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Revisiting Donald Griffin, Founder Of Cognitive Ethology, Carolyn A. Ristau

Animal Sentience

Donald Griffin’s writings, beginning with The Question of Animal Awareness (1976), strove to persuade scientists to study the possibility of animal sentience, the basis of Rowan et al.’s efforts to promote animal well-being. Facing great hostility (but also some acceptance) for his ideas, Griffin initially avoided animal welfare advocacy, fearing it would further undermine his efforts to gain recognition of animal sentience. In later years, however, he began to ponder the ethical implications of animal sentience, intending to study wild elephants’ communication and social behavior to better understand their experienced life and apply it to improving conservation methods. As he …

Critical Review Of The Use Of The Rorschach In European Courts, Igor Areh, Fanny Verkampt, Alfred Allan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

In relation to the admissibility of evidence obtained using projective personality tests arose in F v. Bevándorlási és Állampolgársági Hivatam (2018). The Court of Justice of the European Union has held that an expert’s report can only be accepted if it is based on the international scientific community’s standards, but has refrained from stipulating what these standards are. It appears timely for European psychologists to decide what standards should be applied to determine whether or not a test is appropriate for psycholegal use. We propose standards and then apply them to the Rorschach because it was used in this case …

Using Color With Care: An Exploration Of The Application Of Psychological Color Theory Within Language Classrooms, Mackenzie Wisneski

Honors Program Theses

This study is a qualitative analysis of the current use(s) of affective-based color theory for social-emotional and academic-related assistance within language classrooms. Current and past literature support the important and effective nature of a learner’s environment in relation to information acquisition and retention (Krashen, 1982; Maslow, 1970b; Perry, 2006). This research is significant within the language teaching field as it stands to summarize the external challenges that emergent bilingual students are facing as well as contextualize their learning environment with respect to the use of visual cues to promote both the students’ social-emotional wellbeing and academic success. Data was collected …

A Cultural Perspective Of The Adult Attachment Projective Picture System With Latino Youth, Erika J. Leacox

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the usefulness of administering the Adult Attachment Projective Picture system (AAP) through a cultural lens with two Latino youth receiving mental health treatment. The AAP is a measure developed from the Bowlby-Ainsworth developmental attachment theory that is used to assess an attachment state of mind for individuals. These case studies facilitated an understanding of how the attachment perspective may be combined with knowledge of cultural themes represented in the AAP results to inform mental health treatment. Each of the participants of this single-subject study design are youth who have experienced symptoms of trauma. We observe from this …

The Detrimental Impact Of Alcohol Intoxication On Facets Of Miranda Comprehension, Amelia Mindthoff, Jacqueline R. Evans, Andrea C. F. Wolfs, Karina Polanco, Naomi E. S. Goldstein, Nadja Schreiber Compo

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Objective: Law enforcement officers often encounter alcohol-intoxicated suspects, suggesting that many suspects are presented with the challenge of grasping the meaning and significance of their Miranda rights while intoxicated. Such comprehension is crucial, given that Miranda is intended to minimize the likelihood of coercive interrogations resulting in self-incrimination and protect suspects’ constitutional rights. Yet, the effects of alcohol on individuals’ ability to understand and appreciate their Miranda rights remain unknown—a gap that the present study sought to address. Hypotheses: Informed by alcohol myopia theory (AMT), we predicted that intoxicated individuals would demonstrate impaired Miranda comprehension compared to sober …

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 …

Haitian American Caregivers’ Experiences Caring For Family Members Battling Substance Abuse, Bianca Chery

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Immigration issues, acculturation, and identity processes are risk factors identified for the development of substance abuse among Haitian Americans. While the problem of substance abuse within the Haitian American population has been identified, little research has been conducted on Haitian American caregivers who have cared for a loved one battling substance abuse. The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was to explore how Haitian American caregivers experienced the phenomenon of caring for a family member battling substance abuse and to understand how caregivers coped with this demanding task. Carver et al.’s concepts of coping and Pargament’s theory of religious …

How Spanish Speakers Express Norms Using Generic Person Markers, Cristina E. Salvador, Ariana Orvell, Ethan Kross, Susan A. Gelman

Psychology Faculty Research and Scholarship

Language is one powerful vehicle for transmitting norms—a universal feature of society. In English, people use “you” generically (e.g., “You win some you lose some”) to express and interpret norms. Here, we examine how norms are conveyed and interpreted in Spanish, a language that—unlike English—has two forms of you (i.e., formal, informal), distinct generic person markers, and pro-drop, allowing for an examination of underlying conceptual tendencies in how the structure of language facilitates the transmission of norms. In Study 1a-b (N = 838) Spanish speakers used informal generic-you and the generic person marker “se” (but not formal-you) to express norms …

What "You" And "We" Say About Me: How Small Shifts In Language Reveal And Empower Fundamental Shifts In Perspective, Ariana Orvell, Susan A. Gelman, Ethan Kross

Psychology Faculty Research and Scholarship

One of the most fundamental, yet often overlooked, compo-nents of language is the personal pronoun system. Pronouns reveal and empower different perspectives, providing insight into and even altering how a person is conceptualiz-ing the self. Here, we illustrate how the pronouns “I,” “you,” and “we” can enable shifts in perspective that bring a person further from, or closer to, others. We additionally highlight the implications of these pronoun shifts on the address-ee(s). We review a growing body of research that focuses on how these words can function as both windows—provid-ing insight into the thoughts and emotions of a speaker, and …

A Phenomenological Study Of The Lived Experiences Of Siblings Of Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Adrielle Benini

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to better understand the experience of having a sibling with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Research has historically focused primarily on parents of individuals with ASD and their perceptions of how siblings were impacted; however, there was a lack of adequate research where information was obtained from conducting interviews with the siblings themselves.

The researcher conducted a qualitative study with 10 neurotypical siblings, ages 10 to 17, of individuals with ASD. These siblings were interviewed to explore their individual experiences and perceptions about areas in which they found and needed support. The researcher also utilized demographic …

Examining The Utility Of Auditory Processing Tests In Clinical Neuropsychology, Behnaz Sarlak

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Memory loss has been a concern in patients with neurodegenerative disease, as it can cause cognitive problems such as speech and language issues. Clinicians need to use reliable, assessable, noninvasive, repeatable, and inexpensive tools to diagnose memory impairment. There is a gap in the literature on whether specific cognitive tests provide valid, reliable, cost and time-effective methods for screening for dementia. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine if the Seashore, the Speech-Sound Perception Test, the SCAN-A test, Logical Memory, Verbal Paired Associates, and Digit Span Test can predict whether an individual has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s …

Working With Families With Refugee Experiences In The United States: The Impact Of Forced Displacement On Parent-Child Relationships After Resettlement, Sakshi Kapur

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Refugees resettled in high-income countries like the United States have a unique set of challenges ranging from great psychological disturbance to acculturation challenges. With recent changes to policies related to immigration and refugee resettlement in the United States after the 2016 presidential elections, the refugee diaspora was left with resettlement services focused more on ensuring national security and economic independence rather than services that catered to re-integration beyond economics like acculturation stress, family functioning, and cultural adjustment. This systemic literature review explores the impact of forced displacement and migration on individuals, with an emphasis on family systems and parent-child relationships. …

Linguistic Variation From Cognitive Variability: The Case Of English 'Have', Muye Zhang

Linguistics Graduate Dissertations

In this dissertation, I seek to construct a model of meaning variation built upon variability in linguistic structure, conceptual structure, and cognitive makeup, and in doing so, exemplify an approach to studying meaning that is both linguistically principled and neuropsychologically grounded. As my test case, I make use of the English lexical item ‘have' by proposing a novel analysis of its meaning based on its well-described variability in English and its embed- ding into crosslinguistically consistent patterns of variation and change.

I support this analysis by investigating its real-time comprehension patterns through behavioral, electropsychophysiological, and hemodynamic brain data, thereby incorporating …

Protocol For Escitalopram And Language Intervention For Subacute Aphasia (Elisa): A Randomized, Double Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial, Melissa D. Stockbridge, Julius Fridriksson, Souvik Sen, Leonardo Bonilha

Faculty Publications

In this forthcoming multicenter, prospective, randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial, we will investigate the augmentative effects of a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, escitalopram, on language therapy in individuals with post-stroke aphasia. We hypothesize that, when combined with language therapy, daily escitalopram will result in greater improvement than placebo in an untrained picture naming task (Philadelphia Naming Test short form) administered one week after the end of language therapy. We also will examine whether escitalopram's effect on language is independent of its effect on depression, varies with lesion location, or is associated with increased functional connectivity within the left hemisphere. Finally, we …

A Call To Create: Poetry As Healing And One Nurse’S Self-Discovery, Kim Cornett Henry, Kim Cornett Henry

English Theses

Florence Nightingale’s vision for nursing has changed greatly in the past one hundred and fifty years, with nursing’s identity replaced with an emphasis on science over caring. The fast-paced, technologically sophisticated environments, designed to meet the declining health of an American public, have resulted in nurses who are being pulled away from nurse-to-patient caring acts and the reasons they felt called to become nurses. These changes have had detrimental psychological and emotional effects on nurses and are especially evident in Intensive Care nurses. Expressive writing as poetry, autoethnography, and participation in vibrant writing communities offer nurses experiences for healing, voice, …

Culturally Therapeutic Approaches To Prejudice And Discrimination: Formulations, Interventions, And Structural Change, Jayme J. Jenkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Aims. Though psychologists are generally well-positioned to implement micro- and macro-level interventions from their roles as clinicians, educators, researchers, and consultants, there is a paucity of formal guidance on how to approach client-generated or structural prejudice and discrimination. The current study addresses this literature gap by integrating previous literature and implementation models from a related field toward a novel treatment approach.

Background. A critical literature review supported intervention-focused conceptualizations of “supremacism” and demonstrated that mutually reinforcing micro- and macro-level discrimination generates demographic disparities in safety, liberty, and well-being. This typically emerges in the United States as White supremacist heteropatriarchy while …

Does Speech-To-Text Assistive Technology Paired With Graphic Organizers Improve The Written Expression Of Students With Traumatic Brain Injuries?, Kayla Cuifolo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) can range from mild to severe and can cause debilitating outcomes that require children to need specialized medical or educational services post-injury. Outcomes vary and are dependent on the location of injury, age, severity, and environmental factors. Some common deficits that happen as a result of a brain injury are fine motor and executive functioning skill difficulties. Fine motor and executive functioning skills are an important component of written expression. Therefore, this current study utilized a brief experimental analysis in order to determine the effects that speech-to-text assistive technology along with a graphic organizer has …

Unpacking Political Identity In First-Time Voting Christian Women: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Mary Grace Golden

Honors Theses

As political science tends to focus on polling and statistical analysis to examine individuals’ voting behaviors, the reasoning behind constituents’ decision-making process is often left in the dark. This is particularly true in first-time voting women who come from religious backgrounds that uphold complementarian gender values. This study focuses on the following research questions: How do women experience their political identity in relation to their gender identity? How do women experience their political identity in relation to their religious or faith identity? How do women experience their political identity in relation to voting for the first time? I answer these …

Reflecting On Crucibles: Clarifying Values In Authentic Leaders, Louise Kelly, Eissa Hashemi

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

This qualitative study explores the role of crucibles, life-triggering moments, parents’ life mottos and definitions of success, and holding values in the lives of authentic leaders. This research used the life-story approach to explore the experience of such concepts on authentic leaders. Self-identified leaders with more than five years of experience in a leadership position or in a role of managing and developing others were invited to this research. Qualified authentic leaders (between 65 to 80 in ALQ) were invited to a qualitative interview utilizing the life story approach to explore significant forming factors of their leadership qualities. An inductive …

Prudence, Ethics And Anticipation In Visionary Leaders, Yanick Farmer

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

In ethics, prudence is an essential skill in making informed decisions. Although several studies in various fields have dealt with the notion, few empirical studies have addressed one of its inextricable aspects: anticipation. To gain a better understanding of the notion, this study questioned fifteen leaders whose peers consider to be “visionary” in their respective fields. The results of this qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews describe the fundamental aspects of anticipation according to three categories: reasoning and trend analysis, implementation and strategy, and personality and values.

Defining And Detecting Toxicity On Social Media: Context And Knowledge Are Key, Amit Sheth, Valerie Shalin, Ugur Kursuncu

Publications

As the role of online platforms has become increasingly prominent for communication, toxic behaviors, such as cyberbullying and harassment, have been rampant in the last decade. On the other hand, online toxicity is multi-dimensional and sensitive in nature, which makes its detection challenging. As the impact of exposure to online toxicity can lead to serious implications for individuals and communities, reliable models and algorithms are required for detecting and understanding such communications. In this paper We define toxicity to provide a foundation drawing social theories. Then, we provide an approach that identifies multiple dimensions of toxicity and incorporates explicit knowledge …

Pragmatic Deficits In Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Paige Kessler

Honors Theses

Background: Most studies have found pragmatic language skills to be poorer in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) populations, but there is no conclusive evidence.

Aim: Our aim was to conduct a meta-analysis of pragmatic language abilities in ADHD populations to more definitively demonstrate the extent of pragmatic language deficits in these populations as compared to typically developing (TD) populations.

Methods and procedures: Journal articles were identified using the search terms ((attention deficit) OR (adhd)) AND (pragmatics). Identified studies were screened and reviewed for inclusion criteria, descriptive information, and outcome variables. A meta-analysis was conducted, and individual effect sizes and overall effect size …

The Messiness Of (De)Coloniality: An Autoethnography Of The Cross-Cultural Researcher, Amber Kelley

The Qualitative Report

In this paper I explore the complexity of psychological cross-cultural research, particularly noting the ways in which cross-cultural mental health research and the global mental health movement are still driven by Western conceptualizations of mental health. By taking up decolonial theory through autoethnographic methods, I consider the responsibility, ethics, and tensions in conducting cross-cultural mental health research, particularly as a White researcher with non-White, non-Western participants. Ongoing reflexivity as a researcher and practitioner offers the opportunity to engage in culturally responsive practices that continue challenging the coloniality of Western psychology which can pervade global mental health studies when unchecked. I …

Isolating The White Matter Circuitry Of The Dorsal Language Stream: Connectome-Symptom Mapping In Stroke Induced Aphasia, Vatche Baboyan, Alexandra Basilaskos, Grigori Yourganov, Chris Rorden, Leonardo Bonilha, Julius Fridiksson, Gregory Hickok

Faculty Publications

The application of �� 1 -regularized machine learning models to high-dimensional connectomes offers a promising methodology to assess clinical-anatomical correlations in humans. Here, we integrate the connectome-based lesion-symptom mapping framework with sparse partial least squares regression (sPLS-R) to isolate elements of the connectome associated with speech repetition deficits. By mapping over 2,500 connections of the structural connectome in a cohort of 71 stroke-induced cases of aphasia presenting with varying left-hemisphere lesions and repetition impairment, sPLS-R was trained on 50 subjects to algorithmically identify connectomic features on the basis of their predictive value. The highest ranking features were subsequently used to …

Beyond Counting Words: A Paradigm Shift For The Study Of Language Acquisition, Lillian R. Masek, Alexus G. Ramirez, Brianna T.M. Mcmillan, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff

Psychology: Faculty Publications

The 30-million-word gap, the quantified difference in the amount of speech that children growing up in low-resourced homes hear compared to their peers from high-resourced homes, is a phrase that has entered the collective consciousness. In the discussion of quantity, the complex and nuanced environments in which children learn language were distilled into a singular metric—number of words. In this article, we propose examining children’s language environments by focusing on what caregivers communicate to children and how they communicate it. Focusing on the features of the language environment promotes a more inclusive approach to understanding how children learn and the …

Are There Individual Differences In The Foreign Language Effect?, Rita Gross

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

AbstractA foreign language effect (FLE) occurs when the language a problem is presented in influences its outcome (Keysar et al., 2012). So far, it has been unclear under which conditions the FLE appears (Driver, 2020; Dylman & Champoux-Larsson, 2020). One hundred and sixty-eight Arabic-English bilinguals from Prince Sultan University were presented with the Trolley Dilemma (a low-conflict, impersonal moral dilemma) and the Footbridge Dilemma (a high-conflict, personal moral dilemma) and responses to these dilemmas were measured on a slider indicating likeliness to take a suggested action. Participants saw Dilemmas either in a gain-frame or a loss-frame condition, and in either …

The Gaze Of The Consumed : A Lacanian Approach To The Italian Cannibal Films, David Kelly

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

“The Gaze of the Consumed: A Lacanian Approach to the Italian Cannibal Films” not only acts as a brief chronicle of the subgenre of Italian exploitation films centered around cannibals, but as an exploration of the constructs that hold such a subgenre together. With a foundation in Lacanian psychoanalysis, this essay discusses the ramifications of assigning terms such as “savage” and “civilized,” as well as the issue with entering into such a discourse with presupposed Western notions of civility. The Italian cannibal films exemplify the circular nature of the mere anthropophagous act, putting forth the conceptualization of the “Gaze of …

The Role Of Embodied Metaphor In The Relationship Between Vestibular Dysfunction, Anxiety And The Self, Kaitlyn Abrams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is considerable evidence that vestibular dysfunction and anxiety are correlated. Clinical and philosophical arguments suggest that a loss of sense of self, experienced through symptoms like derealization and depersonalization, might contribute to this relationship. The present study used a mixed methods approach, including Systematic Metaphor Analysis, to analyze written short answer and quantitative survey data from one hundred and thirteen participants with vestibular disorders. The Systematic Metaphor Analysis revealed several primary metaphor concepts which elucidated the connections between concrete experience and abstract concepts in vestibular dysfunction. These included metaphors of Agency, Stability, Orientation, Self-Object, and Figure-Ground. Primary metaphors for …

The Effects Of Incubation Task Characteristics On Idea Generation, Adrian Abellanoza

Psychology Dissertations - Archive

The effect of short breaks on creativity and idea generation, referred to as “incubation”, has had a considerable body of work devoted to its causal mechanisms. Despite this, many issues persist in the research literature, including difficulty in testing between similar competing theoretical frameworks, mixed findings regarding incubation effects, as well as measurement and practicality issues related to the use of non-expert human raters. Therefore, the present study combines methods used in recent research to evaluate which proposed mechanisms are supported. Additionally, to explore potential solutions to rater issues, a novel research methodology is explored using text mining methods and …

In The Mood For Creativity: Exploring Exposure To Humor And Creative Output, Sarah Lee

Psychology Dissertations - Archive

The purpose of these three studies was to replicate prior findings, namely, that positive moods can improve creative performance (Baas et al., 2008) as well as to test whether humor provides a creative advantage relative to a neutral emotional state. Three studies were conducted using sets of ten memes as the mood induction stimuli. Participants were assigned to either a positive, humor, or neutral condition in study one. Study two added an irony condition and study three added four parallel explanation conditions (i.e., positive explain, humor explain, neutral explain, irony explain). Participants were assigned to either a positive, humor, neutral, …