Digital Commons Network^™

Frequency Judgments And Recognition: Additional Evidence For Task Differences, Serena Lynn Fisher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Four linked experiments were run in order to understand the relationship between frequency judgment and recognition discrimination tasks. The purpose of these studies was to contrast the common-path model and recursive reminding hypothesis as explanations for the underlying principles that drive these tasks. Item-attribute variables such as printed frequency, connectivity, and set size, and an episodic variable, study frequency were manipulated. Memory for recent episodes was evaluated using recognition and frequency judgment tasks. Although all of the variables, with the exception of set size, had significant effects in both tasks, an analysis of effect sizes revealed differences between the tasks …

Women, Domestic Abuse, And Dreams: Analyzing Dreams To Uncover Hidden Traumas And Unacknowledged Strengths, Mindy Stokes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Domestic abuse is the number one cause of injury to women in the United States. Women and their children flee everyday to shelters to escape the abuse. Once inside the shelters, material resources are rendered so that the women can continue to lead lives outside the shelter and different therapies are employed so that the women can better understand the abuse and their options once leaving. A type of therapy used in other therapeutic forums, such as patients sexually abused as children, is dream analysis. This type of therapy has allowed formerly traumatized victims a safe space to uncover hidden …

Moving On? Memory And History In Griselda Gambaro's Recent Theater, Gail Bulman

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

For more than forty years, Argentine playwright Griselda Gambaro has dramatized the social and political climate of her homeland. This article examines three of her plays from the late eighties and early nineties, using both Freudian and performance theories, in order to show how these works document the range of emotions in post Dirty War Argentina and, at the same time, postulate ways of coping with the memories of those years. Beyond traditional memory-theater, these plays demonstrate the trauma of remembering by highlighting different phases in the memory process and by conceptualizing stages in the grief of a traumatized nation. …

A Literary Form For Love: Yves Navarre's My Friends Are Gone With The Wind, Richard M. Berrong

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

In My Friends Are Gone with the Wind (Ce sont amis que vent emporte, 1991), one of his last and most innovative texts, Yves Navarre (1940-1994), one of the most important contemporary French novelists to deal significantly and regularly with gay themes, returns to his preoccupation with the dangers that the forms inherent in traditional literary narrative pose for the expression of authentic human experience. The narrator, Roch, wants to capture the reality of his love for David, in part to prove to what he sees as a largely hostile heterosexual world that gays are as capable of loving …

Recollecting Wondrous Moments: Father Pushkin, Mother Russia, And Intertextual Memory In Tatyana Tolstaya's "Night" And "Limpopo", Karen R. Smith

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

With their references to Alexander Pushkin, Tolstaya's "Night" and "Limpopo" respond to the cultural crisis of 1980s Russia, where literary language, bent for so long into the service of totalitarianism, suffers the scars of amnesia. Recycling Pushkin's tropes, particularly his images of feminine inspiration derived from the cultural archetype of Mother Russia, Tolstaya's stories appear nostalgically to rescue Russia's literary memory, but they also accentuate the crisis of the present, the gap between the apparel of literary language and that which it purports to clothe. "Night," an ironic reworking of Pushkin's "Queen of Spades," dismantles the nostalgic imagery of his …

The Influence Of Amyloid-Beta, A Major Pathological Marker In Alzheimer's Disease, On Molecular Cognitive Processes Of App+Ps1 Transgenic Mice, Chad Anthony Dickey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by anterograde amnesia followed by a progressive decline in cognitive function. Post mortem examination of forebrain tissue from sufferers reveals the presence of extracellular amyloid-beta plaques, intracellular neurofibrillary tangles, activation of glial cells and massive neuron loss. Transgenic mice expressing mutated forms of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) and presenilin-1 (PS1) genes develop neuritic amyloid plaques, glial cell activation and memory deficits, without the formation of intracellular tangles and neurodegeneration.

The mechanisms by which these transgenic mice develop mnemonic deficiencies are unclear. Gene expression of aged memory-deficient APP+PS1 mice compared with non-transgenic littermates measured by …

Up To The Moon And Past The Stars, Matt Court

The Prairie Light Review

No abstract provided.

Concerning Theories Of Personal Identity, Patrick, Bailey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a brief examination of the historical accounts of philosophical theories of personal identity and show the influence that each has had on the development of contemporary theories. In doing so, the thesis explores the problems associated with these theories, attempting to establish a meta-theory (i.e. a theory about theories) of personal identity. What is demonstrated is that the fundamental problems of personal identity arise from issues related to the use of language, as well as assumptions involving the concept of personhood.

By demonstrating that our understanding of personhood is relative to frameworks …

Why Distinctive Information Reduces False Memories: Evidence For Both Impoverished Relational-Encoding And Distinctiveness Heuristic Accounts, Amanda C. Gingerich, C. S. Dodson

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Two accounts explain why studying pictures reduces false memories within the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm (J. Deese, 1959; H. L. Roediger & K. B. McDermott, 1995). The impoverished relational-encoding account suggests that studying pictures interferes with the encoding of relational information, which is the primary basis for false memories in this paradigm. Alternatively, the distinctiveness heuristic assumes that critical lures are actively withheld by the use of a retrieval strategy. When participants were given inclusion recall instructions to report studied items as well as related items, they still reported critical lures less often after picture encoding than they did after word encoding. …

Death Warmed Up: The Agency Of Bodies And Bones In Early Anglo-Saxon Cremation Rites, Howard M. R. Williams

Howard M. R. Williams

It is argued that recent archaeological theories of death and burial have tended to overlook the social and mnemonic agency of the dead body. Drawing upon anthropological, ethnographic and forensic analogies for the effects of fire on the human body, together with Gell’s theory of the agency of inanimate objects, the article explores the cremation rites of early Anglo-Saxon England. As a case study in the archaeological study of the mnemonic agency of bodies and bones it is suggested that cremation and postcremation rites in the 5th and 6th centuries AD in eastern England operated as technologies of remembrance. Cremation …

The Impact Of Dynamic Changes In Talker Amplitude On Recognition Memory For Words, Kimberly M Cramer

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This study investigated whether dynamic changes in the amplitude of speech were represented along with word information. An emotional manipulation was used to examine if listeners were sensitive to dynamic changes in amplitude. In Experiment 1, six talkers produced 200 phonetically balanced (PB) words with different intended emotions (e.g., joy versus sadness). Intensity measurements across time were recorded for each target word. Statistically distinct amplitude contours were obtained as a function of intended emotion. In Experiment 2, listeners judged whether each word in a list of spoken words was "new" (i.e., word was new to the list) or "old" (i.e., …

Piero Chiara E La Tradizione, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

Piero Chiara (Luino 1913- Varese 1986) wrote many novels and short stories that immediately met great public success. Critics devoted mixed attention to him but his works deserve a new critical assessment to analyze the rich and sophisticated web of cultural and literary references that permeate them. Through readings of Il piatto piange, “L’uovo al cianuro” and other novels and short stories, this paper analyses the complex textual relations Chiara entertains with Pirandello’s Il fu Mattia Pascal. Chiara investigates the themes of identity and the double. His narrative depicts an apparently lighthearted reality that in fact reveals despair. …

Use It Or Lose It? What Predicts Age-Related Declines In Cognitive Performance In Elderly Adults?, Katherine Midkiff

McNair Scholars Journal

Psychologists have suggested two possible causes of declines in cognitive performance with age: declines in cognitive capacity (e.g., working memory), and the level of stimulation in their environments. Fourteen college students (mean age=21 years, SD=1.65), seven middle-aged (40-59, mean age=51, SD=4.8), and five elderly (60+, mean age=74.8, SD=8.3) participants completed a series of assessments including simple and complex measures of processing and reasoning and assessments of cognitive stimulation. The results indicated that working memory declines with age and that these declines predicted performance on complex reasoning tasks while cognitive stimulation was unrelated to performance.

Memory Matters Ii: Predictors Of Self-Care Behaviors In Young Adults With Type 1 Diabetes, Sari A. Soutor

Theses and Dissertations

Type 1 diabetes and associated hypoglycemia can result in verbal memory difficulties, yet the role of memory in daily diabetes self-care has not been evaluated for young adults. Subtests from two well-standardized memory measures were administered to 34 young adults with type 1 diabetes, aged 18-29, in this pilot study. Self-care behaviors were assessed through 24-hour diabetes care interviews, while HbAlc indicated metabolic control. Verbal associative memory uniquely accounted for 12% of the variance in blood glucose testing frequency (p p p p = .06. Single-trial verbal memory uniquely predicted 10% of the variance in metabolic control (p p < .05. Importantly, memory was the only significant predictor in each model, which indicates memory, rather than overall cognitive capacity or financial/educational resources, relates to self-care behaviors/health status. Memory, a novel factor not previously evaluated in the quest to better understand daily disease management for young adults with diabetes, is significantly related to central self-care behaviors and metabolic control. Memory predictors likely warrant additional research and clinical attention such that eventually, intervention studies might identify strategies or compensatory aids that could improve young adults' self-care behaviors and health status through facilitating better memory functioning.

"Honduran Memories": Identity, Race, Place And Memory In New Orleans, Louisiana, Samantha Euraque

LSU Master's Theses

During the decade preceding the height of the civil rights movement, a small population of Hondurans established residence in the New Orleans area. This Honduran migration was largely due to the trade relationship that existed between Honduras and New Orleans. Honduras was also experiencing political unrest and economic instability due to military coups, fruit company strikes and floods during the late 1950s. In response, the advent of the 1960s brought with it the first wave of Hondurans. According to the 2000 Census there were 64,340 people of Hispanic origin in the four parishes included in the New Orleans metropolitan area, …

Effect Of Repeated Dosing Of Delta 9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, The Major Psychoactive Ingredient Of Marijuana, On Memory In Mice, Floride Niyuhire

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: Marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug in the United States. However, marijuana and cannabinoid derivatives have potential therapeutic uses. Studies in cannabis users have yielded contradictory results with regard to long-term effects on cognitive functions. There is no prospective study assessing this issue, and such studies may raise ethical issues in humans, whereas mice have been shown to exhibit similar cannabinoid-mediated behaviors as humans. The purpose of this study was to assess the consequences of chronic administration of Δ9-THC, the major psychoactive component of marijuana, in a mouse memory model. Methods: In Experiment 1, the dose-response relationship …

A Constructed Peace: Narratives Of Suture In The News Media, Jody L. Madeira

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In the aftermath of violent crime, survivors are confronted by questions of comprehension, healing, normalcy, accountability, and restoration. These same issues are communicated to audiences via mass media coverage of the crime and ensuing legal proceedings that focuses upon survivors while they are in the public eye - and while those suspected of the crime are in the defendant's chair. Such stories bring a human face to the innocents most affected by the outcome of the proceedings, relaying their involvement in and response to legal developments from arrest to execution. This paper examines these chronicles through the lens of narrative …

Attention And Memory Bias For Positive Emotional Words, Gregory P Strauss

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The current study examined the relationship between attention and memory for emotional words. Theories of "basic emotion" divide emotions into positive and negative classifications, and propose that discrete categories exist within the larger positive negative dichotomy. Previous research on emotion has yet to investigate the areas of attention and memory by dividing positive/negative words into discrete emotional categories. Participants included 30 undergraduate students between the ages 18--40. Attention and Memory were examined using an Emotional Stroop task, The Emotional Verbal Learning Test, and the California Verbal Learning Test-II, respectively. Stimuli for emotional tasks are divided into five emotional word categories …

A Performance Genealogy Of "Etchings Of Debutantes", Melanie A. Kitchens

LSU Master's Theses

In this thesis history performs that which Della Pollock terms “historicity” in her “Introduction” to Exceptional Spaces: Essays in Performance and History. History as historicity is no longer an evolutionary master narrative that dictates essential Truths. Rather, it is a site for performance where unfinalized and partial fragments of the past cluster into stories that mingle fact and fiction. Historicity defines a space or an event where history is a doing. The performer of this history embraces agency, which she uses to place herself within history rather than dominate or be dominated by it. Observing history as historicity, Joseph Roaches …

Enhancement Of Cognitive And Electrophysiological Measures Of Hippocampal Functioning In Rats By A Low, But Not High, Dose Of Dehydroepiandrosterone Sulfate (Dheas), David M. Diamond

Psychology Faculty Publications

Dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) is a steroid hornone that is synthesized, de novo, in the brain. Endogenous DHEAS levels correlate with the quality of mental and physical health, where the highest levels of DHEAS occur in healthy young adults and reduced levels of DHEAS are found with advanced age, disease, or extreme stress. DHEAS supplementation, therefore, may serve as a therapeutic agent against a broad range of maladies. This paper summarizes laboratory findings on dose-response relationships between DHEAS and cognitive and electrophysiological measures of hippocampal functioning. It was found that a low, but not a high, dose of DHEAS enhanced hippocampal …

The Association Of Working Memory And Anxiety With Skill Acquisition And Transfer In Young And Older Adults, Isabelle Valk

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Two studies, involving a total of 184 adults between 17 and 89 years of age, were conducted to determine whether age differences in skill acquisition and transfer could be related to age differences in working memory functioning and anxiety. In both experiments, working memory functioning was measured using the Digit Span task (Wechsler, 1997) und the Reading Span tusk (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980), while anxiety levels were measured using the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, & Jacobs, 1983). Participants were required to perform a mental arithmetic task in Experiment I, and a visual numerosity task in Experiment …