Individual differences are thought to underlie how someone reacts to threat, some people tend to fight-or flight, others tend to freeze. These reactions to threat are often measured by looking at...Show moreIndividual differences are thought to underlie how someone reacts to threat, some people tend to fight-or flight, others tend to freeze. These reactions to threat are often measured by looking at the autonomic nervous system response in a threat conditioning paradigm. There has been a focus in the literature on the sympathetic reaction, but now the importance of also looking at the parasympathetic responses has become more evident, especially with regard to resilience in developing anxiety-related psychopathology. Childhood maltreatment is likely to be an individual factor that can influence threat conditioning. In this study we used a large sample size (n=174) in which we included both sympathetic (skin conductance responses) and dominantly parasympathetic (heart rate) measures in a threat conditioning paradigm to test whether threat learning can be reflected in both branches of the autonomic nervous system. We also aimed to replicate the findings of Jaswetz et al., (2023) with regard to the coherence of these two branches. Additionally, we investigated the possible influence of childhood maltreatment on sympathetic and parasympathetic reactions within the same threat conditioning paradigm. Indeed, we found that threat learning is successful on parasympathetic measures. We were not able to replicate the findings of Jaswetz et al., (2023) in which a possible pattern of the sympathetic and parasympathetic responses was found. Furthermore, our results suggest that more severe childhood maltreatment does not affect responses in a threat conditioning paradigm, neither on sympathetic nor parasympathetic measures. In conclusion we can say that our study sheds new light on the influence of childhood maltreatment in threat learning since our results suggest that threat learning is not affected by prior experiences of childhood maltreatment when tested in a large sample size.Show less
The present study investigated what the influence of media is on the comprehension skill of students in upper primary school, where a distinction is made in their reading proficiency skill, age and...Show moreThe present study investigated what the influence of media is on the comprehension skill of students in upper primary school, where a distinction is made in their reading proficiency skill, age and intrinsic motivation. Reading comprehension is a very complex skill, which consist of two components: basic language skills and comprehension skills. The inference skill is one of the comprehension skills, which could possible also be trained in other modes than reading. Previous studies haven’t shown the difference between individuals yet. In the current study 31 participants from grade 4, 5 and 6 completed three comprehending tasks: reading, listening and watching a narrative story. In the analyses are the independent, between variables: reading proficiency skill, age and intrinsic motivation and the dependent, within variables: reading, listening and watching. The findings from the current study highlights there are no differences between media modes and readers based on decoding skills, media and ages, and media and intrinsic motivation. Indeed the findings show that there are differences between media and readers with a weak performance in comprehension. Weak comprehenders show lower performance scores for the reading task than strong comprehenders, however they are no differences found in the listening and watching task. To conclude weak comprehenders possess comprehension skills by the use of other media, but experience difficulties with reading processes.Show less
