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Oral Contraception And Cognition, Kathleen Gerencer
Oral Contraception And Cognition, Kathleen Gerencer
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Oral contraception is currently used by over 100 million women worldwide. Women utilize contraception not only to prevent pregnancy but also to manage a wide range of health concerns, such as acne and polycystic ovarian syndrome. Although this medication has granted women bodily autonomy, helped them attain higher levels of education, and helped them enter the workforce in greater numbers, little is known about the consequences outside of the intended contraceptive effects, specifically the cognitive and behavioral consequences. Moreover, because doctors can prescribe contraception after the first menstrual cycle and during puberty, it’s possible that this critical window of development …
The Effect That Testing Has On Nondeclarative Memory, David Smith
The Effect That Testing Has On Nondeclarative Memory, David Smith
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Testing has been shown to improve long-term memory retention by decreasing the amount of material forgotten, a phenomenon known as the testing effect. This positive impact of testing has been shown using direct tests of memory that require declarative memory, things like memorizing word-pairs and single-word lists. This dissertation is the first research to investigate how testing impacts nondeclarative memory using three experiments. The first and second experiment utilize the word fragment completion task to measure the effect that testing has on words learned via methodology thought to recruit either declarative or nondeclarative memory. The third experiment utilizes a probabilistic …
S3e6: How Do Face Masks Affect First Impressions?, Ron Lisnet, Mollie Ruben
S3e6: How Do Face Masks Affect First Impressions?, Ron Lisnet, Mollie Ruben
The Maine Question
There’s an adage that people don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. Mollie Ruben, assistant professor of psychology, examines how face masks affect people’s first impressions of others during the COVID-19 outbreak. Do people appear more or less smart to others, depending on whether they’re wearing or not wearing a mask? More or less friendly? Learn about this research project conducted by Ruben, who directs the Emotion, Pain, and Interpersonal Communication (EPIC) Lab at the University of Maine.
Affective, Physiological, And Cognitive Response To Imagery- And Verbally-Based Rumination And Distraction In Adolescence, Hannah Lawrence
Affective, Physiological, And Cognitive Response To Imagery- And Verbally-Based Rumination And Distraction In Adolescence, Hannah Lawrence
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
To date, rumination and interventions for rumination have largely been verbal in focus. Rumination has been conceptualized as dwelling on negative affect in the form of verbal thought, and interventions aim to interrupt cycles of rumination using verbal strategies. Yet, emerging evidence suggests that many individuals dwell on negative affect in the form of imagery (e.g., Lawrence, Haigh, Siegle, & Schwartz-Mette, 2018) and that imagery-based interventions may be even more effective (e.g., Arntz, 2012). This is not surprising as imagery is more affectively arousing (Holmes & Mathews, 2010), physiologically stimulating (Vrana, Cuthbert, & Lang, 1986), and realistic/vivid (Mathews, Ridgeway, & …
Prospective Studies Of Cardiovascular Risk Factors And Mild Cognitive Impairment, Kevin Sullivan
Prospective Studies Of Cardiovascular Risk Factors And Mild Cognitive Impairment, Kevin Sullivan
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The association of cardiovascular risk factors including hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol, kidney function, and arterial stiffness with cognitive impairment in older adults is a well-studied phenomenon. However, there is considerably less evidence relating cardiovascular health specifically to a diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). As a precursor state of dementia, MCI is characterized by a decline in cognitive function from previous level, but not to the degree that activities of daily living are impaired. Not everyone who is diagnosed with MCI will eventually transition to dementia, but the transition rates are much higher compared to the general population (5-15% per year …
Assessing Achievement In Honors: The Importance Of A Need For Cognition In Higher Education, Christopher Paradis
Assessing Achievement In Honors: The Importance Of A Need For Cognition In Higher Education, Christopher Paradis
Honors College
Honors programs are increasingly common in academic institutions today. However, what makes a student successful in a program like this is not clear. Is it their ability to remember information, the amount of knowledge they have, or the way they process this knowledge? Or could it be something else like how humble they are, what political party they affiliate themselves with, their thirst for complex problems, or even their motivations for engaging in the program? Much of the academic world focuses on the concepts of intelligence, test-taking, and study habits when discussing factors that make a student successful. These factors …
Is Pressure Stressful? The Impact Of Pressure On The Stress Response And Category Learning, Shannon L. Mccoy, Steven B. Hutchinson, Lauren Hawthorne, Brandon J. Cosley, Shawn W. Ell
Is Pressure Stressful? The Impact Of Pressure On The Stress Response And Category Learning, Shannon L. Mccoy, Steven B. Hutchinson, Lauren Hawthorne, Brandon J. Cosley, Shawn W. Ell
Psychology Faculty Scholarship
We examine the basic question of whether pressure is stressful. We propose that when examining the role of stress or pressure in cognitive performance it is important to consider the type of pressure, the stress response, and the aspect of cognition assessed. In Experiment 1, outcome pressure was not experienced as stressful but did lead to impaired performance on a rule-based (RB) category learning task and not a more procedural information-integration (II) task. In Experiment 2, the addition of monitoring pressure resulted in a modest stress response to combined pressure and impairment on both tasks. Across experiments, higher stress appraisals …
Relations Among Type 2 Diabetes, Arterial Stiffness And Cognitive Functioning, Gregory A. Dore
Relations Among Type 2 Diabetes, Arterial Stiffness And Cognitive Functioning, Gregory A. Dore
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Although the associations among diabetes mellitus, cognitive functioning and arterial stiffness have been explored previously, the degree to which arterial stiffness is responsible for the association between diabetes and cognitive function has not been examined. The primary aim of the current investigations is to examine the extent to which arterial stiffness mediates the association between diabetes and cognitive function, as well as the extent to which this indirect effect is modified by age and APOE genotype. The sample included 590 participants (age 23-94, 62% women, 12% African- American) from the seventh wave of the Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study. Individuals with history …
Arterial Pulse Wave Velocity And Cognition With Advancing Age, Merrill F. Elias, Michael A. Robbins, Marc M. Budge, Walter P. Abhayaratna, Gregory A. Dore, Penelope K. Elias
Arterial Pulse Wave Velocity And Cognition With Advancing Age, Merrill F. Elias, Michael A. Robbins, Marc M. Budge, Walter P. Abhayaratna, Gregory A. Dore, Penelope K. Elias
Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Papers
We hypothesized that carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), a marker of arterial stiffness, interacts with age such that the magnitude of associations between PWV and cognitive performance are greater with increasing age and that this interaction is observed despite adjustments for demographic variables, mean arterial pressure, and cardiovascular risk factors. PWV was estimated using applanation tonometry in 409 dementia- and stroke-free participants of the Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study (24 to 92 years of age; 62.3% women). Using linear regression analyses in a cross-sectional design, associations between PWV and age and the interaction of PWV and age were examined in relation to …
Serum Cholesterol And Cognitive Performance In The Framingham Heart Study, Penelope K. Elias, Merrill F. Elias, Ralph B. D'Agostino, Lisa M. Sullivan, Philip A. Wolf
Serum Cholesterol And Cognitive Performance In The Framingham Heart Study, Penelope K. Elias, Merrill F. Elias, Ralph B. D'Agostino, Lisa M. Sullivan, Philip A. Wolf
Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Papers
Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between total cholesterol (TC) and cognitive performance within the context of the Framingham Heart Study, a large, community-based, prospective investigation of cardiovascular risk factors. Methods: Participants were 789 men and 1105 women from the Framingham Heart Study original cohort who were free of dementia and stroke and who received biennial TC determinations over a 16- to 18-year surveillance period. Cognitive tests were administered 4 to 6 years subsequent to the surveillance period and consisted of measures of learning, memory, attention/ concentration, abstract reasoning, concept formation, and organizational abilities. Statistical …
The Role Of Cognitive Factors In The Development Of Seasonal Affective Disorder Episodes, Stacy Whitcomb-Smith
The Role Of Cognitive Factors In The Development Of Seasonal Affective Disorder Episodes, Stacy Whitcomb-Smith
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Recent literature on Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) has begun to focus on diathesis stress models, including Young and colleagues' (1 991) Dual Vulnerability Hypothesis (DVH). The DVH posits that individuals must possess both a biological vulnerability to developing vegetative symptoms and a psychological vulnerability to developing mood symptoms in order to develop SAD episodes. Such a model addresses SAD as well as non-seasonal depression, and suggests that there may be an as yet unidentified group suffering fiom only the biological vulnerability (i.e., winter anergia). However, until very recently few studies have directly tested this model, and most have focused on …