Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of Embodiment On Perceptual And Affective Responses To Infant Crying, Jennifer B. Bisson

Master's Theses

Three experiments were conducted to investigate how changes in bodily states might be related to perceptions of infant vocalizations. In Study 1, participants were asked to hold a pencil between their lips, mimicking a smile, while listening to infant crying. Although there were no embodied effects for perceptual ratings, results indicated that this manipulation decreased participants’ self-reported, negative affect. In Study 2, participants were played both infant crying and birdsong while exposed to similar embodied manipulations, including activation of muscles related to approach and withdrawal behavior. There were no embodied effects for ratings of crying or for affect. Comparing Study …

The Influence Of Auditory Cues On Visual Spatial Perception, Joseph W. Geeseman

Theses

Traditional psychophysical studies have been primarily unimodal experiments due to the ease in which a single sense can be isolated in a laboratory setting. This study, however, presents participants with auditory and visual stimuli to better understand the interaction of the two senses in visuospatial perception. Visual stimuli, presented as Gaussian distributed blobs, moved laterally across a computer monitor to a central location and "bounced" back to their starting position. During this passage across the screen, a brief auditory "click" was presented via headphones. Participants were asked to respond to the bounce of the ball, and response latency was recorded. …

The Psychosocial Effects Of Being Rejected/Being Aggressive/Being Respected, Clayton Egli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research identified groups of children using levels of aggression, rejection, and respect. Peer psychosocial outcomes were evaluated in groups of third- through sixth-grade children (N = 422). Four sets of analyses were performed. Groups were defined first by traditional grouping methods and then by data-driven grouping methods. For each method, groups were constructed first in terms of the traditional approach using relative levels of peer rejection and aggression (overt and relational). A second set of analyses for each method constructed groups in terms of relative levels of peer rejection, aggression (overt and relational), and respect by peers. Psychosocial outcomes …

Pixel Based Note Taking Through Perceptual Structure Inference, Mitchell Kent Harris

Theses and Dissertations

Knowledge workers need effective annotation tools to assimilate information. Unfortunately many digital annotators are limited in the range of document that they accept. Those that do accept many different documents do so by converting documents to images, thus losing any awareness about the original content of the document. We introduce a digital note taker that is both universal and content aware. By constructing a hierarchical context tree of document images, the structure of a document is inferred from the image. This hierarchical context tree is shown to be useful by demonstrating how it facilitates selection of document elements, reflowing documents …

Listening To Students: The Lived Experience Of Students Taking An Accountability Test, Laura Rutherford Crisp

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to understand the lived experience of students taking a high stakes test. The phenomenological method developed by Howard Pollio (Pollio, Graves, and Arfken, 2005, Thomas and Pollio, 2002, Pollio, Henley, and Thompson, 1997) at the University of Tennessee was utilized to explore the perceptions of the experience of fourth and fifth grade students who took the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) Achievement Test, an end of the year criterion-referenced, standardized achievement test given to students in Tennessee.

Nine students from two schools in East Tennessee were interviewed about their experience of taking the test. …

Adolescents' Perceptions Of Bullying Involving Male Relational Aggression: Implications For Prevention And Intervention, Brian C. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Recent bullying research contradicts the stereotypes that only females use relational bullying and confirms that males use this type of bullying equally or more than females. No existing research could be found which examined differences in how each gender interprets relational bullying. Using a survey adapted from research on the rape myth and four video clips, researchers sought to examine gendered difference in the perception of relational bullying by males among adolescents. Two video clips depict scenes of cross-gender bullying and two clips depict scenes of male to male bullying. In total, 314 students in grades 8-12 participated in the …

Planning Policy And Public Perception In Small-Town Utah, Greg M. Platt

Theses and Dissertations

City growth policies codify community values and serve as the basis for enforcement of community standards. If these policies do not match resident preferences for growth, potential exists for communities to grow in ways which make the community undesirable. This thesis examines whether adopted city growth policies match resident preferences in small towns in Utah. Findings include a strong relationship between resident preferences and city leader preferences for growth. Also, city staffs are poor readers of public sentiment relative to growth and growth management. Some cities are more effective in enacting city policies to match resident attitudes towards growth than …

The Effect Of First Language Dialect Vowel Mergers On Second Language Perception And Production, Christine Elaine Gardner

Theses and Dissertations

Previous second language (L2) acquisition research has assumed that L2 learners from a common first language (L1) have the same problems in an L2, ignoring the potential impact of a speaker's L1 dialect on L2 acquisition. This study examines the effects of L1 dialect on the acquisition of L2 German vowels. In particular, this thesis investigates two questions: 1) Do speakers from L1 dialects with vowel mergers perceive or produce vowel contrasts in the L1 and/or L2 differently than speakers from dialect areas without the same mergers? and 2) Are subjects' patterns of L1 perception or production paralleled in the …

Perception Of Soft Tissue Laser Use In Orthodontic Practice: A Survey Of Orthodontists, Periodontists, And General Dentists, Brandon Burke

Theses and Dissertations

Recently, soft tissue lasers have been introduced into orthodontic practice to perform procedures that were traditionally referred to other dental professionals. The purpose of this study was to compare the attitudes of orthodontists, periodontists, and general dentists regarding the use of soft tissue lasers by orthodontists. The ultimate goal was to facilitate communication among dental professionals and improve the care of orthodontic patients requiring management of soft tissues. A survey was developed to evaluate and compare the current opinions of orthodontists (n=330), periodontists (n=171), and general dentists (n=77) regarding orthodontists’ use of soft tissue lasers. When compared to orthodontists and …

Limits On The Number Of Concurrent Auditory Streams, Jonathan Henry Schuett

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Evidence suggests that listeners are limited to perceiving only three streams of auditory information when that information is presented within a rapid sequence of tonal elements. However, this limit has yet to be determined in a controlled setting while using complex tones. Because complex tones are more analogous to naturally occurring tones, finding this limit with complex tones would offer more ecological validity to the suggested perceptual limitation. Thus, Experiment 1 of the current investigation presented listeners with 2- to 5-tone sequences of sawtooth tones at a variety of presentation rates, instructing listeners to report the number of tonal events …

Using Internet Videoconferencing To Connect Fashion Students With Apparel Industry Professionals, Vera Bruce Ashley Edd

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the efficacy, benefits and student perceptions of using Internet videoconferencing and a web camera to connect college and university fashion students with apparel industry professionals. A total of 70 college and university fashion students, three instructors, and three apparel industry professionals participated in this introductory study. Data was collected through pre and post surveys from all three groups. Industry professionals were invited as guest speakers into the classroom via Internet videoconferencing using Skype and a web camera. The findings in the study indicated that students, instructors, and apparel industry professionals overwhelmingly benefited …

The Accuracy Of Observers' Estimates Of The Effect Of Glare On Nighttime Vision: Do We Exaggerate The Disabling Effects Of Glare?, Stacy Balk

All Dissertations

Designing headlights involves balancing two conflicting goals: maximizing visibility for the driver and minimizing the disabling effects of glare for other drivers. Complaints of headlight glare have increased recently. This project explored the relationship between subjective (discomfort and expected visual problems) and objective (actual visual problems) consequences of glare. Two experiments - a lab-based psychophysical study and a field study - quantified the accuracy of observers' estimates of the effects of glare on their acuity. In both experiments, participants over-estimated the extent to which glare degraded their ability to see a small high contrast target. Observers' estimates of the disabling …

Differences In Peer Perception Of Alcohol Use, Personal Alcohol Use, And Levels Of Intoxication Among Students At Virginia Commonwealth University From 2002 To 2004., William Evans

Theses and Dissertations

This study involves the examination of National Collegiate Health Assessment (NCHA) data collected by the VCU Wellness Resource Center. This study will compare trends in college student health behavior perceptions and personal activity regarding alcohol use, as self-reported via the NCHA data, with a particular focus on a comparison between 2002, which is the year that the Wellness Resource Center (then known as the Office of Health Promotion) first implemented an alcohol education campaign based upon a “social norms” theoretical framework, and 2004, after 18 months of intensive campaigning. Thus, the aim of the project is to examine the changes …

In Defense Of Two Intentionalism-Defeating Inverted Spectrum Thought Experiments, Pendaran Roberts

Theses

Inverted spectrum thought experiments have often been used to argue against Intentionalism. Eric Marcus, in his article entitled “Intentionalism and the Imaginability of the Inverted Spectrum,” defends two versions of Intentionalism, which he calls Intentionalism and Converse Intentionalism, from four inverted-spectrum based arguments. Marcus labels the four arguments from which he defends Intentionalism the implausible error, symmetry, no-inference, and best theory of representation arguments. In this article, I will bolster the arguments from no-inference and symmetry in order that they avoid Marcus’ defenses. Specifically, I will first show that the argument from no-inference may be modified to comply with Marcus’ …

The Effects Of Instructor-Avatar Immediacy In Second Life, An Immersive And Interactive 3d Virtual Environment, Sabine Karine Lawless-Reljic Edd

Dissertations

Growing interest of educational institutions in desktop 3D graphic virtual environments for hybrid and distance education prompts questions on the efficacy of such tools. Virtual worlds, such as Second Life®, enable computer-mediated immersion and interactions encompassing multimodal communication channels including audio, video, and text-. These are enriched by avatar-mediated body language and physical manipulation of the environment. In this para-physical world, instructors and students alike employ avatars to establish their social presence in a wide variety of curricular and extra-curricular contexts. As a proxy for the human body in synthetic 3D environments, an avatar represents a 'real' human computer user …

Principal And Teacher Perceptions Of Change Implementation Practices In 2007 And 2008 Small Learning Communities Grant Recipient, Benjamin Bristo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Leading through change is a difficult process. School leaders who hope to create meaningful, long-term change must be cognizant of numerous factors. This study was undertaken with the hope of increasing educational leaders' awareness of how their decisions are viewed by those who follow them. Case studies revealed pertinent data within two schools that have undertaken a significant change initiative. All 2007 and 2008 Small Learning Communities (SLC) grant-recipient schools in Florida were invited to participate in a series of case studies. Participating principals were questioned about their perceptions of how they fulfill their change leadership role related to the …

The Effect Of Word Sociality On Word Recognition, Sean Seaman

Wayne State University Dissertations

While research into the role of semantic structure in the recognition of written and spoken words has grown, it has not looked specifically at the role of conversational context on the recognition of isolated words. This study was a corpus-based and behavioral exploration of a new semantic variable - sociality - and used on-line behavioral testing to obtain new word recognition data using the visual and auditory lexical decision tasks. The results consistently demonstrated that sociality is one of the most robust predictors of lexical decision performance. Overall, it appears that the visual lexical decision task is quite sensitive to …

The Perception Of Fairness Of Performance Appraisals, Tracy M. Prather

ETD Archive

The perception of fairness in performance appraisals (PA) is one of the most important factors and considered a criterion when reviewing PA effectiveness (Jacobs, Kafry, and Zedeck, 1980). In this particular study, I examined numerous variables in three main categories: interpersonal, procedural, and outcome fairness. Keep in mind that although these are three distinct categories, they are all inter-related. One hundred ninety-two employees, from the research and development section of a large retail company, voluntarily participated. The results were slightly contradictory to what was expected yet they were good results. The interpersonal variable, manager effectiveness, along with the outcome variables, …

An Investigation Of The Cognitive And Perceptual Mechanisms Involved In Mania-Proneness, Kimberly Mercer

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The present research investigates the cognitive and perceptual mechanisms involved in mania-proneness. Building on the work of Depue and colleagues: Depue & Iacono, 1989; Depue & Zald, 1993) and Gray: 1994), which identifies links between the Behavioral Activation System: BAS) and the symptoms observed in mania, this research investigates the hypothesis that people who are prone to mania exhibit cognitive and perceptual biases in information processing when presented with achievement-oriented stimuli both at baseline, and after the receipt of a reward. These hypothesized biases were measured via an affective flanker task, a suboptimal priming task, and a judgment task about …

Perception And Nonconceptual Apprehension, Arnon Cahen

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

My dissertation articulates and resolves a problem at the heart of debates about how perception guides our actions and deliberations. The problem arises from the independent plausibility but mutual inconsistency of the following theses: * Some perceptions provide us reasons * Only belief-like states provide us reasons * No perception is belief-like I argue that this problem is deeper than has been acknowledged. Simply rejecting any one thesis leads to serious challenges. Nonetheless, I argue that we can unravel the link between having reasons and having belief-like states in a way that explains the initial plausibility of the first thesis. …

Detect, Bite, Slam, Ali Miharbi

Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores the influences, ideas and motivations behind my MFA thesis exhibition. It primarily focuses on how I developed my work for the show in connection to my previous work as well as work created by other artists who explored the impacts of new media in the last decade. With the advancement of social media, digital technologies no longer have their infamous coldness. Our perceptions and the metaphors in language are all reflected onto the machines we create while in return they also shape and redefine our lives. It becomes increasingly difficult to talk about dialectics such as machine-human, …

Kinematic Properties Of Visually And Haptically Guided Actions, Charles E. Pettypiece

Digitized Theses

We compared the contribution of the visual and haptic modalities in action and perception tasks. We also investigated whether or not the dissociation between action and perception found in vision can be duplicated in haptics. For both a grasping and perceptual estimation task, performance based on haptics alone showed greater uncertainty than vision alone. When congruent information from both senses was available simultaneously, performance was no different than with vision alone. When conflict was introduced between the senses, however, an influence of haptic cues emerged. Investigation of Weber’s law in haptics revealed that, like vision, the law was upheld in …

Investigating The Effects Of Object Connectedness On Rapid Visually-Guided Reaching Toward Multiple Goals, Jennifer L. Milne

Digitized Theses

We developed a rapid reaching paradigm in which we require participants to make speeded reaches toward ambiguous target displays, with a goal target filling-in only after movement onset. In our previous work, we have found that initial reaches extend toward the averaged spatial location of the presented targets. Our aim for the current study was to determine if object connectedness - a strong perceptual illusion in which two connected objects appear as one - could influence the strategic reaching behaviour. Even though there was a powerful effect of the illusion on perception, the visuomotor system was able to utilize the …