A Scoping Review of the Effects of Benzodiazepines on Emotions in Young People
subject: Benzodiazpines, Young people, Children, Adolscents, Emotion/s, Emotional dsyregualtion, Non-prescription misuse.
description: Background: Benzodiazepines are primarily used to manage anxiety and agitation. While it is understood how benzodiazepines work physiologically it is not fully understood how these physiological changes cause the emotional changes. As this relationship is not fully understood, it maybe that benzodiazepines also affect emotions in ways not currently known, such as being a factor in emotional dysregulation. Objective: To conduct a scoping review into the effects of benzodiazepines on young people. To map the of the effects benzodiazepines have on emotions in young people and identify any links between benzodiazepines and emotional dysregulation. Design: A scoping review was conducted. PRISMA protocols were followed but other sources such as Cochrane and Joanna Briggs Institute were consulted to develop a framework. Results: This review’s findings suggests that benzodiazepines do reduce anxiety and agitation. However, the research concerning children and adolescents is limited, and suggests benzodiazepines maybe less effective than in adults. There are many adverse effects but despite this prescription use remains relatively high. Non-prescription misuse in adolescents is evident and globally prevalent. Only one direct link was found to emotional dysregulation, but other possible links were also found. Conclusions: More research into the areas of the efficacy of benzodiazepines in children and adolescents and the risks associated with paradoxical and adverse effects is needed. Possible links between emotional dysregulation and benzodiazepines misuse were made and research is needed to understand if this relationship exists and the effects. Any improvement in understanding this relationship will enable targeted interventions to be developed.
creator: Lewis Pares
source: The search was conducted using the following databases: Web of Science, PubMed, CINAHL, Psych Info, Medline and Embase. Searches were dependent on the functionality of the different databases such as different key terms, different abilities to expand search terms and different limiters or age groups, these are all shown in the search terms document in the OSF repository. All searches were limited to English language. No further sources were used to supplement the search.
publisher: Lancaster UNiversity
date: 2021
contributor: Jiqian Chen; yemi oluwaleye
rights: Open
relation: None
format: Excel spreadsheet/.xlsx
language: English
type: Date
coverage: LA1 4YF

An Exploratory Analysis of Cortical Hyperexcitability, Anxious Tendencies, and Sleep
subject: Cortical hyperexcitability, Anxiety, Problematic Sleep
description: Cortical hyperexcitability reflects abnormal or aberrant neural processes and has been associated with visual distortions, discomfort, and hallucinations. Abnormal visual behaviors have previously been found to exist within non-clinical populations. The present study explored the previously implied relationship between anxiety, sleep patterns, and cortical hyperexcitability. Three inventories were used to gather data; the General Anxiety Disorder inventory (GAD-7; Löwe et al., 2008) measured anxiety, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI: Buysse, Reynolds, Monk, Berman, & Kupfer, 1989) measured problematic sleep behaviors, and the Cortical Hyperexcitability index version two (CHi-II; Braithwaite, Marchant, Takahashi, Dewe, & Watson, 2015; Fong, Takahashi, & Braithwaite, 2019) measured cortical hyperexcitability, which is composed of three separate dimensions, or ‘factors’. In order to analyse the three factors, this study utilised three separate multiple regression models (n = 97), and a correlation analysis was used to analyse the relationship between anxiety symptoms and problematic sleep behaviors. Some significant results were found in support of the relationship between anxiety and cortical hyperexcitability. No significant results were found for the relationship between sleep and cortical hyperexcitability. A significant correlation analysis found that there is a significant positive relationship between anxiety and sleep. Collectively, these findings provide additional external validation for the CHi-II as an indirect proxy measure for symptoms of cortical hyperexcitability.
creator: Logan R Caola
source: Participants Due to the ongoing pandemic, 34 participants were gathered from Lancaster University student-based Facebook groups. This was an attempt to gather students in a similar manner to common recruitment without the use of in-person interaction. In addition to the gathered 34, 63 additional participants were used from previously collected data, gathered in-person also from Lancaster University students. Overall, 97 participants were gathered for this study. The mean age of participants was 21 (age range 18-33 years), of which 65 (67%) were female. Informed consent was obtained from all participants. Materials Due to the remote nature of the study, each of the surveys used was a digital variant made on Qualtrics. The Cortical Hyperexcitability II (CHi-II) is one of the first verified measures of cortical hyperexcitability. The CHi-II consists of 30 items and takes 20 to 25 minutes to complete. Each item focuses on a specific experience followed by two 7-point Likert scales, to measure participant’s frequency and intensity of each experience (Fong et al., 2019). The CHi-II can be broken down into three separate factors. Factor one, “Heightened Visual Sensitivity and Discomfort”, which consists of 11 items. Factor two, “Aura-Like Visual Hallucinatory Experiences”, which consists of nine items. Factor three, “Distorted Visual Perception,” which consists of six items (see Fong et al., 2019). For each of the three factors, intensity and frequency scores were added for a global score of each factor, for each participant. These global factor scores were then divided by the number of items in each factor, respectively, to provide an average for each participant for each factor. There are four items that are not part of any factor. Although these items were recorded in data collection, they are not used in this analysis. The General Anxiety Disorder assessment (GAD-7) measures anxious tendencies and has been established as conceptually valid and reliable in measuring an…
date: September 8th, 2020
rights: N/A
format: Excel Workbook “.xlsx” file
language: English
type: Data

Hemispheric Lateralisation of Facial Emotion Processing: A Possible Explanation of Atypical Empathetic Responses in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
subject: Hemispheric Lateralisation, Emotion Processing, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Empathy, Chimeric Face Task
description: Existing research suggests that children with autism are endowed with a significant delay in the lateralisation of facial emotion processing (Taylor et al., 2012), and that this delay is associated with some of the social and emotional based deficits that manifest within the disorder. The present study therefore aimed to ascertain the reliability of Taylor et al.’s (2012) findings by determining whether the strength of lateralisation for facial emotion processing differs between children with and without autism, while also determining whether this difference can explain atypical empathetic responses in children with autism. To explore these aims, an online version of the chimeric face task was administered to 11 neurotypical children and 5 children with a diagnosis of autism. The Child Empathy Quotient was completed by parents of all children, and The Autism Quotient – Children’s Version was completed by parents of children with autism. Results indicated that there was no significant difference in the strength of hemispheric lateralisation for facial emotion processing between children with and without autism, and that the strength of lateralisation did not predict a child’s level of empathy, nor did a child’s autism severity. Instead, levels of empathy were best predicted by an individual’s diagnostic status and age. The present study was therefore unable to support the finding of Taylor et al. (2012) or explain empathy deficits in the autistic population. However, the limitations identified in this study help to inform future research on the relationship between the lateralisation of facial emotion processing and empathy.
creator: Lydia Brooks
source: Participants Participants were recruited from mainstream primary schools, wrap around care settings and specialist educational provisions in the Lancashire area, as well as via social media. A total of 22 parents completed the required questionnaires on behalf of their children, out of which 17 parents arranged a date and time for their child to complete the chimeric face task. One child, who is non-verbal and has received a diagnosis of ASD had difficulty completing the task and selected responses impulsively without looking at, or taking sufficient time to consider, the facial stimuli and the emotion it depicted. For this reason, the chimeric face task was terminated prior to completion and the child’s data was not included in the analysis. The final sample of participants consisted of 16 children aged between 5- and 10-years-old, of which 5 had received a formal diagnosis of ASD (5 boys; Mage = 6.8, SDage = 1.48). One child with ASD had a comorbid diagnosis of hypermobility and sensory processing disorder. All children with ASD were reported to speak English at home, one child was left-hand dominant, and four children were right-hand dominant. The remaining participants were 11 typically developing children (6 girls, 5 boys; Mage = 7.0, SDage = 1.90), who had not been diagnosed with any neurodevelopmental disorders. One of these children was reported to speak Russian at home, however, is fluent in English. All children in the typically developing group were right-hand dominant. Design A two-factor between-subjects experimental design was employed to determine whether the strength of hemispheric lateralisation for facial emotion processing differs between children with and without a diagnosis of ASD. The independent variable for this research question was diagnostic status, a between-subject factor, with two groups; ASD and typically developing. Participants were assigned to one of these groups based on their diagnostic status, which was ascertained by their paren…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 07.09.2023
contributor: Ching Yee Pang Aleeza Sulaman
rights: Open
relation: N/A
format: Data/Excel.csv
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

Does implicit mentalising involve the representation of others’ mental state content?
subject: implicit mentalising, co-representation, joint action, domain specificity
description: Implicit mentalising involves the automatic awareness of the perspectives of those around oneself. Its development is crucial to successful social functioning and joint action. However, the domain specificity of implicit mentalising is debated. The individual/joint Simon task is often used to demonstrate implicit mentalising in the form of a Joint Simon Effect (JSE), in which a spatial compatibility effect is elicited more strongly in a joint versus an individual condition. Some have proposed that the JSE stems from the automatic action co-representation of a social partner’s frame-of-reference, which creates a spatial overlap between stimulus-response location in the joint (but not individual) condition. However, others have argued that any sufficiently salient entity (not necessarily a social partner) can induce the JSE. To provide a fresh perspective, the present study attempted to investigate the content of co-representation (n = 65). We employed a novel variant of the individual/joint Simon task where typical geometric stimuli were replaced with a unique set of animal silhouettes. Half of the set were each surreptitiously assigned to either the participant themselves or their partner. Critically, to examine the content of co-representation, participants were presented with a surprise image recognition task afterwards. Image memory accuracy was analysed to identify any partner-driven effects exclusive to the joint condition. However, the current experiment failed to replicate the key JSE in the Simon task, as only a cross-condition spatial compatibility effect was found. This severely limited our ability to interpret the results of the recognition memory task and its implications on the contents of co-representation. Potential design-related reasons for these inconclusive results were discussed. Possible methodological remedies for future studies were suggested.
creator: Malcolm Wong
source: Pre-test: Selection of Suitable Stimuli Participants Twenty-five undergraduate students at Lancaster University were recruited via SONA systems (a University-managed research participation system) and gave informed consent to participate in an online pre-test that aided in the selection of suitable experimental stimuli for the main experiment. Ethical considerations were reviewed and approved by a member of the University Psychology department. Stimuli and Materials Pavlovia, the online counterpart to the experiment building software package PsychoPy (version 2022.2.0; Peirce et al., 2019), was used to remotely run the stimuli selection pre-test. One hundred images of common black-and-white animal silhouettes were initially selected and downloaded from PhyloPic (Palomo-Munoz, n.d.), an online database of taxonomic organism images, freely reusable under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license . All images were resized and standardised to fit within an 854 x 480-pixel rectangle. Design and Procedure An online pre-test was conducted to identify the recognisability of possible animal stimuli and to select the most recognisable set of 32 animal silhouettes to use in the main experiment. Recognisability was an important consideration because participants would only briefly glimpse at the animals; therefore, the ability to recognise the silhouettes quickly and subconsciously was paramount. The 100 chosen animal silhouettes (as outlined in the Stimuli and Materials section) were randomised and sequentially presented. Each image was displayed for 1000ms to match the duration of stimuli exposure in the final experimental design. The participant then rated each animal’s recognisability on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = Extremely Unrecognisable to 7 = Extremely Recognisable). Additionally, they were asked to guess each animal’s name by typing it in a text box, and to provide a confidence rating corresponding to each naming attempt (again, on a 7-point Likert scale, fro…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 07/09/2022
contributor: Malcolm Wong Aubrey Covill Elisha Moreton
rights: Open
relation: N/A
format: Data/Excel.csv Analysis/r_file.R
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

Does implicit mentalising involve the representation of others’ mental state content?
subject: implicit mentalising, co-representation, joint action, domain specificity
description: Implicit mentalising involves the automatic awareness of the perspectives of those around oneself. Its development is crucial to successful social functioning and joint action. However, the domain specificity of implicit mentalising is debated. The individual/joint Simon task is often used to demonstrate implicit mentalising in the form of a Joint Simon Effect (JSE), in which a spatial compatibility effect is elicited more strongly in a joint versus an individual condition. Some have proposed that the JSE stems from the automatic action co-representation of a social partner’s frame-of-reference, which creates a spatial overlap between stimulus-response location in the joint (but not individual) condition. However, others have argued that any sufficiently salient entity (not necessarily a social partner) can induce the JSE. To provide a fresh perspective, the present study attempted to investigate the content of co-representation (n = 65). We employed a novel variant of the individual/joint Simon task where typical geometric stimuli were replaced with a unique set of animal silhouettes. Half of the set were each surreptitiously assigned to either the participant themselves or their partner. Critically, to examine the content of co-representation, participants were presented with a surprise image recognition task afterwards. Image memory accuracy was analysed to identify any partner-driven effects exclusive to the joint condition. However, the current experiment failed to replicate the key JSE in the Simon task, as only a cross-condition spatial compatibility effect was found. This severely limited our ability to interpret the results of the recognition memory task and its implications on the contents of co-representation. Potential design-related reasons for these inconclusive results were discussed. Possible methodological remedies for future studies were suggested.
creator: Malcolm Wong
source: Pre-test: Selection of Suitable Stimuli Participants Twenty-five undergraduate students at Lancaster University were recruited via SONA systems (a University-managed research participation system) and gave informed consent to participate in an online pre-test that aided in the selection of suitable experimental stimuli for the main experiment. Ethical considerations were reviewed and approved by a member of the University Psychology department. Stimuli and Materials Pavlovia, the online counterpart to the experiment building software package PsychoPy (version 2022.2.0; Peirce et al., 2019), was used to remotely run the stimuli selection pre-test. One hundred images of common black-and-white animal silhouettes were initially selected and downloaded from PhyloPic (Palomo-Munoz, n.d.), an online database of taxonomic organism images, freely reusable under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license . All images were resized and standardised to fit within an 854 x 480-pixel rectangle. Design and Procedure An online pre-test was conducted to identify the recognisability of possible animal stimuli and to select the most recognisable set of 32 animal silhouettes to use in the main experiment. Recognisability was an important consideration because participants would only briefly glimpse at the animals; therefore, the ability to recognise the silhouettes quickly and subconsciously was paramount. The 100 chosen animal silhouettes (as outlined in the Stimuli and Materials section) were randomised and sequentially presented. Each image was displayed for 1000ms to match the duration of stimuli exposure in the final experimental design. The participant then rated each animal’s recognisability on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = Extremely Unrecognisable to 7 = Extremely Recognisable). Additionally, they were asked to guess each animal’s name by typing it in a text box, and to provide a confidence rating corresponding to each naming attempt (again, on a 7-point Likert scale, fro…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 07/09/2022
contributor: Elisha Moreton Aubrey Covill
rights: Open
relation: N/A
format: Data/Excel.csv Analysis/r_file.R
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

Does implicit mentalising involve the representation of others’ mental state content?
subject: implicit mentalising, co-representation, joint action, domain specificity
description: Implicit mentalising involves the automatic awareness of the perspectives of those around oneself. Its development is crucial to successful social functioning and joint action. However, the domain specificity of implicit mentalising is debated. The individual/joint Simon task is often used to demonstrate implicit mentalising in the form of a Joint Simon Effect (JSE), in which a spatial compatibility effect is elicited more strongly in a joint versus an individual condition. Some have proposed that the JSE stems from the automatic action co-representation of a social partner’s frame-of-reference, which creates a spatial overlap between stimulus-response location in the joint (but not individual) condition. However, others have argued that any sufficiently salient entity (not necessarily a social partner) can induce the JSE. To provide a fresh perspective, the present study attempted to investigate the content of co-representation (n = 65). We employed a novel variant of the individual/joint Simon task where typical geometric stimuli were replaced with a unique set of animal silhouettes. Half of the set were each surreptitiously assigned to either the participant themselves or their partner. Critically, to examine the content of co-representation, participants were presented with a surprise image recognition task afterwards. Image memory accuracy was analysed to identify any partner-driven effects exclusive to the joint condition. However, the current experiment failed to replicate the key JSE in the Simon task, as only a cross-condition spatial compatibility effect was found. This severely limited our ability to interpret the results of the recognition memory task and its implications on the contents of co-representation. Potential design-related reasons for these inconclusive results were discussed. Possible methodological remedies for future studies were suggested.
creator: Malcolm Wong
source: Pre-test: Selection of Suitable Stimuli Participants Twenty-five undergraduate students at Lancaster University were recruited via SONA systems (a University-managed research participation system) and gave informed consent to participate in an online pre-test that aided in the selection of suitable experimental stimuli for the main experiment. Ethical considerations were reviewed and approved by a member of the University Psychology department. Stimuli and Materials Pavlovia, the online counterpart to the experiment building software package PsychoPy (version 2022.2.0; Peirce et al., 2019), was used to remotely run the stimuli selection pre-test. One hundred images of common black-and-white animal silhouettes were initially selected and downloaded from PhyloPic (Palomo-Munoz, n.d.), an online database of taxonomic organism images, freely reusable under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license . All images were resized and standardised to fit within an 854 x 480-pixel rectangle. Design and Procedure An online pre-test was conducted to identify the recognisability of possible animal stimuli and to select the most recognisable set of 32 animal silhouettes to use in the main experiment. Recognisability was an important consideration because participants would only briefly glimpse at the animals; therefore, the ability to recognise the silhouettes quickly and subconsciously was paramount. The 100 chosen animal silhouettes (as outlined in the Stimuli and Materials section) were randomised and sequentially presented. Each image was displayed for 1000ms to match the duration of stimuli exposure in the final experimental design. The participant then rated each animal’s recognisability on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = Extremely Unrecognisable to 7 = Extremely Recognisable). Additionally, they were asked to guess each animal’s name by typing it in a text box, and to provide a confidence rating corresponding to each naming attempt (again, on a 7-point Likert scale, fro…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 07/09/2022
contributor: Aubrey Covill Elisha Moreton
rights: Open
relation: N/A
format: Data/Excel.csv Analysis/r_file.R
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

An exploration of the psychological mechanism and effectiveness behind the co-creation process in advertising, based on the ‘Co-create by Sharp’ method.
subject: Keywords: Co-creation, advertising, psychology, behaviour
description: Scholars have referred to co-creation as the interaction between firms and stakeholders to create value. Co-creation for product innovation and campaign delivery is a growing trend in today’s competitive market due to a demand for consumer-centric communication and product development strategies. Even when traditional research techniques are relevant for evaluating brand messaging, they are considered backwards looking. Traditional research techniques (e.g., interviews, questionnaires, focus groups) rely on companies’ terms rather than the customer’s domain, limiting stakeholders to only react to market offers instead of cooperating to build them. The application of co-creation techniques does not replace reactive research but is the new next step to building brand and campaign strategies. The Sharp Agency developed ‘Co-create by Sharp’, a co-creation methodology that aims to build campaign and brand strategies with a higher value of insight than other approaches. According to The Sharp Agency, their unique approach to co-creating ideas with stakeholders has demonstrated effectiveness in their clients’ performance (i.e., 400% of revenue increase, 33% growth speed, and 19% spending increase). However, the method lacks information that supports its efficacy, more specifically, an exploration of the perceptions of people involved in their co-creation methodology (i.e., co-creation participants, Sharp team members, and Sharp’s commissioning clients). This report aims to identify the presence of plausible psychological theories that could support the ‘Co-create by Sharp’ methodology. Accordingly, this study intends to explore the dynamics, perceived effectiveness, and limitations of the ‘Co-create by Sharp’ methodology through a series of individual interviews with the people involved in the process. The researcher worked as an intern in the Sharp Agency, and a qualitative experimental design was used to investigate the research objective. Three types of interviews were …
creator: Maria Gabriela Vivero Donoso
source: The researcher worked as an intern in the Sharp Agency to better understand the company’s way of work and the ‘Co-create by Sharp’ method. The internship allowed the researcher to be involved in various steps of the co-creation method: 1) Attend co-create sessions and observe participant behaviour (see Appendix K and Appendix L). 2) Develop post-co-create decks of information, including sessions’ outputs. 3) Participate in strategic brainstorming sessions. 4) Collate evidence of the final results of messaging and visuals for campaign delivery. A qualitative experimental design was used to investigate the research objectives and provide answers to research questions. Three types of interviews were conducted with different participant profiles, including co-creation participants, Sharp team members and Sharp clients. Interview sessions lasted between twenty and thirty minutes, using a pre-determined discussion guide for each interview and received ethical approval. Interviews were designed to gather insights about co-creation perceptions from every person involved in the process. A qualitative design allowed interviewees to express freely their co-creation experience with The Sharp Agency. Considering the research aimed to explore people’s attitudes, it would not have been appropriate to use a quantitative method. Instead, a qualitative design allowed for gathering a spectrum of people’s observations and feedback. Sampling Representative sampling was used to obtain results that reflect each participant’s profile perspective. Interviewing involved five participants from the latest co-creation sessions moderated by Sharp, seven Sharp team members with roles involved in different stages of the co-creation process (including founders of the ‘Co-create by Sharp’ method), and three company commissioning clients that represent market leader companies (i.e., Medical Protection Service, Barbour ABI, and Lonza). Considering that Medical Protection Service (MPS) and Lonza are pa…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 06/09/2022
contributor: Madie Lulek
rights: Open
relation: None
format: Word.doc
language: English
type: Qualitative Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

An exploration of the psychological mechanism and effectiveness behind the co-creation process in advertising, based on the ‘Co-create by Sharp’ method.
subject: Keywords: Co-creation, advertising, psychology, behaviour
description: Scholars have referred to co-creation as the interaction between firms and stakeholders to create value. Co-creation for product innovation and campaign delivery is a growing trend in today’s competitive market due to a demand for consumer-centric communication and product development strategies. Even when traditional research techniques are relevant for evaluating brand messaging, they are considered backwards looking. Traditional research techniques (e.g., interviews, questionnaires, focus groups) rely on companies’ terms rather than the customer’s domain, limiting stakeholders to only react to market offers instead of cooperating to build them. The application of co-creation techniques does not replace reactive research but is the new next step to building brand and campaign strategies. The Sharp Agency developed ‘Co-create by Sharp’, a co-creation methodology that aims to build campaign and brand strategies with a higher value of insight than other approaches. According to The Sharp Agency, their unique approach to co-creating ideas with stakeholders has demonstrated effectiveness in their clients’ performance (i.e., 400% of revenue increase, 33% growth speed, and 19% spending increase). However, the method lacks information that supports its efficacy, more specifically, an exploration of the perceptions of people involved in their co-creation methodology (i.e., co-creation participants, Sharp team members, and Sharp’s commissioning clients). This report aims to identify the presence of plausible psychological theories that could support the ‘Co-create by Sharp’ methodology. Accordingly, this study intends to explore the dynamics, perceived effectiveness, and limitations of the ‘Co-create by Sharp’ methodology through a series of individual interviews with the people involved in the process. The researcher worked as an intern in the Sharp Agency, and a qualitative experimental design was used to investigate the research objective. Three types of interviews were …
creator: Maria Gabriela Vivero Donoso
source: The researcher worked as an intern in the Sharp Agency to better understand the company’s way of work and the ‘Co-create by Sharp’ method. The internship allowed the researcher to be involved in various steps of the co-creation method: 1) Attend co-create sessions and observe participant behaviour (see Appendix K and Appendix L). 2) Develop post-co-create decks of information, including sessions’ outputs. 3) Participate in strategic brainstorming sessions. 4) Collate evidence of the final results of messaging and visuals for campaign delivery. A qualitative experimental design was used to investigate the research objectives and provide answers to research questions. Three types of interviews were conducted with different participant profiles, including co-creation participants, Sharp team members and Sharp clients. Interview sessions lasted between twenty and thirty minutes, using a pre-determined discussion guide for each interview and received ethical approval. Interviews were designed to gather insights about co-creation perceptions from every person involved in the process. A qualitative design allowed interviewees to express freely their co-creation experience with The Sharp Agency. Considering the research aimed to explore people’s attitudes, it would not have been appropriate to use a quantitative method. Instead, a qualitative design allowed for gathering a spectrum of people’s observations and feedback. Sampling Representative sampling was used to obtain results that reflect each participant’s profile perspective. Interviewing involved five participants from the latest co-creation sessions moderated by Sharp, seven Sharp team members with roles involved in different stages of the co-creation process (including founders of the ‘Co-create by Sharp’ method), and three company commissioning clients that represent market leader companies (i.e., Medical Protection Service, Barbour ABI, and Lonza). Considering that Medical Protection Service (MPS) and Lonza are pa…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 06/09/2022
contributor: Madie Lulek
rights: Open
relation: None
format: Word.doc
language: English
type: Qualitative Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

Neural response to infant-directed speech: gamma band oscillatory activity in 4-month-old infants
subject: Infant-directed speech; neural response; EEG; gamma oscillation
description: Infant-directed speech is an ostensive signal preferred by infants over adult-directed speech. We studied infants’ neural response to auditory stimuli by measuring gamma band oscillatory activity over the frontal area of the brain in response to ostensive infant-directed speech and non-ostensive adult-directed speech. Two groups of 4-month-old infants were presented with the same auditory stimuli, but the two groups differed in terms of visual stimuli (inverted vs. upright faces), being our study a part of a broader research project. We investigated only the auditory portion of the trial. We found that, in the inverted face group, the activation to the ostensive infant-directed speech was significantly enhanced while, in the upright group, this outcome was not found. These findings support the use of gamma band oscillations in assessing the basis of social communication and establish infants’ early specialization in understanding communicative signals directed to them.
creator: Marina Ciampolini
source: Experimental Design We used data that had already been collected for a broader study, designed for the observation of the influence of auditory stimuli on face processing. In the main experiment, a total of 36 four-months-old infants was divided into two groups that differed on the visual stimulus presented at the end of each trial. Immediately after an auditory stimulus in IDS or ADS, the first group was presented with inverted faces, while the second group was exposed to upright faces. Participants in both groups were thus exposed to the same auditory stimuli, just before being presented to the visual stimuli, that were different depending on the group. In this research we focused only on the auditory portion of the trial, where participants were exposed to IDS or ADS (Fig. 1). Figure 1. Representation of the complete trial presented to infants. In every trial, 18 infants were presented with upright faces, while the other 18 were presented with inverted faces. However, each infant was exposed to auditory stimuli in ADS or IDS, regardless of the visual stimulus. The green rectangle shows the portion of the trial analysed in this dissertation. Participants Infants were recruited from the Lancaster Babylab database. All were free of any known neurological, ocular or auditory abnormality and met the screening criteria of normal birth, born full term (gestational age >37 weeks), in the normal weight range (>2500g) and with an Apgar score of at least 8 at five minutes after the birth. In our study we focused on infants’ neural response to the auditory stimuli (Fig. 1). However, the distinction between the two groups was preserved in order to observe possible differences between them. The group exposed to inverted faces included 18 infants (5 females, age range 117 to 161 days, M= 135.61 days). Thirteen additional infants were excluded owing to an insufficient number of artifact free segments (n=10), sleep (n=1), and technical issues during the experiment (n=2). The grou…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 2019
contributor: John Towse
format: Excel files; Matlab files; SPSS files.
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

Examining the Effect of Anxiety on the Development of False Memory
subject: memory, generalized anxiety disorder, confidence-accuracy calibration
description: Up till the late 70s, people believed their memory worked in similar to a video-recorder, accurately collecting and storing every information seen and heard. This belief was brought to question after researchers started thorough investigation on memory, and found that in actuality memory is highly impressionable and prone to numerous errors such as the formation of false memories. There now appears to have been found many causes for the formation of false memories. However, limited to no research exists on the effect of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) on formation of false memories. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of GAD on the development of false memories by using the misinformation effect paradigm. Confidence-accuracy calibration (CAC) was assessed as a secondary analysis. Participants (N = 100) were recruited through online means and took part in a 15-45-minute-long experiment involving neutral stimuli. The experiment consisted of a video of an event and were subsequently asked to read a text description with misinformation after partaking in filler tasks. Afterwards their memory of the original event was tested. Results demonstrate that GAD and false memory are not significantly associated. CAC analysis revealed that participants were relatively aware of when their memory had been distorted by providing low confidence ratings to more inaccurate items and higher confidence ratings to accurately recalled answers. Additionally, false memories created due to misinformation was significantly observed, though GAD did have any influence over this. To conclude, GAD does not contribute to the formation of false memories.
creator: Mariyam Malsha Muneer
source: A total of 100 participants were recruited and provided with an online link through social media sites, ages ranging from 18-50. Out of the recruited participants, 66 identified as females, 31 as males, two as non-binary and, one preferred not to say. The link begins with the consent sheet, and once the participants click to agree, they were then redirected to the start of the experiment. Participant’s anxiety was tested by administering a standardized and validated tool, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire (GAD-7) (Spitzer et al., 2006), (see Appendix B). GAD7 has seven rating scale questions, and the participant’s anxiety was calculated by assigning scores of zero (not at all), one (several days), two (more than half the days), and three (nearly every day). Samples questions include “worrying too much about different things?” and “becoming easily annoyed or irritable?”. For scores ten and above, GAD-7 has a specificity of 82% and sensitivity of 89% (Kroenke et al., 2007). Cut-off points for the scores are a score of five for mild anxiety, ten for moderate anxiety, and 15 for severe anxiety. For the present study, participants who scored nine and below were grouped under “low” anxiety, and participants who scored ten and above were grouped under “high” anxiety. The stimulus set developed by Okado and Start (2005) were used for this study. Two neutral stimuli were obtained, and each stimulus consisted of 50 coloured digital images. These were compiled into a short video, with each image displayed for 300ms, and the whole video lasting 150s. Out of the 50 slides, 12 of them were critical, meaning these slides consisted of an item that would later be altered in the text description of the event, hence providing the misinformation. The two stimuli are summarized below. Stimulus One is about a female named Rachel who was doing her work at home, then feels hungry and checks her refrigerator for food, sees that there is not much at hand, and so goes grocery sho…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 8 September 2021
contributor: Ellen Dimeck, Cati Oates
rights: Open
relation: Open
format: Excel/csv
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YZ