Digital Commons Network^™

Human Olfactory Perception: A Literature Review, Catherine Jameson Lee Kelly

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

There has been wide debate about the degree to which humans are impacted by olfaction. Despite former assumptions that we are dominantly visual/auditory creatures, recent studies suggest that humans are more highly macrosmatic than originally thought. Humans have demonstrated behavioral, physiological, cognitive and affective responses to olfactory stimuli even when the stimuli were perceived unconsciously. The mechanism by which humans perceive these signals is unclear; there is much debate as to whether the vomeronasal organ is functional in humans. Regardless of the mechanism of perception, it is clear olfaction is psychologically impactful for humans. The following literature review summarizes research …

Evaluating A Collaborative Ipad Game's Impact On Social Relationships For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Louanne E. Boyd, Kathryn E. Ringland, Oliver L. Haimson, Helen Fernandez, Maria Bistarkey, Gillian R. Hayes

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

This article describes how collaborative assistive technologies, housed on off-the-shelf, low-cost platforms such as the iPad, can be used to facilitate social relationships in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Through an empirical study of the use of a collaborative iPad game, Zody, we explore how assistive technologies can be used to support social relationships, even without intervention from adults. We discuss how specific design choices can encourage three levels of social relationship: membership, partnership, and friendship. This work contributes to research on both assistive technologies and collaborative gaming through a framework that describes how specific in-game elements can foster …

The Effects Of Schedule Density Of Reinforcement For Alternative Behavior On Resurgence, Kathryn M. Kestner

Dissertations

Resurgence is the reemergence of a previously extinguished response when an alternative response no longer produces reinforcement. Although returning to previously successful methods for obtaining reinforcement is likely advantageous, resurgence also occurs in the form of treatment relapse. An individual may return to problematic behavior (e.g., aggression, self-injury, drug use) when an alternative behavior (e.g., communication response, coping skill, social behavior, etc.) is no longer successful at producing a reinforcer. Behavior analysts rely on treatments based on differential reinforcement of alternative behavior, and resurgence has been demonstrated following changes to reinforcement schedules due to errors in treatment integrity or intentional …

Functional Analytic Psychotherapy Compared To Watchful Waiting For Enhancing Social Connectedness: A Randomized Clinical Trial With A Diagnosed Sample, Daniel W. M. Maitland

Dissertations

The efficacy of Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) has not yet been show in randomized controlled trials in any population. The current study utilized a stratified randomization technique conducted by a computer system to assign twenty-three college students recruited for difficulties in interpersonal functioning who scored one standard deviation below the norm on the Fear of Intimacy Scale and met diagnostic criteria via independent assessment for Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder, or Dependent Personality Disorder to either a FAP condition or a Watchful Waiting Condition to assess the conditions ability to increase social relating …

Effectiveness Of A Parent Health Report In Increasing Fruit And Vegetable Consumption Among Preschoolers And Kindergarteners, Sanita Lisa Hunsaker

Theses and Dissertations

Patterns of fruit and vegetable consumption begin in childhood and persist into adulthood. Educating parents regarding appropriate dietary requirements for preschoolers is critical to supporting their appropriate growth and development. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a parent health report (including information about the child's fruit and vegetable consumption and recommendations regarding how to increase fruit and vegetable consumption) resulted in a greater fruit and vegetable intake in preschoolers and kindergarteners. Results from both the open trial and the randomized-controlled trial suggest that the parent health report may be a beneficial tool to increase vegetable consumption in …

Exploring The Effects Of Depression And Physical Activity On Pattern Separation Performance, Michelle I. Nash

Theses and Dissertations

Cognitive performance declines in depression and increases with physical activity. These changes may in part be due to changes in the level of neurogenesis (the generation and survival of adult-born neurons), which decreases with depression and increases with physical activity. Pattern separation (the formation of distinct neural representations of incoming information through orthogonalizing similar patterns of activation) has also been linked to neurogenesis. This project explores pattern separation within these two populations through three experiments.Experiment 1. Previous research has found impaired pattern separation among individuals with higher depression scores, but who have not been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). …

Differential Effects Of Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (Mdpv) And Mephedrone In Rats Trained To Discriminate Mdma Or A D-Amphetamine+Mdma Mixture, Eric Louis Harvey

Masters Theses

Recent reports on the abuse of novel synthetic cathinone derivatives call attention to serious public health risks of these substances. In response to this concern, a growing body of preclinical research has characterized the psychopharmacology of these substances, particularly mephedrone (MEPH) or methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), noting their similarities to MDMA and cocaine. The present study employed drug discrimination methodology to assess the discriminative stimulus effects of MEPH and MDPV in male Sprague-Dawley rats trained to discriminate 1.5 mg/kg 3,4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) or a mixture of 1.5 mg/kg MDMA and 0.5 mg/kg d-amphetamine (MDMA+AMPH). After establishing dose response functions with each training …

Sleep Hygiene Practices: A Cross Cultural Survey Of Sleeping And Dreaming In College Students, Ivan Noe Martinez Salazar

Masters Theses

There is consensus that a sizeable percentage of people in most developed countries do not obtain adequate amounts or quality of sleep. These disruptions in sleep, when chronic and severe, can lead to psychological, behavioral and health consequences. The focus on behavioral and contextual factors that impact sleep has been termed “sleep hygiene”. An on-line anonymous survey collected sociodemographic information, as well as self-reports on sleep, sleep hygiene practices and dreaming across two cultural groups (English & Spanish speaking responders). A total of 204 participants (majority of them college and graduate students) answered the survey. Both cultural groups, English and …

Impact Of A Natural Disaster On The Mental Health Of A Rural Maya Community In The Philippines, Kaneez Batool

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of a natural disaster on the mental health of a rural Maya community in the Philippines. Specifically, the study assessed how an individual’s housing conditions, the household size, and general utilities can have an impact on a person’s mental health.

The study used a quantitative survey design with self-administered questionnaires. Center for Disease Control and Prevention Modified Community Assessment survey was used for this research investigation. A total of 84 participants completed the survey. Participants were asked of their perceptions regarding the habitability of their own homes, the safety of …

I Need To Be In Control: Motivations To Compensate Personal Control Threat Through Hierarchy Endorsement Among Individuals With Low Vs. High Relational Mobility, Lay See Ong

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Recent research on compensatory control indicate a motivation seek out external sources of control (e.g., hierarchical structures) when subjective control is threatened. As exiting/formation of interpersonal relationships within low relational mobility environments is likely to be beyond personal choice and may threaten subjective control, three studies were conducted to investigate whether the compensatory control account could explain the negative relationship found between hierarchy endorsement and low relational mobility. Study 1 provided initial evidence for the link; low personal-low environmental mobility individuals (vs. high personal-high environment mobility participants) were more likely to indicate higher internal control when they had higher (.vs …

Take The Monkey And Run, Kimberley A. Phillips, M. K. Hambright, K. Hewes, B. M. Schilder, C. N. Ross, S. D. Tardif

Psychology Faculty Research

The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a small, New World primate that is used extensively in biomedical and behavioral research. This short-lived primate, with its small body size, ease of handling, and docile temperament, has emerged as a valuable model for aging and neurodegenerative research.

A growing body of research has indicated exercise, aerobic exercise especially, imparts beneficial effects to normal aging. Understanding the mechanisms underlying these positive effects of exercise, and the degree to which exercise has neurotherapeutic effects, is an important research focus. Thus, developing techniques to engage marmosets in aerobic exercise would have great advantages.

Aerobic Fitness, Executive Control, And Emotion Regulation In Preadolescent Children, Mark A. Lott

Theses and Dissertations

The present study evaluated direct and indirect associations between aerobic fitness, executive control, and emotion regulation among a sample of children aged 8-12 years. To evaluate these associations, the study employed a cross-sectional design and full-information maximum likelihood (FIML) structural equation modeling. Although the hypothesized factor analytic model failed to converge, an alternative exploratory model allowed for the evaluation of associations between primary study variables. Results supported a moderate direct association between childhood aerobic fitness and executive control, a strong direct negative association between executive control and emotion regulation, and a moderate indirect association between aerobic fitness and emotion regulation …

Expected Profiles And Temporal Stability Of The Look, Sierra Marie Baird

Theses and Dissertations

The LOOK is an iOS based iPad app designed to measure viewing time as an estimate of sexual interest. Participants used a 7-point Likert scale to rate 154 images based on sexual attractiveness. The images belonged to 14 differentiated gender and age categories from infants to elderly adults. Before rating each image participants were asked to complete an additional task of locating and touching a small dot found in one of the four corners of the screen. This was included to make sure that participants we attending to each image, and to add another level of information to the results.The …

Effects Of Altering Motivation In Pigeons Performing A Titrating-Delayed-Matching-To-Sample Task, Zachary J. Zimmermann

Masters Theses

In order to better understand the role motivating operations (MOs) serve in preceding and evoking behavior, it is useful to examine the effects of whether manipulating motivation can influence performance on tasks with known behavioral outcomes. It is well established that altered stimulus control is responsible for changes in responding on tasks of generalization and discrimination. Therefore, if stimulus control could be influenced by MOs, then perhaps stimulus discriminations could be improved by manipulating the relevant MO. To this end, the effects of altering motivation via food deprivation were examined in pigeons using a titrating-delayed-matching-to-sample task. Additional pharmacological variables (i.e., …

Crimean Tatars From Mass Deportation To Hardships In Occupied Crimea, Karina Korostelina

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The article begins with a description of the deportation of Crimean Tatars. It provides a brief review of the Nazi Occupation of Crimea, examines the negative images of Crimean Tatars published in Soviet newspapers between 1941-1943 and the explicit rationale given by the Soviet authorities for the deportation of Crimean Tatars, and reviews the mitigation of hostilities against Tatars in the years following the war. The article continues with accounts of the attempts to repatriate Crimean Tatars after 1989 and the discriminative policies against the returning people. The conclusion of the article describes current hardships experienced by Tatars in occupied …

Social Media As Support For Partners Of Veterans With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Susan L. Ruiz, Lee Stadtlander

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

Researchers have established that partners of veterans who isolate socially because of posttraumatic stress disorder are also socially impacted. It is not known how partners cope with their own social isolation and the influence of social media on the isolation while maintaining commitment to their veteran partners. Weiss’ theory of the syndrome of loneliness was used as the basis for this phenomenological study investigating social experiences in 10 female participants drawn from social media groups. Although the study was open to male or female partners, only female partners of male veterans chose to participate. Qualitative email interviews established how the …

Generalized Event Representation In Pre-School Children With Mild- To High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asd) And Children With Cognitive And Linguistic Delays (Cld), Tashana S. Samuel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently establish rigid routines and have difficulties flexibly applying what they have learned. Three experiments were conducted to examine generalized event representation in 34 pre-school children. In Experiment 1, children diagnosed with varying kinds of cognitive and language delays (CLD: n = 14) were tested with the generalized imitation paradigm, a reliable measure of representational capacity. Two sets of perceptually dissimilar objects with similar functions were used to perform the same task: one set consisted of modeling props and the other set was the generalization props. At the generalization assessment, children observed actions modeled …

Nepantla And Ubuntu Ethics Para Nosotros: Beyond Scrupulous Adherence Toward Threshold Perspectives Of Participatory/Collaborative Research Ethics, Monique Antoinette Guishard

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Participatory Action Research (PAR) refers less to a method and more to a continuum of approaches to collaborative inquiry. Within PAR, ideally, some phenomenon has been identified as a mutual area of concern to researchers and community members; working together they design, conduct, analyze, and disseminate the findings of a shared piece of research and coordinate action(s) aimed at using research to redress injustice. If PAR is embraced holistically boundaries inevitably blur as research team members become enmeshed in each other's lives. This blurring while momentous can give rise to ethical quandaries that IRB centered research ethics are inadequate to …

Employee Environmentally Friendly Behaviors In And Out Of Organizations And Across Cultures, Lilia Hayrapetyan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A rising number of organizations are making changes to minimize their impact on the environment. In order to successfully implement such changes for the long term it is important for organizations to not only address operational, structural and process factors, but also their employees' environmentally significant behaviors (e.g., Siero et al., 1996). Unfortunately, there remains a general lack of understanding of factors affecting employees' environmentally friendly behaviors. In an effort to reduce this gap, the present study employed the Values Beliefs Norms theory (Stern et al., 1999, Stern, 2000) to gain a comprehensive understanding of individuals' environmentally friendly behaviors in …

Attenuation Of Methamphetamine And Nmda-Induced Toxicity By Leptin In Murine Striatum, Nawshin Hoque Kutub

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Methamphetamine (METH) is an addictive illicit psychostimulant that is neurotoxic and causes permanent brain injury. METH-induced neurological damage affects areas of the brain that mediates emotions, motivation, cognition and critical thinking. In the striatum METH neurotoxicity intertwines several factors such as dopamine (DA) overflow, glutamate signaling, and free radicals formation causing oxidative stress. In addition, excessive dopaminergic innervation leads to severe reduction in DA terminals, DA transporters (DAT), and vesicular monoamine transporters (VMAT)-2. METH use causes permanent damage which cannot be recovered even after three years of abstinence. Understanding the mechanism of METH-induced neurodegeneration will provide an avenue towards identifying …

Testing Visual Ecology Hypotheses In Avian Brood Parasite-Host Systems: The Role Of Uv-Light Perception And Egg-Nest Contrast In Foreign Egg Rejection, Zachary Aidala

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Color signals are highly important features of animal communication systems, particularly among birds, which possess exquisitely complex visual perception systems. Birds possess tetrachromatic vision, and some species are sensitive to ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths. Because human and avian visual systems dramatically differ (i.e. humans are not sensitive to UV wavelengths), biologically relevant sensory models are necessary to accurately assess the function of avian color signals. In this dissertation, I primarily use brood parasite-host interactions as a model for studying the behavioral function of avian-perceivable visual stimuli. In Chapter 1, I review the importance of employing biologically relevant sensory-perceptual visual models when …

Electrophysiological Markers Of Short-Term Visual Adaptation: An Examination Across The Schizophrenia Spectrum, Gizely N. Andrade

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The experiments comprising this dissertation sought to contribute to the understanding of basic sensory processing in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and risk-liability. We leveraged the sensitivity of visual processing deficits along with widely reported sensory-gating deficits (in other modalities) to develop a new paradigm assaying short-term visual adaptation to repetitive stimuli. In the first experiment, adaptation properties of the visual system were characterized in neurotypical adults using a classic "paired adaptation paradigm" and a more taxing "block adaptation paradigm," using high-density EEG. In the second experiment, we deployed our new visual adaptation assay in a clinical population. We replicated classic early VEP …

Black Like Me? A Narrative Study Of Non-Anglophone Black U.S. Immigrant Selves In The Making, Yvanne Joseph

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished discriminatory national origin quotas that favored European immigrants. The U.S. has since experienced steady flows of immigrants of color. These diverse groups have brought their racial, social, cultural and historical experiences, which adds greater complexity to the existing Black/White and ingroup/outgroup models that shape group relations, and psychological theorizing about identity. This dissertation focuses specifically on the smaller, less visible, yet growing segments of these immigrant populations. It presents a study of the lives of ten individual immigrants of African descent originating from a non-Anglophone country within Africa, Latin America …

Object Categorization In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asd), Jaime Vitrano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate hierarchical object categorization in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), examining three levels of category inclusiveness (superordinate, basic, subordinate) across three tasks (sequential touching task, generalized imitation task, sorting task) in three domains (animals, tools, kitchen utensils) in the same group of children with ASD. Previous research on the categorization abilities of children with ASD has shown mixed results. This study was designed to clarify past discrepancies in the literature.

Ten children with ASD participated in this study (mean CA = 4 years, 10 months; range 3 to 6 years; mean VMA …

Affecting Neoliberal Public Health Care: Interdependent Relationality Between Disabled Care Recipients And Their Care Providers, Akemi Nishida

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I trace the neoliberal turn of a public health-care program, Medicaid, and its effects on those who are involved in it: disabled care recipients and their care providers. Also examined is the emergence of an affective relationality between these individuals through their daily practices of care. In 1993, Medicaid went through a neoliberal turn that accelerated its privatization. I investigate the ways in which this turn--in company with the neoliberal transition of other welfare programs and the rise of a transnational care industry--further deployed a gendered, raced, classed, and immigration-based division of care labor that commodified and …

Task-Switching In Bilinguals: Further Investigation Of The Bilingual Advantage, Jennifer M. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Recent research has suggested that speaking more than one language may lead to benefits across a variety of different cognitive tasks (Bialystok, Craik, Green, & Gollan, 2009). This effect has been dubbed the Bilingual Advantage. It has been suggested that this advantage relates to more the development of greater efficiency with processes involved in task-switching. The current study used a task-switching task to investigate three of these processes: reconfiguration, monitoring, and inhibitory control processes.

Monolingual and bilingual participants were presented blocks of trials in which they had to either categorize words as either abstract or concrete, or pictures as human-made …

An Investigation Of Short-Term Memory Functioning In A Neurodevelopmental Rat Model Of Schizophrenia, Ashley M. Moyett

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Schizophrenia is a debilitating disorder characterized by positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms. Cognitive deficits affect one’s learning and memory due to a dysfunction in the brain, inhibiting a normal functioning life. The self-medicating hypothesis states that ninety percent of people with schizophrenia smoke, because nicotine use improves these cognitive deficits. The cytokine hypothesis states that inflammation due to prenatal infection is associated with schizophrenia. These increased proinflamatory cytokines can damage the brains of the fetuses, which can cause schizophrenic-like symptoms in rats. The present study used Lipopolysaccharides to activate the cytokine-mediated inflammatory response injected into pregnant dams. A T-maze was …

Romps, Riots, And Revels In The Land Of Make-Believe : Imaginative Play As A Prerequisite For Social And Emotional Development In Early Childhood Through Adolescence, Shoshana Balk

Graduate Student Independent Studies

This paper explores the impact of imaginative play on child development, as well as its educational benefits when incorporated into the learning environment.

Functional Analysis Of Gambling, Mack S. Costello

Dissertations

Given high rates of gambling and the growing population of disordered gamblers, there is a need to develop assessment strategies with improved treatment validity. More specifically, assessment strategies are needed that identify the controlling variables for disordered gambling and, thus, provide guidance in the selection of treatment and prevention strategies. This study sought to develop a functional analysis for gambling by utilizing a simulated gambling environment in which contextual variables hypothesized to be causally linked to disordered gambling could be systematically manipulated. Seven experienced gamblers participated in the multi-element, single-subject experimental study. Participants who endorsed at least some problems from …

Effects Of Rhes Prenylation On Mouse Cognition In A 3-Nitropropionic Acid Animal Model Of Huntington's Disease, Diana Hobbs

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Located on the short arm of chromosome 4, there exists a gene, IT15, responsible for the trinucleotide CAG expansion involved in the autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder known as Huntington’s disease (HD). The brain region associated with the most atrophy, the striatum, leads to expression of severe motor dysfunction, the hallmark feature of HD. To a lesser degree, the cortex and hippocampus show earlier deterioration indicative of the cognitive deficits that occur prior to motor symptom onset. The brain regions associated with HD-induced neuronal death additionally selectively express the protein Rhes - the combination of Rhes and mutant huntingtin being cytotoxic. …