Psychology Commons^™

Battle Over Black Bears: Investigating Perceptions Of The Black Bear Hunting Referendums In Maine, Francesca A. Gundrum

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human dimensions of wildlife is an emerging discipline that seeks to understand the complex relationships between people, wildlife, and their conflicts and/or interactions (Decker, Riley, & Siemer, 2012). Human dimensions utilizes several tested theoretical frameworks to investigate these complexities, such as cognitive hierarchy theory and wildlife value orientations (WVOs). Both of these theoretical frameworks were examined in this study, which investigated the content of news media during controversial American black bear (Ursus americanus) hunting referenda in Maine, and key stakeholder perceptions of black bear management. Maine is the only state that allows hunters to take a black bear over bait, …

Rape Awareness Video, Athletes For Sexual Responsibility

General University of Maine Publications

Sexual assault and the number of athletes involved in group assaults over the last year have raised questions about the exemplary status athletes hold in society. Using athletes as actors, the University of Maine has produced a videotape portraying a series of three brief vignettes.

Sexual assault dramatizations in the video The first vignette, The Date, portrays a male and female whose assumptions and poor communication at the end of the date leads to acquaintance rape.

In the second skit, The Morning After, a male involved in a gang rape at a party the night before is bragging to his …

Smart Sex Posters, Athletes For Sexual Responsibility

General University of Maine Publications

Comparing smart sex to a popular sport will undoubtedly arouse the curiosity of students. Most can’t resist the temptation to step closer and find out how smart sex is like golf, baseball, diving, or another sport.

Printed posters are 11″ x 17″, with twenty posters per set. Sports represented in the series include baseball, basketball, cheerleading, crew, diving, field hockey, football, golf, gymnastics, hockey, lacrosse, rugby, skiing, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track, volleyball, and wrestling, and many more.

Chocolate Intake Is Associated With Better Cognitive Function: The Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study, Georgina E. Crichton, Merrill F. Elias, Ala’A Alkerwi

Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Papers

Chocolate and cocoa flavanols have been associated with improvements in a range of health complaints dating from ancient times, and has established cardiovascular benefits. Less is known about the effects of chocolate on neurocognition and behaviour. The aim of this study was to investigate whether chocolate intake was associated with cognitive function, with adjustment for cardiovascular, lifestyle and dietary factors. Cross-sectional analyses were undertaken on 968 community-dwelling participants, aged 23e98 years, from the Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study (MSLS). Habitual chocolate intake was related to cognitive performance, measured with an extensive battery of neuropsychological tests. More frequent chocolate consumption was significantly associated …

Risk For Cognitive Impairment Across 22 Measures Of Cognitive Ability In Early-Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, Rachael V. Torres, Merrill F. Elias, Stephen L. Seliger, Adam Davey, Michael A. Robbins

Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Papers

No abstract provided.

Sugar-Sweetened Soft Drinks Are Associated With Poorer Cognitive Function In Individuals With Type 2 Diabetes: The Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study, Georgina E. Crichton, Merrill F. Elias, Rachael V. Torres

Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Papers

The importance of adequate nutrition on cognitive performance is well recognised. Greater intakes of soft drinks are associated with a higher risk for type 2 diabetes, as well as other cardiometabolic diseases. A few studies have specifically examined whether the intake of soft drinks may be related to cognitive function. The aim of this study was to investigate whether soft drink intakes, including both sugar-sweetened and diet beverages, are associated with cognitive function, with adjustment for cardiovascular, lifestyle and dietary factors, and stratified according to type 2 diabetes status. Cross-sectional analyses were undertaken using 803 community-dwelling participants, aged 23–98 years, …

A Theory-Guided Investigation Of Proposed Factors That Influence The Relationship Between Cybervictimization And Psychological Adjustment In Late Adolescents, Melissa K. Hord

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cybervictimization is related to negative psychological adjustment (e.g., Tokunaga, 2010); however, not all cybervictims report negative outcomes, and it is not clear what factors may influence vulnerability. One possibility is that cybervictims’ attributions regarding technology-based communication impact their emotional adjustment. Those who make hostile intent attributions in ambiguous situations are more likely to experience negative outcomes (e.g., Crick & Dodge, 1994), and the inherent ambiguity of electronic communication may be particularly susceptible to misinterpretation. In addition, how individuals respond to cyber experiences may serve to either protect or damage their emotional well-being. Furthermore, those who are high in rejection sensitivity …

The Temporal Nature Of The Acute Stress Response And Its Impact On Explicit Learning, Steven B. Hutchinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Acute stress is commonly experienced by many throughout their lives. Given the demanding lifestyle of many career paths, it's important to gauge the influence of these stressors upon cognitive performance. The present dissertation focus' upon explicit learning in attempts to explore one avenue of the stress-cognition relationship. The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) was used as a lab stressor for Experiments 1 and 2, in which participants are asked to give a speech and complete a difficult math task in front of 2 evaluators trained to monitor non-verbal behavior. Experiment 1 investigates the dynamic stress response during the minutes following …

The Effects Of Verbal Overshadowing And Social Anxiety On Facial Recognition: A Replication And Extension, Arielle Rancourt

Honors College

There have been 314 post-conviction DNA exonerations, and about 70% of these wrongful convictions were due to witness misidentification. Many factors affect the accuracy of a witness’s testimony, including the concept of “verbal overshadowing,” in which the verbal reporting of a visual memory interferes with the subsequent recognition of the visual stimuli. The present study seeks to replicate Jonathan Schooler’s original findings with regard to this phenomenon (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990). The first experiment is focused on verbalizing a visual memory that is particularly hard to put into words: the memory of a face. The hypothesis for both the original …

Touch-Screen Technology For The Dynamic Display Of 2d Spatial Information Without Vision: Promise And Progress, Roberta L. Klatzky, Nicholas A. Giudice, Christopher R. Bennett, Jack M. Loomis

Spatial Information Science and Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Many developers wish to capitalize on touch-screen technology for developing aids for the blind, particularly by incorporating vibrotactile stimulation to convey patterns on their surfaces, which otherwise are featureless. Our belief is that they will need to take into account basic research on haptic perception in designing these graphics interfaces. We point out constraints and limitations in haptic processing that affect the use of these devices. We also suggest ways to use sound to augment basic information from touch, and we include evaluation data from users of a touch-screen device with vibrotactile and auditory feedback that we have been developing, …

Relations Among Type 2 Diabetes, Arterial Stiffness And Cognitive Functioning, Gregory A. Dore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although the associations among diabetes mellitus, cognitive functioning and arterial stiffness have been explored previously, the degree to which arterial stiffness is responsible for the association between diabetes and cognitive function has not been examined. The primary aim of the current investigations is to examine the extent to which arterial stiffness mediates the association between diabetes and cognitive function, as well as the extent to which this indirect effect is modified by age and APOE genotype. The sample included 590 participants (age 23-94, 62% women, 12% African- American) from the seventh wave of the Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study. Individuals with history …

Combining Locations From Working Memory And Long-Term Memory Into A Common Spatial Image, Nicholas Giudice, Roberta L. Klatzky, Christopher R. Bennett, Jack M. Loomis

Spatial Information Science and Engineering Faculty Scholarship

This research uses a novel integration paradigm to investigate whether target locations read in from long-term memory (LTM) differ from perceptually encoded inputs in spatial working-memory (SWM) with respect to systematic spatial error and/or noise, and whether SWM can simultaneously encompass both of these sources. Our results provide evidence for a composite representation of space in SWM derived from both perception and LTM, albeit with a loss in spatial precision of locations retrieved from LTM. More generally, the data support the concept of a spatial image in working memory and extend its potential sources to representations retrieved from LTM.

Perception Of 3-D Location Based On Vision, Touch, And Extended Touch, Nicholas Giudice, Roberta L. Klatzky, Christopher R. Bennett, Jack M. Loomis

Spatial Information Science and Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Perception of the near environment gives rise to spatial images in working memory that continue to represent the spatial layout even after cessation of sensory input. As the observer moves, these spatial images are continuously updated. This research is concerned with (1) whether spatial images of targets are formed when they are sensed using extended touch (i.e., using a probe to extend the reach of the arm) and (2) the accuracy with which such targets are perceived. In Experiment 1, participants perceived the 3-D locations of individual targets from a fixed origin and were then tested with an updating task …

Indoor Inertial Waypoint Navigation For The Blind, Timothy H. Riehle, Shane M. Anderson, Patrick A. Lichter, William E. Whalen, Nicholas A. Giudice

Spatial Information Science and Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Indoor navigation technology is needed to support seamless mobility for the visually impaired. This paper describes the construction and evaluation of an inertial dead reckoning navigation system that provides real-time auditory guidance along mapped routes. Inertial dead reckoning is a navigation technique coupling step counting together with heading estimation to compute changes in position at each step. The research described here outlines the development and evaluation of a novel navigation system that utilizes information from the mapped route to limit the problematic error accumulation inherent in traditional dead reckoning approaches. The prototype system consists of a wireless inertial sensor unit, …

Representing 3d Space In Working Memory: Spatial Images From Vision, Hearing, Touch, And Language, Jack M. Loomis, Roberta L. Klatzky, Nicholas A. Giudice

Spatial Information Science and Engineering Faculty Scholarship

The chapter deals with a form of transient spatial representation referred to as a spatial image. Like a percept, it is externalized, scaled to the environment, and can appear in any direction about the observer. It transcends the concept of modality, as it can be based on inputs from the three spatial senses, from language, and from long-term memory. Evidence is presented that supports each of the claimed properties of the spatial image, showing that it is quite different from a visual image. Much of the evidence presented is based on spatial updating. A major concern is whether spatial images …

Spatial Working Memory For Locations Specified By Vision And Audition: Testing The Amodality Hypothesis, Jack M. Loomis, Roberta L. Klatzky, Brendan Mchugh, Nicholas A. Giudice

Spatial Information Science and Engineering Faculty Scholarship

Spatial working memory can maintain representations from vision, hearing, and touch, representations referred to here as spatial images. The present experiment addressed whether spatial images from vision and hearing that are simultaneously present within working memory retain modality-specific tags or are amodal. Observers were presented with short sequences of targets varying in angular direction, with the targets in a given sequence being all auditory, all visual, or a sequential mixture of the two. On two thirds of the trials, one of the locations was repeated, and observers had to respond as quickly as possible when detecting this repetition. Ancillary detection …

Assessing Sleep Quality In Young Adult College Students, Aged 18 - 24 In Relation To Quality Of Life And Anthropometrics, Douglas Mathews

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Little is known about the impact of sleep on quality of life and anthropometrics in young adults. College students (n=218) were recruited through a variety of methods for a study on weight management for obesity prevention and randomized into control (n=108) or treatment (n=110) groups. Of those, 152 (71%) completed pre- and post-tests, including the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), scored 0-4 =normal and 5-21=disordered, (a=0.80), the General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ), scored from 0-14=good quality of life to 15-36=poor quality of life, (ct=0.87), and anthropometrics. Statistical analyses included linear regression, one way ANOVA, chi-square analysis, and Pearson's Product-Moment Correlation. Significance …

Touching Is Good: An Eidetic Phenomenology Of Interface, Interobjectivity, And Interaction In Nintendo's "Animal Crossing: Wild World", Bryan G. Behrenshausen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Situating video games and the meaningful practice of playing video games for future study by the discipline of communication, this eidetic phenomenology centers the focus of such inquiry at the site of the body. As video game studies have heretofore largely ignored or presupposed a bifurcation between player and video game, a phenomenology is likewise crucial to investigating the lived experience of video gaming as an embodied activity by theoretically eschewing such subject/object distinctions and methodologically generating genuinely new, heuristic spaces for thinking about this phenomenon. In particular, the existential phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, which emphasizes the body as necessarily …

The Psychological Correlates Of Asymmetric Cerebral Activation, Lisle R. Kingery

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the psychological correlates of asymmetric cerebral activation as measured by electroencephalograph (EEG) recordings. Five content areas were investigated in the context of EEG asymmetry: hierarchical visual processing, creative potential, mood, personality, and EEG asymmetry, and the effect of a mood induction procedure on cognition and EEG asymmetry. Undergraduate participants completed two experimental sessions separated by two to three weeks. Participants completed a comprehensive set of emotion, personality, and creative potential measures, a cognitive task assessing individual differences in hierarchical visual processing. and a short form of the Rorschach inkblot test. Additionally. each participant underwent either a happy …

Graphical Perception Of Nonlinear Trends: Discrimination And Extrapolation, Lisa A. Best

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigated several factors involved in the perception of nonlinear relationships in time series graphs. To model real-world data sets, the graphed data included different sample sizes and levels of variability, and represented different underlying trends. Graph format was also varied. The purpose of the experiments was to determine how these factors affect both trend discrimination and extrapolation accuracy, with the overall goal of determining what types of graphs are optimal in different situations. In Experiment 1, subjects viewed time series graphs on a computer screen and had to identify the type of trend that was present. Six trends …

On Discriminating Temporal Relations: Is It Relational?, Leon R. Dreyfus, J. Gregor Fetterman, D. Alan Stubbs, Susan Montello

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Pigeons were presented on each trial with a pair of keylight stimuli that varied in duration. One of two subsequent choices was reinforced, depending on which of the two stimuli was longer. For some pairs, the duration of one stimulus was predictive of relative duration, but for other pairs, absolute duration was unpredictive. Choice responses depended on relative differences between the stimuli, but were also controlled to some degree by absolute duration of the second member of the pair. Individual differences in control by absolute and relative duration were evident. Those pigeons whose behavior was most influenced by absolute duration …

Temporal Discrimination And A Free-Operant Psychophysical Procedure, D. Alan Stubbs

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Pigeons were presented a series of keylight time periods (separated by blackouts) during which two response keys were lit, one by blue light and the other either by orange or green. Blue-key responses changed the color on the other key. Orange-key responses sometimes produced food during the first half of a time period; green-key responses sometimes produced food during the second half. In three experiments, the probability of a green-key response increased as a function of elapsed time. Experiment 1 compared performance when the duration of the keylight periods was varied across a wide range. Discrimination performance was similar across …

Discriminative Functions Of Schedule Stimuli And Memory: A Combination Of Schedule And Choice Procedures, D. Alan Stubbs, Susan J. Vautin, Howard M. Reid, Denis L. Delehanty

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Pigeons responded under a combination brief-stimulus schedule and choice procedure. Normally, a fixed-interval schedule was in effect, where completion randomly produced either a brief stimulus or food. Intermittently, this schedule was interrupted by a choice arrangement. Two choice keys were lit, either a short or a long time since a prior event (food or stimulus). One choice response produced food if the time had been short, and the alternate response produced food if the time had been long. Across conditions, the duration of the fixed-interval schedule was varied, the stimuli that comprised the brief-stimulus operation were changed, and the stimuli …

Positive Conditioned Suppression: An Explanation In Terms Of Multiple And Concurrent Schedules, D. A. Stubbs, J. E. Hughes, S. L. Cohen

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Rats performed under a baseline variable-interval schedule of food presentation. A response-independent food schedule was then superimposed on the baseline schedule for different periods of time across different conditions. The response-independent schedule operated for the whole session in some conditions, intermittently for sixty second periods in some, and intermittently for ten-second periods in others. Under these latter two sets of conditions, the response-independent food schedule was stimulus correlated and alternated with the baseline schedule according to a multiple schedule. Response-independent food presentations always suppressed responding. The degree of suppression tended to increase the longer the period of response-independent food. Control …

Second-Order Schedules: Manipulation Of Brief-Stimulus Duration At Component Completion, Steven L. Cohen, Joan E. Hughes, D. Alan Stubbs

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

In a second-order schedule, fixed-interval components were reinforced according to a variable-interval schedule. A brief stimulus accompanied the completion of each fixed interval. Brief-stimulus duration was varied across conditions from 0.5 to 8 sec. Patterning was greater the longer the duration of the stimulus. Additionally, exposure to relatively long brief-stimulus durations enhanced patterning upon reexposure to shorter brief-stimulus durations.