Digital Commons Network^™

Indicators Of Deception: Science Or Non-Science, Kristina Vasquez

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Deception detection is used by many law enforcement professionals who work in interviews and interrogations. The ability to detect deception or having knowledge on the signs of deception is very important in not only law enforcement, but in other careers and everyday life. The question remains: is deception detection a science or not a science? There are three areas where someone can learn how to detect deception and those are verbal communication, non-verbal communication, and paralanguage. The use of verbal communication looks at what the person is saying with their words. The use of non-verbal communication looks at what someone …

Relationship Between Video Games And Recovery From Work: A Comparison Of Different Genres And Leisure Activities, Jessica A. Gass

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Work stress can have a negative impact for both individuals and organizations, warranting research on how to recover from it. This research analyzes how the relationship between video games and work recovery differs depending on the genre of the video game played. In addition, these relationships are compared against the relationships between the recovery experiences and other leisure activities. Participants were asked to provide information on how often they play video games and engage in other leisure activities. In addition, two different measures of the four components of work recovery (psychological detachment from work, relaxation, mastery experiences, and control) were …

Investigating Anxiety-Like Behavior As A Non-Motor Side Effect Of Deep Brain Stimulation Of The Subthalamic Nucleus In A Parkinsonian Rat Model, Carter Mulder

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is estimated to impact nearly 10 million people globally and is estimated to increase in the future. PD is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that worsens through continuous cell death of dopaminergic neurons. This cell death can create motor symptoms such as bradykinesia, tremor, and muscular rigidity. Subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation, STN DBS, is a surgical intervention which places stimulating electrodes in the STN greatly improving motor symptoms. However, STN DBS has been reported to possibly influence non-motor symptoms such as anxiety both acutely and long-term, which decreases the quality of life for those with PD. We …

Peer-Induced Cocaine Seeking In Rats: Comparison To Nonsocial Stimuli And Role Of Paraventricular Hypothalamic Oxytocin Neurons, Lindsey R. Hammerslag, Bree A. Humburg, Samantha G. Malone, Joshua S. Beckmann, Kathryn E. Saatman, Valery Grinevich, Michael T. Bardo

Psychology Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to determine if social vs nonsocial cues (peer vs light/ tone) can serve as discriminative stimuli to reinstate cocaine seeking. In addition, to assess a potential mechanism, an oxytocin (OT) promoter-linked hM3Dq DREADD was infused into the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus to determine whether peer-induced cocaine seeking is decreased by activation of OT neurons. Male rats underwent twice-daily self-administration sessions, once with cocaine in the presence of one peer (S+) and once with saline in the presence of a different peer (S-). Another experiment used similar procedures, except the discriminative stimuli were nonsocial …

The Role Of Socioeconomic Status In Cognition And Brain Health Across The Lifespan, Erica Chung

Honors Theses

Disparities in cognition are inevitable throughout the lifespan due to socioeconomic gaps. Individuals of lower socioeconomic status (SES) may have fewer access to environmental resources, especially with regard to education, than individuals of higher socioeconomic status. Differences in available resources from a young age may affect brain development, leading to detriments in cognition and behavior, further impacting socioeconomic success in adulthood. In the present study, we modeled the development of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and changes in cognitive function throughout the life trajectory in the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research Rockland Sample. The DLPFC volume was predicted to …

Characterizing Cellular Stress, Hippocampal Function, And Behavior In A Novel Rat Model Of Alzheimer's Disease, Anne A. Schulman

Honors Theses

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects over 5 million individuals in the United States alone. While AD is primarily thought of as a disease that destroys neural networks required for memory recall and formation, AD also cause impairment in emotional regulation, cognitive flexibility, and executive function pathways. The cause of AD is unknown; however, the allele ApoE4 has been identified as a risk factor for the onset of AD. ApoE4 provides a valuable opportunity to study AD through animal models. This thesis utilized a human ApoE4 transgenic rat model (hApoE4) to investigate the biological and behavioral …

Double Trouble: The Development And Use Of A Novel Spatial Memory Task To Study Depression In A Female Rodent Model, Ekaterina L. Koelliker

Honors Theses

Preclinical rodent models of depression are important for improving our understanding of the behavioral and neurobiological implications of the disorder. However, the current behavioral assays used to assess depressive symptoms in rodents have substantial shortcomings; they are basic, test animals individually, and do not evaluate animals for extended periods. The primary goals of the present study, which was divided into two experiments, were to develop a novel task that could be used to study spatial memory and to apply the task to rodent models of depression. Both experiments used a circular arena with 10 identical jars to analyze the spatial …

ปัจจัยคัดสรรที่สัมพันธ์กับความพึงพอใจในชีวิตสมรสของผู้หญิง, ตะวันนา โกเมนธรรมโสภณ

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

การวิจัยครั้งนี้มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อศึกษาปัจจัยที่สามารถทำนายความพึงพอใจในชีวิตสมรสของผู้หญิงแต่งงานแล้ว ผู้เข้าร่วมการวิจัยเป็นผู้หญิง จำนวน 160 คน ที่มีอายุ 40–60 ปี มีสถานะแต่งงานแล้วหรือมีการใช้ชีวิตร่วมกันฉันท์สามีภรรยาเป็นระยะเวลาตั้งแต่ 3 ปีขึ้นไป เก็บข้อมูลด้วยแบบสอบถามออนไลน์ซึ่งประเมินการมีลูก รูปแบบความผูกพันแบบวิตกกังวล รูปแบบความผูกพันแบบหลีกหนี บทบาททางเพศ ความใกล้ชิดทางอารมณ์ ระยะเวลาในการใช้ชีวิตสมรส ประเภทของครอบครัว การรับรู้การตอบสนองของคู่สัมพันธ์ และความพึงพอใจในชีวิตสมรส จากผลการวิเคราะห์การถดถอยแบบพหุคูณ พบว่า ร้อยละ 39.10 (R2 = 0.391) ของความพึงพอใจในชีวิตสมรสสามารถอธิบายได้ด้วย การรับรู้การตอบสนองของคู่สัมพันธ์ (B = 2.179) และรูปแบบความผูกพันแบบหลีกหนี (B = -1.095) จากการศึกษา สามารถอธิบายได้ว่า ความพึงพอใจในชีวิตสมรสของผู้หญิงมีความสัมพันธ์เชิงบวกกับการรับรู้ของผู้หญิงที่มีต่อการตอบสนองของคู่สัมพันธ์ อย่างมีนัยสำคัญทางสถิติที่ระดับ .001 และมีความสัมพันธ์เชิงลบกับรูปแบบความผูกพันแบบหลีกหนีของผู้หญิง อย่างมีนัยสำคัญทางสถิติที่ระดับ .001

Lending A Paw: Does The Presence Of A Dog Increase Donations Given To Homeless Individuals?, Katherine Link

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Prosocial behavior can be defined as any behavior that results in the benefit of another individual (Coyne et al., 2018). This study sought to investigate potential influences on the prosocial behavior of donating to the homeless. With a rise in both homelessness and dog ownership, this project sought to investigate how the presence of a dog may impact both the willingness to donate and monetary amount donated to a homeless individual. Results indicated a significant three-way interaction between the sex of the homeless individual, the sex of the participant, and the presence of a dog. Overall, the presence of a …

Factors Influencing Attitudes Towards Assistance Animals, Anna R. Ledonne

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Service animals and emotional support animals are gaining a greater presence in many public spaces. The purpose of the following study is to explore attitudes towards service animals and emotional support animals in a more rigorous fashion than previous research and to explore possible predictors of people’s attitudes towards service animals and emotional support animals. Specifically, this study examined the following predictors: public and self-stigma against mental health, ableism, and attitudes towards pets or pet ownership. Data was collected utilizing an online survey distributed to an online general population sample (n = 105). A measure of attitudes towards service …

The Contributions Of Immediate Retrieval And Spaced Retrieval To Word Learning In Preschoolers With Developmental Language Disorder, Laurence B. Leonard, Justin B. Kueser, Patricia Deevy, Eileen Haebig, Jeffrey D. Karpicke, Christine Weber

Faculty Publications

Background and Aims: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) benefit from word learning procedures that include a mix of immediate retrieval and spaced retrieval trials. In this study, we examine the relative contribution of these two types of retrieval.

Methods: We examine data from Haebig et al. (2019) in their study that compared an immediate retrieval condition and a condition of spaced retrieval that also included immediate retrieval trials. Participants were 4- and 5-year old children with DLD and same-age peers with typical language development. Each child learned novel (made-up) words referring to unusual plants and animals in both conditions. …

Soul-Training: The Why, What, And How Of Spiritual Formation In Sports, Elizabeth Bounds

Movement and Being: The Journal of the Christian Society for Kinesiology, Leisure and Sports Studies

Sportspeople know how to train and prepare their bodies for competition. The question this article seeks to explore is how sportspeople should approach training and preparing their souls. The Willardian corpus provides sportspeople a framework for understanding spiritual formation. This article examines the “why,” “what,” and “how” of soul-training, how Christians in sports can engage in spiritual formation. Sportspeople train their souls to experience God’s presence and worship him on and off the competition stage (why). In order to do so, they train their souls by following Christ as his apprentices, leading to transformation into his likeness (what) by cooperating …

Effects Of Superflex Curriculum On Social Skills Of Children With Autism, Charli Elaine Doyle

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Applied behavior analysis (ABA) is considered an applied science under the umbrella of behavior analysis and was accepted into the mainstream science in the mid-1900s. An increase in the prevalence of autism gave rise to the need for evidence-based social skills curricula. Previous research indicated many children respond well to video modeling and positive reinforcement. However, literature on social curricula for children aged 7 to 10 years in a clinical setting versus a school setting was limited. The purpose of this quantitative study with a single-subject design was to examine the effectiveness of Superflex, a superhero social thinking curriculum, on …

Qualitative Exploration Of The Impact Of Bed Bug Infestation In Rural Settings, Dorota Anna Krotkiewicz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractBed bugs have been common household insects for centuries and are a challenge to eradicate, but the extent to which bed bug infestations psychologically impact individuals and families is largely uninvestigated. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate the lived experiences of families in rural areas in Nevada who had experienced bed bug infestations. The transactional model of stress and coping was used as a framework for this research. Participants were recruited using posters placed in public areas, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten participants to gather data. Major and minor themes and meanings were derived from …

Me And My Ve 2022: Human Factors Applications Using Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality, And Virtual Environments, Randall Spain, Shannon K. T. Bailey, Benjamin Goldberg, Robert Sall, Kendall Carmody, Cherrise Ficke, Allison Bayro, Heejin Jeong, Jihoon Kim, W. Hong Yeo, Rosemarie Figueroa-Jacinto, Zachary Pugh, Chris Mayhorn, Aaron Gluck, Sarah Beadle, Amanda Bond

Aeronautics Student Publications

This abstract is a companion piece to the ninth iteration of the “Me and My VE'' interactive session. The purpose of this alternative format session is to allow human factors researchers to demonstrate how they use virtual reality, mixed reality, and virtual environments to support end-user research. The session begins with each presenter providing a brief introduction of their virtual reality, mixed reality, or virtual environment application. After this introduction, attendees engage with the presenters and their virtual environments in an interactive demonstration period. This year’s demonstrations include applications ranging from designing virtual environments for accessibility to using virtual and …

Preschoolers’ Electrodermal Activity And Story Comprehension During Print And Digital Shared Reading, Gabrielle Strouse, Steven R. Chesnut, Lisa Newland, Daniel Mourlam, Danielle Hertel, Brandon Nutting

School of Education Faculty Publications

Digital picture books are increasingly available for shared reading but reports on how children engage with them differ depending on the type of measurement used. The purpose of this study was to compare pre-readers’ engagement during print and digital shared reading and test whether engagement mediated the relation between children’s preference, familiarity with the stories, and media experience and their comprehension of the story. Using a within-subjects design with order and book title randomly assigned, we captured electrodermal activity from 83 children aged 3 to 5 years during shared print and digital reading with a researcher. We also asked children …

Comparison Of Chinese And Western Arts Mirroring The Evolvement Of Consciousness, Rui Peng

Journal of Conscious Evolution

A few researchers of consciousness in the West demonstrate that the development of western art mirrors the evolvement of human Consciousness since human civilization emerged. This paper explores the differences in art development between China and the West by comparing the artworks in the same era. Furthermore, discussing why the Chinese scholar art over two thousand years does not reflect the same structures of Consciousness that western researchers defined.

Neural Correlates And Neuroanatomy Of Juvenile And Adult Contextual Fear Memory Retention, Natalie Odynocki

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

AbstractFear is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism that allows an organism to discern potential harm and act accordingly by engaging in defensive behaviors. While fear is an adaptive response, dysregulation of fear by means of a traumatic event can lead to psychiatric conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Animal research using rodents in Pavlovian context fear conditioning experiments allows for the ability to study the underlying neural circuitry of threat-appropriate and aberrant fear learning and memory that may contribute to PTSD. However, despite reports that women are more than two times more likely to develop PTSD compared to men, the …

Autonomic Nervous System Coordination : Examining The Impact Of Perceived Discrimination And Stressful Life Events, Rachel Renee Mitchell

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Literature has demonstrated the deleterious effects of discrimination on mental health. For racial and ethnic minorities, discrimination is associated with symptoms of psychopathology, including anxiety and depression. Likewise, women who report gender-based discrimination are at an elevated risk for psychopathology. Scholars have theorized that chronic stress elicited by discrimination throughout one's life contributes to this increase in risk. Indeed, a wealth of research examining the consequences of stressful and potentially traumatic life events (SLEs) on mental health has pointed to physiological dysregulation as a mechanism through which life course stress undermines health. Patterns of physiological dysregulation within the sympathetic (SNS) …

The Association Between Adverse Childhood Experiences And Executive Functioning : An Adaptation-Based Perspective, Laura Morgan Welch

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The detrimental impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on executive functioning (EF) is well established. However, the common emphasis on impairments dulls the outlook for those who have experienced ACEs and overlooks potential developmental adaptations to stress. For example, more recently, researchers have found that childhood adversity may create stress-adapted skills that are functionally specialized for harsh, unpredictable environments. Thus, rather than solely cognitive impairments, stress-adapted youth may have enhanced EFs under stressful or uncertain conditions, when these skills would provide the greatest advantages. However, this effect has only been tested by inducing uncertain economic environments. More research is needed …

Perspectives Of African American Police Officers Post-Ferguson, Remy Epps

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

As attention to racially charged events and subsequent social activism rhetoric increases, researchers and professionals express a growing interest in understanding the influence of such events on police officers' psyche. Researchers have demonstrated that since the 2014 death of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, widespread media attention of police violence has negatively impacted police officer behavior, attitudes, and self-legitimacy levels. Yet, underrepresented within these empirical studies are the perspectives and experiences of African American police officers. This qualitative phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of five African American male police officers employed in North Carolina during the post-Ferguson era through …

An Exploration Of The Effects Of Mindfulness On Pain: The Role Of Pain Catastrophizing, Ilana Haliwa

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Chronic pain is a complex global public health concern associated with a host of negative outcomes, including loss of productivity, decreased quality of life, and greater likelihood of developing a mental health disorder. Initial evidence indicates that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) improve pain symptomatology. However, most MBIs are time and resource intensive, and it is unclear how mindfulness may improve the pain experience. The purpose of the present set of studies was to test the effects of a brief, app-based MBI on pain experience, and to examine whether pain catastrophizing was a statistical mediator of any effect. Two studies were conducted …

A Monte Carlo Simulation Of Rat Choice Behavior With Interdependent Outcomes, Michelle A. Frankot

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Preclinical behavioral neuroscience often uses choice paradigms to capture psychiatric symptoms. In particular, the subfield of operant research produces nested datasets with many discrete choices in a session. The standard analytic practice is to aggregate choice into a continuous variable and analyze using ANOVA or linear regression. However, choice data often have multiple interdependent outcomes of interest, violating an assumption of general linear models. The aim of the current study was to quantify the accuracy of linear mixed-effects regression (LMER) for analyzing data from a 4-choice operant task called the Rodent Gambling Task (RGT), which measures decision-making in the context …

The Effects Of Gestational Exposure To Buprenorphine Or Morphine On Offspring Development, Abigail Myers

Wayne State University Theses

The opioid crisis in the United States has grown to epidemic proportions with opioid dependence among pregnant women quadrupling from 1999-2014. Opioid-dependent pregnant women are commonly given opioid maintenance therapies (e.g., buprenorphine), but the developmental and neurological effects of these drugs on offspring development are poorly understood. Our study uses a translational rodent model to characterize the developmental consequences of gestational morphine (“MS”; mimicking opioid use disorder) or buprenorphine (“BUP”; mimicking opioid maintenance therapy) exposure on exposed offspring. Female rats started BUP (1.0 mg/kg) or MS (3-6.0 mg/kg) exposure 7 days before pregnancy to represent an established user and either …

Wholistic Healing: The Physician Perspective Of The Tibetan Medical Philosophy, Emma J. Brooks

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In Western medicine, anatomy is divided into multiple disciplines with specialists focused on their specialization, thereby limiting the whole system medical approach within the diagnosis, practice, and treatment of illness. The purpose of this qualitative study with an emergent design was to explore how physicians of Tibetan medicine viewed treating the whole person through the lens of Sowa Rigpa. Inquiry and analytical thinking were viewed through the lens of Otto and Knight’s principles of wholistic healing, Wilber’s integral model, and the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty. Phase I consisted of key informant interviews with four participants that were recent graduates of Tibetan …

Outside The Box: Using A Sibling Training Protocol To Increase Imaginative Play Among Autistic Children, Rachel Podl

CMC Senior Theses

Autistic children seldom develop imaginary play skills. Previous studies have demonstrated the efficacy of therapist and parent training interventions to increase imaginative play among autistic children. However, few studies have utilized a sibling training model, especially when tackling the complexities of pretend play. The purpose of this study is to examine a sibling training program as a supported intervention for increasing imaginative play among autistic children. The results indicated that the sibling training program was effective in increasing the imaginative play of autistic children. This study demonstrates the importance of incorporating typically developing siblings as change agents in behavioral interventions …

Cross-Cultural Examination Of Vacation Policy On Employee Satisfaction And Happiness, Ketan D. Parekh

CMC Senior Theses

With the advent of technological advancement, entrepreneurship, and a higher emphasis on meritocracy, societies across the globe have experienced intense competition to outdo one another. This has pushed companies to place increased importance on worker productivity; large and small companies want to see their employees work harder, longer, and faster. With this increased demand for work, companies today are making sure they have suitable reward systems to ensure worker satisfaction and quality work production. However, what these reward systems look like and how they function contrast significantly across cultures, especially as it pertains to corporate leave policies. This thesis examines …

Personal Intelligence And Student Employees, Miah Munro

Honors Theses and Capstones

Personal intelligence involves the capacity of individuals to accurately reason about personality and personality-related information that is related to themselves and others (Mayer, 2008). One setting that may particularly benefit from research on personal intelligence is the workplace. To understand employees’ logic, Peters and colleagues (2021) employed a narrative evaluation tool adapted from Allen (2017) to assess the perceived sophistication employees’ use to describe an interaction they had with a difficult or challenging coworker. They found that judges could reliably detect variations in the sophistication employees used, and that it was related, r = .43, p < .001, to a measure of personal intelligence. Their results were intriguing, but more confidence regarding their findings could be added through replication and extension of the work. Previous findings were replicated, which makes for a more compelling case that personal intelligence is detectable in employees and is related to what we think of as personal intelligence. Understanding personal intelligence in the workplace can enhance the capabilities of the human resource professionals to select personnel, which will ultimately improve their hiring process.

Using Complex Behavior To Understand Brain Mechanisms In Health And Disease, Cassandra D. Gipson, Paul L. Soto, Erin S. Calipari, Donna M. Platt, John D. Salamone, Rick A. Bevins

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

At this point in the history of the science of behavior, a focus on neuroscience-based outcomes has become dominant in neuropsychiatric fields at the preclinical and clinical levels of analysis. The notion that behavior is caused by brain function, and that changing brain function can alter behavior, has fueled this push to understand these neurobiological mechanisms. Within this conceptual framework and the funding to incentivize its adoption, the neuroscience field grew rapidly with the goal to understand the relation between the brain and behavior. As such, a reductionist perspective emerged whereby neural manipulations of increasing sophistication became required for assessing …

Adaptive Memory: Richness Of Encoding As A Possible Underlying Mechanism Of The Threat Effect, Anthony Hall

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, a growing body of research suggests that the human memory system has adapted to recall information that would have been vital to our ancestors’ survival. One area of importance is animacy, where animate objects are better remembered than inanimate ones. From the study of animacy a new area of interest came about; perceived threat of stimuli. It was suggested that some of the stimuli used in previous research could be perceived as more threatening than others which could be a potential confound. This research lead to a potentially new phenomenon, the threat effect, which suggests that threatening …