Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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Having an extra sex chromosome is known as sex chromosome trisomy (SCT). This may result in 47,XXY, 47,XXX, or 47,XYY. Previous research suggested that social attention to the eyes is reduced in ...Show moreHaving an extra sex chromosome is known as sex chromosome trisomy (SCT). This may result in 47,XXY, 47,XXX, or 47,XYY. Previous research suggested that social attention to the eyes is reduced in (young) adults with SCT and that individuals with SCT have more autistic characteristics compared to typically developing (TD) controls. It was unknown whether the group differences were also present in early childhood. The current study aimed to explore social attention, autistic traits, and their relation in three subgroups of children with SCT (47,XXY, 47,XXX, and 47,XYY; N = 70), aged 3 to 7 years, in comparison to TD peers (N = 62). Social attention to the eyes was measured using three eye-tracking video paradigms: A single-face condition, a multiple-face condition and a social interaction condition. Autistic traits were measured using the Social Responsiveness Scale-Second Edition. Results showed a difference in social attention between children with SCT and TD children during the social interaction condition. There was no difference in social attention between the SCT subgroups. The SCT group showed more autistic traits than the TD group and the 47,XXX subgroup had more autistic traits than the 47,XXY subgroup. There was a significant relation between social attention during the single-face condition and autistic traits in the 47,XYY subgroup only. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the importance of monitoring socio-cognitive challenges related to SCT in early childhood.Show less
Cognitive control is ubiquitous in daily life. From academic success to eating healthy, cognitive control is needed to monitor and direct goal-driven behavior. Recent findings have suggested a link...Show moreCognitive control is ubiquitous in daily life. From academic success to eating healthy, cognitive control is needed to monitor and direct goal-driven behavior. Recent findings have suggested a link between cognitive control and affective states. Various types of positive affect have been shown to reduce adaptation to conflict in cognitive control functions. In this study, we examine the effects of positive affective touch on cognitive control and activation of corrugator supercilii (facial frowning muscle) during a Stroop-like conflict task. Positive affect was induced with brush stroking at the optimal speed (3 cm/s) to stimulate CT afferents in the forearm. We predicted that positive tactile affect would reduce conflict adaptation and transient corrugator response to conflict. Additionally, we predicted it would reduce sustained corrugator activation during three timeframes: Each trial block, each touch application and the first touch application of each trial block. We did not find robust evidence suggesting that positive affective touch modulates cognitive control, nor did we find that it reduced corrugator response to conflict. Furthermore, positive affective touch did not reduce the sustained corrugator activation in any timeframe. However, our findings showed that positive affective touch reduces the overall transient corrugator activation immediately following a trial response. We suggest that (a) some baseline amount of negative affect is inherent to action selection in conflict tasks, and (b) positive affective touch increases μ-opioid activation in the anterior cingulate cortex which suppresses negative affect. Lastly, we speculate why the affective quality of CT optimal touch might not be strong enough to produce behavioral changes in the Stroop-like conflict task used in this study.Show less
