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Quality Of Life And Affect Across The Adult Lifespan, Patrick Brown
Quality Of Life And Affect Across The Adult Lifespan, Patrick Brown
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The premise of this dissertation is based on the work of M. Powell Lawton, in particular his theories of Environmental Press: Lawton and Nahemow, 1973) and the Dual-Channel Hypothesis: Lawton, 1996; Lawton, Winter, Kleban, & Ruckdeschel, 1999). Study 1 used a correlational approach to test Lawton and colleagues: 1999) model in a community sample of people across the adult lifespan, thereby expanding previous findings to individuals under age 60. Study 2 used an experimental approach to determine if individuals are affectively susceptible to differing environmental conditions based on their performance on a cognitive task. Whereas Study 1 provided a naturalistic …
Using Repeated Testing And Variable Encoding To Promote Transfer Of Learning, Andrew Butler
Using Repeated Testing And Variable Encoding To Promote Transfer Of Learning, Andrew Butler
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Within the literature on transfer of learning, relatively few studies have investigated how the conditions of initial learning can be arranged to increase the likelihood of successful transfer. The present research investigated whether test-enhanced learning can be used to promote transfer. More specifically, four experiments examined how repeated testing and repeated studying affected retention and transfer of facts and concepts. Subjects studied prose passages and then either repeatedly re-studied or took tests on the material. One week later, they took a final test that either had the same questions: Experiment 1), new inferential questions within the same knowledge domain: Experiments …
Training And Transfer Of Attentional Control In Older Adulthood, Anna Mackay-Brandt
Training And Transfer Of Attentional Control In Older Adulthood, Anna Mackay-Brandt
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Recent research in cognitive aging has brought renewed interest to a decades old question. Can cognitive skills be trained, and if so, how widely does that trained skill transfer? Previous research has demonstrated that older adults are able to improve their performance on laboratory cognitive tests and in some cases these benefits can transfer to other similar tests: e.g. Kramer et al., 2004). A few cases have demonstrated transfer to more distal outcomes: Willis et al., 2006). This area of research is still in an early stage, and reports are mixed with regard to the efficacy of cognitive training. These …
Beyond The Observable: Examining Self-Reported Well-Being In People With Dementia, Wingyun Mak
Beyond The Observable: Examining Self-Reported Well-Being In People With Dementia, Wingyun Mak
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The well-being of people with dementia is not well understood. Researchers often measure their well-being through observational methods or via proxies, but self-report is rarely used. Recently there is evidence that people with mild to moderate dementia are able to give reliable reports of their well-being, but empirical work in this area is limited. Most dementia-specific measures focus on mood or life satisfaction, and there are few that gauge more existential aspects of well-being: e.g., purpose in life). This study tested the use of a non-dementia-specific well-being measure in people with mild to moderate dementia. The relationship between goal pursuit, …
The Role Of Knowledge Accessibility In Episodic Future Thought, Karl Szpunar
The Role Of Knowledge Accessibility In Episodic Future Thought, Karl Szpunar
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The capacity to think about specific events that one might encounter in the future--episodic future thought--involves the flexible: re)organization of knowledge. However, little is known about the cognitive mechanisms that guide this process. The reported studies demonstrate evidence for the role of knowledge accessibility as one such mechanism. First, comparisons were drawn between episodic future thought and other cognitive tasks that similarly require participants to produce open-ended responses and for which the role of knowledge accessibility is well established. Second, three experiments: N = 270) provided direct tests of whether accessible knowledge becomes incorporated into episodic future thought. In Experiments …
Associative Memory Processes In Schizophrenia, Aaron Bonner-Jackson
Associative Memory Processes In Schizophrenia, Aaron Bonner-Jackson
All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)
Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrate cognitive deficits in a number of domains, including episodic memory: EM). Memory for both individual items and associations between items is impaired in schizophrenia, with some indication of a more severe deficit in associative memory. Furthermore, such memory impairments have been consistently linked with abnormalities in brain activation during both encoding and retrieval. However, certain experimental manipulations at the encoding and retrieval stages of EM significantly benefit memory performance in schizophrenia, suggesting that a strategic processing deficit may underlie memory impairment in schizophrenia. Additionally, the provision of beneficial encoding strategies increases encoding-related brain activity in key …
Temporal Discounting: A Comparison Of Adjusting-Amount And Adjusting-Delay Procedures, Daniel Holt
Temporal Discounting: A Comparison Of Adjusting-Amount And Adjusting-Delay Procedures, Daniel Holt
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Several experimental procedures: e.g., adjusting amount, adjusting delay) have been used to study the effect that changes in amount of and delay to a reward have on the reward's subjective value. The present series of three experiments sought to test the implicit assumption that the underlying decision-making process: discounting) is identical regardless of the procedure used, and that all would converge on similar indifference points. For each of the experiments, participants were initially tested on one of the adjusting tasks: Adjusting Immediate Amount, Adjusting Delayed Amount, or Adjusting Delay) and returned a week later to complete each of the remaining …
Medial Temporal Lobe Structure And Function, Meghana Karnik
Medial Temporal Lobe Structure And Function, Meghana Karnik
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Medial Temporal Lobe Structure and Function by Meghana Sunil Karnik Doctor of Philosophy in Biology and Biomedical Sciences: Neuroscience) Washington University in St. Louis, 2009 Professor John G. Csernansky, Chairperson My main goal was to examine the relationship between brain structure and function, specifically medial temporal lobe structure and episodic memory, in various groups of subjects who had schizophrenia, were at risk for schizophrenia because of genetic and disease influences, or who were healthy, in order to explore the influence of genetic and disease influences on brain structure-function relationships. Most of what is known about the neural structures thought to …
Age Differences In Prospective Memory: An Examination Of The Role Of Fluctuations In Executive Control, Shannon Robertson
Age Differences In Prospective Memory: An Examination Of The Role Of Fluctuations In Executive Control, Shannon Robertson
All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)
Prospective memory: ProM)-remembering to carry out intended actions at appropriate times-is a cognitive function that relies on controlled or automatic processing to various degrees. Age differences in ProM are most likely to be observed on tasks that rely heavily on controlled processes. This is consistent with certain frontal lobe theories of cognitive aging that also make predictions regarding age differences in performance variability on speeded components of ProM tasks that vary in the extent to which controlled processes are required. This study consisted of two experiments designed to test those predictions. In the first experiment, the degree to which controlled …
Discounting Of Delayed And Probabilistic Rewards By Women With And Without Binge Eating Disorder, Jamie Manwaring
Discounting Of Delayed And Probabilistic Rewards By Women With And Without Binge Eating Disorder, Jamie Manwaring
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Obese individuals with binge eating disorder: BED) exhibit more general and eating-disordered psychopathology than obese individuals without BED. Binge eating also impedes weight-loss efforts, already difficult in an obese population. A better basic understanding of binge eating and obesity is needed to refine treatments for both conditions. Discounting, an experimental paradigm that examines changes in the value of delayed or uncertain outcomes, may provide an objective assessment of impulsive behavior. Impulsivity may perpetuate binge eating, but discounting tasks have never been evaluated with eating disordered individuals. A discounting procedure could help differentiate individuals with eating/weight problems from controls in terms …
Source Memory In Social Contexts, Bianca Basten
Source Memory In Social Contexts, Bianca Basten
All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)
Source memory is memory for where, when, how, and from whom information was received. Current source memory literature focuses mainly on memory for incidental information: i.e., where, when, how) rather than source identity: i.e., who). This dissertation addressed the role of source memory in social contexts and memory for source identity. Four experiments were designed to investigate the effects of information valence, target familiarity, and source congruence. 120 participants viewed a series of negative and positive statements about two targets provided by four sources and were later asked to identify the source of the information. Targets were considered positive and …