http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/ The University of Queensland en Fez http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:222892 2010-11-29T00:00:00Z Fox, Peter. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:239791 Recently there has been a trend toward exploring the role emotions play in parenting for both the child and the parent (Zeman, Cassano, Perry-Parrish, & Stegall, 2006). The majority of these studies have been focused on child emotion socialisation (O'Neal & Magai, 2005), with the parental influence being explored through parental meta-emotion (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996). This study was interested in adding to this literature in the topic of parental emotion regulation investigating the role of parental emotion regulation plays on child outcomes. 113 Participant completed Questionnaires which were administered to parents around Brisbane and through online forums. These questionnaires looked at discipline techniques (in particular time-out and corporal punishment), parental emotion dysregulation and a variety of child outcome including behaviour difficulties, behaviour regulation and emotion regulation. Results found the discipline techniques were directly associated with child outcomes and that emotion dysregulation was directly related to child outcomes. A moderating effect was found with emotion regulation and timeout use such that high dysregulation attenuated the effects of time-out. In addition high time out usage in low dysregulated parents led to higher child behaviour difficulties. This study concluded that emotion regulation plays a vital role in child outcomes and should be adapted into parenting programs to optimise program success. 2011-04-06T00:00:00Z Genevieve Smith http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:239747 Conventional models of binocular depth perception (stereopsis) hypothesise that depth perception results from the brain matching corresponding retinal points and computing the differences in image positions on the two retinas. However it is now acknowledged that stereopsis is more complex and cannot be explained by binocular matching alone. Importantly, monocular features arise when objects and surfaces at different distances from the observer occlude one another to different extents in the two eyes. These features are seen by only one eye and therefore have no match in the other eye. Gillam and Borsting (1988) reported that depth was perceived faster when the stimulus (random-dot stereogram) contained texture in the monocular occlusion zone than when texture was absent. Such facilitation of depth perception by monocular features has been demonstrated in various other contexts such as phantom stereopsis and monocular gap stereopsis. Nevertheless Grove and Ono (1999) failed to replicate Gillam and Borsting and have produced contradicting results, showing that same-textured monocular occlusion zones facilitated no more depth than ‘texture-less’ monocular occlusion zones. This thesis aimed to investigate the stimulus and procedural differences between the studies, such as texture (dot density), disparities, and eye movements (vergence) that might be responsible for this discrepancy. Despite three separate attempts there remains no evidence implicating differences in dot densities or disparities as the cause for the differing results between Gillam and Borsting and Grove and Ono. Moreover across all three experiments no significant differences were observed between monocular zone filled and absent conditions in influencing the speed of correct identification of depth in random-dot stereograms. Significant main effects of texture density and disparity were found. The author of this thesis suggests perhaps the size of monocular gap, the method of testing as well as fusional limit might explain these findings. 2011-04-05T00:00:00Z Chin Yan Jackie Yuen http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:220103 2010-11-10T00:00:00Z Gill, Angela C. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:219236 2010-10-27T00:00:00Z Leong, Sook-Ching. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:217448 2010-09-29T00:00:00Z Kiflom, Tadesse. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:219279 2010-10-28T00:00:00Z Kerwick, Anthony. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:221730 2010-11-19T00:00:00Z Ung, Karen. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:218737 2010-10-19T00:00:00Z Lee, Huey Yee. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:219844 2010-11-06T00:00:00Z Crease, Simon A. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:222056 2010-11-23T00:00:00Z Ferguson, Ben. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:222269 2010-11-24T00:00:00Z Wittenberg, Renè. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:220221 2010-11-12T00:00:00Z Mulholland, Patrick. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:217625 2010-10-01T00:00:00Z Bradbury, Harley William. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:239963 Perceiving and understanding the actions of others is an important part of everyday social life. Previous research investigating primate and human brain functioning has provided evidence for a parieto-frontal cortical mirror system that is postulated to play a role in action understanding and imitation. The current study aimed to investigate the role of the mirror system during the observation of actions in different contexts. Twenty healthy participants’ brain activity was measured using fMRI during the observation of hand actions in different conditions – imitate, understand, observe, respond, and passive observation. Across conditions, common activation was found in inferior parietal and ventral premotor cortex, regions previously associated with a mirror system in humans. Pairwise contrasts revealed differences between ‘imitate’ and all other conditions. Additionally, the ‘respond’ condition showed more activation than ‘passive observation’. Crucially we found no significant differences between the ‘understand’, ‘observe’, and ‘respond’ conditions. Although our results confirm the activation of a parieto-frontal mirror network during passive observation of actions, they question the crucial role of a human mirror system in action understanding. 2011-04-06T00:00:00Z Lydia Hayward http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:218872 2010-10-21T00:00:00Z Chen, Chun-Hsu. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:226172 2011-01-04T00:00:00Z Nowland, John http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:275606 It is crucial to understand the impact of television food advertising on food intake given Australia‟s current high level of exposure to food commercials. Consideration of the elements of Gray‟s Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) may provide insight into the individual differences in response to food advertising. In Gray‟s theory, the Behavioural Activation System (BAS) is implicated as the structure that motivates approach behaviours in response to conditioned rewarding stimuli. This study aims to extend previous research using Gray‟s RST to investigate the interactive effects of BAS reactivity and exposure to television “healthy food” and “junk food” advertising on individual‟s “urge to eat”. The effects of television “junk food” and “healthy food” advertising are investigated through an experimental procedure in which participants are assigned to conditions in which they view television commercials for either energy dense “junk foods”, healthy foods or non-food items. Participants also completed a number of self-report measures assessing reward sensitivity and urge to eat (before and after the television program). It was hypothesised that BAS would show a strong positive association with desire to eat in the energy-dense commercials condition, and no association (or weaker) in the healthy food commercials and no association in the no food condition. As hypothesised, individuals high in BAS in the junk food condition showed a significant increase in urge to eat following the video. Those low in BAS showed an unexpected increase in urge to eat in the no-food condition. Both high and low BAS individuals showed an increase in the “healthy food” condition. These results were only evident in Caucasian participants. These results support the proposal that individual differences in reward sensitivity place such individuals at greater risk of over-eating when exposed to images of appetitive, high calorie food. Implications such as the focus on personality in treating eating disorders, as well as increased advertising of the rewarding properties in healthy food advertisement are discussed. 2012-06-12T00:00:00Z Samantha Byrnes http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:239974 When two identical stimuli move towards each other on the same trajectory so that they coincide at the centre of the display and then continue to move past each other, the stimuli can appear to stream past one another or to bounce off one another. Despite both perceptions being equally likely, streaming is the dominant perception in visual-only displays. This perceptual bias reverses to mostly bouncing when additional sensory inputs, such as an auditory tone, are presented at the point of coincidence. This study investigated what effect an observer‟s manual control of the visual targets has on the stream/bounce illusion. The study (n=18) consisted of three tactile control conditions: automatic, in which observers had no control over the motion of the targets; semi-manual, in which observers initiated target motion with the movement of a computer mouse; and manual, in which observers fully controlled the motion of the targets with the motion of the mouse. These conditions were combined with two auditory conditions (tone or no tone at the point of coincidence). The stream/bounce effect manifested in all three tactile control conditions, though it was reduced in magnitude in the semi-manual and manual conditions compared to the automatic condition. A follow-up experiment (n=10) to identify if the participants were aware of the different level of control between the semi-manual and manual conditions revealed a difference in awareness between these conditions. These results suggest that, while tactile inputs promote a streaming perception, auditory inputs are given priority over tactile inputs for the formation of a visual perception within the stream/bounce effect. 2011-04-06T00:00:00Z Bernoff, Micah http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:239981 It has been suggested that empathy-related concern and empathy-related distress are two related but distinct emotions that are involved in an overall empathy response (Batson et al., 1987). Cognitive perspective taking has been linked to levels of empathy, however it remains unclear which model of perspective taking – Objective, Imagine-self or Imagine-other – promotes optimal empathy. State and trait anxiety have also been suggested to have a significant influence on empathy-related responses, however results from previous literature have been mixed. The current study investigated the effect of perspective taking instructions and anxiety on self-reported levels of empathy-related concern and distress felt for a target character in six different emotion-inducing vignettes. Perspective taking was manipulated within-subjects with all participants (N = 52) completing an imagine-self, imagine-other or objective Perspective Taking condition for two of the six vignettes. A Threat of Shock paradigm was used to manipulate anxiety between-subjects. Half of the participants ("threat of shock" group) were presented with an unpleasant electro-tactile stimulus at random during the experiment, the other half of the participants ("no shock" group) were not. Perspective taking instructions were found to have an effect on both empathy-related concern and empathy-related distress, with the Objective condition eliciting lower levels of both compared to the Imagine-other and Imagine-self conditions. Participants in the "threat of shock" condition reported higher levels of anxiety during the experiment and reported lower levels of empathy-related distress for the targets than participants in the "no shock" condition. Implications of the results will be discussed in terms of clinician training. 2011-04-06T00:00:00Z Negd, Monika http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:276348 The current study examines the relationship between maternal reflective functioning (RF) on stress and depression in mothers with preterm infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Research indicates that the NICU environment can cause high level of stress and depression, which impact on the development of a secure infant-mother relationship. Much research has been conducted to determine the factors that predict secure attachment. Recently RF has emerged as a strong predictor. Furthermore, RF has emerged as protective factor for the infant-parent relationship in situations where the family is experiencing high stress levels. The current study will investigate whether RF capacity is related to stress levels and depression in a NICU environment. It is hypothesized that mothers with high RF ability will report lower levels of stress and depression during their child‟s NICU admission, as compared to mothers with low RF. Twenty-four mothers, with 7- to 14-day-old preterm infants admitted in the Royal Brisbane Women‟s Hospital, were interviewed on the Parent Development Interview (PDI). The Reflective Functioning Scoring Manual was used to rate maternal RF on the PDI. The Parental Stress Scale: NICU and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale were administered to measure maternal stress and depression, respectively. The results showed that RF was not related to maternal reports of stress. However depression was found to be related to RF capacity. Mothers with high RF were less likely to be classified as depressed compared to mothers of low RF. The strengths, limitation of the are discussed and recommendations for future research are outlined. 2012-06-26T00:00:00Z Sidhu, Raychelle http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:275669 The role of advertising on alcohol consumption has received substantial criticisms, with longitudinal evidence demonstrating associations between media exposure to alcohol and drinking behaviour in adolescents. The present study aimed to investigate the more immediate effects of exposure to alcohol-related advertisements on affective responses and subjective ratings of desire to drink. Gray’s Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) was used as a framework for understanding individual differences in personality,specifically focusing on reward sensitivity, a neurobiological system proposed to underlie approach motivation in response to rewarding stimuli. Past research has shown that reward sensitivity is strongly associated with responses to alcohol-related cues. The primary aim of the current study was to investigate the influence of individual differences in reward sensitivity on reactivity to varied forms of alcohol-related advertising, including those promoting alcohol use, as well as Government initiatives aimed at reducing hazardous drinking levels in young adults. The results of the study demonstrate that individuals with heightened reward sensitivity, classified as hazardous drinkers, reported increases in subjective craving of alcohol following exposure to alcohol promoting advertisements. Individuals with high levels of reward sensitivity also demonstrated modest increases in craving after viewing aversive Government campaigns. In contrast, non-aversive Government campaigns were not found to influence affective responses or desire to drink alcohol. Observed results demonstrated mixed evidence for understanding the role of reward sensitivity in cued affective responses. Implications for these findings are discussed, along with limitations of the study and directions for future research. 2012-06-13T00:00:00Z Madeline Corke http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:275703 When people have more certainty about what action must be made in response to a future event their actions are faster and more accurate. It is unknown which brain processes are modulated by uncertainty leading to these altered behavioural outcomes. Some research has found that differing uncertainty about required responses predominately modulates central premotor brain processes, while contrasting evidence suggests that the effect is at a peripheral motor stage of processing. Electroencephalography (EEG) gives insight into these different brain processes during preparation for action, with the contingent negative variation (CNV) reflecting central premotor planning, and the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) indicating response-specific preparation. EEG was recorded from 24 healthy adult participants while they performed a response-precuing task. Uncertainty about the upcoming response was manipulated by changing the reliability with which the precue accurately predicted the response cue between blocks of trials. Participants responded faster and more accurately when they had less uncertainty about which response would be required. The CNV was unchanged between experimental conditions, while a foreperiod LRP developed only during the low uncertainty condition. This suggests that people integrate information about the likelihood of required future actions to complete response-specific motor processes earlier. 2012-06-14T00:00:00Z Douglas Fraser http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:219240 2010-10-27T00:00:00Z Lehmann, Timothy Harford http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:218834 2010-10-21T00:00:00Z Ng, Shane Alex. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:221648 2010-11-19T00:00:00Z Garsden, Robert J. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:219652 2010-11-02T00:00:00Z Rainbow, Keven A. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:218808 2010-10-20T00:00:00Z Chand, Parmesh. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:223615 2010-12-06T00:00:00Z Yeo, Damian. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:226882 2011-01-20T00:00:00Z Cameron, J. A. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:278127 2012-07-26T00:00:00Z C. P. Anese http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:219239 2010-10-27T00:00:00Z Kromwyk, Paul. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:218498 2010-10-15T00:00:00Z Barker, Sunita. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:222045 2010-11-23T00:00:00Z Mills, J. W. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:226181 2011-01-04T00:00:00Z Slack, David E. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:294263 2013-03-20T11:03:26Z Lucas, Michelle. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:300147 2013-05-15T10:20:59Z Alick, Quenten http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:294973 2013-03-27T08:42:24Z Wilmot, James. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:219176 2010-10-27T00:00:00Z Hunter, David. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:218087 2010-10-08T00:00:00Z Satriawan, Bondan. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:295479 2013-04-02T11:57:34Z Hamilton, Victoria. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:217489 2010-09-29T00:00:00Z Raniga, Sangeeta. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:221526 No abstract available 2010-11-18T00:00:00Z Loh, H. S. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:222064 2010-11-23T00:00:00Z McConnel, Scott. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:222055 2010-11-23T00:00:00Z Weise, Daniel A. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:219597 2010-11-02T00:00:00Z McGregor, Katharine. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:275856 The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) is a predominantly used measure of Alexithymia. Alexithymia is a condition characterised by impairment in identifying and describing one’s emotions, and an unusual fascination with externally oriented stimuli. Irrespective of the plethora of research that has utilised the TAS-20, there is discrepancy in the literature surrounding its psychometric properties. The current study conducted an exploratory factor analysis on the TAS-20. Two-hundred and eighteen male participantsaged between 17 and 25 years of age, filled out an online survey. This study aimed to investigate the construct validity of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale by examining its relationship with scores on the Autism Quotient (AQ), and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS21). Furthermore, this study aimed to provide descriptive profiles for individuals high on Alexithymia and individuals low on Alexithymia by comparing each group on (1) mean AQ and DASS21 scores, (2) area of education, and (3) the percentage of individuals in a relationship. It was found that a 19-item 2-factor solution provided the best fit to the data. In addition, it was found that scores on the 19-item solution (19-item TAS) were strongly associated with scores on the AQ, and the DASS21. Furthermore, it was found that individuals high on Alexithymia scored substantially higher on the AQ and the DASS21. No differences were found between groups on area of education, and relationship status. Practical and theoretical implications will be discussed with respect to how this research affects individuals with Alexithymia who seek clinical treatment. 2012-06-19T00:00:00Z Biyanka Komandur http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:223600 2010-12-06T00:00:00Z Todd, Tanya Lee. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:222330 No abstract available 2010-11-24T00:00:00Z Forbes, Susan M. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:262037 2011-11-23T00:00:00Z Thaung, Myint