Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Ethnicity On Neuropsychological Test Performance Of Former Nfl Athletes, Alison E. Datoc, Ryan D. Bennett, Charles J. Golden

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

Objective: To investigate the effect of ethnicity on neuropsychological test performance by specifically exploring differences between white and black former NFL athletes on subtests of the WAIS-IV.
Participants and Methods: Data was derived from a de-identified database in Florida consisting of 63 former NFL athletes (Mage=50.38; SD=11.57); 28 white and 35 black. Participants completed the following subtests of the WAIS-IV: Block Design, Similarities, Digit Span, Matrix Reasoning, Arithmetic, Symbol Search, Visual Puzzles, Coding, and Cancellation.
Results: One-Way ANOVA yielded a significant effect between ethnicity and performance on several subtests. Black athletes had significantly lower scaled scores than white athletes on …

Distinguishing Performance On Tests Of Executive Functions Between Those With Depression And Anxiety, Justn Burgess, J Burgess, Charles J. Golden

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

Objective: To see if there are differences in executive functions between those diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and those with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).
Participants and Methods: The data were chosen from a de-identified database at a neuropsychological clinic in South Florida. The sample used was adults diagnosed with MDD (n=75) and GAD (n=71) and who had taken the Halstead Category Test, Trail Making Test, Stroop Test, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Age (M=32.97, SD=11.75), gender (56.7% female), and race (52.7% White) did not differ between groups. IQ did not differ but education did (MDD=13.41 years, SD=2.45; GAD=15.11 …

Regional Cerebral Blood Flow Patterns In Children Vs. Adults With Adhd Combined And Inattentive Types: A Spect Study, Gregory John Vitale, Victor Tran, Daniel Amen, Kristen Willeumier, Derek Taylor, Charles J. Golden

Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures

Objective: The current study sought to determine whether ADHD Combined Type (ADHD-C) and ADHD Primarily Inattentive Type (ADHD-PI) showed differential regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) patterns in children vs. adults.
Participants and Methods: The overall sample (N=1484) was effectively split into four groups: adults with ADHD-PI (n=519), adults with ADHD-C (n=405), children with ADHD-PI (n=192), children with ADHD-C (n=368). All participants were void of bipolar, schizophrenia, autism, neurocognitive disorders, and TBI. The data were collected from a de-identified archival database of individuals who underwent SPECT scans at rest.
Results: Using αConclusions: Overall, the current study suggested that children may …

Identification And Transformation Difficulty In Problem Solving: Electrophysiological Evidence From Chunk Decomposition, Zhonglu Zhang, Yu Luo, Chaolun Wang, Christopher M. Warren, Qi Xia, Qiang Xing, Bihua Cao, Yi Lei, Hong Li

Psychology Faculty Publications

A wealth of studies have investigated how to overcome experience-based constraints in creative problem solving. One such experience-based constraint is the tendency for people to view tightly organized visual stimuli as single, unified percepts, even when decomposition of those stimuli into component parts (termed chunk decomposition) would facilitate problem solving. The current study investigates the neural underpinnings of chunk decomposition in creative problem solving by analyzing event-related potentials. In two experiments, participants decomposed Chinese characters into the character’s component elements and then used the base elements to form a new valid character. The action could require decomposing a “tight” chunk, …

Brace For Impact: The Effects Of Victim Impact Evidence And Judicial Instructions On Juror Memory Distortion And Sentencing Decisions In Capital Trials, Auset E. Alexander

Student Theses

The utilization of visual evidence in the courtroom has increased exponentially in an effort to portray additional information that cannot otherwise be established via forensic evidence and expert testimony. According to Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence (1984), visual evidence may be permitted in court if the prejudicial value does not significantly outweigh the probative value. The admissibility of visual evidence however, becomes controversial when combined with victim impact statements (VIS) during the penalty phase of capital trials.

Previous research has indicated that jurors are often unable to perceive emotional testimony and subsequently make objective sentencing decisions that …

Visual Supports To Improve Outcomes For Culturally Diverse Students With Asd, Valeria Yllades, J. B. Ganz, Ching-Yi Liao

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

Gilberto is a young immigrant child with autism spectrum disorder who is growing up in a Mexican household. He often has trouble understanding his peers and teachers who speak English. With the help of the school, he is adjusting to a new culture, learning a new language, and working on educational outcomes. The example stated above illustrate issues related to conflicting language and culture between school and home contexts. Practical supports and interventions to address language and cultural barriers, for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) whose families are English Language Learners (ELLs), will be discussed in this article.The purpose …

Does Early Active Bilingualism Enhance Inhibitory Control And Monitoring? A Propensity-Matching Analysis, Andree Hartanto, Hwajin Yang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Prior research suggesting that longer bilingual experience benefits inhibitory control and monitoring has been criticized for a lack of control over confounding variables. We addressed this issue by using a propensity-score matching procedure that enabled us to match early and late bilinguals on 18 confounding variables-for example, demographic characteristics, immigration status, fitness, extracurricular training, motivation, and emotionality-that have been shown to influence cognitive control. Before early and late bilinguals were matched (N = 196), we found early active bilingual advantages in flanker effects (in accuracy), global accuracy, and sensitivity (d') on the Attention Network Test for Interaction and Vigilance and …

Rural Adolescent Education Reframed: Can Social Justice, Lewin’S Topology, And Aesthetics Aid Reform Efforts?, Judith F. Upjohn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyze how changes in classroom-level conditions can help underperforming students thrive despite established school structures that discriminate against and exclude those students from learning opportunities.

Every year, millions of US public school students fail to graduate high school (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2018), despite numerous ongoing education reform efforts (Berkshire & Schneider, n.d.; Strauss, 2017). A large percentage of these students attend rural schools (Arnold, Newman, Gaddy, & Dean, 2005; Status of Rural Education, 2018). The rural conditions of adolescent students adversely affect their educational performance and achievement (Howley …

A Defense Of Pure Connectionism, Alex B. Kiefer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Connectionism is an approach to neural-networks-based cognitive modeling that encompasses the recent deep learning movement in artificial intelligence. It came of age in the 1980s, with its roots in cybernetics and earlier attempts to model the brain as a system of simple parallel processors. Connectionist models center on statistical inference within neural networks with empirically learnable parameters, which can be represented as graphical models. More recent approaches focus on learning and inference within hierarchical generative models. Contra influential and ongoing critiques, I argue in this dissertation that the connectionist approach to cognitive science possesses in principle (and, as is becoming …

Supportive Hand-Holding Attenuates Pupillary Responses To Stress In Adult Couples, Wendy C. Birmingham, Tyler C. Graff, Steven G. Luke

Faculty Publications

Background

Social relationships, particularly marriage, have been shown to ameliorate the potentially pathogenic impact of stressful events but prior research has been mostly aimed at downstream effects, with less research on real-time reactivity. Pupillometry is an innovative procedure that allows us to see the effects of acute stress in real time. The muscles that control pupil size are linked to the autonomic nervous system, so that when stressed, the pupils dilate; this occurs within 200ms. This quick response allows us to see the immediate effects of acute stress on the autonomic nervous system (ANS), and the real-time effects of social …

Counting And Basic Numerical Skills, Emily Slusser

Faculty Publications

The following chapter outlines a typical developmental trajectory of children’s early number knowledge and counting skills. Using a series of anecdotal demonstrations of a young child’s emergent knowledge as a guide, the chapter first outlines the conceptual and procedural building blocks for counting and basic numerical skills (Section 4.1 and 4.2), proceeds to an extended discussion of major conceptual achievements in counting (Section 4.3), and concludes with a review of our emerging understanding on how to best support and facilitate the development of these skills (Section 4.4). Throughout each of these sections, seminal studies are discussed to more clearly demonstrate …

Cancer Blog Narratives: The Experience Of Under-Fifty Women With Breast Cancer During Different Times After Diagnosis, Maria Luisa Martino, Anna Gargiulo, Daniela Lemmo, Giorgia Margherita

The Qualitative Report

The recent literature shows an increase of breast cancer in women under 50, however still few are the studies which analyse the impact of the disease in this specific target age. This study aims at exploring the most prevalent topics in Italian cancer blogs of women who have received a breast cancer diagnosis before the age of 50, in order to understand their experience of illness and the characteristics of women’s narrations at different times after diagnosis (1 year, 2 years, 3 years). We collected the textual corpus of 4 Italian breast cancer blogs and performed a thematic analysis. Five …

Advancing Creativity Theory And Research: A Socio-Cultural Manifesto, Vlad Petre Glaveanu, Michael Hanchett Hanson, John Baer, Baptiste Barbot, Edward Pl Clapp, Giovanni Emanuele Corazza, Beth Hennessey, James C. Kaufman, Izabela Lebuda, Todd Lubart, Alfonso Montuori, Ingunn J. Ness, Jonathan Plucker, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Zayda Sierra, Dean Keith Simonton, Monica Souza Neves-Pereira, Robert J. Sternberg

Psychology Faculty Publications

This manifesto, discussed by 20 scholars, representing diverse lines of creativity research, marks a conceptual shift within the field. Socio-cultural approaches have made substantial contributions to the concept of creativity over recent decades and today can provide a set of propositions to guide our understanding of past research and to generate new directions of inquiry and practice. These propositions are urgently needed in response to the transition from the Information Society to the Post-Information Society. Through the propositions outlined here, we aim to build common ground and invite the community of creativity researchers and practitioners to reflect up, study, and …

Longitudinal Effects Of Maternal Love Withdrawal And Guilt Induction On Chinese American Preschoolers’ Bullying Aggressive Behavior, Jing Yu, Charissa S.L. Cheah, Craig H. Hart, Chongming Yang, Joseph A. Olsen

Faculty Publications

Bullying has been understudied among preschool children, especially those from Chinese American families. Previous research has also neglected the dimensional effects of psychological control on child bullying development. This study examined two psychological control dimensions, love withdrawal and guilt induction, and their effects on children’s bullying aggressive behavior using a longitudinal design. Participants were first generation Chinese American mothers (N = 133;mean age [Mage] = 37.82) and their preschool children (Mage = 4.48). Chinese immigrant mothers reported their psychologically controlling parenting and teachers rated children’s bullying aggressive behaviors in the school setting. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to establish the …

Exploring Microaggressions Among Trans Populations: Effects On Feelings Of Social Exclusion, Stephanie M. Aubuchon

Theses and Dissertations

Those who identify as transgender face subtle discrimination in the form of microaggressions, which are behaviors and statements, often unconscious or unintentional, that communicate hostile or derogatory messages, particularly to members of marginalized social groups (Nadal et al., 2016). This study explored the microaggressions that transgender participants experience and the psychological effects on their feelings of social exclusion. Specifically, we hypothesized that transgender individuals experience microaggressions that make them feel socially excluded. The participants’ ages ranged from 18-66 and identified as nonbinary, agender, demiboy, genderqueer, male, or female. The study used an online survey that had the participants recall memories …

Latino/Hispanic Community Adults’ Healthcare Experience In A New Mexico Borderland Region, Hsiu-Lan Cheng, Anna Lopez, Jamey L. Rislin, Helen Youngju Kim, Joshua Turner, Heather Terhorst-Miller, Jessica Lopez-Harder, Chu Hui Cha

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

This study identifies factors associated with Latino/Hispanic adults’ healthcare experiences in a county along the U.S.-Mexico Border designated by the government as a geographic primary care, mental health, and dental health professional shortage area. An interpretative phenomenological approach was applied to analyze qualitative data collected through focus group interviews with ten Latino/Hispanic healthcare patients. Factors associated with positive healthcare experiences included short wait times, availability of same-day appointments, team-based care, and good interpersonal communication. Factors associated with negative healthcare experiences included long wait times, deficient communication (e.g., lack of provider-patient, provider-provider, and agency-patient communication), providers’ poor interpersonal skills, and perceived …

Experimentally Examining The Proposed Relationships Among “Rehearsal-Based” Effects, Corey Ian Mcgill

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Despite the importance of rehearsal to most models of verbal working memory, its role has been recently called into question. Much prior work in support of rehearsal models has centered on the experimental effects of word-length, phonological-similarity, and irrelevant sound on serial order recall performance and the interaction of all three with concurrent articulation. However, recent research has suggested that confounding effects of stimuli, such as orthographic neighborhood, may be the true cause of the word-length effect. While these findings alone have significant implications for modern models of rehearsal, to understand them within the context of modern theories of working …

Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Interacts With Ambiguity During Sentence Comprehension, Sarah Key-Delyria, Todd Bodner, Lori J. P. Altmann

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Conventional opinion about using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) for examining sentence comprehension maintains that RSVP taxes working memory (WM), which probably affects sentence processing. However, most RSVP studies only infer the involvement of WM. Other cognitive resources, such as cognitive control or vocabulary may also impact sentence comprehension and interact with RSVP. Further, sentence ambiguity is predicted to interact with RSVP and cognitive resources to impact sentence comprehension. To test these relationships, participants read ambiguous and unambiguous sentences using RSVP and Whole-Sentence presentation, followed by comprehension questions that were targeted to the ambiguous region of the sentences. Presentation type …

Meaning-Making Among Intentionally Childless Women, Christine Brooks

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

This paper is a summary of a qualitative research project that focused upon meaningmaking processes as described by intentionally childless women. A grounded theory exploration, it involved semi-structured interviews with 30 cisgendered women aged 27–61 who chose childlessness early in life. Based on principles inherent to social constructivism and feminist theories, the subjective voices of the participants were analyzed as normative expressions of female identity. The main category that accompanied intentional childlessness was a sense of freedom. In addition, two additional thematic categories focused on ways the women view their contributions to their communities and experience belonging and a sense …

Erotic Mindfulness: A Core Educational And Therapeutic Strategy In Somatic Sexology Practices, Marie I. Thouin-Savard

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Somatic sexology modalities such as sexual surrogacy, sexological bodywork, masturbation coaching, and orgasmic meditation have shown significant potential for helping individuals transcend sexual difficulties and grow into more fulfilling erotic lives. The use of an embodied state of consciousness similar to neo-traditional forms of mindfulness meditation may be a common factor contributing to therapeutic efficacy in a variety of somatic sexology methods. Comparing the structure of three somatic sexology modalities—sexual surrogacy, masturbation coaching, and orgasmic meditation—with recent evidence supporting the efficacy of neo-traditional mindfulness practices in promoting women’s sexual wellbeing reveals that somatic sexology practitioners use embodied mindfulness as a …

Intimations Of A Spiritual New Age: Iii. Martin Heidegger’S Phenomenology Of Numinous/Being Experience And The “Other Beginning” Of A Futural Planetary Spirituality, Harry T. Hunt

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

The phenomenology of numinous or Being-experience in the later Heidegger is the focus in this third in a series of papers on a group of independent figures— also including Jung, Reich, Toynbee, Teilhard de Chardin, and Simone Weil—who beginning in the crisis years of the 1930s envisioned versions of a futural “New Age” spirituality to address a globalizing materialism and its disenchantments—and so also creating a context for much of contemporary transpersonal and consciousness studies. A preliminary consideration of Heidegger in the contexts of transpersonal psychology, religious studies, the macro-histories of Toynbee and Sorokin, James on “pure experience,” and spirituality …

Ignatian Banners Of Hope And Support For Recently Detained Immigrant Families, Daniela Domínguez

Psychology

University of San Francisco (ASUSF) decided to allocate a portion of its annual budget each year to assist undocumented students with non-tuition dollars, most often used for the growingly expensive cost of living within the Bay Area. One year prior, in 2015, USF’s School of Law launched its Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic to represent unaccompanied children and migrant women with children in Northern California and the Central Valley.

Altogether, these acts of solidarity demonstrate how Jesuit institutions have strived for greater acceptance and empowerment of migrants and refugees. Contributing to this effort, the collection of essays in this book …

Stigma, Loss Of Face, And Help-Seeking Attitudes Among South Korean College Students, Paul Youngbin Kim, Kyujin Yon

SPU Works

This study investigated empirical associations between others stigma (predictor), self-stigma (mediator), loss of face concerns (moderator), and professional help-seeking attitudes (outcome) among South Korean college students (N = 485). We also explored the dimensionality of close others and public stigmas using bifactor analysis and ancillary measures. Participants were recruited from several universities in South Korea. They completed an online survey containing demographic questions and study measures. Bifactor analysis results indicated that close others and public stigmas may be better treated as a unidimensional measure (i.e., others stigma). Mediation and moderated mediation analyses indicated that others stigma predicted self-stigma, which …

The Visual Word Form Area (Vwfa) Is Part Of Both Language And Attention Circuitry, Lang Chen, Demian Wassermann, Daniel A. Abrams, John Kochalka, Guillermo Gallardo-Diez, Vinod Menon

Psychology

While predominant models of visual word form area (VWFA) function argue for its specific role in decoding written language, other accounts propose a more general role of VWFA in complex visual processing. However, a comprehensive examination of structural and functional VWFA circuits and their relationship to behavior has been missing. Here, using high-resolution multimodal imaging data from a large Human Connectome Project cohort (N = 313), we demonstrate robust patterns of VWFA connectivity with both canonical language and attentional networks. Brain-behavior relationships revealed a striking pattern of double dissociation: structural connectivity of VWFA with lateral temporal language network predicted language, …

Linking Moral Identity With Moral Emotions: A Meta-Analysis, Tobias Krettenauer, Jean Paul Lefebvre

Psychology Faculty Publications

This meta-analysis examined the relationship between moral identity and moral emotions drawing on 57 independent studies. Moral identity was significantly associated with moral emotions, r = .32, p < .01, 95% CI [.27, .36]. Effect sizes were moderated by the type of moral emotion. Studies reporting other-regarding emotions (sympathy, empathy, compassion) had the largest effect sizes (r = .41), while negative other-evaluative emotions (moral anger, contempt, disgust) had the smallest (r = .16). Self-evaluative and other-evaluative positive emotions had intermediate effect sizes (rs between .29 and .32). The type of emotion measure also was a significant moderator, with trait measures of emotion (r = .38) correlating more strongly with moral identity than state measures (r = .24). Effect sizes did not differ for …

Islamophobia In U.S. Education, Shabana Mir, Loukia K. Sarroub

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Anti-Muslim sentiment has grown in scale and visibility far beyond its association with the horrific attacks of 2001. The US government’s “War on Terror,” which began after the attacks, often pervades the domestic landscape as a war on Islamic religious “extremism.” The definitions and content of such religious extremism are so extensive that they encompass large numbers of Muslims, and they highlight Muslims as being inherently problematic. For example, the success of the 2016 presidential campaign can be said to have relied significantly on a right-wing Islamophobic fear-mongering that shariah was set to take over the US. As we grappled …

Speaking For “Free”: Word Of Mouth In Free- And Paid-Product Settings, Samuel Bond, Stephen He, Wen Wen

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This research examines drivers of consumer word of mouth (WOM) in free-product settings, revealing fundamental differences with traditional, paid-product settings. The authors build and investigate a theoretical model that highlights two unique characteristics of free products (reciprocity motivation and diminished adoption risk) and considers their implications for WOM sharing. Results of a retrospective survey, two controlled experiments, and an analysis of more than 5,000 mobile apps at Google Play and Apple’s App Store reveal that consumers are generally more likely to share their opinions of free products than paid products, because of feelings of reciprocity toward the producer. However, this …

Regulation During The Second Year: Executive Function And Emotion Regulation Links To Joint Attention, Temperament, And Social Vulnerability In A Latin American Sample, Lucas G. Gago Galvagno, María C. De Grandis, Gonzalo D. Clerici, Alba E. Mustaca, Stephanie E. Miller, Angel M. Elgier

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2019 Gago Galvagno, De Grandis, Clerici, Mustaca, Miller and Elgier. Although a growing body of work has established developing regulatory abilities during the second year of life, more work is needed to better understand factors that influence this emerging control. The purpose of the present study was to examine regulation capacities in executive functions (i.e., EF or cognitive control) and emotion regulation (i.e., ER or control focused on modulating negative and sustaining positive emotions) in a Latin American sample, with a focus on how joint attention, social vulnerability, and temperament contribute to performance. Sixty Latin American dyads of mothers …

Development And Validation Of The Family-School Partnering And Collaboration Scale, Carly Anne Sorenson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are many positive effects that family, school, and community partnerships (FSP) have on student achievement, behavior, and social-emotional development (Desforges & Abouchaar, 2003; Epstein, 1994, 2011; Graham, 2011; Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Jeynes, 2005, 2007; Ulugag, 2008). Due to the many benefits FSP have on student educational outcomes, current education reform efforts and legislation have mandated the implementation of FSP practices in schools. Additionally, legislation has called for increased accountability efforts to ensure that educators have appropriate levels of FSP skills and competencies (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education, 2016). As such, …

The Use Of Clinical Judgment In Differentiating Symptoms Of Autism Spectrum Disorder From Those Of Other Childhood Conditions: A Delphi Study, Staci Jordan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

More and more, due to long waiting lists at diagnostic clinics and access barriers for certain segments of the population, schools are often the first environment in which children are evaluated for ASD (Sullivan, 2013). And while accurate identification of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is essential for proper treatment and service provision, large percentages of school and community-based identifications of ASD are overturned when children are re-evaluated with strict clinical criteria (Wiggins et al., 2015). In part, challenges faced in accurately differentiating ASD from other conditions may be contributed to the diagnostic complexities of the condition itself. Clinical expertise is …