La sorpresa come fattore critico indicatore di sintonizzazione emotiva in bambini normali e con disturbi pervasivi dello sviluppo
Creators: name: Incasa, Iolanda <1967>
Publisher: name: Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna
Year: 2008
Subjects: M-PSI/08 Psicologia clinica

description: The topic of this study is surprise, re gard as an evolutionary complex process, with
manifold implication in different fields, from neurological, since aspecific correlate of
surprise exist more or less at every level of neuronal processes (e.g. Rao e Ballard,
1999.), to behavioral , inasmuch a s our ability to quickly valuate(assess), recognize
and learn from surprising events, are be regarded as pivotal for survival (e.g.
Ranganath e Rainer, 2003).
In particular this work, going from belief that surprise is really a psychoevolutive
mechanism of primary relevance, has the objective to investigate if there may be a
substantial connection between development of surprise' emotion and specific
developmental problems, or, if in subjects with pervasive developmental disorders
surprise may embody (represent) a essential mechanism of emotional tuning, and
consequently if abnormalities in such process may be at the base of at least a part of
cognitive and behavioural problems that determine (describe) this pathology.
Theoretical reasons lead us to conside r this particular pathologic condition, recall to a
broad area of research concern the comprehension of belief as marker of ability to
reasons about mental states of others (i.e. Theory of Mind), and in addition, at the
detection of specific subjects' diff iculty in this field.
On the experimental side, as well as limited of this work, we have to compare
comprehension and expression of surprise in a sample of 21 children with pervasive
developmental disorders (PDD), with a sample of 35 children without deve lopmental
problems, in a range of age 3-12.
Method
After the customary approach to become friendly with the child, an experimenter and
an accomplice showed three boxes of nuts, easily to distinguish one from the other
because of their different colours an d , working together with the child, the contents of
one of the boxes were replaced and a different material (macaroni, pebbles) was put in
the box. for the purpose of preparing a surprise for someone. At this stage, the
accomplice excused himself/herself and left and the experimenter suggested to the
child that he prepare another surprise, replacing the contents in the second box. When
the accomplice came back, the child was asked to prepare a surprise for him by
picking out the box that he thought was the right one for the purpose.
After, and the child doesn't know it, the accomplice change the content of one of the
boxes with candies and asked out to the children to open the box, in order to see if he
show surprise.
Result
Date have obtain a significant difference between autistic and normal group, in all
four tests. The expression of surprise too, is present in significantly lower degree in
autistic group than in control group. Moreover, autistic children do not provide
appropriate metarappresentative explanations.
Conclusion
Our outcome, with knowledge of the limit of our investigation at an experimental
level (low number of the champions, no possibility of video registration to firm the
expressions ) orient to consider eventuality that surprise, may be seen as relevant
component, or indicative, in autistic spectrum disorders.