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Changes In Cortical Processing Following Unilateral Visual Cortex Deafferentation, Matthew Gannon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

After the loss of inputs, cells in visual cortex adapt and begin representing space beyond their classical receptive fields. This ability for functional reorganization is a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity. Homonymous hemianopia is a unique case of this scenario that results from hemispheric deafferentation, or when all visual inputs in to one hemisphere of the brain are lost. This condition occurs due to unilateral damage of the post-chiasmatic geniculo-striate pathway, the network that carries visual information from one side of visual space to the visual cortex for processing. Damage to this pathway causes perceptual blindness in the side of space …

Processing Speed For Action And Semantic Memory, Tyler A. Surber

Master's Theses

Previous research suggests that the processing of affordances may require more perceptually relevant information than words can provide (Surber et al., 2018; Chainay & Humphreys, 2002). The present study investigates this hypothesis with the shoebox task used in Bowers and Turner (2003). A list of 81 object nouns (targets) and associated features (primes: affordance, semantic, and non-associates) was compiled from the McRae, Cree, Seidenberg, and McNorgan (2005) norms. Affordances denote possibilities for action in relation to the object (e.g. chair – sit), whereas semantic features indicate definitional characteristics (e.g. chair – has legs). Affordances and semantic features served as primes …

Characterizing Risk & Burden Of Lower Cranial Neuropathy (Lcnp) As Late Effect Among Oropharyngeal Cancer Survivors, Puja Aggarwal

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Background: Lower cranial neuropathy (LCNP) is a rare but potentially disabling late effect of radiotherapy (RT) and other head and neck cancer therapies. Survivors who develop late LCNP may experience profound functional impairment with deficits in swallowing, speech, and voice. The aims of this research were: 1) to quantify the cumulative incidence of late LCNP and identify clinical predictors of late LCNP; 2) to investigate the impact of late LCNP on severity of cancer treatment-related symptoms, general functional impairment (GFI), and single item scores of the most severe symptoms; and 3) to quantify the association of late LCNP with swallowing-related …

Clinical And Demographic Factors Associated With Peg-Asparaginase-Related Toxicities In Patients With Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Priyadarshani Dharia

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Introduction: Polyethylene glycol (PEG)-asparaginase is one of the first-line drugs in pediatric ALL treatment. Although a complete and prolonged treatment with PEGasparaginase has been instrumental in improving the survival of ALL patients, it is associated with four common toxicities: hypersensitivity, hyperbilirubinemia, pancreatitis, and venous thromboembolism (VTE). PEG-asparaginase-related toxicities may require modifications and delays in treatment, which often leads to poor treatment outcomes. Previous studies of PEG-asparaginase-related toxicities have mainly focused on individual toxicities. Further, these studies were conducted in study populations which were predominantly self-reported non-Hispanic whites. Therefore, there is a gap in the knowledge regarding the cumulative burden of …

Characterizing Risk & Burden Of Lower Cranial Neuropathy (Lcnp) As Late Effect Among Oropharyngeal Cancer Survivors, Puja Aggarwal

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Background: Lower cranial neuropathy (LCNP) is a rare but potentially disabling late effect of radiotherapy (RT) and other head and neck cancer therapies. Survivors who develop late LCNP may experience profound functional impairment with deficits in swallowing, speech, and voice. The aims of this research were: 1) to quantify the cumulative incidence of late LCNP and identify clinical predictors of late LCNP; 2) to investigate the impact of late LCNP on severity of cancer treatment-related symptoms, general functional impairment (GFI), and single item scores of the most severe symptoms; and 3) to quantify the association of late LCNP with swallowing-related …

The Associations Between Fat And Clinical Outcomes Among Lung Cancer Patients: Dietary Intake And Genetic Determinants, Fang Yu Lin

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Higher dietary fat intake and alterations in fatty acid metabolism may affect cancer development and progression. This dissertation conducted a series of studies examining whether dietary fat intake and genetic variants in fatty acid metabolism genes have an impact on clinical outcomes among non-Hispanic whites newly diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). First, a cohort of 2,262 NSCLC patients was prospectively examined for intakes of total, saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fat in relation to overall survival and recurrence. Dietary fat intake at diagnosis was assessed with a previously validated food frequency questionnaire and categorized by Dietary Reference Intakes. Multivariable …

The Political Personality Of Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, Anne Marie Griebie, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

Note: The paper whose abstract appears below, titled "The Political Personality of Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden" has been replaced on the 'Download' tab with an updated paper containing a more thorough personality assessment and a more detailed leadership style analysis, titled "The Political Personality of 2020 Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden." The earlier paper has been archived and may be uploaded at the bottom of this page from the hyperlink under 'Additional Files.'

This working paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of former U.S. vice president Joe Biden — a contender for …

Association Between Lifetime Adverse Events, Emotion Dysregulation, Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms, Acculturation, And Chronic Pain: A Moderated Mediation Model, Miriam El-Haj

Theses and Dissertations

The association between traumatic experiences and chronic pain is well established. Lesser is known about how acculturation might affect this relation, specifically with Hispanics. In the present study, self-report measures on traumatic experiences, posttraumatic stress symptoms, emotion dysregulation, chronic pain, and acculturation were administered to 140 participants (71.4% females) aged 18–65 years old (M = 35.06, SD = 11.55), to determine whether acculturation moderates the relation between adverse lifetime experiences and chronic pain as mediated by posttraumatic stress symptoms and emotion dysregulation.

Those who were highly acculturated to the U.S. Anglo culture were higher on chronic pain than those who …

A Heavy Burden: Associations Between Sexual Minority Status, Mental Health, And Bmi In Women, Alison E. A. Goldblatt

Graduate Masters Theses

Sexual minority women (SMW) are at increased risk of elevated body mass index (BMI) compared to heterosexual women, which increases their vulnerability to a variety of chronic diseases. This increased risk of elevated BMI is likely due to unique minority stressors faced by sexual minority individuals, such as internalized heterosexism and discrimination. Minority stressors are associated with poorer mental and physical health among SMW, and SMW may engage in unhealthy coping strategies, like binge eating, to cope with these minority stressors. Research suggests that bisexual women, and other women with non-monosexual orientations, face elevated risks to their physical and psychological …

Playing Isn’T Just For The Kids: The Effects Of Video Modeling On Adult Play Behavior, Grace Fancine Boatman

Theses and Dissertations

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder lack appropriate play skills. To provide quality care to these children, practitioners who work with these children should be versed in how to play. The researchers for the current study used a multiple baseline design across stimulus sets. A pre-experimental assessment, naturalistic generalization probe, and a toy generalization probe were conducted prior to baseline. The baseline phase demonstrated the participant’s performance in playing with a confederate researcher. Task clarification represented the participant’s performance in playing with a confederate researcher after a verbal prompt to play more. The researchers implemented video modeling to increase the frequency …

Examining The Impact Of Standardized Fine Motor Activity Selection On Various Fine Motor Skills In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cheyenne Lee Dong

Theses and Dissertations

Many children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) demonstrate deficits in fine motor skills, requiring therapies to help improve their performance of a variety of self-care, daily living, and academic skills. Research in the occupational therapy literature suggests several methods of assessing and teaching fine motor skills and represents an area that is understudied in the applied behavior analysis research. The two disciplines may offer a complementary approach to targeting emerging skills, shaping desired responses in naturalistic contexts, and reinforcing participation. This study aimed to examine the impact of occupational therapy-recommended activities on fine motor skills by blending the occupational therapy …

The Effects Of Lag Reinforcement Schedules And Differential Reinforcement Of Alternative Responding On Reinforced Variability And Resurgence, Weizhi Wu

Theses and Dissertations

Differential reinforcement of an alternative responding (DRA) is a commonly used procedure to teach children with ASD more functionally and socially appropriate skills and decrease problem behavior. However, resurgence of problem behavior could occur when treatment integrity errors appearing while implementing DRA procedure. In research, one approach to mitigating resurgence is to reinforce varied alternative responses using a lag schedule. A lag schedule of reinforcement is a method to increase variability in which a reinforcer will be delivered contingently if the response differs from a certain number of previous responses. The present laboratory study evaluated whether reinforced behavioral variability could …

Implicit Memory And Online Advertisement Priming, Matthew L. Custard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Implicit Memory research has been investigating the attentional requirements needed for something to be encoded and accessible through implicit memory. So far, previous research has produced mixed results on attentional requirements for perceptual implicit memory, some studies citing evidence for the need of attention, others citing the opposite. As well, research has been consistent in producing results showing that conceptual implicit memory has higher attentional demands than that of its perceptual counterpart. Adopting Transfer-Appropriate Processing framework, the current paper investigates attention requirements for both a perceptual task (picture identification) and a conceptual task (category exemplar generation). Participants examine webpages with …

Neuroticism And Stressful Life Events: Probing Mechanisms Underlying Vulnerability To Stress-Related Depression, Erin Bondy

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Elevated neuroticism (N) potentiates the depressogenic effects of stressful life events (SLEs). We first replicate this association using longitudinal data (N=971 older adults) from the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network (SPAN) study. Here, SLEs prospectively predicted future depressive symptoms, especially among those reporting elevated N, even after accounting for prior depressive symptoms and previous SLE exposure (NxSLE interaction: p=0.016, ΔR²=0.003). These findings were further replicated in cross-sectional analyses of the Duke Neurogenetics Study (DNS), a young adult college sample with neuroimaging data (n=1,343: NxSLE interaction: p=0.019, ΔR²=0.003). Because evidence suggests that stress may promote depression …

Associations Between Prenatal Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Exposure, Depression And Brain Morphology In Middle Childhood, Allison Moreau

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Objective: Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are one of the most widely used prescribed medicine by pregnant women. A mixed literature suggests that prenatal SSRI exposure may increase depression risk among offspring. Method: Using data from children (n=11,076) who completed the baseline session of the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, we examined whether prenatal exposure to SSRIs is associated with child depression and variability in depression-related brain structures (i.e., hippocampus, amygdala, nucleus accumbens, caudate, putamen; rostral anterior cingulate; rostral and caudal middle frontal, superior frontal, and lateral and medical orbitofrontal cortices). Analyses were cross-sectional and included the following …

An Evaluation Of The Utility Of The Performance Diagnostic Checklist - Human Services (Pdc-Hs): A Comparison Of Formal And Informal Assessment Strategies, Cherish Chalk

Theses and Dissertations

The PDC-HS is a performance assessment tool that assists in the identification of variables contributing to performance problems among human service employees. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the utility of the PDC-HS as a formal assessment strategy. Specifically, the PDC-HS was compared to an informal assessment strategy consisting of a single open-ended interview question and a single structured interview question. Participants included 40 supervisors in varying positions in the human services industry. Descriptive statistics were used to compare participant responses to the open-ended and structured questions to the results indicated by the PDC-HS. Results suggest that the …

A Quantitative Analysis Of Errors During Conditional Discriminations: Changing Sample-Stimuli Disparity In Delayed Matching-To-Sample Task With Children Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Tiara Rahadian Putri

Theses and Dissertations

Conditional discrimination skill is foundational in teaching many other functional skills in children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and error occur during training. Antecedent- and consequence-based intervention are commonly used without the understanding of underlying behavioral mechanism responsible for these errors. A quantitative framework based on choice- and signal-detection analyses (Davison & Tustin, 1978) was used to quantify and categorize errors. Three children diagnosed with ASD participated. The current study used an automated 0-s delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) procedure on an iPad Pro® 9.7”. Four experimental conditions were arranged successively, wherein each corresponded with a level of sample stimuli disparity: …

Testing An Active Intervention To Deter Researchers' Use Of Questionable Research Practices, Samuel V. Bruton, M. Brown, Donald Sacco, R. Didlake

Faculty Publications

Introduction: In this study, we tested a simple, active “ethical consistency” intervention aimed at reducing researchers’ endorsement of questionable research practices (QRPs).

Methods: We developed a simple, active ethical consistency intervention and tested it against a control using an established QRP survey instrument. Before responding to a survey that asked about attitudes towards each of fifteen QRPs, participants were randomly assigned to either a consistency or control 3–5-min writing task. A total of 201 participants completed the survey: 121 participants were recruited from a database of currently funded NSF/NIH scientists, and 80 participants were recruited from a pool …

Visual Illusion Susceptibility In Dogs Using The Ebbinghaus-Titchener Illusion In A Spontaneous Choice Task, Nicolette Becker

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, dogs have been a popular test subject when studying visual illusion susceptibility. Multiple studies have investigated whether animals perceive illusions as humans do, but few studies have evaluated dogs’ perception of illusory stimuli. In this thesis, we studied if dogs are visually susceptible to the Ebbinghaus-Titchener illusion when presented in a spontaneous choice task. Subjects were presented two visual images on a board, which had bologna pieces embedded in the stimuli. In control trials, two different sized bologna pieces were placed in the center of the images. In these control conditions, dogs were expected to choose the …

Ethics And Care: For Animals, Not Just Mammals, Jennifer A. Mather

Speciesism and Breed Discrimination Collection

In the last few decades, we have made great strides in recognizing ethics and providing care for animals, but the focus has been mainly on mammals. This stems from a bias of attention not only in research but predominantly in non-scientists’ attention (to ‘popular’ animals), resulting partly from discussion about and depiction of animals in publications addressed to the public. This is somewhat due to political pressure, and can result in uneven conservation efforts and biases in targets for welfare concerns. As a result, there has been a huge backlash again, with concerns about pain sensitivity and welfare in fish, …

Halloween, Superstition, And Black Cat Bias, Brianna Gavin

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

Black Cat Bias (BCB): “Cats with black coats are viewed more negatively, adopted less often, and euthanized more often than lighter colored cats” (Jones & Hart, in press)

Shelter records of 2170 cats showed black cats stay in shelter about one month longer than non-black cats (Kubesova, Voslarova, Cecerek, & Vucinic, 2017)

Length of stay in shelter positively correlated with risk of contracting URI (Dinnage, Scarlett, & Richards, 2009) and coronavirus (Pedersen, Sato, Foley, & Poland, 2004)

Jones and Hart (in press) found black cats were perceived as more aggressive and less friendly than non-black cats

Jones and Hart (in …

Stress Reduction After Visiting Cats In A Cat Café, Nicole L. Beasley

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

Research has attempted to induce stress and has been unsuccessful at demonstrating the efficacy of stress reduction. This may indicate that animal interaction is more beneficial when reducing longer-term stress rather than short-term stress, like what has been studied in the past. Additionally, animals may be more effective at reducing life stress as opposed to artificially produced stress.

Past research has limited the time participants may spend interacting with the study animals. The current study will allow participants to spend as much time as necessary with the café cats.

The present study will record a physiological marker of stress and …

Pre-Commitment To Moral Values, Nicholas R. Herzog, Justin F. Landy, Emma E. Levine

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

When faced with reoccurring tradeoffs between moral values, people can address them by considering the specifics of each case or by setting policies that predetermine how they will address similar cases. Previous research on moral judgment has often focused on isolated tradeoffs, and therefore, it is unclear which decision strategies are preferred in contexts with reoccurring tradeoffs. Across our studies, participants judged people who precommitted to always prioritizing one value more positively than people who adjusted their priorities based on the specifics of each case. Our findings have important implications for understanding public perceptions of complex policies.

The Social Consequences Of Absolute Moral Proclamations, Elizabeth Huppert, Nicholas R. Herzog, Justin F. Landy, Emma E. Levine

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

Across six studies (N = 3348), we find that people prefer targets who make absolute proclamations (i.e. "It is never okay for people to lie" ) over targets who make ambiguous proclamations ("It is sometimes okay for people to lie" ), even when both targets tell equivalent lies. Preferences for absolutism stem from the belief that moral proclamations send a true signal about moral character--they are not cheap talk. Therefore, absolute proclamations signal moral character, despite also signaling hypocrisy. This research sheds light on the consequences of absolute proclamations and identifies circumstances in which hypocrisy is preferred over consistency.

Synergistic Effect Of Bilingualism And Exercise On Executive Function, Laura Putlek, Jose Antonio, Corey Peacock, Mercedes Fernandez

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

Memory Consolidation During Sleep, K I. Thompson, Jonathan Banks, Jose Antonio, Jaime Tartar

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

How To Make A Winner: How Hormones And Experience Shape The Brain Of The Victor, Mariana Moguel Mendez, Allison George, Mary A. Holschbach

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

Intranasal Zinc Treatment Ameliorates Behavioral Deficits Caused By Chronic Stress And Traumatic Brain Injury In Mice, William R. Kochen

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.

Good People Don't Need Medication: How Moral Character Beliefs Affect Medical Decision-Making, Sydney Elizabeth Scott, Justin F. Landy

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

How do people make decisions? Prior research focuses on how people's cost-benefit assessments affect which medical treatments they choose. We propose that people also worry about what these health decisions signal about who they are. Across four studies, we find that medication is thought to be the "easy way out", signaling a lack of willpower and character. These moral beliefs lower the appeal of medications. Manipulating these beliefs--by framing medication as a signal of superior willpower or by highlighting the idea that treatment choice is just a preference--increases preferences for medication.

Creatine And Cognitive Functioning: Part 1 Body Composition, Jessica Garcia, Catherine Weber, Alexsandra Alvarez-Beaton, Akshita Patel, Alexandra C. Nieto, Paige Napolito, Haley Watters, Rithin Manimaleth, Jonathan B. Banks, Jose Antonio

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

No abstract provided.