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Pharmacology Of Cannabis, Mandakini Sadhir

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

Cannabis has been used for recreational purposes around the world. It is derived from the plant cannabis sativa which has various other compounds known as cannabinoids. Most common form of cannabis used for recreational purpose is marijuana, which is prepared from dried flowering tops and leaves. The primary psychoactive component is delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (δ-9THC), which exerts its physiological and psychological effects through its interaction with CB1 and CB2 receptors. Smoking is the most commonly used method with onset of effects within minutes after inhalation. Oral ingestion of cannabis has varied absorption with delayed onset but longer duration of action. Urine …

Sleep, Executive Control, And Psychopathology In Children: A Longitudinal Study And An Examination Of Brief Sleep Treatment, Katherine M. Kidwell

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Researchers have acknowledged that poor sleep is not merely a symptom of psychopathology but also a contributing factor to the development of psychopathology in children (Walker & Harvey, 2010). However, more research is needed to explicate the associations among sleep, executive control (EC), and psychopathology. Specifically, there are few studies using longitudinal designs and limited research on how treating sleep can improve mental health symptoms. This dissertation provides a conceptual framework for the associations among sleep, EC, and psychopathology. The conceptual framework is bolstered by two studies. Study 1 is an examination of early sleep problems and preschool EC as …

The Complex Combatant: Constructions Of Victimhood And Perpetrator-Hood In Gulu District, Northern Uganda, Kyra Fox

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the wake of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) conflict in Northern Uganda, both the local and international community struggle to define the “victims” and “perpetrators” of a conflict that transformed ordinary civilians into combatants. Made up primarily of child soldiers, the LRA forcefully abducted and conscripted children across Northern Uganda to fight in a guerilla war against the Ugandan government. LRA members were forced to murder their own families and terrorize their home villages in an attempt to disorient and desensitize them to lives of violence. Some became willing, even eager fighters; others struggled daily to live with their …

Contributions Of Television Use To Beliefs About Fathers And Gendered Family Roles Among First-Time Expectant Parents, Patty X. Kuo, L. Monique Ward

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

TV content has been documented to portray a limited range of gender roles, and to frequently depict fathers as incompetent parents. Accordingly, this study explored whether first-time expectant parents’ beliefs about gendered family roles and the importance of fathers to child development were related to their TV use. Participants were 201 individuals (122 women, 79 men) from across the United States expecting their first biological child in a cohabiting heterosexual relationship. Participants completed an online survey assessing weekly TV exposure, exposure to TV programs featuring fathers, perceived realism of TV, use of TV to learn about the world, and beliefs …

Discriminative Stimulus Properties Of 1.25 Mg/Kg Clozapine In Rats: Mediation By Serotonin 5-Ht2 And Dopamine D4 Receptors, Adam J. Prus, Laura E. Wise, Alan Pehrson, Scott D. Philibin, Benny Bang-Andersen, Jørn Arnt, Joseph H. Porter

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The atypical antipsychotic drug clozapine remains one of most effective treatments for schizophrenia, given a lack of extrapyramidal side effects, improvements in negative symptoms, cognitive impairment, and in symptoms in treatment-resistant schizophrenia. The adverse effects of clozapine, including agranulocytosis, make finding a safe clozapine-like a drug a goal for drug developers. The drug discrimination paradigm is a model of interoceptive stimulus that has been used in an effort to screen experimental drugs for clozapine-like atypical antipsychotic effects. The present study was conducted to elucidate the receptor-mediated stimulus properties that form this clozapine discriminative cue by testing selective receptor ligands in …

The Humanities, Brain Science And The Unforgiving Minute, Raymond L. Forbes

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Many independent authors from a wide variety of disciplines have come to a similar, if somewhat startling, conclusion; that we are currently at another “tipping point” in human history. Our arrival at this particular juncture in time seems to be the consequence of a potent mix of past trends and contemporary forces. Collectively, these energies act to feed exponentially growing technical and social change. In addition, there appears to be some agreement by thoughtful observers that the turmoil of our present epoch can be personified by four factors: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity More specifically, the technical and societal changes …

Conceptual Representation Changes In Indonesian-English Bilinguals, Andree Hartanto, Lidia Suarez

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study investigated conceptual representations changes in bilinguals. Participants were Indonesian-English bilinguals (dominant in Indonesian, with different levels of English proficiency) and a control group composed of English-dominant bilinguals. All completed a gender decision task, in which participants decided whether English words referred to a male or female person or animal. In order to explore conceptual representations, we divided the words into gender-specific and gender-ambiguous words. Gender-specific words were words in which conceptual representations contained gender as a defining feature, in both English and Indonesian (e.g., uncle). In contrast, gender-ambiguous words were words in which gender was a defining feature …

Prejudice Toward Atheists In The United States As Related To Perceived Prevalence, Wanda D. Brooks

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

By manipulating mortality salience (MS) in place of life-threatening events to stimulate death-related thoughts, the current research contributes to the body of research supporting Terror Management Theory. It was hypothesized that religious participants should exhibit cultural worldview defense by scoring higher in anti-atheist prejudice following the MS manipulation than would those in the control condition. Further, this research extends the current research into Terror Management Theory as a cause for conflict among out-groups and explores its effects on cultural worldviews in the area of prejudice toward atheists. This includes examining how the perception of an increasing prevalence of atheists contributes …

Evaluating The Validity Of Technology-Enhanced Educational Assessment Items And Tasks: An Empirical Approach To Studying Item Features And Scoring Rubrics., Ally Thomas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With the advent of the newly developed Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards, innovative assessments, including technology-enhanced items and tasks, will be needed to meet the challenges of developing valid and reliable assessments in a world of computer-based testing. In a recent critique of the next generation assessments in math (i.e., Smarter Balanced), Rasmussen (2015) observed that many aspects of the technology “enhancements” can be expected to do more harm than good as the computer interfaces may introduce construct irrelevant variance. This paper focused on issues surrounding the design of TEIs and how cognitive load …

Masculine Identities Among Asian American Men: Negotiating Varying Masculine Ideals For The Self And Others, Elisa J. Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The study examined the implications of varying masculine identities for Asian American men of East Asian descent. The study tested the hypotheses that compared to White men, Asian American men would endorse lower levels of Western hegemonic masculine ideals, see themselves as less masculine in terms of those ideals, and report lower levels of believing others perceive them as masculine by Western hegemonic standards. It also examined if the type of masculinity Asian American men endorsed moderated the psychological functioning (gender role conflict, psychological distress, and substance use) related to any discrepancies and synchronicities between self-perception and others’ perception (e.g. …

Native Language Adaptation To Novel Verb Argument Structures By Spanish-English Bilinguals: An Electrophysiological Investigation, Eve Higby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Bilinguals have to learn two different grammatical systems. Some aspects of these grammars may be similar across the two languages (for example, the active-passive alternation) while others may exist in only one of the two grammars (for example, the distinction between recent and distant past). This dissertation investigates the degree to which grammar information specific to only one language is available when processing the other language. In particular, the current study focuses on the application of grammatical structures from the bilinguals’ second-learned language to their first-learned language, a direction of language transfer not often investigated. Based on a Shared Syntax …

Medication Management In Pediatric Chronic Illness: Should Patient Anxiety Be Considered?, Claire J. Hoogendoorn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Introduction: There is growing support that psychological symptoms can impact various aspects of disease, well-being, and medical treatment for those with a chronic illness like Crohn’s disease (CD). Yet, almost no studies have examined whether psychological symptoms can influence management or efficacy of patient medication regimens. The aims of this project were to examine whether anxiety predicted pediatric patients’ level of medication management, medication prescription changes, and corticosteroid prescription and duration.

Method: A total of 105 pediatric patients ages 8-18 (M=14.5, SD=2.3) completed a validated anxiety questionnaire during a GI office visit (baseline). Prescribed IBD …

The Effects Of Alpha Oscillations On Touch Perception And Visuo-Tactile Integration, Lei Ai

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Previous studies have shown that touch perception and visuo-tactile integration have large inter-subject/intra-subject variations. For example, touch perception varies across trials and the temporal binding windows of visuo-tactile integration varies across subjects. I hypothesized that the variations might be due to the change of power, phase and peak frequency of brain alpha oscillations. In the first set of experiments, I examined whether the power and phase of alpha oscillations predict successful conscious touch perception. Near-threshold tactile stimuli were applied to the left hand while electroencephalographic (EEG) activity and fast signal optical imaging were recorded over the somatosensory cortex. Alpha power …

Series Of Intermittent Heroin Injections Enhances Acquisition Of Operant Responding For Cues Paired With Natural Rewards, Jennifer Morrison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Repeated-intermittent heroin use has been implicated in altering learning processes. Ranaldi et al. (2009) and Morrison et al. (2011) demonstrated that repeated-intermittent heroin administration leads to an enhancement of conditioned reinforcement by a food-paired light stimulus; however, the mechanism governing this effect is still largely unknown. The aims of the present study were to examine modifications in Pavlovian and operant associations for cues paired with natural rewards after a series of intermittent heroin injections. The study consisted of three phases: (1) Pavlovian Conditioning Phase (4 days)- in which three groups of rats had a light stimulus paired with food, and …

Vocal Rhythm Coordination And Preterm Infants: Rhythms Of Dialogue In A High-Risk Nicu Sample, Adrianne E. Lange

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The contemporary bio-psycho-social view of mother-infant relationships holds that early interactions form the foundation of the growing infant’s sense of himself and the world. Prior to the development of linguistically-based communication, nonverbal communication patterns foster the infant’s socio-emotional growth, cognitive capacity and the development of optimal regulatory patterns. Preterm birth significantly alters the typical developmental trajectory on multiple levels and disrupts normal neurobiological and socio-emotional maturational processes, including those that build on early interpersonal experiences with caregivers. The current study of vocal rhythm coordination in preterm mother-infant dyads is the first of its kind. Aspects of infant prematurity (degree of …

An Erp Study Of Sensory-Linguistic Processing In The Context Of Asd Research, Larissa R. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis considers the questions of what is hindering the language development of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Tomasello’s (2003) theory of language development by use necessitates adequate pattern recognition, intention reading and use for language development. Within these areas there are many variables where language acquisition could become derailed, from basic attention, perception and memory to higher cognitive functions, as well as processing speed and synchronization. Although there is a wide range of language abilities for children on the autism spectrum, the one consistently under developed area is pragmatics. One of the key aspects of pragmatic processing is …

Possible Underlying Mechanisms Of Hyperactivity In Children With Adhd, Nicole Feirsen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Conceptualizations of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have evolved significantly over the years. Historically, early conceptualizations of ADHD described hyperactivity as the core symptom of the disorder. However, when the third version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) was published (1980), hyperactivity became a specific qualifier of the disorder and was no longer necessary for a diagnosis. Despite this shift in conceptualization of the disorder, there is an abundance of empirical evidence, both recent and historical, supporting the fact that hyperactivity is an enduring and clinically impairing symptom domain in ADHD. Despite having numerous validated instruments available to …

Death Priming In Investigations: The Effects On Worldview Threat, Out-Group Derogation, And Stereotyping, Laure Brimbal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Terror Management Theory (TMT) hypothesizes that thinking about one’s own death creates a need to boost our worldview and our self-esteem in order to cope with this existential threat. Decades of research support the theory’s premises with findings in many different settings (Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010). The purpose of this dissertation is to extend the findings of TMT to research on decision making in investigations. In two studies, I evaluated how thinking about one’s death (Mortality Salience, MS) affected mock investigators’ reactions to the outcome of a case they investigated and their perceptions of a suspect, depending on their …

Consciousness, Perception, And Short-Term Memory, Henry F. Shevlin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dissertation Abstract: Consciousness, Perception, and Short-Term Memory

When we engage in almost any perceptual activity – recognizing a face, listening out for a phone-call, or simply taking in a sunset – information must be briefly stored and processed in some form of short-term memory. For philosophers attempting to develop an empirically grounded account of perception and conscious experience, it is therefore crucial to engage with scientific theories of the kinds of short-term memory mechanisms that underlie our moment-to-moment retention of information about the world. To that end, in this dissertation I review recent scientific evidence for a new form of …

Cognitive Dissonance Or Contrast?, Thomas R. Zentall

Animal Sentience

According to Festinger (1957), cognitive dissonance occurs when one’s behavior or belief is inconsistent with another belief and one modifies one of the beliefs in an attempt to reduce the dissonance. In nonhuman animals, we have examined a version of human cognitive dissonance theory called justification of effort, according to which the value of reward following more difficult tasks increases, presumably to justify (to oneself or to others) performing the more difficult task. We have examined the justification of effort effect in animals and found a pattern similar to the one in humans but we propose a simpler underlying …

War Of The Worlds: Music And Cosmological Battles In The Balinese Cremation Procession, Michael B. Bakan

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Abstract

This article explores processional action as a form of cosmological intervention in Hindu-Balinese cremation processions, focusing on the multiple and intersecting functions of a particular type of Balinese instrumental music ensemble: the gamelan beleganjur. It explores the alternately “enlivening and protective aspects” (DeVale 1990, 62) that underlie the use of beleganjur music in the ngaben, or cremation ritual, showing how beleganjur’s sonic power and rhythmic drive serve to combat malevolent spirit beings, strengthen and inspire processional participants in their efforts to meet challenging ritual obligations, and grant courage to the souls of deceased individuals embarking on their …

From The Handbook Of The Laszlo Institute Of New Paradigm Research And The Intelligence Of The Cosmos , Inner Traditions, September 2017, Ervin Laszlo

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

No abstract provided.

Commentaries On Deepak Chopra And Menas Kafatos’ Book, “You Are The Universe”; 2017, Harmony Books., Jim Smith

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

No abstract provided.

Integral In-Dwelling: A Prepositional Theology Of Religions, Bruce Alderman

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

The concept of generalized co-presence is a central one in the gram- mar of Bhaskar’s metaRealist metaphysics. As a term denoting the radical relationality and mutual indwelling of beings in the cosmos, generalized co- presence finds analogues in the holographic principle of Morin’s Complex Thought, Wilber’s nondual inflection of holarchy, as well as multiple religious archetypes of divine interindependence. In this paper, I will explore the potential of this concept for framing a “deep participatory,” Complex Integral Realist model of interreligious relationship that can amplify the integrative potential of the metaRealist, Integral, and participatory approaches to this topic that have …

Why Consciousness Matters: Insights From A New Generation, Kathleen Noble

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

The University of Washington-Bothell is home to a transdisciplinary and integral minor in consciousness that is the first and only such program at a public research university. This study reports a content analysis of reflection essays submitted by 122 students who completed at least four of the five courses that comprise the minor between 2012 and 2016. Results indicate that students derived significant benefits from this approach to the study of consciousness, including a deep appreciation for the depth and breadth of the mind and the need to release their understanding of consciousness from the constraints of scientific materialism. They …

Commentaries On Deepak Chopra And Menas Kafatos’ Book, “You Are The Universe”; 2017, Harmony Books., Stanley Krippner

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

No abstract provided.

Evolutionary Continuity Of Personhood, Anne Benvenuti

Animal Sentience

Rowlands applies the two organizing ideas of the Lockean concept of personhood — mental life and unity — to animals as potential persons. Especially valuable in this context is his descriptive phenomenology of pre-reflective self-awareness as a fundamental form of mental life that necessarily entails unity. Rowland describes certain fundamentals of mental experience that exist across species boundaries, challenging assumptions of early modern philosophers regarding the definition of human personhood and affirming the principle of evolutionary continuity. This opens the door to a broader and deeper set of questions, related to whether we should continue to attempt to apply to …

The Effects Of Cultural Cognition And Parent Perceptions Of Autism Spectrum Disorder On Perceptions Of Intervention Efficacy, Jillian R. Reiher

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has identified many interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Some of these interventions are evidence-based; others are not. However, previous research has also found that parents select interventions for their children with ASD on the basis of several factors other than the evidence base, including their emotional representations of ASD and their perceptions of the timeline, consequences, and causes of ASD. Other research has found that people’s cultural worldviews influence their decision-making on a variety of social and political issues. The current study examined the relationships between these factors and parents’ perceptions of the efficacy of evidence-based and …

Darwin’S Empirical Evidence, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone

Animal Sentience

Darwin’s extensive writings may seem antiquated to current thinkers with their predilections for cognitive science, neuroscience, and analytic branches of philosophy. He showed that morphologies are not simply taxonomic distinctions that allow classification into species. They describe living animals, hence morphologies-in-motion: animate forms of life engaged in synergies of meaningful movement, all of which are testimony to animal sentience.

Animal Personhood Is An Evolutionary Issue, James E. King

Animal Sentience

The Rowlands target article makes a case, based on John Locke’s metaphysical argument, that personhood can be applied to many species beyond a few nonhuman primates. The problem with this argument is that personhood has an open-ended list of defining attributes and can, at best only be partially applied to nonhuman species. Therefore, a dichotomous distinction cannot be made between qualifying and non-qualifying species. Instead, between-species comparisons must be based on observational and experimental procedures to demonstrate the extent to which human mental attributes are shared with other species. This would allow a more informed view about the appropriateness of …