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Understanding The Evolution Of Enforcement Systems In Resource Dilemmas, Devin M. Flener May 2023

Understanding The Evolution Of Enforcement Systems In Resource Dilemmas, Devin M. Flener

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

The effective management of resources on Earth is a pressing global social dilemma. An alternative solution to the traditional managing methods of these common pool resources is communal self-management facilitated through principles of restorative justice and developed through exploratory learning. We examined how communication, restorative justice techniques, and opportunity for exploratory learning impacted groups’ ability to develop a strong conceptual understanding of enforcement as well as an enforcement system in order to maintain an effective conservation strategy. Participants (N=288) were randomly assigned to 72 four-person groups in six separate conditions. Each group played nine rounds of a computer-simulated foraging task …


The Effect Of Object Contact On Pre-Reaching Infants' Causal Perception., Mallory L. Thompson May 2022

The Effect Of Object Contact On Pre-Reaching Infants' Causal Perception., Mallory L. Thompson

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

The Sticky Mittens (SM) paradigm is an object manipulation task that provides infants the opportunity to explore objects through active experience before they have the necessary motor skills to do so on their own. Positive cognitive outcomes like increased attention to objects, object engagement, object exploration, and causal perception have been shown to result from active SM experience (Libertus & Needham, 2010; Rakison & Krogh, 2012). Researchers are interested in understanding which aspects of SM training are important for infant learning. Although there have been many SM studies looking at different variables, such as active vs. passive experience and parent …


Inducing Cognitive Reflection And Its Impact On Contradictory Beliefs., Margaret Powers May 2022

Inducing Cognitive Reflection And Its Impact On Contradictory Beliefs., Margaret Powers

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

Currently, there is extensive research within psychology about two distinct processing models where one is fast, automatic, and relatively effortless and the other is slow, systematic, and effortful. One mechanism of effortful processing is cognitive reflection which is one’s ability to reflect on their intuition. While there is research on explicit instructions of certain cognitive mechanisms and implicit induction of cognitive reflection, there is a lack of research on the explicit induction of cognitive reflection specifically. In this study, two techniques were investigated to see if cognitive reflection could be explicitly induced. Participants either read a prompt before beginning the …


The Interaction Of Spaced Retrieval Practice And Element Interactivity., Cameron K. Mattingly May 2022

The Interaction Of Spaced Retrieval Practice And Element Interactivity., Cameron K. Mattingly

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

Our study investigates the interaction of retrieval practice and element interactivity. Spaced practice is the process of breaking up the retrieval of information into smaller chunks across a longer period of time as opposed to learning everything in one time block. Retrieval practice is the process of testing yourself on previously learned material. Spaced retrieval practice is the merger of these two ideas. This style of learning is well-suited for learning many items that must be retained indefinitely (Lyle et al., 2019). Element interactivity describes the amount of learned items (elements) that are interrelated and must be processed together in …


The Effect Of Parent Interaction On Pre-Reaching Infants’ Visual Attention During An Object Manipulation Task., Jalena N. Slaton May 2021

The Effect Of Parent Interaction On Pre-Reaching Infants’ Visual Attention During An Object Manipulation Task., Jalena N. Slaton

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

Infants do not begin intentionally reaching for and grasping objects until around 5 months of age. The sticky mittens paradigm (SM) provides infants the opportunity to manipulate and explore objects on their own. Active SM experience has been shown to lead to positive cognitive outcomes (Libertus & Needham, 2010), including facilitating causal perception (Rakison & Krogh, 2012). While some aspects of SM that contribute to positive outcomes are well understood (e.g., active vs. passive experience), the role of parent interactions has received little attention. In this study, SM training was used to investigate the role that parents play in their …


The Effects Of Parental Interaction On Infant Learning., Rachael D. Crenshaw May 2018

The Effects Of Parental Interaction On Infant Learning., Rachael D. Crenshaw

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

It was previously thought that infants could not perceive causal events as causal (e.g., one ball rolls into another making the 2nd ball move) until the age of 6 months (Cohen & Amsel, 1998). However, more recent research has shown that infants are able to understand the concept of causality earlier than 6 months of age if given the opportunity to have “real-life” exposure to physical causality with "sticky mittens" (Rakison &Krogh, 2012). "Sticky mittens” play sessions allow infants to manipulate Velcro balls while wearing mittens with Velcro sewn on the palms. This allows young infants, who are otherwise unable …


The Impact Of Evaluative Pressure And Higher Working Memory Capacity On Sensorimotor Skill Performance., Lauren Grant May 2015

The Impact Of Evaluative Pressure And Higher Working Memory Capacity On Sensorimotor Skill Performance., Lauren Grant

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

Underperformance in high-pressure situations, commonly known as choking under pressure, has been well-documented in the literature. For well-learned sensorimotor skills, such as sports, choking is thought to occur because individuals devote explicit attention to the steps of the skill, which disrupts performance. The current study examines how the type of pressure situation an individual experiences, and individual differences in working memory capacity, influence choking on a sensorimotor skill. Participants (N = 96) performed a Sensorimotor Reaction Time Task (SRTT) either under monitoring pressure, outcome pressure, or no pressure (control). High working-memory individuals performed significantly worse while completing the SRTT under …


The Impact Of Mindfulness And Test Anxiety On Academic Performance., Mariam A. Altairi Dec 2014

The Impact Of Mindfulness And Test Anxiety On Academic Performance., Mariam A. Altairi

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

No abstract provided.


Is It The Thought That Counts? : Investigating Children's Understanding Of Helpfulness, Effort, And Utility., Danielle Mccarty Dec 2014

Is It The Thought That Counts? : Investigating Children's Understanding Of Helpfulness, Effort, And Utility., Danielle Mccarty

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

How do children consider helpfulness, specifically effort and utility, when evaluating potential informants? We tested preschoolers on three conditions, asking them to choose between a character high in both effort and utility and a character who acted with either 1) low effort and high utility, 2) high effort and low utility, or 3) low effort and no utility (removed from social contexts). The opposing characters provided conflicting information when labeling novel objects, and participants were asked which label they endorsed. They were then asked to choose which character was the more helpful, which worked harder, and which was nicer. We …


Working Memory, Emotion Regulation, And Effortful Control Levels In Children With Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder., James Rush Dec 2014

Working Memory, Emotion Regulation, And Effortful Control Levels In Children With Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder., James Rush

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

No abstract provided.


Examining The Effects Of Saccade Execution And Handedness On Proactive Interference., Montgomery A. Kroger May 2014

Examining The Effects Of Saccade Execution And Handedness On Proactive Interference., Montgomery A. Kroger

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

Proactive interference is the phenomenon by which previously-learned information impairs recall of more recently-learned information. The present experiment was conducted to investigate two factors that may affect the occurrence of proactive interference. The first of these factors is saccade execution. Saccade execution has been shown in numerous studies to improve performance on a wide range of memory tasks. The second factor was people’s consistency of handedness, a term referring to the strength of people’s tendency to use one hand (right or left) over the other. Although the results of the primary analyses were inconclusive, further exploration of the data led …


A Mindfulness-Based Intervention To Reduce Stress In Undergraduates., Dirk Anthony Dorsel May 2014

A Mindfulness-Based Intervention To Reduce Stress In Undergraduates., Dirk Anthony Dorsel

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

This study piloted a mindfulness-based intervention to reduce stress in university undergraduates, and explore effects on psychological and biological indicators of stress. Mindfulness is “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment-by-moment” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994). The one week mindfulness intervention used audiobased mindfulness tracks recorded by Clinical Psychologist Paul Salmon. These tracks taught the basics of mindfulness. Participants were asked to listen to the tracks for 30 minutes a day for five days of the intervention. Perceived stress, self-reported anxiety, self-reported depression, heart rate and skin conductance were …