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Effects Of Intralaminar Thalamic Nuclei, Prefrontal Cortical, And Hippocampal Lesions On A Seven-Choice Serial Reaction Time Task, Joshua Alan Burk

Doctoral Dissertations

Slow response speed has been associated with several neuropsychological disorders including Korsakoff's disease. The ability to respond to brief stimuli can be tested to assess whether slow response speed is due to slow stimulus processing. A seven choice serial reaction time task was developed to test the ability to respond to brief stimuli. Distractibility and stimulus discriminability were manipulated to challenge performance and cues were presented to enhance performance. In Experiment 1, six unlesioned rats were tested on this task. As expected, significant deficits were found when (1) stimulus duration was decreased, (2) bright distractor light was briefly presented, (3) …

The Ideal Free Distribution Of Group Choice: A Social Psychology Of Human Behavior, John Robert Kraft

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents an experimental analysis of social behavior. The behavior is called Group Choice (Baum & Kraft, 1998) and the analysis is a social foraging model called the Ideal Free Distribution (IFD; Fretwell & Lucas, 1970). The IFD is a social foraging model that describes the distribution of a group of foragers in a patchy environment. Group Choice describes group members engaging in two behaviors. The IFD suggests that group members engage in two behaviors in the same relative relation to the consequences obtained from those behaviors. The IFD of Group Choice is analogous to the Matching Law analysis …

Mentoring In Adolescence: A Sociocultural And Cognitive Developmental Study Of Undergraduate Women And Sixth-Grade Girls In A Mentoring Program, Katharina Maria Fachin Lucas

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was two-fold. First, a quasi-experimental study was conducted to explore the cognitive developmental effects of taking on the role of "mentor" as an undergraduate or the role of "mentee" as a sixth grader in one university-based mentoring program. Second, an ethnographic study was conducted to study the experiences of ten sixth graders and ten undergraduates as they took on the role of "mentor" or "mentee" in a planned mentoring relationship. A sociocultural analysis explored processes occurring on the personal, interpersonal, and community level that shaped the mentoring experiences of the participants.

The participants in this …

When Does Gender Matter? Explaining The Transition To Adulthood As A Gendered Process, Kimberly Autumn Mahaffy

Doctoral Dissertations

Most gender theory and research focuses on two points in the life course: childhood and middle adulthood. Less attention is given to the period in between. The purpose of this dissertation is to determine whether and how the transition to adulthood is gendered. To what extent do school, family, and labor market contexts have a different effect on adolescent girls and boys as they become adults?

Using data from the High School and Beyond 1980 Sophomore Cohort Study (1980--1992), 1 examine how social context differentially affects the plans for the future and adult status outcomes of young women and men. …

Learning To Read Music Cooperatively In A Choral Setting: A Case Study, Andrew Inzenga

Doctoral Dissertations

Two volunteer cooperative teams of ninth grade girls were studied for six months to discover whether and how they learned to read music. The two teams represented novice students and students who had received private instruction. Study teams represented the population of the freshman Girls Chorus. Teams met regularly during daily chorus rehearsals, with only occasional help from the director. These meetings were analyzed through video tape recordings to observe if students employed traditional teaching and learning strategies to assist each other in learning. It was determined that team members regularly use certain teaching and learning strategies to assist in …

The Effects Of Reversible Inactivation By Lidocaine Of Ventral Striatum And Intralaminar Nucleus Of The Thalamus In Match To Sample Tasks With And Without Delays Trained In The Lever Box, Mary Christine Porter

Doctoral Dissertations

Three experiments systematically examined the effects of reversibly inactivating intralaminar nuclei and ventral striatum with infusions of lidocaine. The ventral striatum and the intralaminar nucleus were targeted based on deficits in accuracy and speed of responding in delayed conditional discrimination tasks associated with permanent lesions of these structures (Mair, Burk and Porter, 1998).

The present research showed that a 4.0 mul of 2% lidocaine caused impairments accuracy, but not in response speed, in a match to sample task trained in the lever box without delays when the internal cannula projects 0.5 mm from the guide cannula. One microliter of 2%, …

The Effects Of Medicaid And Maternal Depression On Prenatal Care And Infant Health, Lisa C. Defelice

Doctoral Dissertations

While in recent years, the infant health production function literature has expanded to incorporate behavioral inputs into the production of infant health current research fails to incorporate the Medicaid-private insurance choice into the mother's decision making process. This dissertation seeks to address this by treating private insurance and Medicaid as endogenous while considering the effects that the Medicaid eligibility rules have on both kinds of coverage. Medicaid and private insurance are entered directly into the health production function so that quality effects may be captured. In addition, a woman's state of mental health is also incorporated into the health production …

Predicting Ageist And Sexist Attitudes And The Conditions For Their Existence, Heather Frasier Chabot

Doctoral Dissertations

Prejudice and discrimination are pervasive and problematic and affect intergroup relations (Allport, 1954). The purpose of the current research was to expand our understanding of ageist and sexist attitudes. The Pilot Study indicated some of the significant predictors of ageist attitudes among college students. The results of Study I indicated that college students view younger adults as more instrumental than older adults but they do not differentiate between older adults who are 65 to 74 years of age, 75 to 84 years of age, and 85 years or older. Study 2 indicated that intergroup distinctions among younger (17--28 years of …

Queering/Querying Identities: The Roles Of Integrity And Belonging In Becoming Ourselves, Cari Ann Elizabeth Moorhead

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents a picture of the complexities and contradictions in the daily lives of people in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire who identify as, or are identified as, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning and allied people (LGBTQQA). The focus of this study is the "Create Our Destiny" conference, a social change project. Philosophically, I viewed this project through a Postmodern feminist lens, and methodologically I used a grounded theory approach.

This dissertation is divided into three sections. Within section one, I present more detailed descriptions of my philosophical and methodological approaches, a description of the geographical and …