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Motor Milestone Acquisition And Sleep-Related Learning And Development In Infancy, Aaron Demasi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this dissertation is to summarize and extend work in the field of infant sleep and motor development. Chapter 1 summarizes what is currently known about typical infant sleep development and the way that sleep impacts learning throughout infancy. Chapter 2 describes two experiments showing the importance of napping and night sleep in the consolidation of gross motor learning. Given that sleep is beneficial for learning throughout human infancy, the remainder of the dissertation investigates how learning (in this case, motor development) impacts sleep. Chapter 3 establishes the possible role of sleep-dependent movement in sleep disruption resulting from …

Enhancing The Quality Of Life For Senior Citizens: A Facilitator’S Guidebook For Mindful Music And Movement, Shannon Sexton

Mindfulness Studies Theses

Music appreciation and enjoyment enhance well-being throughout the lifespan. The challenges and constraints that people experience as they age can lead to lack of access to music, decreased physical activity, and fewer avenues for creative expression. Group music and movement interventions created for older populations offer opportunities for social connection and improved quality of life. Mindful practices add further benefit when combined with these interventions. Current available programs are scarce and most often do not encompass mixed modalities. In addition, the benefits of these programs do not show long-term sustainability. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the effects …

Out Of The Body, Onto The Page: Awakening The Role Of The Body In Writing And Practical Applications Of Embodied Composition, Jasmine Jackson

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Academic writing courses privilege a style of learning that often excludes the awareness of the body. In this thesis, I propose an exploration of the role of the body as an active agent in the writing process. This thesis collates and queries research on embodiment to provide what a sample of embodiment theory and writing activities that facilitate embodiment in the classroom might look like by bringing in interdisciplinary studies to help fill the gap of research on embodied composition in the field.

In doing so this thesis argues in favor of an embodied approach to composition and is supported …

The Limits Of Healthy Habits: Exploring The Relationship Between Disordered Eating, Body Image, Mindfulness, Social Media, And Dysfunctional Exercise, Taylor A. Dinkel

Master's Theses

In recent decades, there has been an increase not only in full syndrome eating disorders, but also in subclinical presentations of disordered eating, many of which include dysfunctional relationships with exercise. Although not full diagnosable syndromes, disordered relationships with food and exercise, as well as a preoccupation with body image, can cause severe physical and psychological stress for individuals who present with these dysfunctional patterns. With the growth of fitness-related social media accounts, the increase in social media usage during the pandemic, and the increase in subclinical disordered eating presentations and dysfunctional relationships with exercise, it is important be aware …

Exploring The Relation Between Musical And Dance Sophistication And Musical Groove Perception, Samantha R. O'Connell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Listening to groovy music is an enjoyable experience and a ubiquitous human behavior in some cultures. Specifically, many listeners agree that high-groove songs are enjoyable, familiar, and likable compared to low-groove songs. While the pleasurable and dance-inducing effects of musical groove listening seem omnipresent, what is less known is how subjective feelings towards music, individual musical or dance experiences, or more objective musical perception abilities are correlated with the way we hear music with groove. Therefore, the present online study aimed to evaluate how musical and dance sophistication relates to musical groove perception. One-hundred and twenty-four participants completed an online …

How Choreometrics Reflects Self-Identity And Self-Concept Through Cultural Dance: A Developing Method, Naowarat Buddee

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Abstract

This arts-based autoethnography research aims to analyze the researcher’s personal reflections of cultural embodied experiences through the connection of Thai cultural dance movements, cultural patterns, and expressive behaviors in Thai cultural contexts. These also reflected the researcher’s personal-identity and self-concept. As cultural dance has impacts on social structures and human behaviors both physically and psychologically in social interactions throughout the developmental lifespan, the researcher was inspired by the concept of Choreometrics to look closely at personal dance experiences in relation to Thai culture. This autoethnography is a case study of the researcher who identifies as Thai and reflects her …

Inclusion In Religion And Spirituality For Children With Special Needs, Mackinzie C. Weiss

Student Capstone Papers

The proposed vision of this capstone project will focus on using occupational therapy interventions to help a local church be more inclusive to children and families with special needs. This capstone project will partner with a pre-existing special needs program to develop evidence based volunteer training, implement a parent respite program, and introduce a movement based program.

Addressing Content, Convergent And Predictive Validity Of Implicit Pain-Related Fear In Chronic Low Back Pain, Eric S. Kruger

Psychology ETDs

Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is a common condition that can lead to emotional distress and physical disability. Fear of pain, a phobic-like response to pain, can contribute to significant avoidance behavior and is associated with disrupted physical and emotional functioning. While questionnaires remain the standard for measurement of pain-related fear, recent work has explored the use of implicit methods. This study aimed to use an implicit measure, the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP), to assess convergent and predictive validity of implicit pain-related fear in relation to explicit self-report measures. Seventy-four participants with CLBP were recruited and completed the pain-related …

Influences On Early Creativity: Examining The Role Of Affect, Movement And Autonomy During Play On Divergent Thinking Skills Of Preschool Children, Taylor S. Boyd

Undergraduate Honours Theses

Play provides children an opportunity to practice cognitive and affective processes which are important in creativity. Studies have found that during play, children who display positive emotions, are physically active and play by themselves tend to demonstrate higher creativity. In the present study, the researcher observed fifteen preschool children to record their independence, affect and physical movement during free play. In addition, one adult from each classroom rated of each child’s general affect. Next, participants completed two versions of an Alternate Uses Task assessing divergent thinking skills: one standard version in which participants verbally indicated multiple uses for an object …

Structurally Rich Movement: Measuring Movement For Empirical Psychology And Examining The Dynamic Complexity Of Affect Regulation In Behavior, Michael Timothy Finn

Doctoral Dissertations

Movement not only permeates human life, but structures dimensions of experience. Phenomenological theory points to the dynamic congruency of movement and emotion, via the body schema, as shaping affectivity. For psychology, this calls for an understanding of behavior beyond being discrete events, but also manifesting kinetic melodies. Yet there is a gap in existing methodology for empirically studying the three-dimensional characteristics of human movement continuously across segments of the body. A potential line of research in this area, implicit affect regulation capacities, was described to inform the selection of instrumentation, measurement, and calculations of dynamic structure that would, theoretically, best …

A Nirs Study Of Violinists And Pianists Employing Motor And Music Imageries To Assess Neural Differences In Music Perception, Sonja Prychitko

All NMU Master's Theses

Do musicians imagine movements differently? Are instrument-specific movements represented differently in the brain? The current study explores the perceptual differences in imagining music and movements. While attached to a near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) device, violinists and pianists of diverse experience levels viewed a series of performance videos (piano, violin) and performed associated imagery tasks. It was hypothesized that musicians will show diverse levels of brain activity in the motor areas during imagery tasks, depending on their primary instrument and the movements within their repertoire. Results revealed that violinists and pianists significantly differ in imagining movements and music of their non-primary …

Exploring Neural Entrainment And Beat Perception Through Movement, Sarah M. Schwanz

Brescia Psychology Undergraduate Honours Theses

The way humans move to music has a large impact on how music is synchronized to, interpreted, and enjoyed. It is understood that movements to music aid in beat perception, and neural oscillations have the ability to entrain to musical rhythms. This study attempted to link these two well-established phenomena by exploring the use of movement to simple and complex musical rhythms to enhance neural entrainment. Ten undergraduate students engaged in 60 simple and complex musical rhythms, either tapping along to the beat or listening without movement, while undergoing EEG recording. Although the differences in brain response amplitude were not …

The [E]Motionless Body No Longer: Tracing The Historical Intersections Of Mental Illness And Movement In The American Asylum, Holly Adele Herzfeld

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College.

Move, Interact, And Connect Personally Barter Theatre’S Project Real Gets Implicit In Order To Learn, Megan E. Atkinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Body movement, hands-on activity, embodiment, social interaction, emotions, and self-reflection allow teaching artists of Barter’s Theatre’s Project REAL to conduct a lesson with an implicit learning experience as the focus. Barter Theatre’s Project REAL exists as a theatre for education program that collaborates with regular classroom teachers on delivering the curriculum through specific theatre exercises in order to connect the material personally to the students’ lives. Theatre tools provide a human experience that enhances learning for the student by use of kinesthetic movement, social learning, emotions and interpersonal skills. To understand the effects of Barter Theatre’s Project REAL, the director …

A Movement Tool Kit For The Divergent And Convergent Cps Guidelines: Instruction Cards And Activity Floor Mats, Adela Vangelisti

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

A Movement Tool Kit for the Divergent and Convergent CPS Guidelines:

Instruction Cards and Activity Floor Mats

Movement is as natural to humans as breathing is, and, yet, passivity starts early in schools. We are taught to sit still and in silence for long periods of time. By the time we reach adulthood and enter the workforce, we have almost forgotten our sense of embodiment. This lack of movement is counter-productive, not only to learning but to the development of creativity as well. For this project, I designed a tool to recapture the joy and playfulness of movement. Furthermore, the …

Coordination Of Continuous And Discrete Components Of Action, Stephanie L. Kilian

ETD Archive

Goal-directed movement may contain discrete and continuous components of action. In this experiment, participants moved back and forth between targets using a computer mouse in a cyclical aiming task. It was of interest to examine the relation between a discrete button press on a computer mouse, indicating an attempt at target capture, and the peak position of the corresponding, continuous movement trajectory of the mouse. How might the spatial and temporal relations between those events vary as a function of variations in task constraints? In particular, this experiment varied the target width (W) and amplitude requirement (A), where variations of …

Can We Relate?, I Never Got The Message, Isabel Cottingham

Senior Projects Fall 2011

Artist’s Statement:

At the core, people are essentially the same. We are made from the same materials, with the same working parts, we need the same things in order to survive, we experience the same life cycle, and yet there is so much variety. I am interested in what defines people as who they are, what ingredients are in charge of creating an individual. I believe that, as people there are certain unifying aspects of our lives to which we are all able to connect. I am intrigued and challenged by the exploration of this. Fundamentally, I am fascinated by …

The Influence Of Color And/Or Movement Added To Thematic Apperception Test To Evoke Need Achievement, Justin Fred Hurst

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study utilized the theories of David C. McClelland and associates regarding affective arousal, concept of cues arousing motives, and neutral testing procedures. The problem was to study the influence of color and/ or movement, as cues added to the McClelland four-picture Thematic Apperception Test, to evoke need achievement responses to determine whether or not the added stimuli of color and/or movement might evoke increased need achievement responses.

Four treatment variations of the test were made: Treatment A, consisted of the standard McClelland test, in black and white pictures. This treatment served as the control. Treatment B used the black …