigger increases in testosterone in men, which is accompanied by less sensitive caregiving. Some interpret males’ lack of sensitive caregiving as neglectful, but these results could be considered as evolutionarily adaptive. Specifically, increases in testosterone levels from intense infant cries could lead to increased vigilance and alertness toward external stimuli, and thus allow males to be better equipped to protect their young.MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore)Accepted versio
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