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Publication Metadata only Cool, but understanding...experiencing cooler temperatures promotes perspective-taking performance(Elsevier, 2013) Sassenrath, Claudia; Sassanberg, Kai; Department of Psychology; Semin, Gün Refik; Researcher; Department of Psychology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AThe current research examined the impact of temperature cues on perspective-taking. Individuals often start with their own point-of-view when taking another's perspective and thereby unintentionally project their own perspective onto others, which ultimately leads to egocentrically biased inferences of others' perspectives. Accordingly, perspective-taking is enhanced under conditions reducing this egocentric anchoring. In two studies, we show that perspective-taking is enhanced when participants are exposed to cooler rather than warmer temperature cues. Specifically, this is shown to be the case, because cooler temperatures reduce egocentric anchoring in perspective-taking (Study 2). Results are discussed with reference to the literature on (temperature) grounded cognition indicating a link between cold temperatures and social distance. Hence, whereas earlier research has shown that individuals feel more distant from each other when undergoing cooler thermal experiences, the present research suggests that this thermal experience prevents them from over-imputing their own perspectives onto others. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Publication Metadata only Early language-specificity of children's event encoding in speech and gesture: evidence from caused motion in Turkish(Taylor & Francis, 2014) Furman, Reyhan; Department of Psychology; Department of Psychology; Özyürek, Aslı; Küntay, Aylin C.; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; Department of Psychology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/A; 178879Previous research on language development shows that children are tuned early on to the language-specific semantic and syntactic encoding of events in their native language. Here we ask whether language-specificity is also evident in children's early representations in gesture accompanying speech. In a longitudinal study, we examined the spontaneous speech and cospeech gestures of eight Turkish-speaking children aged one to three and focused on their caused motion event expressions. In Turkish, unlike in English, the main semantic elements of caused motion such as Action and Path can be encoded in the verb (e. g. sok-'put in') and the arguments of a verb can be easily omitted. We found that Turkish-speaking children's speech indeed displayed these language-specific features and focused on verbs to encode caused motion. More interestingly, we found that their early gestures also manifested specificity. Children used iconic cospeech gestures (from 19 months onwards) as often as pointing gestures and represented semantic elements such as Action with Figure and/or Path that reinforced or supplemented speech in language-specific ways until the age of three. In the light of previous reports on the scarcity of iconic gestures in English-speaking children's early productions, we argue that the language children learn shapes gestures and how they get integrated with speech in the first three years of life.Publication Metadata only Epistasis effects of dopamine genes on interval timing and reward magnitude in humans(Elsevier, 2013) Wiener, Martin; Coslett, H. Branch; Department of Psychology; N/A; Balcı, Fuat; Çavdaroğlu, Bilgehan; Faculty Member; Master Student; Department of Psychology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities; 51269; N/AWe tested human participants on a modified peak procedure in order to investigate the relation between interval timing and reward processing, and examine the interaction of this relation with three different dopamine-related gene polymorphisms. These gene polymorphisms affected the expression of catechol-o-methyltransferase, which catabolizes synaptic dopamine primarily in the prefrontal cortex (COMT Val158Met polymorphism), D2 dopamine receptors primarily in the striatum (DRD2/ANKK1-Taq1a polymorphism), and dopamine transporters, which clear synaptic dopamine in the striatum (DAT 3' VNTR variant). The inclusion of these polymorphisms allowed us to investigate dissociable aspects of the dopamine system and their interaction with reward magnitude manipulations in shaping timed behavior. These genes were chosen for their roles in reward processing and cortico-striatal information processing that have been implicated for interval timing. Consistent with recent animal studies, human participants initiated their timed anticipatory responding earlier when expecting a larger reward in the absence of any changes in the timing of response termination or perceived time. This effect however was specific to two out of four evaluated COMT and DRD2 polymorphism combinations that lead to high prefrontal dopamine coupled with high D2 density and low prefrontal dopamine coupled with low D2 density. Larger rewards also decreased timing precision indices, some of which interacted with the COMT polymorphism. Furthermore, the COMT polymorphism that leads to higher prefrontal dopamine resulted in weaker manifestation of memory variability (relative to threshold variability) in timed behavior. There was no effect of DAT polymorphisms on any of the core behavioral measures. These results suggest that the reward modulates decision thresholds rather than clock speed, and that these effects are specific to COMT and DRD2 epistasis effects that presumably constitute a balanced prefrontal and striatal dopamine transmission.Publication Metadata only Eyewitness memory distortion following co-witness discussion: a replication of Garry, French, Kinzett, and Mori (2008) in ten countries(AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC, 2019) Ito, Hiroshi; Barzykowski, Krystian; Grzesik, Magdalena; Janssen, Steve M. J.; Khor, Jessie; Rowthorn, Harriet; Wade, Kimberley A.; Luna, Karlos; Albuquerque, Pedro B.; Kumar, Devvarta; Singh, Arman Deep; Cecconello, William Weber; Cadavid, Sara; Laird, Nicole C.; Baldassari, Mario J.; Lindsay, D. Stephen; Mori, Kazuo; Department of Psychology; N/A; Gülgöz, Sami; Gürdere, Ceren; Faculty Member; PhD Student; Department of Psychology; N/A; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/A; 49200; N/AWe examined the replicability of the co-witness suggestibility effect originally reported by Garry et al. (2008) by testing participants from 10 countries (Brazil, Canada, Colombia, India, Japan, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Turkey, and the United Kingdom; total N=486). Pairs of participants sat beside each other, viewing different versions of the same movie while believing that they viewed the same version. Later, participant pairs answered questions collaboratively, which guided them to discuss conflicting details. Finally, participants took a recognition test individually. Each of the 10 samples replicated the Garry et al. finding: Participants often reported on the final test a non-witnessed answer that their co-witness had stated during the collaboration phase. Such co-witness suggestibility errors were especially likely when the witness had not disputed the co-witness's report during the collaboration phase. The results demonstrate the replicability and generalizability of the co-witness suggestibility effect.Publication Metadata only Insulin resistance, obesity and lipotoxicity(Springer, 2017) Dereli, Dilek Yazıcı; Sezer, Havva; Faculty Member; Teaching Faculty; School of Medicine; School of Medicine; 179659; 154807Lipotoxicity, originally used to describe the destructive effects of excess fat accumulation on glucose metabolism, causes functional impairments in several metabolic pathways, both in adipose tissue and peripheral organs, like liver, heart, pancreas and muscle. Lipotoxicity has roles in insulin resistance and pancreatic beta cell dysfunction. Increased circulating levels of lipids and the metabolic alterations in fatty acid utilization and intracellular signaling, have been related to insulin resistance in muscle and liver. Different pathways, like novel protein kinase c pathways and the JNK-1 pathway are involved as the mechanisms of how lipotoxicity leads to insulin resistance in nonadipose tissue organs, such as liver and muscle. Mitochondrial dysfunction plays a role in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance. Endoplasmic reticulum stress, through mainly increased oxidative stress, also plays important role in the etiology of insulin resistance, especially seen in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Visceral adiposity and insulin resistance both increase the cardiometabolic risk and lipotoxicity seems to play a crucial role in the pathophysiology of these associations.Publication Metadata only Lexical richness in maternal input and vocabulary development of Turkish preschoolers in the Netherlands(Springer/Plenum Publishers, 2014) Aarts, Rian; Kurvers, Jeanne; N/A; Vegter, Serpil Demir; Teaching Faculty; N/A; N/AThe present study examined lexical richness in maternal input to Turkish preschool children in the Netherlands and the relationship with their vocabulary. Fifteen Turkish mother-child dyads were videotaped at the age of 3 and 4 in three settings: book reading, picture description and block building. Children's vocabulary in Turkish was measured at the age of 3 and 4 and in Dutch at the age of 5;10. The lexical richness of the input was analysed both quantitatively (tokens) and qualitatively on diversity, density, and sophistication. The results indicate that lexical richness varied largely among mothers, which could partially be attributed to their SES levels and literacy practices. Furthermore, lexical richness differed between the settings, with the highest richness in the book setting. More importantly, lexical richness in maternal input related to the vocabulary of children in L1 (Turkish) and in the longer run also to L2 (Dutch). Quality of the input (diversity, density and sophistication) turned out to be more influential than quantity.Publication Metadata only Neuromodulation of the left auditory cortex with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has no effect on the categorical perception of speech sounds(Elsevier, 2023) Işık, Mevlude; Eskikurt, Gökçer; N/A; Erdoğan, Ezgi Tuna; Faculty Member; School of Medicine; 168716Temporal cue analysis in auditory stimulus is essential in the perception of speech sounds. The effect of trans -cranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on auditory temporal processing remains unclear. In this study, we examined whether tDCS applied over the left auditory cortex (AC) has a polarity-specific behavioral effect on the categorical perception of speech sounds whose temporal features are modulated. Sixteen healthy volunteers in each group were received anodal, cathodal, or sham tDCS. A phonetic categorization task including auditory stimuli with varying voice onset time was performed before and during tDCS, and responses were analyzed. No statistically significant difference was observed between groups (anode, cathode, sham) and within the groups (pre-tDCS, during tDCS) in comparisons of the slope parameter of the identification function obtained from the phonetic categorization task data. Our results show that a single-session application of tDCS over the left AC does not significantly affect the categorical perception of speech sounds.Publication Metadata only Self versus other oriented social motivation, not lack of empathic or moral ability, explains behavioral outcomes in children with high theory of mind abilities(Springer/Plenum Publishers, 2017) Doenyas, Ceymi; PhD Student; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities; 277852Although traditionally it was believed that having advanced Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities led to social competence and prosocial behaviors in children, it has also been shown that some children use their high ToM abilities to strategically manipulate others instead of acting prosocially towards them. It is an important developmental task to understand the factors contributing to this behavioral divergence for children with advanced ToM understanding, which also has significant practical implications for bullying interventions. We contend that this divergence cannot be explained by a lack of moral competence or empathy, but that the existing evidence lends itself better to a motivational explanation. We propose that the direction of social motivation varies across children and the self versus other oriented social motivation determines if children will use their developed morality and empathy competencies in social interactions to act prosocially or instead cognitively divert moral and empathic emotions to avoid negative feelings about manipulating others. We show how self versus other orientation has been used as a legitimate distinction to inform other domains of psychology and conclude by discussing possible correlates and precursors of this difference in the direction of social orientation in children.Publication Metadata only Social factors in bird-song development: learning to sing with friends and rivals(Springer, 2021) Beecher, Michael D.; Department of Psychology; Akçay, Çağlar; Faculty Member; Department of Psychology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 272053Laboratory studies have revealed that social factors are key in bird-song learning. Nevertheless, little is known about how or why birds choose the songs they do learn from the many they will hear under natural conditions. We focus on various theories concerning social song learning that have been offered to date, with special attention paid to two axes of social factors. First, does song learning occur via direct interaction of the young bird with song tutors, or via social eavesdropping by the young bird on interacting singers (social modeling of song)? Social modeling, a hypothesis first proposed by Pepperberg (Zeitschrift fur Tierpsychologie, 55(2), 139-160,1981), and direct interaction are not mutually exclusive hypotheses, and the evidence we review suggests both play a role in song learning. Second, does song learning occur via interactions with rivals (territorial competitors) or with friends (mutually tolerant or even cooperative territorial neighbors). These are largely mutually exclusive hypotheses, and can really only be tested in the field. There is little evidence on this contrast to date. We review our recent study on song sparrows, which indicates that both the young bird and his primary tutor may benefit from song learning/tutoring. If this mutual benefit result is confirmed by further studies, we believe that song "tutoring" in these cases may be more than a term of convenience: that it may qualify as true teaching.Publication Metadata only Spontaneous gesture and spatial language: evidence from focal brain injury(2015) Lehet, Matthew; Malykhina, Katsiaryna; Chatterjee, Anjan; Department of Psychology; Göksun, Tilbe; Faculty Member; Department of Psychology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 47278People often use spontaneous gestures when communicating spatial information. We investigated focal brain-injured individuals to test the hypotheses that (1) naming motion event components of manner-path (represented by verbs-prepositions in English) are impaired selectively, (2) gestures compensate for impaired naming. Patients with left or right hemisphere damage (LHD or RHD) and elderly control participants were asked to describe motion events (e.g., running across) depicted in brief videos. Damage to the left posterior middle frontal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus, and left anterior superior temporal gyrus (aSTG) produced impairments in naming paths of motion; lesions to the left caudate and adjacent white matter produced impairments in naming manners of motion. While the frequency of spontaneous gestures were low, lesions to the left aSTG significantly correlated with greater production of path gestures. These suggest that producing prepositions-verbs can be separately impaired and gesture production compensates for naming impairments when damage involves left aSTG. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.