Digital Commons Network^™

The Domain-Generality And Durability Of Efficient Learning, Christopher Zerr

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

People differ in how quickly they learn information and how long they remember it, and a common finding in the literature is that a quicker rate of learning coincides with better retention for the learned material. Zerr and colleagues (2017) termed the relation between learning rate and retention as learning efficiency, with more efficient learning representing both a faster acquisition rate and better memory performance after a delay. Zerr et al. also demonstrated in separate experiments that how efficiently someone learns is stable across a range of days and years. The current thesis includes two experiments addressing additional questions …

Exploring The Underlying Mechanisms Of Structure Building, Reshma Gouravajhala

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Structure building, the ability to build a coherent mental model of any narrative, requires the identification and integration of important parts of that narrative, as well as the suppression of irrelevant details. Critically, while individual differences in structure building have been shown to have important consequences in the classroom, little has been concluded about underlying deficits and causal mechanisms of low structure building ability. In the present study, we tested the theory that an impaired ability to suppress unimportant details is low structure builders’ sole deficit (Gernsbacher, 1990). We presented participants with educationally authentic text materials that offered varying degrees …

Do Learners Have Insight Into The Levels Of Processing Effect? Exploring Unresolved Levels Of Processing Phenomena With Judgments Of Learning, Elif Eylul Tekin

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The levels of processing (LOP) effect shows that semantic processing leads to better retention than other types of processing. The effect is routinely obtained on many types of tests, yet, to this day, its mechanisms are still debated and it is poorly understood. In two old/new recognition experiments, I investigated potential explanations as to why the LOP effect occurs under intentional learning instructions. I asked a) whether subjects were aware of the LOP effect while they were studying the material, b) whether explicitly encouraging subjects to study the words with their idiosyncratic strategies would eliminate the effect, and c) whether …

The Impact Of Delay On Retrieval Success In The Parietal Memory Network, Nathan Anderson

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent work has identified a Parietal Memory Network (PMN), which exhibits regular patterns of activation during memory encoding and retrieval. Among these characteristic patterns, this network displays a strong “retrieval success” effect, showing greater activation for correctlyremembered studied items (hits) compared to correctly-rejected novel items (CRs). To date, most relevant studies have used short retention intervals. Here, we ask if the retrieval success effect seen in the PMN would remain consistent over a delay. Twenty participants underwent fMRI while encoding and recognizing scenes. Greater activity for hits than for correctly-rejected lures within PMN regions was observed after a short delay …

The Effects Of Repeated Lineups And Delay On Eyewitness Identification, Wenbo Lin

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prior eyewitness research has examined the effects of repeated identification procedures and delays on eyewitness identification, but these studies have either confounded these two factors or studied them in isolation. Experiment 1 attempted to disentangle these factors through systematic manipulations of the number of repeated lineups and the length of delay between the original event and the first lineup. Experiment 2 examined whether the length of delay between two lineups (Lineups 1 and 2) affects the subsequent lineup identification decisions. We found that people were more inclined to choose when a lineup was repeated. A longer delay between the crime …

Quizzing And Restudy Dynamics In A Tst Paradigm: The (Null) Effect Of Feedback And The (Significant) Effects Of Metacognition, Francis Anderson

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In authentic educational settings, using formative quizzes or tests can improve students’ memory by direct strengthening of the memory trace. There are other indirect effects of testing, however, such as improved understanding of what one does and does not know. That is, quizzes can benefit students’ metacognitive awareness, which may in turn affect their restudy behaviors. We tested whether different types of feedback (correct/incorrect, correct answer, or minimal) differentially affected students’ metacognition, changed their restudy behaviors, and influenced final test performance. We found no effect of feedback type, but were able to better understand quizzing and restudy dynamics in an …

Preschool Executive Function Predicts Childhood Resting State Functional Connectivity And Adhd And Depression, Elizabeth Hawkey

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: Measures of executive function (EF), such as the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, distinguish children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) from control children, but less work has examined relationships to depression or brain network organization. This study examined whether early childhood EF predicted a new onset or worsening of ADHD and/or depression, and examined how early childhood EF related to functional connectivity of brain networks at school age. Methods: Participants were 247 children, enrolled at ages 3-6, from a prospective study of emotion development. The BRIEF Global Executive Composite (BRIEF-GEC) was used as the measure of EF in early …

How Does Increasing The Power Of Retrieval Cues Change The Experience Of Remembering?, Oyku Uner

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Increasing the power of retrieval cues typically enhances recall and recognition. Is this driven by remembering, knowing, or both? The current study used the remember/know paradigm in different recall tasks that manipulated the power of retrieval cues. In the first two experiments, participants studied words in a semantic or phonetic context, and were tested in one of these contexts, resulting in two match and two mismatch conditions. Participants recalled more in the match conditions, and this was driven by remembering. In the third experiment, participants studied multiple word lists and were tested immediately after each list with varying number of …

Neurogenetics Of The Externalizing Spectrum, Caitlin E. Carey

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Externalizing spectrum disorders, which include attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, alcohol and substance use disorders, and antisocial personality disorder, are characterized by behavioral disinhibition and are thought to be manifestations of a common heritable liability factor throughout the lifespan. However, relatively little is known about their underlying etiology. Here, I probe genetic and neural risk mechanisms for externalizing psychopathology in three complementary studies. First, I report an indirect association between genetic risk for childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and problem drinking in young adulthood, mediated by heightened reward-related neural activity within the ventral striatum, among 404 college students. I …

Changes In Personality Traits And Personality Pathology In Older Adults: Self And Informant Perspectives, Hannah R. King

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A relatively small amount of research has examined personality and personality disorder change from more than one perspective, particularly in older adults. The main aim of this study is to examine personality and personality disorder change in older adults from multiple perspectives including an interview assessment, self-report, and informant-report. Data from the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network (SPAN), a representative sample of St. Louis residents with 1,630 participants and their informants, was used to study change. We use structural equation modeling to test mean-level changes and individual differences in change over the course of the study. For personality disorders, …

Improving Pure-Tone Audiometry Using Probabilistic Machine Learning Classification, Xinyu Song

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Hearing loss is a critical public health concern, affecting hundreds millions of people worldwide and dramatically impacting quality of life for affected individuals. While treatment techniques have evolved in recent years, methods for assessing hearing ability have remained relatively unchanged for decades. The standard clinical procedure is the modified Hughson-Westlake procedure, an adaptive pure-tone detection task that is typically performed manually by audiologists, costing millions of collective hours annually among healthcare professionals. In addition to the high burden of labor, the technique provides limited detail about an individual’s hearing ability, estimating only detection thresholds at a handful of pre-defined pure-tone …

The Developmental Interplay Of Personality And Relationship Quality In Young Adulthood, Kelci Harris

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I used the framework of the personality-relationship transaction to examine the co-development of personality and relationship quality during college in three different relationship contexts: an aggregate of friends, romantic partner dyads, and friend dyads. I treat the personality-relationship transaction as a dyadic process, rather than an ego-centric one, by including friends’ and romantic partners’ reports of personality and relationship quality. I created a multivariate latent growth curve model version of the Actor Partner Interdependence Model to test how personality and relationship quality co-developed. Initial correlations between personality and relationship quality reflect what is seen in previous work; self-reported extraversion, agreeableness, …

Mental Health And Academic Outcomes Among Adolescents In South Korean Orphanages, Hollee Ann Mcginnis

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research conducted over the past 100 years in Western nations support the adverse effects of orphanages on children’s emotional, developmental, and social well-being as well as economic costs to society (Save the Children UK, 2009; Bakermans-Kranenburg, Van IJzendoorn & Juffer, 2008; Williams & Greenberg, 2010). Globally, the number of orphaned and abandoned children is conservatively estimated to be around 143 million, of whom the majority reside in Asia, followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (UNICEF, UNAIDS, & USAID, 2004). South Korea (hereafter “Korea”) is an exemplary nation for study because it has a well-established child welfare system, including family-based alternatives (domestic and …

Evaluating A Targeted, Universal Middle School Program For Childhood Overweight And Obesity: Stayingfit, Myra Altman

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

Evaluating a Targeted, Universal Middle School Program for Childhood Overweight and Obesity: StayingFit

by

Myra Altman

Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology

Washington University in St. Louis, 2016

Professor Denise E. Wilfley, Chairperson

Childhood obesity is a pressing public health concern associated with significant medical and psychosocial comorbidities. Intervention is crucial, and schools are often suggested as an important venue through which to intervene, although the results of such interventions are inconsistent and mixed. The present study sought to expand on the literature by evaluating the effect of a targeted and universal school-based obesity intervention, StayingFit, in …

Is There A Higher-Order Mechanism That Explains Performance Across Prediction Tasks?, Michelle Lisa Eisenberg

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

People constantly make predictions about what will happen in the near future. People anticipate how other people around them will act, what other people will say, and what actions will help them achieve the greatest rewards. Because all of these behaviors are typically called prediction, it is easy to make the assumption that performance across all of these types of tasks is driven by the same underlying mechanism. However, there has been little investigation into whether the mechanisms underlying prediction are the same across multiple task modalities. Therefore, in the current study, 226 participants completed four types of tasks that …

Emotion Dysregulation And Functional Connectivity In Children With And Without A History Of Major Depressive Disorder, Katherine Lopez

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent interest has emerged in understanding the neural mechanisms by which deficits in emotion regulation (ER) may relate to the development of depression. Cortico-limbic alterations reported in emotion dysregulation and depression may be one possible link. We examined the relationships between emotion dysregulation in school age, corticolimbic resting state functional connectivity (rs-FC) in preadolescence, and depressive symptoms in adolescence. Participants were 143 children from a longitudinal preschool onset depression study who completed the Children Sadness Management Scale (CSMS), Child Depression Inventory (CDI), and two resting state MRI scans. We examined rs-FC between four primary regions of interest (ROIs; bilateral dorsolateral …

Developmental Trajectories Of Executive And Verbal Processes In Children With Phenylketonuria, Zoe Hawks

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a recessive disorder characterized by disruption in the metabolism of the amino acid phenylalanine. Using a verbal fluency task, previous studies demonstrated that word production is reduced in individuals with PKU relative to controls. Beyond word production, verbal fluency output can be scored for clustering and switching, which enable characterization of verbal and executive processes, respectively. The present study is the first to evaluate clustering and switching in PKU within a longitudinal design, thereby elucidating the developmental time course of core cognitive processes. To this end, semantic (animals, food/drink) and phonemic (S words, F words) fluency data …

Flesh And Blood, Clayton Petras

Graduate School of Art Theses

In my work, I look for ways to visualize and document the degenerative mental disease of Parkinson’s and transform it into portrayals of the disease itself, its effects, and those it afflicts. Being a physical breakdown of the body, both popular culture and my own corporal understanding influence my interpretation and representation. This document outlines those influences and their buildup towards a shared understanding of the interests behind the work, as well as implies what the work does through these contexts.

How do we give identity to a disease that is difficult to diagnose or view on medical technology, currently …

To Laugh Or Cry: Examining Intergroup Attitudes Through Humor, Katlin Bentley

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Sins Of The Father: An Investigation Into Judgments And Processes Involved In Within-Family Tainting, Stephanie Allison Peak

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present research focused on a real-world event (i.e., the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks) as a basis for gaining insight about the spread of negativity (i.e., “tainting”) from a guilty father to an innocent son. The nature of the relationship between the son and the father was varied experimentally, a manipulation that allowed for investigation into the subjective importance of genetic versus social relationships. Across three experiments, I examined two types of judgments about the son, including responsibility and general evaluation of the target. Responsibility ratings were, on the average, extremely low. Indeed, many participants explicitly attributed no responsibility to …

Healthcare Vs. Hawkishness: The Divergent Effects Of Affect On Context-Driven Shifts In Attitudes, Fade Rimon Eadeh

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is a tradition of research in affective science suggesting different affective states (e.g., anger vs. anxiety) are associated with relatively unique goals and motives (Frijda, 1986; 1988; Schwarz & Clore, 2007, Lerner & Keltner, 2000; 2001). Although this approach has received considerable empirical support, this work has yet to fully resolve an important issue. For any given type of emotion (say, anger), such feelings can be activated in a variety of different "triggering" contexts. If so, to what extent does the triggering context matter when examining the consequences of that emotion for attitudes? Some findings suggest that context does …

Building A Theory Of Adaptive Neuroticism, Sara Jo Weston

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Neuroticism is widely believed to be detrimental to health, but the evidence is mixed. Many large-scale studies find null or positive effects of neuroticism on mortality and health. A theory of “healthy neuroticism” was generated to explain these discrepant results. According to this theory, neuroticism can lead an individual down one of two paths: an anxiety and stress-ridden path of maladaptive coping and poor outcomes, or a path of vigilance and proactivity. Trait conscientiousness is thought to be the defining feature of healthy neuroticism, although studies substantiating this claim are few and far between. Meanwhile, other important factors - notably, …

Folk Epistemology Of Factual, Political, And Religious Beliefs, John Christner

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The term "folk" refers to the intuitive – as opposed to the academic – version of a discipline (e.g., folk physics). The present series of seven studies explored folk epistemology, that is, how laypeople intuitively think about their own knowledge. Concepts from academic epistemology were investigated in laypeople. In addition, folk epistemology across three domains of knowledge were compared: religious, political, and factual.Studies consisted of two parts. In Part 1, participants were presented with religious, political, and factual statements and asked how certain they were that each statement was true. In Part 2, participants were re-presented with only statements that …

The Role Of Action In Priming Of Pop Out In Visual Search, Blaire Jaffe Weidler

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Completion of many daily tasks (e.g., driving, grocery shopping) requires efficient allocation of limited attentional resources. One factor that affects where attention is allocated in a complex scene is previous experience with the environment—participants are faster to examine features which were previously behaviorally important. In the experimental paradigm often used to investigate this phenomenon, called Priming of Pop Out (PoP), participants view a multi-item display, locate a target (defined by a unique feature such as color), and then respond with a keypress. On the next trial, they are often faster to find the target if it shares features with the …

Comparisons Of Intrinsic Motivation For Novel Stroke Rehabilitation Interventions For Ue, Dorothy Kalmbach

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

An estimated 80% of individuals with stroke experience upper limb dysfunction and 60% of stroke survivors will not regain full use of the affected arm. Improvement in motor function is possible even in the chronic phase of stroke through motor rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is a lengthy process and has little chance of success if a patient is not dedicated to his or her regime. Highly motivated patients are more likely to adhere to a rehabilitation program and motivation has been linked to better therapeutic outcomes in many studies. This study evaluated how motivating participants of experimental stroke rehabilitation interventions found their …

The Effect Of Incentives On Pupil Dilation During Recognition Memory: An Attentional Saliency Account Of The Pupil Old/New Effect, Lisa A. Solinger

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Another interesting feature of this OMS circuit is the strong surround suppression occurring in the inner retina, which enables both VG3-ACs and W3-RGCs to remain silent to the global image motion. Pharmacological evidence suggested wide-field and/or spiking ACs are the source of the inhibition. The specific AC types, however, have not been identified. To address this question, in chapter 3, I explored candidate cell types using transgenic mouse lines expressing Cre recombinase, mainly tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-Cre transgenic mice. In 2-photon guided patch clamp recordings, response patterns of TH2-ACs to object motion visual stimuli corresponded to inhibitory inputs of both VG3-ACs …

On The Ironic Effects Of Being Empathic: Consequences For Attitude Polarization And Intergroup Conflict, Emily Hanson

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Empathy is frequently presented as the solution to intolerance; indeed, President Obama has cited an ‘empathy deficit’ in the conversation surrounding civil rights for minorities, women, and the LGBTQ community (Obama, 2006 ). However, an emerging psychological literature offers a “darker side” of empathy, which accounts for the parochial forces influencing empathic-motivations. Across two studies, the present thesis aims to further understand the parochial nature of empathy in the context of ideologically-based attitudinal polarization. In the first experiment, participants read about a hypothetical instance of heterosexual date rape, and provided their opinions on the male and female targets. Results supported …

Examining The Intergenerational Stake Hypothesis: Relationships And Closeness In Grandparent-Grandchild Dyads, Rachael Spalding

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

The intergenerational stake hypothesis posits that older people tend to feel more positively about relationships with younger people in their family because they have a greater perceived “stake” in the relationship. The purpose of the current study was to explore this hypothesis in the context of grandparent-grandchild relationships. Pairs of grandparents and grandchildren completed a brief online survey that asked questions about relational closeness, shared activities, and relationship quality. Proxy reports were also gathered in which participants responded from the perspective of their relational partner. On average, grandparents reported significantly more favorable self-reports of emotional closeness than their grandchildren, t(78) …

Pupillometric Response To Implicit Social Exclusion, Jared Balbona, Grace Hwang, Lori Markson

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

Previous research suggests that people are highly sensitive to rejection, and may even display physiological reactions, such as increased pupil dilation, when they are explicitly rejected by others compared to when they are accepted (Silk et al., 2012). To our knowledge, no research to date has investigated pupil dilation in response to implicit social exclusion. To address this gap, we obtained pupillometric values using a Cyberball paradigm, in which 11 participants were either included or indirectly excluded while playing an online ball game. Participants were told before each game that they would be playing with either human players (i.e., other …