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3 The Aesthetics of Empathy in Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum
- Kutter D Callaway, Kaitlyn A Nogales, Lynn K Paul, Warren S Brown
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- Journal:
- Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 29 / Issue s1 / November 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 December 2023, pp. 6-7
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Objective:
Previous research suggests that individuals with isolated Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum (AgCC) have cognitive and psychosocial deficiencies that include impaired recognition of the emotions of others (Symington et al., 2010) and a diminished ability to infer and describe the emotions of others (Paul et al., 2021; Turk et al., 2010). In addition, galvanic skin responses effectively discriminated between emotional images despite atypical emotion ratings (Paul et al, 2006), supporting a dissociation between cognitive and affective empathy in AgCC. Likewise, atypical patterns of visual attention to faces corresponded with impaired emotion recognition in AgCC (Bridgman et al, 2014), suggesting that atypical visual attention in AgCC negatively impacts the ability to identify others’ emotions. This study used the Multifaceted Empathy Test [MET] (Foell et al., 2018) to examine the impact of visual aesthetics (photo composition) on empathetic feelings (affective empathy) and situational emotion recognition (cognitive empathy) in persons with AgCC. Both cognitive and affective empathy scores are typically higher on MET stimuli composed according to the “Golden Spiral” (Callaway, 2022).
Participants and Methods:Results from 50 control participants recruited from Cloud Research were compared to responses from 19 participants with AgCC and normal-range FSIQ (>80). Data was gathered through an online version of the MET, which uses a series of photographs of individuals displaying an emotion, half of which adhere to the compositional technique known as “The Golden Spiral.” To measure cognitive empathy, the participants are asked to pick the correct emotion being displayed with three distractors for each item. To measure affective empathy, they are then asked on a sliding scale, “how much do you empathize with the person shown” (1 = Not at all, 7 = Very much).
Results:Repeated measures mixed ANOVAs revealed no difference between AgCC and control groups on affective empathy, and as expected on the MET, both groups had significantly higher ratings for photos composed according to the Golden Spiral (AgCC, np2 = .071; control, np2 = .136). In contrast, the AgCC group scored significantly lower than controls overall on cognitive empathy, np2 =.065. Exploratory post-hoc found a significant group difference in cognitive empathy only on photos composed according to the Golden Spiral, np2 = .090, with the scores in the AgCC group unimpacted by composition type while the control group exhibiting significantly higher scores Golden Spiral images, np2 = .254.
Conclusions:Empathic deficits in AgCC were restricted to the cognitive component, while affective empathy was not impaired. Visual aesthetics of photo composition influenced affective empathy ratings in both AgCC and control groups. However, adults with AgCC had diminished ability to give cognitive labels to the emotional states of others, which was not enhanced by the formal aesthetics of stimuli. Thus the corpus callosum seems to facilitate the ability to cognitively label emotions by facilitating visual attention. It also suggests that the corpus callosum does not facilitate affective empathy, in part because it does not appear to determine whether formal aesthetics influences the processing of visual stimuli in AgCC or neurotypical controls.
41 Aesthetic Perception in Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum
- Nathan M. LeFebre, Kutter D. Callaway, Lynn K. Paul, Warren S. Brown
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- Journal:
- Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 29 / Issue s1 / November 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 December 2023, p. 829
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Objective:
Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum (AgCC) is the congenital absence of all or part of the corpus callosum. Previous research has demonstrated that isolated AgCC results in a pattern of cognitive and psychosocial deficiencies, even when FSIQ is in the normal range (FSIQ > 80; Brown & Paul, 2019). Importantly, individuals with AgCC have been shown to provide narratives containing fewer emotional words, social interactions, and mental inferences on the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT; Turk et al., 2009). Similarly, research has suggested deficits in the elaborative imagination of persons with AgCC when they are providing narrative descriptions of simple animations (Renteria-Vasquez et al., 2021). Such findings raise questions about aesthetic perception in AgCC. While previous research has demonstrated differences in aesthetic perception among other neuropsychological populations (e.g. Parkinson's Disease; Lauring et al., 2019), there is no research reported regarding aesthetic appreciations in AgCC. The present study employed the Assessment of Art Attributes (AAA; Chatterjee et al., 2010) to compare the conceptual and perceptual aspects of aesthetic perception of persons with AgCC to neurotypical control participants. Prior investigation by Bromberger and colleagues (2011) utilized the AAA to examine the aesthetic perception of persons with right hemisphere lesions, finding deviations in judgements of abstractness, symbolism, realism, and animacy– all classified as “conceptual attributes.” Based on these findings, it was predicted that individuals with AgCC would rate paintings differently than neurotypical controls on conceptual attributes, but not on perceptual attributes.
Participants and Methods:Thirteen persons with AgCC and 49 neurotypical individuals completed the AAA. After completing measures of artistic experience and colorblindness, participants rated 24 paintings on 14 attributes. Balance, color saturation, color temperature, depth, simplicity, and stroke made up the “perceptual scales,” while abstractness, animacy, emotion, objective accuracy, realism, interest, and preference made up the “conceptual scales.”
Results:Following Bromberger and colleagues (2011), average ratings from all control participants were used to rank the 24 paintings for each scale. Spearman's rank-order correlations were then conducted between the rankings of each participant and the average of the controls for each scale. Spearman's rho coefficients were then compared between AgCC and control groups using t-tests, controlling for multiple comparisons. As hypothesized, the AgCC group had significant deviations from the average of the controls (lower rho values) on several conceptual attributes: Abstractness (p = .004, d = .11), emotion (p < .001, d = .12), and interest (p < .001, d = .18), whereas individuals with AgCC deviated on only one perceptual attribute: Simplicity (p = .003, d = .12).
Conclusions:While generally unremarkable in the sensory aspects, persons with AgCC demonstrated greatest differences in three important conceptual aspects of aesthetic perception. This outcome suggests that such higher-order aesthetic appreciations require interhemispheric interactivity. These results further support the hypothesis that decreased elaborative imagination is a fundamental component of AgCC.
2 Musical perception skills in Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum
- Kameron J Rigg, Matthew Wallace, Kutter D Callaway, Lynn K Paul, Warren S Brown
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- Journal:
- Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 29 / Issue s1 / November 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 December 2023, pp. 5-6
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Objective:
Agenesis of the corpus callosum(AgCC) is a disorder in which the connection between the two brain hemispheres is congenitally absent. Previous research has suggested that the auditory system can be affected in individuals with AgCC (Demopoulos et al., 2015). However, the nature of AgCC’s effect on musical perception skills is unclear. This study investigated the impact of AgCC on the music perception skills in high-functioining adults using a brief version of the Profile of Music Perception Skills (PROMS; Zentner, M. & Strauß, H. 2017). It was hypothesized that individuals with AgCC would have diminished music perception abilities when compared to a neurotypical control group.
Participants and Methods:Participants included 10 high-functioning adults with AgCC that had an intelligence quotation within the normal range (FSIQ>80) and 63 neurotypical controls who were recruited via Cloud Research. During the PROMS the participants were asked to listen to two different sound excerpts after which they were asked whether the second sound was the same or different from the first (correct answers= 2 points, uncertain answers= 1 point, and remaining answers not coded). The participants answered questions in four different areas of musical perception: Melody, Tuning, Accent, and Tempo.
Results:Results indicated that there was not a significant difference between the control group and the AgCC participants on music perception skills on the overall PROMS scores F(1,72)= .365, P-value= .548. Tested individually, none of the 4 individual domains showed a significant difference: Melody F(1,72)=2.67, P-value= .107; Tuning F(1,72)= .271, P-value= .606; Accent F(1,72)= .017, P-value= .897; or Tempo F(1,72)=.106, P-value= .746.
Conclusions:Contrary to the hypothesis of this study, the results showed that the participants with AgCC did not perform significantly differently in the PROMS total score when compared to neurotypical controls, nor were there significant differences in any of the four of the subtests (Melody, Tuning, Accent, and Tempo). Thus these high-functioning individuals with AgCC did not have deficient music perception abilities. These findings demonstrate that although the auditory system may be affected in some individuals with AgCC, we do not see differences in musical perception skills in high-functioning individuals with AgCC.
39 Empathic Abilities of Individuals with Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum
- Kaitlyn A. Nogales, Kutter D. Callaway, Lynn K. Paul, Warren S. Brown
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- Journal:
- Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 29 / Issue s1 / November 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 December 2023, pp. 827-828
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Objective:
Previous research suggests that individuals with isolated Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum (AgCC) have cognitive and psychosocial deficits including that of complex processing of emotions (Anderson et al., 2017) and their ability to verbally express emotional experiences (Paul et al., 2021). Additionally, research suggests individuals with AgCC show impaired recognition of the emotions of others (Symington et al., 2010), as well as diminished ability to infer and describe the emotions of others (Renteria-Vazquez et al., 2022; Turk et al., 2010). However, the nature of the empathic abilities of individuals with AgCC remains unclear in empirical research. Capacity for empathetic feelings and situational recognition in persons with AgCC were tested using the Multifaceted Empathy Test [MET] (Foell et al., 2018). We hypothesized that individuals with AgCC would have lower abilities for both cognitive and affective empathy than neurotypical controls.
Participants and Methods:Results from 50 neurotypical control participants recruited from MTurk Cloud were compared to responses from 19 AgCC participants with normal-range FSIQ (>80) drawn from the individuals with AgCC involved with the Human Brain and Cognition Lab at the Travis Research Institute. The research was completed through an online version of the MET. The MET uses a series of photographs of individuals displaying an emotion. To measure cognitive empathy, the participants are asked to pick the correct emotion being displayed with three distractors for each item. To measure affective empathy, they are then asked on a sliding scale, “how much do you empathize with the person shown” (1 = Not at all, 7 = Very much).
Results:Results of a MANOVA showed a trend for a significant overall difference between individuals with AgCC and controls for empathic abilities F(1, 67) = 2.59, p-value = .082, with persons with AgCC showing less empathy overall. Follow-up one-way ANOVAs showed that individuals with AgCC scored significantly lower in cognitive empathy F(1, 67) = 4.63, p-value = .035, ηp2 = .065; however, affective empathy was not significantly different between groups F(1, 67) = .537, p-value = .466, ηp2 = .008.
Conclusions:Results suggest that adults with AgCC have a diminished ability to give cognitive labels to the emotional states of others compared to neurotypical controls. However, contrary to our hypothesis, participants with AgCC had affective responses to the pictures of the emotional states of others which were similar to neurotypical controls. Recent research has shown that individuals with AgCC have difficulty inferring and elaborating on the more complex cognitive, social, and emotional aspects of simple animations (Renteria-Vazquez et al., 2022; Turk et al., 2010). Cognitive empathy would require this form of elaborative thinking, even when affective empathy is normal. Similarly, Paul et al. (2021) described alexithymia in persons with AgCC as difficulty in expressing emotions linguistically, but found similar endorsements of emotional experience when compared to neurotypical controls. This study provides further evidence to suggest the corpus callosum facilitates the ability to cognitively label emotions but not necessarily the ability to experience emotions affectively.
1 Moral Reasoning in Individuals with Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum
- Edita Shahnazarian, Kutter D Callaway, Lynn K Paul, Warren S Brown
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- Journal:
- Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 29 / Issue s1 / November 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 December 2023, pp. 681-682
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Objective:
Previous research has demonstrated that individuals with Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum (AgCC), the congenital absence of all or part of the corpus callosum, exhibit a pattern of cognitive and psychosocial deficits, even with a FSIQ in the normal range (FSIQ > 80; Brown & Paul, 2019). This includes a core deficit in their complex reasoning and novel problem-solving (Brown & Paul, 2019), with secondary deficits in capacity to imagine complex emotional/cognitive consequences of potential actions involving others (Young et al, 2019), deficits in emotion
perception (Symington et at., 2010, Bridgman et al 2014), and difficulty with cognitively processing emotions within the context of social interactions (Anderson et al., 2017). This constellation of deficits is likely to also impact moral reasoning. While previous research has demonstrated differences in moral reasoning among other neuropsychological populations such as those with ventromedial prefrontal damage (Moretto et al., 2010) and frontotemporal dementia (Gleichgerrcht et al., 2011), there is no research reported regarding moral judgements in AgCC. This study employed the Moral Dilemmas Scale (Greene, 2001) to compare the moral judgements of persons with AgCC to neurotypical controls. It was predicted that individuals with AgCC would be less contextually nuanced than neurotypical controls in responding to moral dilemmas.
Participants and Methods:Results consist of data derived from 57 neurotypical control participants (ages 23 to 64 years) recruited from MTurk Cloud and 19 AgCC participants (ages 23 to 77 years) with normal-range FSIQ (>80) drawn from the individuals with AgCC involved with the Human Brain and Cognition Lab at the Travis Research Institute. All participants completed an online version of the Moral Dilemmas Scale (Greene, 2001). The scale consists of 25 dilemmas, of which 11 are considered high-conflict, 7 low-conflict and 7 impersonal. Participants were instructed to read each dilemma and rate whether they found the action to be “appropriate” or not. The high-conflict dilemmas share a similar structure in which responses reflect either a utilitarian or deontological judgement.
Results:“Approve” responses to each of the 3 categories of dilemma were separately tallied for each individual and subjected to a 2group ANOVA. Results revealed the control group produced a significantly higher rate of “appropriate” responses to high-conflict dilemmas than did the individuals with AgCC (F=8.17, p = .006, n2 =.113). However, no significant differences were found among the two groups for results on low (n2 = .013) and impersonal (n2 = .003) dilemmas alone. Furthermore, a X2 analysis of responses to each high conflict dilemma revealed a significant difference in 5 out of the 11 such that more persons with AgCC gave a deontological judgement.
Conclusions:Results suggested that adults with AgCC respond similarly to neurotypical controls with respect to the low conflict or
impersonal dilemmas. However, with respect to high conflict dilemmas, compared to controls they tend to respond in a more deontological than utilitarian basis - that is, based on general principles without contextual nuance. These findings are consistent with the conclusion of Renteria-Vasquez et al. (2021) that persons with AgCC have difficulty imagining the wider implications of present information.
Approaches to Controlling Escherichia coli 0157:H7, a Foodborne Pathogen and an Emerging Environmental Hazard
- Andrew D. Brabban, Diane A. Nelsen, Elizabeth Kutter, Tom S. Edrington, Todd R. Callaway
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- Journal:
- Environmental Practice / Volume 6 / Issue 3 / September 2004
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 31 October 2005, pp. 208-229
- Print publication:
- September 2004
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Escherichia coli is a ubiquitous bacterium that lives commensally in the guts of most mammals, including man; however, some types of E. coli are pathogenic to humans, including the enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC), of which E. coli 0157:H7 is the most well-known member. Escherichia coli 0157:H7 is a natural member of the gastrointestinal microflora of domestic ruminants (e.g., cattle, goats, sheep) and has been isolated from several wildlife species (e.g., deer, rabbits), and transmission may occur from any of these reservoirs. Although E. coli 0157:H7 is primarily thought of as a foodborne pathogen, recent outbreaks have demonstrated other important routes that lead to human exposure, such as contaminated water and dust. Because E. coli 0157:H7 represents a significant and widespread environmental health hazard, much effort has been directed toward the development of intervention strategies. Because of the relationship between ruminant animals, wildlife, and E. coli 0157:H7, many of the strategies have focused on reducing levels in live animals. In this review article, we examine this virulent pathogen and explore several of the recently developed pre-harvest intervention strategies (including pro-biotic and anti-pathogen strategies, as well as environmental/management changes) and their potential to reduce zoonotic transmission of E. coli 0157:H7 and other EHEC to man.