Psychology Commons^™

Approche Des Représentations D’Avenirs Des Lycéens Handicapés Visuels Comparées À Celles Des Lycéens Valides Du Burkina Faso, Issa Abdou Moumoula

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

Alors que de nombreux travaux portent sur les représentations d’avenir des adolescents, peu d’études rendent compte de l’impact du handicap dans l’élaboration de ces représentations. Nous proposons à travers la conduite d’entretiens individuels semi directifs avec 26 lycéens dont 13 en situation d’handicap visuel, de réaliser un travail exploratoire sur ce thème en vue de faire des propositions en termes de dispositifs d’accompagnement de ces jeunes dans le domaine du conseil en orientation au Burkina Faso. A l’issue de l’analyse de nos données, nous observons que les discours des jeunes adolescents handicapés visuels sont similaires à ceux des élèves valides. …

The Relation Between Finger Gnosis And Mathematical Ability: Why Redeployment Of Neural Circuits Best Explains The Finding, Marcie Penner-Wilger, Michael L. Anderson

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

This paper elaborates a novel hypothesis regarding the observed predictive relation between finger gnosis and mathematical ability. In brief, we suggest that these two cognitive phenomena have overlapping neural substrates, as the result of the re-use ("redeployment") of part of the finger gnosis circuit for the purpose of representing numbers. We offer some background on the relation and current explanations for it; an outline of our alternate hypothesis; some evidence supporting redeployment over current views; and a plan for further research.

Functional And Structural Changes Throughout The Auditory System Following Congenital And Early-Onset Deafness: Implications For Hearing Restoration, Blake E. Butler, Stephen G. Lombar

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The absence of auditory input, particularly during development, causes widespread changes in the structure and function of the auditory system, extending from peripheral structures into auditory cortex. In humans, the consequences of these changes are far-reaching and often include detriments to language acquisition, and associated psychosocial issues.Much of what is currently known about the nature of deafness-related changes to auditory structures comes from studies of congenitally deaf or early-deafened animal models. Fortunately, the mammalian auditory system shows a high degree of preservation among species, allowing for generalization from these models to the human auditory system. This review begins with a …

Examining The Shift In Occupational Identity After A Brain Injury, Mikelle Bryson-Campbell

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Occupational identity is defined by Kielhofner (2002) as a sense of who we are as an occupational being, based on our past, current, and future occupational roles. When a life disruption occurs such as a brain injury (BI) and the disruption impacts the ability to conduct an occupation deemed meaningful an important process of transition occurs (Muenchberger, Kendall, & Neal, 2008). In turn occupational identity may shift to reflect the current health and economic status of the individual and what occupations are judged as meaningful.

The current study examined the shift in occupational identity in BI survivors in a two …

Bdnf In The Dentate Gyrus Is Required For Consolidation Of "Pattern-Separated" Memories., Pedro Bekinschtein, Brianne A Kent, Charlotte A Oomen, Gregory D Clemenson, Fred H Gage, Lisa M Saksida, Timothy J Bussey

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Successful memory involves not only remembering information over time, but also keeping memories distinct and less confusable. The computational process for making representations for similar input patterns more distinct from each other has been referred to as "pattern separation." In this work, we developed a set of behavioral conditions that allowed us to manipulate the load for pattern separation at different stages of memory. Thus, we provide experimental evidence that a brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)-dependent pattern separation process occurs during the encoding/storage/consolidation, but not the retrieval stage of memory processing. We also found that a spontaneous increase in BDNF in …

Measuring The Sixth Vital Sign: A Descriptive Analysis Of Distress In Individuals With Head And Neck Cancer And Their Caregivers, Catherine C. Bornbaum

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Introduction: Distress has become so problematic in oncology that it has been recognized as the “sixth vital sign” implying that distress monitoring should occur as routinely as the monitoring of one’s temperature or blood pressure. The research reported herein investigated the impact of head and neck cancer on levels of distress, commonly reported problems, and perceptions of quality of life in individuals with head and neck cancer and their caregivers.

Method: Two distinct studies were conducted; the first explored the patient experience of distress and quality of life while the second assessed the caregiver experience of these same constructs. A …

The Roles Of Thematic Knowledge In Sentence Comprehension, Kazunaga Matsuki

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

People possess a great deal of knowledge concerning what commonly happens in various types of events. This knowledge, specifically with respect to event participants and their relations within an event (thematic knowledge), is an important component of how people understand language. A number of studies have shown a rapid influence of thematic knowledge during moment-to-moment sentence processing, in both investigations of lexical processing in sentential contexts, and temporary syntactic ambiguity resolution. The main goal of this dissertation is to further our understanding about the roles of thematic knowledge during sentence processing and sentence understanding by examining two critical unresolved issues. …

The Touchscreen Operant Platform For Assessing Executive Function In Rats And Mice., Adam C Mar, Alexa E Horner, Simon R O Nilsson, Johan Alsiö, Brianne A Kent, Chi Hun Kim, Andrew Holmes, Lisa M Saksida, Timothy J Bussey

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

This protocol details a subset of assays developed within the touchscreen platform to measure various aspects of executive function in rodents. Three main procedures are included: extinction, measuring the rate and extent of curtailing a response that was previously, but is no longer, associated with reward; reversal learning, measuring the rate and extent of switching a response toward a visual stimulus that was previously not, but has become, associated with reward (and away from a visual stimulus that was previously, but is no longer, rewarded); and the 5-choice serial reaction time (5-CSRT) task, gauging the ability to selectively detect and …

The Touchscreen Operant Platform For Testing Working Memory And Pattern Separation In Rats And Mice., Charlotte A Oomen, Martha Hvoslef-Eide, Christopher J Heath, Adam C Mar, Alexa E Horner, Timothy J Bussey, Lisa M Saksida

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The automated touchscreen operant chamber for rats and mice allows for the assessment of multiple cognitive domains within the same testing environment. This protocol presents the location discrimination (LD) task and the trial-unique delayed nonmatching-to-location (TUNL) task, which both assess memory for location. During these tasks, animals are trained to a predefined criterion during ∼20-40 daily sessions. In LD sessions, touching the same location on the screen is rewarded on consecutive trials, followed by a reversal of location-reward contingencies. TUNL, a working memory task, requires animals to 'nonmatch' to a sample location after a delay. In both the LD and …

The Touchscreen Operant Platform For Testing Learning And Memory In Rats And Mice., Alexa E Horner, Christopher J Heath, Martha Hvoslef-Eide, Brianne A Kent, Chi Hun Kim, Simon R O Nilsson, Johan Alsiö, Charlotte A Oomen, Andrew Holmes, Lisa M Saksida, Timothy J Bussey

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

An increasingly popular method of assessing cognitive functions in rodents is the automated touchscreen platform, on which a number of different cognitive tests can be run in a manner very similar to touchscreen methods currently used to test human subjects. This methodology is low stress (using appetitive rather than aversive reinforcement), has high translational potential and lends itself to a high degree of standardization and throughput. Applications include the study of cognition in rodent models of psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, Huntington's disease, frontotemporal dementia), as well as the characterization of the role of select brain regions, …

Cognitive Activity Support Tools: Design Of The Visual Interface, Paul Parsons

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation is broadly concerned with interactive computational tools that support the performance of complex cognitive activities, examples of which are analytical reasoning, decision making, problem solving, sense making, forecasting, and learning. Examples of tools that support such activities are visualization-based tools in the areas of: education, information visualization, personal information management, statistics, and health informatics. Such tools enable access to information and data and, through interaction, enable a human-information discourse. In a more specific sense, this dissertation is concerned with the design of the visual interface of these tools. This dissertation presents a large and comprehensive theoretical framework to …

Representation Of Faces In Perirhinal Cortex, Edward B. O'Neil

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The prevailing view of medial temporal lobe (MTL) functioning holds that its structures are dedicated to long-term declarative memory. Recent evidence challenges this view, suggesting that perirhinal cortex (PrC), which interfaces the MTL with the ventral visual pathway, supports highly integrated object representations that contribute to both recognition memory and perceptual discrimination. Here, I used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine PrC activity, as well as its broader functional connectivity, during perceptual and mnemonic tasks involving faces, a stimulus class proposed to rely on integrated representations for discrimination. In Chapter 2, I revealed that PrC involvement was related to task …

The Role Of Humor As A Character Strength In Positive Psychology, Kimberly R. Edwards

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In positive psychology, humor has been identified as one of twenty-four character strengths considered ubiquitously important for human flourishing. Unlike the other strengths, humor was a late addition to this classification system and its status as a strength continues to be somewhat controversial. Therefore the purpose of this thesis was to explore how humor fits within positive psychology. Four studies were conducted to achieve this goal. Study 1 involved a cross-sectional design and compared the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths - Humor Scale (the humor measure used in positive psychology, which assumes that humor is a unitary and positive …

The Process Dissociation Of Moral Judgments: Clarifying The Psychology Of Deontology And Utilitarianism, Paul Conway

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A growing body of work has examined responses to moral dilemmas where causing some degree of harm leads to a greater positive outcome; such dilemmas are said to pit deontological philosophical considerations (causing harm is never acceptable) against utilitarian philosophical considerations (causing harm is acceptable if it leads to the best possible outcome). According to dual-process theories of moral judgment, independent processes drive each judgment: affective reactions to harm drive deontological judgments, whereas cognitive evaluations of outcomes drive utilitarian judgments. Yet, theoretically both processes contribute to each judgment; therefore, it is an error to equate judgments with processes. To overcome …

The Social Life Of Metaphor, Andrea Bowes

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The five experiments in this dissertation examine the social effects of metaphor context production and comprehension. In Studies 1 and 2, participants wrote a meaningful discourse context for metaphorical or literal sentences. Participants providing context for metaphor used more idiomatic emotional expressions, cognitive mechanism words (e.g., “think”) and adverbs. Those responding to the literal prompts used physical descriptions. These results are interpreted in light of research that shows idiomatic expressions and cognitive mechanism words are used to express emotion and signal friendship. In Study 2, use of affective content in the metaphor condition was positively correlated with scores on the …

Organization Of Human Auditory Cortex: Responses To Frequency Modulated Sounds, Diedre D. Desouza

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the extent, magnitude and patterns of brain activity in response to frequency-modulated sounds. We examined this by manipulating the direction (rise vs. fall) and the rate (fast vs. slow) of a series of iterated rippled noise (IRN) bursts. Participants were presented with auditory stimuli while functional images of the cortex were obtained. Univariate analyses revealed more widespread activation within auditory cortex in response to frequency-modulated sweeps compared to steady-state sounds. Furthermore, multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) was used to determine whether regions within auditory cortex were involved in feature-specific encoding. The pattern …

Using Meta-Ethnography To Synthesize Research: A Worked Example Of The Relations Between Personality On Software Team Processes, Fabio Q. B. Silva Dr., Shirley S. J. O. Cruz, Tatiana B. Gouveia, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Context: The increase in the number of qualitative and mixed-methods research published in software engineering has created an opportunity for further knowledge generation through the synthesis of studies with similar aims. This is particularly true in the research on human aspects because the phenomena of interest are often better understood using qualitative research. However, the use of qualitative synthesis methods is not widespread and worked examples of their consistent application in software engineering are needed. Objective: To explore the use of meta-ethnography in the synthesis of empirical studies in software engineering through an example using studies about the relations between …

Attributions & Resiliency: An Analysis Of The Resiliency-Attribution Association, Aaron J. Halliday

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study sought to provide support for the King-Rothstein (2010) model of resiliency and to establish an understanding of the relationship between resiliency and causal attributions. A cross-sectional study investigated these relationships using an online questionnaire battery. Some associative and predictive relationships were found between causal attributions and resiliency. Components of resiliency were predictive of job satisfaction and support and symptoms of psychological illness. Given a path analysis, the King-Rothstein model of resiliency was found to be most predictive of the outcome symptoms of psychological illness (over job satisfaction and support or wellbeing). Finally, mediation analysis revealed self-regulatory processes fully …

Cortical Representation Underlying The Semantic Processing Of Numerical Symbols: Evidence From Adult And Developmental Studies, Stephan Erich Vogel

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Humans possess the remarkable ability to process numerical information using numerical symbols such as Arabic digits. A growing body of neuroimaging work has provided new insights into the neural correlates associated with symbolic numerical magnitude processing. However, little is known about the cortical specialization underlying the representation of symbolic numerical magnitude in adults and children. To constrain our current knowledge, I conducted a series of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies that aimed to better understand the functional specialization of symbolic numerical magnitudes representation in the human brain.

Using a number line estimation task, the first study contrasted the brain …

Timing Of Developmental Stress And Phenotypic Plasticity: Effects Of Nutritional Stress At Different Developmental Periods On Physiological And Cognitive-Behavioral Traits In The Zebra Finch (Taeniopygia Guttata), Buddhamas Kriengwatana

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Developmentally plastic organisms can respond to stressful environmental conditions by altering multiple aspects of their phenotype, often in a permanent fashion. The timing of developmental stress influences these phenotypic alterations because the prioritization of resources to traits necessary to overcome the stressor may be costly for the development of other traits. Despite the importance of this timing, few studies in birds have accounted for it, and those that have usually examined the effect on a single or few variables. This dissertation addresses the outstanding issues regarding i) the effects of timing of developmental stress on developmental plasticity, and ii) the …

The Effect Of Exercise On Cravings And Ad Libitum Smoking Following Concurrent Stressors, Angela J. Fong

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Quitting smoking itself is a stressor; it is likely that other stressors occur concurrently and deplete self-regulatory resources. Failure to cope leads to smoking relapse. Exercise has been shown to attenuate cravings and withdrawal symptoms in previous research and has yet to be examined following concurrent stressors. This study examined the effect of an acute bout of moderate intensity exercise on psychological withdrawal symptoms (PWS), cravings and ad lib smoking after concurrent stressors (i.e., temporary abstinence and depletion). Twenty-five smokers were randomized into exercise or passive conditions. Results showed PWS were significantly exacerbated after temporary abstinence and again after depletion …

Parkinson's Patients' Upper And Lower Limb Motor Impairments Differentially Influence Action Verb Processing, Peter Nguyen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Theories of grounded cognition emphasize the role of sensorimotor simulation in conceptual knowledge. With regard to action concepts, the motor system is hypothesized to play a central role in their representation and processing. The present study investigates whether patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) who have greater upper versus greater lower limb impairments show different patterns of performance when processing action verbs. Patients and matched controls made action decisions on upper-limb (reach), lower-limb (kick), and psych verbs (think). The most important result was an interaction between PD dominance (PD upper vs. lower limb motor impairments) …

Socialization Of Depressive Symptoms In Pre- And Early Adolescent Peer Cliques, Suzanne L. Seah

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study examined socialization of depressive symptoms in pre- and early adolescent peer cliques, and clique characteristics (clique gender and friendship density) that may moderate the contribution of clique depression to the prediction of youths’ depressive symptoms over time. Social cognitive mapping identified 162 peer cliques involving 999 youths from Grades 4 through 8 (M age = 11.84; SD = 1.52) in Southwestern Ontario. As expected, multi-level modeling revealed that clique depressive symptoms in fall contributed significantly to the prediction of youths’ depressive symptoms in spring. Null findings regarding clique friendship density and gender as moderators of clique depression …

The Role Of Probe-Trial Distractors In The Production/Removal Of The Spatial Negative Priming Effect, Peter D. Haworth

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In spatial negative priming (SNP) tasks, trials are presented in pairs; first the ‘prime’, and then the ‘probe’. Target and/or distractor events appear on both trials and probe target reaction time is significantly lengthened when it arises at a former distractor-occupied location (ignored-repetition [IR] trial), relative to when it appears at a new location (control [CO] trial). This latency inequality, which is not inevitable, defines the SNP effect. Here, we examined the influence of prime and probe trial distractor identity similarity on restoring the SNP effect when its prevention was successfully motivated by the use of a .25 (distractor present)/.75 …

The Independence Of Burnout And Engagement: Incremental Predictive Validity And Construct Reappraisal As Different Combinations Of The Same Components (Energy And Evaluation), Joe Choi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The present investigation was conducted in response to recent concerns regarding the redundancy/independence of two related constructs in I/O Psychology: Burnout and engagement. Using students in an academic context, I first addressed this issue by investigating the incremental validity of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) over the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and vice versa in the prediction of six criterion variables (academic performance, physical ill-being, positive affect, negative affect, subjective experience of growth, eudaimonic well-being) in a sample of undergraduate students. Contrary to the recent meta-analysis by Cole, Walter, Bedeian, and O’Boyle (2012), I did not find evidence for …

The Influence Of Mood And Motivation On Cognitive Flexibility, Ruby Nadler

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The influence of mood and motivation on cognitive processes has enjoyed a significant amount of attention in the last few decades, but due to inconsistencies in methodologies and tasks conclusions remain subject to debate. The questions addressed in this thesis are how: 1) positive mood, 2) negative mood, and 3) depressive symptoms influence or relate to cognitive flexibility using a category learning paradigm, and the final question addressed in this thesis is whether 4) regulatory focus and regulatory fit influence cognitive flexibility using a more naturalistic categorization task in which there are no correct or incorrect responses. Category learning and …

Are Visual Texture-Selective Areas Recruited During Haptic Texture Discrimination?, Samantha K. Podrebarac

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Shape and texture provide cues to object identity, both when objects are explored using vision and via touch (haptics). Visual shape information is processed within the lateral occipital complex (LOC), while texture is processed in medial regions of the collateral sulcus (CoS). Evidence indicates that the LOC is consistently recruited during both visual and haptic shape processing. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine whether 'visual' texture-selective areas are similarly recruited when observers discriminate texture via touch. We used a blocked design in which participants attended to either the texture or shape of a number of 3-dimensional (3D) …

Understanding The Relationship Between Perception And Production Of The Beat, Taylor W. Parrott

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Impaired discrimination of sequences with a ‘beat’ in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) suggests the basal ganglia are responsible for the perception, or ‘internal generation’ of the beat in addition to motor timing. As a first step, we examined how young healthy participants performed on tests assessing perception, internal generation, and motor production of the beat to determine if a common mechanism guides all three processes and how this mechanism affects timing. The results suggest that perception, internal generation and production are controlled by a common timing mechanism. In general, a strong perception of the beat was associated with good …

A Multivariate Method To Determine The Dimensionality Of Neural Representation From Population Activity., Jörn Diedrichsen, Tobias Wiestler, Naveed Ejaz

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

How do populations of neurons represent a variable of interest? The notion of feature spaces is a useful concept to approach this question: According to this model, the activation patterns across a neuronal population are composed of different pattern components. The strength of each of these components varies with one latent feature, which together are the dimensions along which the population represents the variable. Here we propose a new method to determine the number of feature dimensions that best describes the activation patterns. The method is based on Gaussian linear classifiers that use only the first d most important pattern …

The Impact Of Social Integration On The Lived Experience Of Resilience Among Women Who Lived In Poverty During Childhood, Nedra R. Peter

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis is a study of the lived experience of poverty and resilience among women who lived in poverty during childhood. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of social integration on resilience to the adverse effects of poverty. This investigation was conducted as a retrospective study. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, seven women who lived in poverty during childhood were interviewed in semi-structured interviews lasting 60 to 90 minutes. These interviews, along with a member-checking meeting, were the primary method of data collection. Data was analyzed through thematic analysis informed by van Manen (1990, 1997). The …