Visual field or retinotopic mapping is one of the most frequently used paradigms in fMRI. It uses activity evoked by position-varying high luminance contrast visual patterns presented throughout the visual field for determining the spatial organization of cortical visual areas. While the advantage of using high luminance contrast is that it tends to drive a wide range of neural populations - thus resulting in high signal-to-noise BOLD responses - this may also be a limitation, especially for approaches that attempt to squeeze more information out of the BOLD response, such as population receptive field (pRF) mapping. In that case, more selective stimulation of a subset of neurons - despite reduced signals - could result in better characterization of pRF properties. Here, we used a second-order stimulus based on local differences in orientation texture - to which we refer as orientation contrast - to perform retinotopic mapping. Participants in our experiment viewed arrays of Gabor patches composed of a foreground (a bar) and a background. These could only be distinguished on the basis of a difference in patch orientation. In our analyses, we compare the pRF properties obtained using this new orientation contrast-based retinotopy (OCR) to those obtained using classic luminance contrast-based retinotopy (LCR). Specifically, in higher order cortical visual areas such as LO, our novel approach resulted in non-trivial reductions in estimated population receptive field size of around 30%. A set of control experiments confirms that the most plausible cause for this reduction is that OCR mainly drives neurons sensitive to orientation contrast. We discuss how OCR - by limiting receptive field scatter and reducing BOLD displacement - may result in more accurate pRF localization as well. Estimation of neuronal properties is crucial for interpreting cortical function. Therefore, we conclude that using our approach, it is possible to selectively target particular neuronal populations, opening the way to use pRF modeling to dissect the response properties of more clearly-defined neuronal populations in different visual areas.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the predictor role of procrastination, test anxiety, self-esteem, and self-compassion for the variation in university students’ self-handicapping. The sample of the study consisted of 801 undergraduate students (404 females and 397 males). In order to collect data, Self-Handicapping Scale, Tuckman Procrastination Scale, Anxiety Subscale of Academic Emotions Questionnaire, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Self-Compassion Scale were used. Stepwise regression analysis was conducted, and results showed that all of the predictor variables significantly contributed in explaining self-handicapping. The model explained the 59% of the variance in self-handicapping, whereas semi-partial variance of procrastination, test anxiety, self-esteem, and self-compassion were 17%, 4%, 2%, and 2%, respectively.

The purpose of this study was to assess the ability of young adults to adjust to the breakup of a romantic relationship by examining the possible predictors. The sample comprised 140 women and 143 men. Simultaneous regression analysis indicated that initiator status, existence of a new partner, certainty of the reasons for the breakup, and perceived social support were significant predictors and accounted for 18% of the variance in the measure of adjustment to breakup.

Peripheral vision guides recognition and selection of targets for eye movements. Crowding—a decline in recognition performance that occurs when a potential target is surrounded by other, similar, objects—influences peripheral object recognition. A recent model study suggests that crowding may be due to increased uncertainty about both the identity and the location of peripheral target objects, but very few studies have assessed these properties in tandem. Eye tracking can integrally provide information on both the perceived identity and the position of a target and therefore could become an important approach in crowding studies. However, recent reports suggest that around the moment of saccade preparation crowding may be significantly modified. If these effects were to generalize to regular crowding tasks, it would complicate the interpretation of results obtained with eye tracking and the comparison to results obtained using manual responses. For this reason, we first assessed whether the manner by which participants responded—manually or by eye—affected their performance. We found that neither recognition performance nor response time was affected by the response type. Hence, we conclude that crowding magnitude was preserved when observers responded by eye. In our main experiment, observers made eye movements to the location of a tilted Gabor target while we varied flanker tilt to manipulate target-flanker similarity. The results indicate that this similarly affected the accuracy of peripheral recognition and saccadic target localization. Our results inform about the importance of both location and identity uncertainty in crowding.

he history of academic advising dates back to the 17th century where administrators and faculty members in colleges acknowledged that students require guidance outside the class regarding personal, moral, and academic issues. Over time, the informal guidance provided in colleges has been transformed into formal campus services offered by experts (Cook, 2009). However, the characteristics, roles, and responsibilities of academic advisors in higher education institutions are still debatable. Conflicting views about the roles and functions of academic advisors may result from various questions regarding who an advisor is, who an advisee is, what kind of training is provided to advisors, what the delivery type of the advising is, and which theoretical approach is being used by the advisors (Robbins, 2012). Oftentimes, the theoretical approaches used in academic advising and employing faculty members as advisors are related to the mission of the institutions. According to the prescriptive approach, the faculty member is the authority who tells students which courses to take and when to take them. Students are rather passive in the process. In developmental advising, on the other hand, the faculty perceive students as individuals who are motivated for their personal and professional development that are eager to develop a plan of study with the advisor rather than only having extrinsic motivation for grades (Christian & Sprinkle, 2013). Understanding this perception of the faculty, students would be more willing to take part in the academic advising process and contribute more to their own development. Moreover, as described by Barbuto, Ampirik Araflt›rma / Original Empirical Research www.yuksekogretim.org Bu çal›flman›n amac› Ankara'da bir devlet üniversitesinde uygulanan akademik dan›flmanl›k sürecine iliflkin ö¤rencilerin ve akademik dan›flmanl›k yapan ö¤retim üyelerinin görüfllerini incelemektir. Çal›flmada tarama ve iliflkisel araflt›rma desenleri kullan›lm›flt›r ve veriler çevrim içi anket yoluyla 130 akademik dan›flmandan ve 840 lisans ö¤rencisinden elde edilmifltir. Verilerin analizinde betimleyici ve ç›kar›msal istatistik yöntemleri kullan›lm›fl-t›r. Bulgular, akademik dan›flmanlar›n ve ö¤rencilerin bir akademik dönem içinde ço¤unlukla bir ya da iki kez görüfltüklerini ve bu görüflmelerin s›kl›kla ders kayd› ve ders onay› hakk›nda oldu¤unu göstermifltir. Akademik da-n›flmanl›k sürecine iliflkin akademik dan›flmanlar›n görüflleri, ö¤rencilerinkinden daha olumlu bulunmufltur. Ö¤rencilerin akademik dan›flmanl›¤a iliflkin memnuniyet düzeylerini yordayan faktörler aras›nda yüz yüze görüflmelerin s›kl›¤›, akademik dan›flmanl›k kapsam›nda yap›lan etkinliklerin say›s› ve akademik dan›flman›n özellikleri yer almaktad›r.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of self-esteem, self-compassion, and academic self-efficacy in predicting self-handicapping. A total of 767 (392 female, 375 male) undergraduate students participated in the study. Self-Handicapping Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Self-Compassion Scale, and Academic Self-Efficacy Scale were used for collecting data. The hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to examine whether self-esteem, self-compassion and academic self-efficacy predict selfhandicapping or not. In the first step, self-esteem accounted for 31% of the total variance. In the second step, self-compassion and academic self-efficacy accounted for 8% of the total variance. The partial variance of self-compassion and academic self-efficacy were 7% and 1%, respectively. The model explained 39% of the total variance.

“Uncanny Valley Hypothesis” suggests that humanoid objects that materialize human beings virtually but not entirely realistically may elicit uncanny feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers. While the uncanny valley (UV) has been largely investigated with a focus on the visual aspects of the robot-like designs with young adults, the auditory components that may contribute to this effect and how visual and auditory factors jointly play a role in uncanny reports across different generations has not been examined. In the present study, we investigated how multimodal stimuli and the congruence of visual and auditory aspects of the stimuli contribute to the uncanniness perception and differ from the audio and visual components across generations. Young and old adults rated animations that were presented in audio-visual, audio-only and visual-only modalities in terms of uncanniness. The visual and auditory aspects of the stimuli had four levels of naturalness: robot (unrealistic), semi-robot (semi-realistic), human-like (realistic) and human (real). Our results show that audio-visual stimuli have an amplified effect on UV scores than only auditory and only visual stimuli. In addition, multimodal stimuli that have incongruent audio and visual components elicited significantly higher uncanny scores than stimuli that have congruent components. However, the difference between congruent and incongruent stimuli were more pronounced in the younger group compared to the older group. We also found that younger generations are more sensitive to naturalness layers of audio-visual stimuli than older generations. In conclusion, uncanny valley effect is modulated by stimulus modality, congruence of visual and auditory modalities, naturalness as well as age.

Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has been gaining increasing interest as a practical mobile functional brain imaging technology for understanding the neural correlates of social cognition and emotional processing in the human prefrontal cortex (PFC). Considering the cognitive complexity of human-robot interactions, the aim of this study was to explore the neural correlates of emotional processing of congruent and incongruent pairs of human and robot audio-visual stimuli in the human PFC with fNIRS methodology. Hemodynamic responses from the PFC region of 29 subjects were recorded with fNIRS during an experimental paradigm which consisted of auditory and visual presentation of human and robot stimuli. Distinct neural responses to human and robot stimuli were detected at the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) regions. Presentation of robot voice elicited significantly less hemodynamic response than presentation of human voice in a left OFC channel. Meanwhile, processing of human faces elicited significantly higher hemodynamic activity when compared to processing of robot faces in two left DLPFC channels and a left OFC channel. Significant correlation between the hemodynamic and behavioral responses for the face-voice mismatch effect was found in the left OFC. Our results highlight the potential of fNIRS for unraveling the neural processing of human and robot audio-visual stimuli, which might enable optimization of social robot designs and contribute to elucidation of the neural processing of human and robot stimuli in the PFC in naturalistic conditions.