Digital Commons Network^™

Characterizing Students’ Thinking: Algebraic Inequalities And Equations, Kien H. Lim

Kien H Lim

This paper presents the findings of a study that explores the viability of using students’ act of anticipating as a means to characterize the way students think while solving problems in algebra. Two types of anticipating acts were identified: predicting a result and foreseeing an action. These acts were characterized using Harel’s framework, which involves the concepts of mental act, way of understanding, and way of thinking. Categories for characterizing acts of predicting and foreseeing were identified and developed based on thirteen 11th graders’ responses to problems involving algebraic inequalities and equations. The quality of students’ acts of predicting and …

Age-Related Functional Recruitment For Famous Name Recognition: An Event-Related Fmri Study, Kristy A. Nielson, Kelli Douville, Michael Seidenberg, John L. Woodard, Sarah K. Miller, Malgorzata Franczak, Piero Antuono, Stephen M. Rao

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Recent neuroimaging research shows that older adults exhibit recruitment, or increased activation on various cognitive tasks. The current study evaluated whether a similar pattern also occurs in semantic memory by evaluating age-related differences during recognition of Recent (since the 1990s) and Enduring (1950s to present) famous names. Fifteen healthy older and 15 healthy younger adults performed the name recognition task with a high and comparable degree of accuracy, although older adults had slower reaction time in response to Recent famous names. Event-related functional MRI showed extensive networks of activation in the two groups including posterior cingulate, right hippocampus, temporal lobe …

Medial Prefrontal Dissociations During Processing Of Trait Diagnostic And Nondiagnostic Person Information, Jason P. Mitchell, Jasmin Cloutier, Mahzarin R. Banaji, C Neil Macrae

Dartmouth Scholarship

Previous research has suggested that perceivers spontaneously extract trait-specific information from the behaviour of others. However, little is known about whether perceivers spontaneously engage in the same depth of social-cognitive processing for all person information or reserve such processing specifically for information that conveys diagnostic clues about another person's dispositions. Moreover, a question remains as to whether the processing of such nondiagnostic information can be affected by perceivers’ explicit goal to consider another's dispositions or not. To examine processing of diagnostic and nondiagnostic social information as a function of perceivers’ explicit social-cognitive goals, participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) …

Risky Decision Making Assessed With The Gambling Task In Adults With Hiv, David J. Hardy, Charles H. Hinkin, Steven A. Castellon, Andrew J. Levine, Mona N. Lam

Psychological Science Faculty Works

Decision making was assessed using a laboratory gambling task in 67 adults with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV+) and in 19 HIV-seronegative (HIV−) control participants. Neurocognitive test performance across several domains was also analyzed to examine potential cognitive mechanisms of gambling task performance. As predicted, the HIV+ group performed worse on the gambling task, indicating greater risky decision making. Specifically, the HIV+ group selected more cards from the “risky” or disadvantageous deck that included relatively large payoffs but infrequent large penalties. The control group also selected such risky cards but quickly learned to avoid them. Exploratory analyses also indicated that …

Quantum Theories Of Consciousness, Imants Barušs

Psychology

The assumption is often made in conventional cognitive science that consciousness is a computational process resulting from macroscopic neural activity as described by classical physics. That assumption has been questioned both because it has been unsuccessful in explaining consciousness and because it is based on outdated ideas about the nature of matter. More contemporary quantum theories may be more successful for understanding cognition. For example, Mari Jibu, Kunio Yasue, and Yasushi Takahashi have proposed a theory of memory as a spinor field underlying cortical dipoles in which quantum mechanical tunnelling instantiates memory decay and in which the creation of Goldstone …

The Effects Of Nutrition On The Cognitive Skills Of Students From Kindergarten Through Third Grades, Rebecca Lorentz

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This research explores the positive relationships between good nutrition and the cognitive skills of students in kindergarten through third grade. This paper discusses how certain nutrients have been found to improve skills such as memory retention, spatial relationships, and pattern skills. Since these are necessary skills of early childhood academics, parents, educators, and the students themselves will benefit from learning more about how nutrition affects those skills.

Need For Cognition And Message Complexity In Motivating Fruit And Vegetable Intake Among Callers To The Cancer Information Service, Pamela Williams-Piehota, Judith Pizarro, Stephanie A. Navarro Silvera, Linda Mowad, Peter Salovey

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

This field experiment examined the impact of an individual's need for cognition (NFC; the tendency to enjoy thinking deeply about issues), complex versus simple messages, and the interaction of NFC and message type on encouraging fruit and vegetable consumption. Callers to the Cancer Information Service of the National Cancer Institute (N = 517) were asked to participate in the experiment at the end of their call. Individual NFC was assessed, and participants were assigned randomly to receive a telephone message promoting fruit and vegetable consumption that was either complex and multifaceted or simple and straightforward. Similarly constructed brochures were …

Confronting Conventional Thinking: The Heuristics Problem In Feminist Legal Theory, Nancy Levit

Nancy Levit

The thesis of The Heuristics Problem is that the societal problems about which identity theorists are most concerned often spring from and are reinforced by thinking riddled with heuristic errors. This article first investigates the ways heuristic errors influence popular perceptions of feminist issues. Feminists and critical race theorists have explored the cognitive bias of stereotyping, but have not examined the ways probabilistic errors can have gendered consequences. Second, The Heuristics Problem traces some of the ways cognitive errors have influenced the development of laws relating to gender issues. It explores instances in judicial decisions in which courts commit heuristic …

Cognitive-Vestibular Interactions: A Review Of Patient Difficulties And Possible Mechanisms, Douglas A. Hanes, Gin Mccollum

Gin McCollum

Cognitive deficits such as poor concentration and short-term memory loss are known by clinicians to occur frequently among patients with vestibular abnormalities. Although direct scientific study of such deficits has been limited, several types of investigations do lend weight to the existence of vestibular-cognitive effects. In this article we review a wide range of studies indicating a vestibular influence on the ability to perform certain cognitive functions. In addition to tests of vestibular patient abilities, these studies include dual-task studies of cognitive and balance functions, studies of vestibular contribution to spatial perception and memory, and works demonstrating a vestibular influence …

Longitudinal Trends In Postpartum Mental Health, Cognition And Steroid Hormones, Chandler R Marrs

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The temporal association between psychiatric and cognitive disturbances during pregnancy and postpartum is clear in the literature. However, associations between these disturbances and puerperal hormones are equivocal. The present study followed nine primigravid women from late pregnancy through one year postpartum to investigate trends in psychiatric and cognitive disturbances relative to postpartum hormone changes. Participants completed a battery of neuropsychological instruments at 37 weeks of pregnancy, at 10 days and four-, eight- and twelve-months postpartum and provided salivary specimen from which dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS), testosterone, estradiol and estriol concentrations were quantified. Results showed psychiatric disturbances and cognitive decrements in late …

Factors Influencing Health Status In Community-Dwelling Older Adults, Janet Jestina Byam-Williams

Theses and Dissertations

This descriptive, correlational study was based on Pender's Health Promotion Model (Pender, Murdaugh, & Parsons, 2002). The purpose was to examine factors influencing health status in community-dwelling, older white and black adults. The following research question was addressed by the study: What are the relationships among the individual characteristics (age, gender, race, education, and income); the behavior-specific cognitions and affect (perceived self-efficacy, perceived barriers, and interpersonal influences); and the behavioral outcomes (health-promoting behaviors), and health status in community-dwelling whites and blacks 65 years of age and older? The convenience sample of 113 participants from four congregate meal sites in Central …

Study Of The Cognitive Functioning Of Medicated And Non-Medicated Elementary School-Aged Children Diagnosed With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Janet Friedman

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a serious disability that has been shown to adversely affect cognition, affect, and behavior. Research using traditional measures of cognitive functioning, such as intelligence tests has shown that children diagnosed with ADHD perform poorly on cognitive measures of processing speed, and on working memory in particular (Kerns, Mclnerney & Wilde, 2001; Weiler, Bernstein, Bellinger & Waber, 2000). Mahone, et al. (2003), note that reviews involving the Wechsler Scales for children suggest that Full Scale IQ scores (FSIQ) on the WISC-III average 5 to 6 points lower than scores in the WISC-R. It was hypothesized …

Using Fmri To Explore Interactivity And Cognition: A Methodological Case Study, Barney Dalgarno, Gregor Kennedy, Susan J. Bennett

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Recent educational models of computer-based interactivity stress the important role of a learner’s cognition. It has been suggested that interactive learning tasks carried out in the context of an authentic, problem-based scenario will result in deeper, elaborative cognitive processing leading to greater conceptual understanding of the material presented. Research methods that have been used to investigate cognition and learning have traditionally included self-report questionnaires, focus groups, interviews and think-aloud protocols and, more recently in computer-based settings, interaction log file or ‘audit trail’ analysis. While all of these techniques help researchers understand students’ learning processes, all are limited in that they …

Confronting Conventional Thinking: The Heuristics Problem In Feminist Legal Theory, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

The thesis of The Heuristics Problem is that the societal problems about which identity theorists are most concerned often spring from and are reinforced by thinking riddled with heuristic errors. This article first investigates the ways heuristic errors influence popular perceptions of feminist issues. Feminists and critical race theorists have explored the cognitive bias of stereotyping, but have not examined the ways probabilistic errors can have gendered consequences. Second, The Heuristics Problem traces some of the ways cognitive errors have influenced the development of laws relating to gender issues. It explores instances in judicial decisions in which courts commit heuristic …

A Longitudinal Investigation Of Cognitive Predictors Of Self-Care Behaviors In Youth With Type I Diabetes, Michelle Marie Greene

Theses and Dissertations

Cross-sectional research of youth with type I diabetes has demonstrated that rote and working memory predict blood glucose monitoring (BGM) and carbohydrate consumption, respectively; however, to date, no longitudinal follow-up studies exist. Rote and working memory subtests from well-standardized memory measures, along with a problem-solving and executive functioning measures were administered to 118 youth with type I diabetes, aged 9-16 in two waves of data collection (mean interval = 2.07 years). Diabetes care behaviors were assessed through the 24-hour Diabetes Interview. This study was the first to document longitudinal prediction of BGM by rote memory and fat consumption by working …

Law And Emotion: A Proposed Taxonomy Of An Emerging Field Special Edition, Terry A. Maroney

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Many scholars - from fields as diverse as psychology, law, philosophy, and neuroscience - have begun to study the intersection of emotion and law. I describe that scholarship's development; propose that it is organized along six interrelated but theoretically distinct foci; and suggest directions for future research.

The notion that reason and emotion are cleanly separable - and that law admits only of the former - is deeply engrained, though it recently has come under attack. Law and emotion scholarship proceeds from the beliefs that emotion may be specifically studied, that it is relevant to law, and that its legal …

Conceptualizing Hoarding Behavior Among Elderly Women: A Mixed-Methods Approach, Susan Jan Murdock

Theses and Dissertations

Hoarding in the community involves substantial cluttering and impaired functioning, often exposing the hoarder to extensive health and safety risks. This research, based on Functionalism social theory, explores the three elements of hoarding—relentless acquisition, intense possessiveness of objects, and a reluctance to discard possessions—as a sociocultural phenomenon. The mixed methods methodology entailed a quantitative study involving a survey completed by 134 adult protective services workers throughout Virginia and a qualitative study of five randomly-selected adult protective services workers who volunteered for in-depth interviews.Findings revealed that adult protective services workers come in contact with very severe cases of hoarding, with over …

Revisiting Austin V. Loral: A Study In Economic Duress, Contract Modification And Framing, Meredith R. Miller

Scholarly Works

Austin v. Loral, 29 N.Y.2d 124 (1971), is a favorite among Contracts casebooks because the New York Court of Appeals held that it was a "classic" example of economic duress. It involved Austin, a small gear part manufacturer, who had entered into a subcontract to provide gear parts to Loral, a publicly-traded defense industry supplier. Loral had a contract with the U.S. government to supply radar sets, to be used in the U.S. efforts in Vietnam. Midway through performance of the subcontract, Austin apparently refused to continue to deliver the gear parts unless Loral acceded to certain demands, which included …