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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Changing Criteria: What Decision Processes Reveal About Confidence In Memory, Johanny N. Castillo Oct 2022

Changing Criteria: What Decision Processes Reveal About Confidence In Memory, Johanny N. Castillo

Masters Theses

Source memory is our ability to relate central information (the “item”) to the context (the “source”) in which it was learned or experienced. People are often highly confident in their source judgements even when this information is incorrectly recalled. Past work has aimed to explain why source errors made with high confidence occur with a framework called the Converging Criteria (CC) account. The CC account posits that item memory can interact with source memory by altering decision criteria as item confidence increases, increasing the probability of a high confidence source judgement. This prediction differs from alternate models, like the Fixed …


The Role Of Autobiographical Memory Recall In Reappraisal Efficacy And Effort Across Age, Irina Orlovsky Oct 2022

The Role Of Autobiographical Memory Recall In Reappraisal Efficacy And Effort Across Age, Irina Orlovsky

Masters Theses

Socioemotional theories posit that the experience of overcoming unique life challenges over a lifetime enhances self-efficacy and emotional resilience among older adults. Older adults demonstrate greater emotional well-being and motivation to regulate emotions than younger adults, but specific regulatory mechanisms supporting late-life emotional resilience remain unclear. Cognitive reappraisal is an effective but cognitively demanding emotion regulation strategy and shows mixed efficacy in later-life. While a growing repertoire of autobiographical memories may be a resource with age, the role of autobiographical recall in momentary reappraisal has never been tested empirically. In this online study, older and younger adults were trained to …


There And Gone Again: Syntactic Structure In Memory, Caroline Andrews Apr 2021

There And Gone Again: Syntactic Structure In Memory, Caroline Andrews

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation addresses the relationship between hierarchical syntactic structure and memory in language processing of individual sentences. Hierarchical syntactic structure is a key part of human languages and language processing but its integration with memory has been uneasy ever since Sachs (1967) demonstrated that the syntactic structure of individual sentences is lost in explicit sentence recall tasks much faster than other linguistic information (lexical, semantic, etc.). Nonetheless, psycholinguists have continued to draw on memory in syntactic processing theories, in part due to (i) the explanatory power that memory can give to sentence processing hypotheses, and (ii) the conflicting results that …


Slow Wave Sleep In Naps Supports Episodic Memories In Early Childhood, Sanna Lokhandwala Apr 2021

Slow Wave Sleep In Naps Supports Episodic Memories In Early Childhood, Sanna Lokhandwala

Masters Theses

Naps have been shown to benefit declarative memories in early childhood. This benefit has been associated with sleep spindles during the nap. However, whether young children’s naps and their accompanying physiology benefit other forms of declarative learning is unknown. Using a novel storybook task, we found performance was better following a nap compared to performance following an equivalent interval spent awake. Moreover, performance was better the following day if a nap followed learning. Further, change in post-nap performance was positively associated to the amount of time spent in slow wave sleep. This suggests that slow wave sleep in naps may …


Testing The Convergent Retrieval Learning Theory Of Testing Effects, William J. Hopper Mar 2020

Testing The Convergent Retrieval Learning Theory Of Testing Effects, William J. Hopper

Doctoral Dissertations

What is learned from retrieving a memory that is not learned by studying the same information? In response to this question, I have proposed a new theory of retrieval-based learning in which I argue that retrieval strengthens the ability to completely activate all portions of a memory trace from an initial state of partial activation. In effect, retrieval serves to unitize the features of a memory, making the entire memory remain retrievable in the future when cue-related activation may be weaker. This theory, called the Primary and Convergent Retrieval (PCR) model, explains why practice tests produce both better long-term retention …


The Political Work Of Memory In Collaborative Caribbean Archaeology, Elena Sesma Jul 2019

The Political Work Of Memory In Collaborative Caribbean Archaeology, Elena Sesma

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is the product of a community-based research project that sought to understand how descendants of the 19th century Millars Plantation on the southern end of Eleuthera, Bahamas continue to use and reinterpret the landscape that they have called home for over a century and a half. In 1871, the last owner of the Millars Plantation left the estate in her will to the descendants of her former slaves and servants. That descendant community still upholds their right to this land today, although in recent years, a Bahamian developer has attempted to gain title to the acreage through the …


Recollections: Memory, Materiality, And Meritocracy At The Dr. James Still Historic Office And Homestead, Marc Lorenc Jul 2019

Recollections: Memory, Materiality, And Meritocracy At The Dr. James Still Historic Office And Homestead, Marc Lorenc

Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation explores how memory, materiality, and meritocracy articulate together to create a meritocratic subjectivity at the Dr. James Still Historic Office and Homestead. This subjectivity frames how we experience and promote the history of Dr. James Still through an authorized heritage discourse (AHD) (Smith 2006) that promotes and re-ingrains American meritocracy, specifically the “bootstrap myth”, as a “common sense”. Using a combination of archaeological excavations, documentary analysis, and ethnography conducted under the Dr. James Still Community Archaeology Project (DJSCAP), I explore how cultural artifacts shape and influence our subjectivities at the site and more broadly in everyday interactions with …


Assessing The Long-Term Sequelae Of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, Janna Mantua Mar 2018

Assessing The Long-Term Sequelae Of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, Janna Mantua

Doctoral Dissertations

A mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), also known as a concussion, is defined as an injury that results in an alteration of consciousness or mental status. Previous studies have shown mTBI populations experience a number of chronic (> 1 year) symptoms, such as sleep disturbances (e.g., sleep stage alterations), mood alterations (e.g., depressive symptoms), and cognitive alterations (e.g., poor concentration). The three chapters of this dissertation sought to explore these long-term sequelae and the possible interrelations between them. In the first experiment, sleep-dependent memory consolidation of neutral stimuli was probed in a chronic mTBI sample and a control, uninjured sample. …


Change Of Sight, Sites Of Creativity: The Visual Arts In Albania After Socialism, Sofia Kalo Mar 2016

Change Of Sight, Sites Of Creativity: The Visual Arts In Albania After Socialism, Sofia Kalo

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines Albania’s fine art world after the end of state socialism in 1991. Drawing on two years of anthropological fieldwork (January –August 2006 and January 2010-August 2011) in Tirana, Albania’s capital city, this study investigates how the withdrawal of state support and oversight on the arts, the introduction of a market economy and efforts toward European belonging have been reflected, responded to and challenged in the discourses and practices of aesthetic production. Viewing art as a productive site of social meaning, where people perform and struggle over their identities, their pasts and futures, this dissertation explores the social …


The Role Of Napping On Memory Consolidation In Preschool Children, Laura Kurdziel Nov 2014

The Role Of Napping On Memory Consolidation In Preschool Children, Laura Kurdziel

Doctoral Dissertations

Nocturnal sleep has been shown to benefit memory in adults and children. During the preschool age range (~3-5 years), the distribution of sleep across the 24-hour period changes dramatically. Children transition from biphasic sleep patterns (a nap in addition to overnight sleep) to a monophasic sleep pattern (only overnight sleep). In addition, early childhood is a time of neuronal plasticity and pronounced acquisition of new information. This dissertation sought to examine the relationship between daytime napping and memory consolidation in preschool-aged children during this transitional time. Children were taught either a declarative or an emotional task in the morning, and …


The Role Of Representational Flexibility In Toddlers' Manual Search, Lauren Hartstein Nov 2014

The Role Of Representational Flexibility In Toddlers' Manual Search, Lauren Hartstein

Masters Theses

In the model room task, children watch as a miniature toy is hidden somewhere in a scale model of a room and are asked to find the larger version of the toy in the corresponding place in the actual room. Previous work has shown that children under age three often perform very poorly on this task. One prominent theory for their failure is that they lack the ability to understand the model as both a physical object and as a symbolic representation of the larger room. An alternative hypothesis is that they need to overcome weak, competing representations of where …


The Genealogy Of Dislocated Memory: Yugoslav Cinema After The Break, Dijana Jelaca Apr 2014

The Genealogy Of Dislocated Memory: Yugoslav Cinema After The Break, Dijana Jelaca

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the post-conflict cinema in the region of the former Yugoslavia, and the way that this particular form of cultural production establishes affective regimes within which bearing witness to trauma becomes variously articulated to national identity, history, politics, and memory. Using affect and trauma theories as organizing frameworks, my project looks at the way in which post-Yugoslav cinema has become a pivotal outlet for the process of working through the trauma of recent violent history in the region. I examine this process through its various iterations, from its applications to identity - be it ethnic, national, class, age, …


Sac Attack: Assessing The Role Of Recollection In The Mirror Effect, Angela M. Pazzaglia Sep 2012

Sac Attack: Assessing The Role Of Recollection In The Mirror Effect, Angela M. Pazzaglia

Open Access Dissertations

Low-frequency (LF) words have higher hit rates (HRs) and lower false alarm rates (FARs) than high-frequency (HF) words in recognition memory, a phenomenon termed the mirror effect by Glanzer and Adams (1985). The primary mechanism for producing the mirror effect varies substantially across models of recognition memory, with some models localizing the effects during encoding and others during retrieval. The current experiments contrast two retrieval-stage models, the Source of Activation Confusion (SAC; Reder, Nhouyvanisvong, Schunn, Ayers, Angstadt, & Hiraki, 2000) model and the unequal variance signal detection theory (UVSDT) criterion shift model (e.g., DeCarlo, 2002). The SAC model proposes that …


Metacognition: Developing Self-Knowledge Through Guided Reflection, Kathryn Wiezbicki-Stevens Sep 2009

Metacognition: Developing Self-Knowledge Through Guided Reflection, Kathryn Wiezbicki-Stevens

Open Access Dissertations

Metacognitive self-knowledge has been identified as a crucial component of effective learning. It entails students recognizing their learning strengths and weaknesses, styles and preferences, and motivational beliefs. The present study explored a method for the development of metacognitive self-knowledge and in doing so, was also a means for discovering what academic experiences students perceive as influential in their development as learners. Twenty-seven college students, all senior psychology majors, produced written narratives in response to a guided reflection activity. A qualitative research approach employing analytic induction was used. Themes of academic experiences as described by participants provided support for neuroscientific findings …