Digital Commons Network^™

The Relationship Between Semantic Search And Semantic Priming, Lily Rachel Mencarini

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Memory is an essential skill for survival but also very complicated. Semantic memory is an aspect of long-term memory that consists of words and facts about the world. This study aims to see if there is a relationship between semantic priming and semantic search. There were 57 participants with full data who took both the Remote Associates Test (RAT) and a primed lexical decision task (LDT). The RAT tests for semantic search abilities and the primed LDT tests semantic priming ability. It is hypothesized that participants who get faster reaction times (RTs) on correct trials of the RAT will have …

Moments That Matter: The Role Of Emotional Stimuli At Event Boundaries In Memory, Haonan Chen

Senior Projects Spring 2023

The present study examined the impact of event segmentation and emotional arousal on long-term memory performance. Event segmentation is the cognitive process of automatically dividing experiences into smaller pieces for better consolidation and retrieval, resulting in the formation of event boundaries. Prior research has identified the crucial role of event segmentation in long-term memory and working memory. However, few studies have explored ways to enhance its effects. Emotional arousal refers to the physiological and psychological activation of the body and mind in response to an emotional stimulus. Previous research has indicated that heightened levels of arousal may enhance memory performance. …

Unable To Locate A Fire, Lily Isabel Taggart

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Pendjur For Baba, Mina Emilia Dahl

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Realm Of Remembrance, Brandon Vanbach

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

In September of 2021, I turned 21 years old. During that time I also discovered a 8mm video tape in my childhood home. Unbeknownst to me, this tape, which hadn’t seen the light of day since its conception, would end up consuming my life.

The tape was a home movie filmed by my mother and her partner at the time during an outing to Vietnam in 2005. The footage consisted mostly of landscapes and claustrophobic close-ups of distant relatives. Rarely would I enter the frame. But I wasn't interested …

Healing Intergenerational Wounds: Land And Memory As The Site Of Indian Boarding School Violences In The United States, Olivia Nicole Tencer

Senior Projects Spring 2022

In 2021, the location and repatriation of unmarked graves of children at former Indian Residential and Boarding Schools in Canada and the United States headlined some of the largest news media outlets in the Northern hemisphere. Through these media headlines, the untold history of the 19th and 20th century Indian Boarding Schools began to unfold for much of the American public. Through an examination of the history of Indian Boarding Schools in the United States, Western and Indigenous intergenerational trauma theory, memory scholarship, memories of Carlisle school descendants, and decolonial land-based healing practices, this paper explores how Indian Boarding Schools …

This Is The Sky That I See, Gavin T. Mckenzie

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This is the sky that I see, a Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College, reflects the power we hold in defining and redefining spaces, and how ordinary places can be reimagined for the Othered body. I produced this show to allow the characters to shape and decide their worlds, centering on their relationships and feelings. This is the sky that I see establishes a completely queer world that centers Queer joy and friendship.

I Went Back To Sit In The Sun, Alice Flannery Fall

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Between Space And Memory, Arhant Shrestha

Senior Projects Fall 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

The Role Of A Polyrhythm’S Pitch Interval In Music-Dependent Memory, Hadley R. Parum

Senior Projects Spring 2021

When listening to music, humans can easily and often automatically assess the perceptual similarity of different moments in music. However, it is difficult to rigorously define the way in which we determine exactly how similar we find to moments to be. This problem has driven inquiry in music cognition, musicology, and music theory alike, but previous results have depended on behaviorally mediated responses and/or recursive analytic strategies by music scholars. The present work employs the context-dependent memory paradigm as a novel way to investigate the extent to which listeners consider two musical examples to be similar. After incidentally learning words …

Dimentia: Footnotes Of Time, Zachary Hait

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Time from the physicist's perspective is not inclusive of our lived experience of time; time from the philosopher's perspective is not mathematically engaged, in fact Henri Bergson asserted explicitly that time could not be mathematically engaged whatsoever. What follows is a mathematical engagement of time that is inclusive of our lived experiences, requiring the tools of storytelling.

Mysterious Proposal, Henry Berger

Senior Projects Fall 2021

This is a mysterious proposal regarding a trio of films which harness an ‘energizing vision’ that lingers beyond the movie theatre. There is a focus on travel, memory, landscape and the internal world. I was interested in the ways in which the ephemeral experience of film may alter the way we take in the world around us; the way we process each other.

Sang Pi, Visakha Jane Phillips

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

This Is The Knot In My Stomach, Macey Clarice Downs

Senior Projects Spring 2020

This is a story about two young women who think they will be friends forever. They learn that forever comes and goes in the blink of an eye. They are not particularly exceptional--they don't shatter any glass ceilings, they make silly mistakes, they never know what to wear to school tomorrow. But we get to watch them do the most exceptional thing any of us will ever do: grow.

Making A Scene, Lucy Madeline Reiss

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Making a Scene

Over the past year, I have worked to produce what I think of as a visual work of translation. I have spent the last few years intermittently making work from childhood images or videos. I am lucky to have a sizable archive of visual information depicting me and those around me during my childhood at my disposal. Simultaneous to this long-term project dedicated to depicting scenes of my childhood, I have become enamored with teaching small children. In my quest to become a preschool teacher or work with kids in some capacity, I have had the delight …

This Is The Knot In My Stomach, Cheyenne Crow Conti

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Cicadas & Other Hauntings, Miriam J. Anastasi

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

In The Shadows And Folds, Julia Mueller

Senior Projects Spring 2020

In the shadows and folds is the result of a mental scavenger hunt that I began this past year, to uncover myself and find what is hidden in my crevices. It was spurred by my fear of memory loss which had grown to such a size that it sat visible in the back of my mind unaddressed for some time. The reason for this fear is not large but it feels monumental. I have been existing in various states of sadness and disconnect, which have acted like a thick blanket over my mind. This blanket is simultaneously protective and damaging, …

& Forever Dress Up (Nature Making Word), William T. Hunt

Senior Projects Spring 2020

I believe in a kind of strange knowing, a knowing in a loop, a knowing that knows itself which is a fundamental substance of a world. I believe in my house as a single organism digesting itself into feeling. The sliding door to my back yard rests slightly off its bearings. I have gotten into the habit of jokingly performing my inability to open it, laying bare a truth of love. I believe in the truth of things which are more themselves than we can ever fully comprehend (a God of this impossibility). The illusion of a stable thing: knowing …

Asteraceae, Rachel G. Lyons

Senior Projects Fall 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Does Aerobic Exercise Or Cardiovascular Exercise Facilitate Explicit Memory?, Nicole Paige Ellin

Senior Projects Spring 2019

This study examined whether cardiovascular or aerobic exercise aids in explicit memory. Five male and twenty-four females on the Bard College campus either engaged in cardiovascular or aerobic exercise (experimental condition) or watched a video (control condition). Before beginning these tasks, participants read a list of 15 words. After the task, participants recalled as many words as they could from the previous list. The participants’ test scores did not indicate that a specific condition aided in their received score, meaning memory did not differ across conditions, F(2,29)= .420, p>.05. Future directions would implement a longer period of time for …

Another Massacre In Mexico, Sidney B. Smith

Senior Projects Spring 2019

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

Medea In Latin Literature: Victim Or Assassin?, Natasha Chamia Acosta

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

A Wizard Hat For The Brain: Predicting Long-Term Memory Retention Using Electroencephalography, Noah Libby

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Learning is a ubiquitous process that transforms novel information and events into stored memory representations that can later be accessed. As a learner acquires new information, any feature of a memory that is shared with other memories may produce some level of retrieval- competition, making accurate recall more difficult. One of the most effective ways to reduce this competition and create distinct representations for potentially confusable memories is to practice retrieving all of the information through self-testing with feedback. As a person tests themself, competition between easily-confusable memories (e.g. memories that share similar visual or semantic features) decreases and memory …

Towards Improving Learning With Consumer-Grade, Closed-Loop, Electroencephalographic Neurofeedback, Zall Soren Hirschstein

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Learning is an enigmatic process composed of a multitude of cognitive systems that are functionally and neuroanatomically distinct. Nevertheless, two undeniable pillars which underpin learning are attention and memory; to learn, one must attend, and maintain a representation of, an event. Psychological and neuroscientific technologies that permit researchers to “mind-read” have revealed much about the dynamics of these distinct processes that contribute to learning. This investigation first outlines the cognitive pillars which support learning and the technologies that permit such an understanding. It then employs a novel task—the amSMART paradigm—with the goal of building a real-time, closed-loop, electroencephalographic (EEG) neurofeedback …

Plantain Stain, Loreli Mojica

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

All At Once, Maddie Rose Assarsson

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to the Division of Arts of Bard College

Plantain Stain, Loreli Mojica

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Everyday Ghosts: An Examination Of Memory In Social Interactions, Sean P. Murphy

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Naturally occurring instances of memory suppression seem to be ones in which conflict arises between a memory and present motivations. For example, being reminded of an embarrassing past event may introduce feelings that are not desired or appropriate if you are hosting company. The emotions connected to the negative memory and the desired emotions expected of a host are in conflict, and so the memory in question may be suppressed to preserve your desire to be a congenial host. While research has served to characterize various aspects of suppression, the methodologies used by such studies rely on explicit instruction from …

W.G. Sebald: On A Cliff's Edge, Joseph W. Finnie

Senior Projects Fall 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.