Cognition and Perception Commons^™

When To Make The Sensory Social: Registering In Face-To-Face Openings, Danielle M. Pillet-Shore

Faculty Publications

This article analyzes naturally occurring video-recorded openings during which participants make the sensory social through the action of registering—calling joint attention to a selected, publicly perceiv- able referent so others shift their sensory attention to it. It examines sequence-initial actions that register referents for which a participant is regarded as responsible. Findings demonstrate a systematic preference organization which observably guides when and how people initiate registering sequences sensitive to ownership of, and displayed stance toward, the target referent. Analysis shows how registering an owned referent achieves intersubjectivity and puts involved participants’ face, affiliation, and social relationship on the line ...

Pre-Report Review Of Body-Worn Camera Footage: An Examination Of Stakeholder Beliefs, Laypeople’S Judgments Of Officer Credibility, And The Consequences For Memory, Kristyn A. Jones

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Aim: This dissertation examines people’s beliefs about police officer access to body-worn camera footage, people’s judgments of officer credibility as it relates to video footage, and the consequences that review of footage has on reporting accuracy.

Rationale: With escalating police-civilian tensions in 2014, American police departments adopted body-worn camera programs. A majority of departments have policies allowing officers unrestricted access to camera footage. Because officers fear that inconsistencies between reports and videos could result in suspicion of officer deceit, they argue that officers should have access to footage before writing their reports to ensure reports match the footage ...

Body Image Role On Non-Suicidal Self-Injury, Maria Ceja, Stephani Aguiar-Vasquez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study explores the association between adolescents body image concerns and self-injurious behaviors among students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade. The study is exploratory in nature and uses a quantitative design. The study collected archival data from counseling services provided through alocal school district’s counseling program. More specifically, the archival data was retrieved from initial assessments gathered from students participating in the local school district’s counseling program. Additionally, this research is a call for action that seeks to examine and support the further development of programs geared towards students. This study seeks to expand on the research ...

The Role And Impact Of Long-Term, Faith-Based Reentry Programs After Incarceration, Louie John Martinez, Rebecca Graf

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The focus of this exploratory study is on individuals who have completed long term, faith-based reentry programs after incarceration. Through one-on-one interviews with participants, this study will examine the impact that long-term, faith-based treatment programs have had in helping persons with a criminal past re-acclimate back into society. As more reentry programs focus on skills-based treatment only, this study seeks to explore the integration of faith and spirituality in long-term faith-based treatment programs in conjunction with other treatment modalities. This study will contribute to a deeper understanding of the critical elements necessary to help individuals overcome their past and collateral ...

Visual And Verbal Working Memory And Its Relationship To Subcortical Regions In Statistically-Determined Mild Cognitive Impairment, Sheina Emrani

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Fuster (2008) observed that temporal organization modulate executive control mechanisms by generating (1) attention towards test parameters (working memory), (2) the capacity to execute a task (preparatory set), and (3) the ability to inhibit external/internal stimuli (inhibitory control). We investigated Fuster's model (2008) using response latency on visual and verbal working memory tasks in patients with suspected mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Methods: An iPad-version of the Backward Digit Span Test (BDT) and Symbolic Working Memory Test (SWM) were used. Outcome variables were latency for each correct serial position and volumetric subcortical regions using NeuroQuant® software. Results: Mixed-model ...

Moving Through Depression: Development Of A Dance/Movement Therapy Method In Psychiatric Inpatient Care, Melissa Olmedo

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Short-term psychiatric hospitalization is a challenging health care model due to its short duration of care, treating the highest risk psychiatric population. Priority care within a short-term psychiatric hospitalization involves monitoring a patient’s safety for stabilization by decreasing acute mental health symptoms. Holistic psychotherapy treatment options are needed to meet the severity of patients’ symptoms for effective stabilization within a short-term model of care. This paper investigates the first implementation of a dance/movement therapy (DMT) method within two short-term units in a notable Boston hospital. The DMT group called Mindful Movement was facilitated weekly as single sessions to ...

Rhythm And Safety Of Social Engagement: Polyvagal Theory Informed Dance/Movement Therapy, Suzanne Weare

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The polyvagal theory has exerted great influence on the field of clinical therapy since the 1990s by proposing an understanding of the psychological expression seen in clients as a reflection of their physiological state of safety or threat of danger. When affect and psychological states are viewed through the lens of the autonomic nervous system directed by neuroception through bidirectional vagal nerve information, therapeutic presence and somatic therapy practices, such as those utilized in the field of dance/movement therapy, become more conceivable as best practices to treat a variety of psychological conditions to include trauma recovery, autism spectrum disorders ...

Mental Associations And Music Therapy: Including The History Of Associationism And The Neurology Of Associations, Dianna Rose

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Associations are formed in our minds based upon three elements: sensory experience, emotions, and memories. These associations, unique to each individual, dictate thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and actions. Some are necessary and supportive, while others can be maladaptive. Established associations can be changed, and new associations can be formed, to align with a client’s goals. The literature presents a strong history of associationism, as well as a body of research that demonstrates the neurological processes of how mental associations are formed. There are also studies showing how music activates the brain. However, there is a lack of research which draws ...

The Effect Of Melody And Rhythm In Music-Based Therapy For Nonfluent Aphasics: A Literature Review, M. Abraham Kimball

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The aim of this review is to examine studies which explored whether melody or rhythm played a more integral role in the facilitation of music-based speech and language rehabilitation for the population of individuals with nonfluent aphasia. This paper is intended to serve as a succinct synthesis of the myriad articles covering the efficacy of the treatment program called Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT) and the impact of its primary musical mechanisms. Secondarily, it may assist in a deeper examination into speech and language-based music cognition and neurologic music therapy research. The speech and language disorder of aphasia; the relationships between ...

The Effect Of Story Processing On Memory Performance, Anna Miller

Honors Theses

The purpose of the present study was to determine how recall performance following story processing compared to both survival processing and pleasantness processing. Participants were provided with a set of instructions depending on the condition they were in, narrative, survival, or pleasantness. Following this, participants rated the words one at a time, completed a brief distractor task, and then attempted to remember as many items as they could. The primary results demonstrated that narrative processing may provide a recall advantage similar to survival processing. These results suggest that similar underlying mechanisms may enhance recall in both sets of instructional conditions.

Veridical And False Memory Performance As A Function Of The Timing Of High-Intensity Acute Exercise, Claire Sanderson

Honors Theses

Background: Our recent experimental work demonstrated that high-intensity acute exercise improved veridical (true) memories and also increased the rate of false memories. The present experiment was designed to re-evaluate these effects for replication purposes. We also extend this literature by evaluating whether these effects are influenced by the timing of acute exercise. Methods: The sample included young adults (N=37; M_age = 21.16 years). We employed a three-condition, within-group, counterbalanced controlled design, consisting of two exercise conditions and a control condition. The exercise conditions involved a 15-minute bout of high-intensity acute exercise. These conditions included the bout of exercise ...

Mode Of Delivery And Infant Cognitive Development, Madison Olson, Laura M. Glynn

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The rate of nonindicated cesarean births is increasing each year within the United States. Although cesarean delivery can function as a life- saving intervention, emerging evidence suggests that it may also be associated with deleterious developmental consequences for the child. Here we test the hypothesis that mode of delivery is associated with cognitive development during infancy. 229 pregnant women were recruited and their infants’ cognitive development was assessed at 6, 12 and 24 months with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Medical charts were reviewed by obstetric nurses to determine prenatal medical risk and birth outcomes, including mode of delivery ...

Searching For Neural Mechanisms Of Social Cognition, Chandler Siemonsma, Cristina Uribe, Louanne Boyd, Aaron Schurger, Deanna Hughes, Tian Lan

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Social cognition involves the integration and pruning of perceptual information which leads to the formation of an abstract representation, which is also known as the perceptual gist. This study examined 87 differences in visual perception of Mooney face stimuli of differing sizes and the relationship to gist formation in ten individuals with autism compared to neurotypical controls. Parents of both groups completed the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2) to assess social functioning in real-world scenarios.

Synesthesia And Its Cognitive Correlates, Bailey Hall

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Synesthesia is a neurological condition involving the pairing of senses. For synesthetes, a stimulus invokes a sensory perception; for instance, the letter “B” may be pink or the name “Susan” may taste like apples. Scientists hypothesize that this condition is caused by neurological differences; synesthetes may have more cross-activation between brain areas, either neuroanatomically, through cross-wiring, or perceptually, through disinhibited feedback from higher to lower multimodal areas, or vice versa. These differences have implications for synesthetic learning, memory, attention and inhibition. In the present experiment Multimodal Perception, participants completed a survey investigating their synesthetic experiences, in addition to five tasks ...

Disentanglement In A Contested Setting: Testing The Effects Of Cultural Reminders On Kahan Et Al.'S Geoengineering Result, Michael Giovanniello

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The cultural cognition thesis argues that individuals have two channels for processing information: culture and knowledge. The reason that American climate change belief remains polarized along political and cultural lines is that the issue has accrued cultural significance blocking some groups from accepting scientific consensus. Kahan says the solution is to ‘disentangle’ the two, so that individuals may asses climate change information without cultural interference. In their 2015 paper Geoengineering and Climate Change Polarization: Testing a Two-Channel Model of Science Communication, Kahan et al. showed that exposing conservative individuals to information on geoengineering increased their concern about climate change. This ...

An Experimental Test Of The Effects Of Sleep Deprivation On Approach Behavior, Rebecca L. Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

Emotion regulation and sleep have been identified as mechanisms that may be involved in the development and maintenance of many mental health disorders. However, there has been little research into the relation between sleep and emotion regulation. To address this gap in knowledge, a novel study was conducted. We hypothesized that sleep deprived individuals would demonstrate less approach behavior toward a negatively valenced stimulus, as well as increased self-reported avoidance, compared to a control group. To test this, a randomized controlled experiment using a behavioral measure of approach and a self-report measure of avoidance was conducted. Fifty-two healthy individuals ages ...

Longitudinal Applications Of Stepladder Technique For Enhancing Group Performance, Conner Lutterman

Discovery Day - Prescott

Stepladder technique is intended to improve decision making in small groups by structuring the entry of group members, ensuring that each member contributes to the decision-making process. Previous research has employed the stepladder technique for intellective exercises of short duration. Here, we examined a more realistic application of the stepladder technique to a longitudinal project team engaged in a design/build/ test engineering program. Application of stepladder technique beyond a laboratory/one-time setting is a unique addition to the team performance research. Preliminary data indicates that the stepladder technique is effective in a longitudinal project more aligned to typical organization ...

Individual Differences In Cognitive Flexibility And Cognitive Map Accuracy, Vanessa C. Cunha

Brescia Psychology Undergraduate Honours Theses

Research has demonstrated broad individual differences in the ability to form a cognitive map of a novel environment. The current study investigated whether individual differences in cognitive map accuracy are driven by differences in cognitive flexibility specifically, the ability to switch between tasks. Using the Silcton virtual environment, participants explored four routes in Silcton and were assessed on cognitive map accuracy using the Silcton onsite pointing task and the Silcton model building task. To assess task-switching, perseveration error from the Wisconsin Card Sort Test (WCST) was measured. There was a significant correlation between the WCST and the onsite pointing task ...

The Origins Beliefs Of Christian College Students, Emily Wilkinson

Senior Honors Theses

Many studies have focused on creation and evolution in academia, origins beliefs and biblical interpretation, and how students respond to origins challenges. The author then conducted a phenomenology of Christian college students’ origins beliefs, factors that influence those beliefs, and impacts that the beliefs have on students’ lives. Methods included a 44-Item Big Five Inventory and semi-structured interviews. Participants were eight residential undergraduate students at a Christian university who were currently or previously in a creation studies course. Results indicated that all participants held to young-earth creationism, and that family, Christian faith, education, personality, and academic major influenced the development ...

The Self-Reference Effect: How Elaborative Processing And Associability Function Through Self-Schemas, Jennifer Fiedler

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The self-reference effect (SRE) refers to the phenomenon where relating a piece of material to oneself allows it to be better remembered than material encoded in most other ways. This study tested a hypothesis of self-schemas as a sort of associative foundation for novel material at encoding, through the variation between strong and weak associates. To accomplish this goal, this study compared a self-referencing condition to an intimate and a distant other-referencing condition. The present study also investigated the SRE through a level-of-association variable. Participants were tasked to judge trait adjectives towards themselves and to a familiar person of the ...