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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Psychology

City University of New York (CUNY)

Theses/Dissertations

2010

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Moderator Effects Of Working Memory On Symptom Stability In Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder By Dopamine D1 And D2 Receptor Polymorphisms During Development, Joey W. Trampush Jan 2010

Moderator Effects Of Working Memory On Symptom Stability In Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder By Dopamine D1 And D2 Receptor Polymorphisms During Development, Joey W. Trampush

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Developmental changes in dopaminergic pathways in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) that are important for working memory have been hypothesized to play a central role in the trajectory of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but not the initial onset of the disorder. This dissertation research examines whether dopamine receptor D1 (DRD1) and dopamine receptor D2 (DRD2) gene polymorphisms moderate the association between improvements in working memory and declines in attention problems in ADHD from childhood to adolescence/young adulthood. Methods: Participants were 76 racially/ethnically diverse youth diagnosed with ADHD in childhood and followed prospectively for almost 10 years. Stability of ADHD symptomatology …


Children's Tolerance Of Word-Form Variation, Paul Reeves Breuning Jan 2010

Children's Tolerance Of Word-Form Variation, Paul Reeves Breuning

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study compared children's (N=96, mean age 4;1, range 2;8-5;3) and adults' (N=96, mean age 21 years) tolerance of word-onset modifications (e.g., wabbit and warabbit) and pseudo affixes (e.g., kocat and catko) in a label extension task. Trials comprised an introductory phase where children saw a picture of an animal and were told its name, and a test phase where they were shown the same picture along with one of a different animal. For `similar-name' trials, participants heard a word-form modification of the previously introduced name (e.g., introduced to a dib, they were asked, `which animal is a wib?'). For …


The Impact Of Mood Disorders On Cognitive Function In Post-Menopausal Women Undergoing Treatment For Early-Stage Breast Cancer, Margery E. Frosch Jan 2010

The Impact Of Mood Disorders On Cognitive Function In Post-Menopausal Women Undergoing Treatment For Early-Stage Breast Cancer, Margery E. Frosch

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

PURPOSE: Many post-menopausal women who are treated for early-stage breast cancer report experiencing cognitive difficulties following adjuvant chemotherapy. However, the generalizability of the results of a number of studies that have attempted to document the association between adjuvant chemotherapy and cognitive dysfunction has been limited due to inconsistencies in the investigative methods used, thus introducing the possibility that other factors are contributing to reports of cognitive problems. The current study examines the possibility that a history of mood disorders in post-menopausal breast cancer patients predisposes them to cognitive difficulties following adjuvant treatment. METHODS: Sixty-five postmenopausal women with non-metastatic breast cancer …


Semi-Supervised Learning For Connectionist Networks, Rebecca Robare Jan 2010

Semi-Supervised Learning For Connectionist Networks, Rebecca Robare

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At the computational level, language is often assumed to require both supervised and unsupervised learning. Although we have a certain understanding of these computational processes both biologically and behaviorally, our understanding of the environmental conditions under which language learning takes place falls short. I examine the semi-supervised learning paradigm as the most accurate computational description of the environmental conditions of lexical acquisition during language development. This paradigm is assessed for task learning and generalization and I argue that its real ecological validity and occasional improvements in performance over supervised learning make it an ideal candidate for modeling of language acquisition …


The Effect Of Teaching Attending To A Face On Joint Attention Skills In Children With An Autism Spectrum Disorder, Tina Rovito Gomez Jan 2010

The Effect Of Teaching Attending To A Face On Joint Attention Skills In Children With An Autism Spectrum Disorder, Tina Rovito Gomez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Autism spectrum disorders are characterized in terms of behavioral deficits in areas of social behavior and language development. A failure to attend to the faces of others is the single best discriminator between 1-year-old children later diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and those with typical development. Attending to the face of another provides the opportunity for episodes of attention sharing and is important to the development of communication, joint attention, and social behavior. A more advanced form of attending to a face is joint attention which has been defined as the ability to coordinate attention between an object …


The Interaction Of Intensity And Deviance On Auditory Event-Related Potentials: Findings Using Principal Component Analysis (Pca) Of Current Source Densities (Csds), Nathan A. Gates Jan 2010

The Interaction Of Intensity And Deviance On Auditory Event-Related Potentials: Findings Using Principal Component Analysis (Pca) Of Current Source Densities (Csds), Nathan A. Gates

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mismatch negativity (MMN) studies provide insights into the brain's ability to perceive and/or detect deviations from established sensory patterns. Clinical studies investigating the loudness-dependency of auditory evoked potential (LDAEP) have shown a relationship between the intensity of an auditory stimulus and neuro-physiological or -chemical activity of the primary auditory cortex. Unfortunately, these two bodies of literature remain disjointed. The present study integrates elements of each body of literature to a) investigate the impact of varying levels of intensity deviance on N1/P2 with a standard set of intensities used in LDAEP paradigms, and b) assess the extent to which deviance-related processes …