Altered interpersonal distance regulation in autism spectrum disorder

Interpersonal distance regulation is an essential element of social communication. Its impairment in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is widely acknowledged among practitioners, but only a handful of studies reported empirical research in real-life settings focusing only on children. However, these studies did not measure the alterations of vegetative functions related to interpersonal distance. Here, we introduced a new experimental design to systematically measure interpersonal distance along with heart rate variability (HRV) in adults with ASD and tested the modulatory effect of intentionality, eye contact, moving activity, and attribution. Twenty-two adults diagnosed with ASD and 21 matched neurotypical controls participated in our study from 2019 October to 2020 February. Our new experimental design combined the modified version of the stop distance paradigm with HRV measurement controlling for eye contact between the experimenter and the participant to measure interpersonal distance in incidental and intentional conditions. Our results showed greater preferred distance in ASD in the intentional but not in the incidental condition. These results were altered with eye contact and the participant's role (active vs. passive) in the stop distance task. Moreover, we found lower baseline HRV and reduced HRV reactivity in ASD; however, these vegetative measurements could not predict preferred interpersonal distance. Our study highlights the importance of interpersonal space regulation in ASD and the need for sophisticated experimental designs to grasp the complexity and underlying factors of distance regulation in typical and atypical populations.

Cybercrime and Cybercriminals

The rising expansion and diversification in the cybercrime arena have become difficult obstacles in order both to understand the extent of embedded risks and to define efficient policies of prevention for corporations, institutions, and agencies. The present study represents a comprehensive review of the origin, typologies, and developments of cybercrime and hacker subculture. This chapter confronts the issues by describing and discussing different criteria of classification in the field and by providing a broad list of definitions and an analysis of the cybercrime practices. A conceptual taxonomy of cybercrime is described as well. Common categories include the digital device is the target to commit the crime, the digital device is used as a tool to perpetrate the felony, or a digital device is an incidental condition to the execution of a crime. The authors complete their study by analyzing lessons learned and future actions that can be undertaken to tackle cybercrime and harden cybersecurity at all levels.

A study of L2 vocabulary acquisition under incidental and intentional conditions

Vocabulary development is indisputably a vital aspect of second language acquisition. In spite of the abundant attention it has garnered over the past few decades, it remains unclear how adult learners fare with intentional and incidental ways of learning. The current study investigated the effects of intentional learning (via studying a word list), incidental learning (via reading), and combined intentional-andincidental learning (via studying a word list followed by reading) conditions on 30 adult learners’ second language vocabulary acquisition. Vocabulary acquisition was measured in terms of percentage gains as well as changes in the depth of vocabulary knowledge. Results showed that while both the intentional and incidental modes of learning led to vocabulary gains, the combined intentional-and-incidental condition resulted in significantly greater gains than either the intentional-only or the incidentalonly condition. No significant differences were found between the incidental-only and intentional-only conditions.

Common Perinatal Genetic Counseling Situations

This chapter highlights common situations in perinatal counseling, including challenging circumstances, complex situations, and ethical dilemmas. It discusses conflicts that may arise from pregnancy termination; the complexities surrounding the identification of incidental findings such as misattributed paternity, discovery of consanguinity, or discovery of an incidental condition; and issues surrounding privacy and confidentiality, including familial implications of genetic knowledge. Also discussed are difficult circumstances such as couples in conflict or nonparticipation of a male partner and dealing with uncertainty in various situations including fetal diagnosis and prognosis, family history, complex conditions, and variants of uncertain significance. Conflicts around fetal sex determination and the disclosure of adult-onset conditions are discussed, as is the situation when a patient asks for provider guidance in making a decision. Barriers to the consenting process are discussed, as are the complexities of practicing in a field of rapidly evolving technologies.

Level of Processing and Age Affect Involuntary Conceptual Priming of Weak but not Strong Associates

Memory for weak and strong semantic associates was compared in intentional associate-cued-recall and incidental free-association tests. This design yielded four conditions (weak/intentional, strong/intentional, weak/incidental, and strong/incidental) on which younger and older adults were compared. Level of processing (LOP) and age effects occurred for the weak/intentional, strong/intentional, and weak/incidental conditions, but not for the strong/incidental condition. Because participants could not distinguish weak from strong associates during the memory tests, these results suggest that free-association priming was involuntary and was not contaminated by voluntary retrieval strategies. Instead, they suggest that encoding deficits related to shallower LOP and older age reduce involuntary free-association priming mainly for associates without cohesive preexperimental representations.

Heart Rate, Recall, and Reaction-Time Measures of Levels of Processing

A problem of circularity emerges in any attempt to index depth by retention alone. In the present study, reaction time (RT), and heart-rate response were used to index the three qualitatively distinct levels of physical, phonemic, and semantic processing. An additional objective was to distinguish between the three levels under incidental vs intentional learning conditions. Subjects were 46 male undergraduates who were given 30 trials. A trial consisted of the presentation of an orienting question and an imperative word-stimulus separated by a 6-sec. interval. There were three types of questions in order to induce processing to one of the three target levels. The results indicated that recall as well as heart-rate acceleration distinguished between two (physical vs phonemic and semantic) rather than three levels of processing in the incidental condition. Heart-rate change differentiated between incidental and intentional, the intentional condition showing a smaller change. Semantic and phonemic RTs were faster than physical RT, but there were no differences between semantic and phonemic RTs. Intentional recall was superior to incidental recall. It is suggested that psychophysiological indices can provide independent evidence for ‘levels of processing.’