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Dissociating Speech Perception And Comprehension At Reduced Levels Of Awareness, Matthew H Davis, Martin R Coleman, Anthony R Absalom, Jennifer M Rodd, Ingrid Johnsrude, Basil F Matta, Adrian M Owen, David K Menon

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

We used functional MRI and the anesthetic agent propofol to assess the relationship among neural responses to speech, successful comprehension, and conscious awareness. Volunteers were scanned while listening to sentences containing ambiguous words, matched sentences without ambiguous words, and signal-correlated noise (SCN). During three scanning sessions, participants were nonsedated (awake), lightly sedated (a slowed response to conversation), and deeply sedated (no conversational response, rousable by loud command). Bilateral temporal-lobe responses for sentences compared with signal-correlated noise were observed at all three levels of sedation, although prefrontal and premotor responses to speech were absent at the deepest level of sedation. Additional …

Human Parietal "Reach Region" Primarily Encodes Intrinsic Visual Direction, Not Extrinsic Movement Direction, In A Visual Motor Dissociation Task., Juan Fernandez-Ruiz, Herbert C Goltz, Joseph F X Desouza, Tutis Vilis, J Douglas Crawford

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Posterior parietal cortex (PPC) participates in the planning of visuospatial behaviors, including reach movements, in gaze-centered coordinates. It is not known if these representations encode the visual goal in retinal coordinates, or the movement direction relative to gaze. Here, by dissociating the intrinsic retinal stimulus from the extrinsic direction of movement, we show that PPC employs a visual code. Using delayed pointing and event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, we identified a cluster of PPC regions whose activity was topographically (contralaterally) related to the direction of the planned movement. We then switched the normal visual-motor spatial relationship by adapting subjects to …

Do Vegetative Patients Retain Aspects Of Language Comprehension? Evidence From Fmri, Martin R Coleman, Jennifer M Rodd, Matthew H Davis, Ingrid Johnsrude, David K Menon, John D Pickard, Adrian M Owen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

A diagnosis of vegetative state is made if a patient demonstrates no evidence of awareness of self or environment, no evidence of sustained, reproducible, purposeful or voluntary behavioural response to sensory stimuli and critically no evidence of language comprehension. For those patients who retain peripheral motor function, rigorous behavioural assessment is usually able to determine retained function. However, some patients do not retain the ability to respond overtly to command and it is becoming increasingly accepted that assessment of these patients should include techniques, which do not rely on any 'motor action' on the part of the patient. Here, we …

Assessment In Crisis, Amresh Srivastava

Psychiatry Presentations

No abstract provided.

Early Psychosis: A Bridge To Future, Amresh Srivastava

Psychiatry Presentations

No abstract provided.

Alcohol Slows Interhemispheric Transmission, Increases The Flash-Lag Effect, And Prolongs Masking: Evidence For A Slowing Of Neural Processing And Transmission., Sarah A Khan, Brian Timney

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

While the alcohol literature is extensive, relatively little addresses the relationship between physiological effects and behavioural changes. Using the visual system as a model, we examined alcohol's influence on neural temporal processing as a potential means for alcohol's effects. We did this by using tasks that provided a measure of processing speed: Poffenberger paradigm, flash-lag, and backward masking. After moderate alcohol, participants showed longer interhemispheric transmission times, larger flash-lags, and prolonged masking. Our data are consistent with the view that alcohol slows neural processing, and provide support for a reduction in processing efficiency underlying alcohol-induced changes in temporal visual processing.

Splashpads, Swings, And Shade: Parents' Preferences For Neighbourhood Parks, Patricia Tucker, Jason Gilliland, Jennifer D. Irwin

Geography & Environment Publications

Background

Physical activity is a modifiable behavior that can help curtail the increasing worldwide problem of childhood obesity. Appropriate recreational opportunities, including neighborhood parks, are particularly important for promoting physical activity among children. Because children's use of parks is mainly under the influence of their parents, understanding parents' preferences is essential for creating the most inviting and usable park space to facilitate children's physical activity.

Methods

Eighty-two intercept interviews were conducted with a heterogeneous sample of parents / guardians watching their children at neighborhood parks in London, Ontario. Parents / guardians were asked questions about how often they frequent the …

Relevance To Self: A Brief Review And Framework Of Neural Systems Underlying Appraisal, Taylor W. Schmitz, Sterling C. Johnson

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

We argue that many similar findings observed in cognitive, affective, and social neuroimaging research may compose larger processes central to generating self-relevance. In support of this, recent findings from these research domains were reviewed to identify common systemic activation patterns. Superimposition of these patterns revealed evidence for large-scale supramodal processes, which are argued to mediate appraisal of self-relevant content irrespective of specific stimulus types (e.g. words, pictures) and task domains (e.g. induction of reward, fear, pain, etc.). Furthermore, we distinguish between two top-down sub-systems involved in appraisal of self-relevance, one that orients pre-attentive biasing information (e.g. anticipatory or mnemonic) to …

Stability Of Negative Self-Structures: A Longitudinal Comparison Of Depressed, Remitted, And Nonpsychiatric Controls., David J A Dozois

Psychology Publications

To be considered a vulnerability marker for depression, a variable should, in addition to demonstrating sensitivity and specificity, also show evidence of temporal stability (i.e., remain present in the absence of depressive symptomatology). Although many cognitive factors are associated with depression, the majority of them appear to be episode rather than vulnerability markers. This study examined cognitive organization of positive and negative interpersonal and achievement content in clinically depressed, remitted, and nonpsychiatric controls. At initial assessment, a sample of 54 clinically depressed individuals and 37 never-depressed controls completed self-report measures of positive and negative automatic thoughts and two cognitive organizational …

Perceptual Functions Of Perirhinal Cortex In Rats: Zero-Delay Object Recognition And Simultaneous Oddity Discriminations., Susan J Bartko, Boyer D Winters, Rosemary A Cowell, Lisa M Saksida, Timothy J Bussey

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The perirhinal cortex (PRh) is widely accepted as having an important role in object recognition memory in humans and animals. Contrary to claims that PRh mediates declarative memory exclusively, previous evidence suggests that PRh has a role in the perceptual processing of complex objects. In the present study, we conducted an examination of the possible role of PRh in perceptual function in rats. We examined whether bilateral excitotoxic lesions of PRh or PPRh (perirhinal plus postrhinal cortices) in the rat would cause deficits in a zero-delay object-recognition task and a simultaneous oddity discrimination task. Both of these tasks measured spontaneous …

Assessing Maternal Sensitivity From Videotaped Recordings: Validity And Practical Applications, Elspeth M. Evans, Greg Moran, Sandi Bento, David R. Pederson

Psychology Presentations

This study examined the use of short, videotaped, mother-infant laboratory interactions instead of longer home visits to assess maternal sensitivity. Scores generated when toddlers were 24-months were found to be correlated with assessments of maternal sensitivity and attachment security from previous home visits The results suggest that coding from appropriate samples of recorded interactions may provide valid assessments of maternal sensitivity and attachment security but a number of important caveats must still be resolved.

Disorganized Attachment And Mother-Toddler Interactive Behavior In A Problem-Solving Task, Lindsey M. Forbes, Carey Anne De Oliveira, Greg Moran, David R. Pederson

Psychology Presentations

PURPOSE: To examine emotional and behavioral regulation and Disorganized attachment at 24-months in a high-risk sample of adolescent mother-toddler dyads.

RESULTS: Disorganization was associated with 1)increased toddler negativity and a lower quality of experience and 2)decreased levels of maternal support and assistance during the problem-solving tasks.

CONCLUSION: These findings offer converging support for the suggestion that Disorganized dyads experience marked difficulties in emotional and behavioral regulation.

Can A Measure Of Disrupted Caregiver Behavior Discriminate Infant Disorganized Attachment From Insecure-Organized Attachment?, Sheri Madigan, Diane Benoit, Greg Moran

Psychology Presentations

Purpose: To examine if a measure of disrupted caregiver behavior is equally effective in differentiating children with disorganized attachment from children with secure and insecure-organized attachment.

Method: One hundred and eighty-four low-risk mother-infant dyads participated in this study. Mother-infant attachment relationships were assessed using the Strange Situation procedure and disrupted caregiver behavior was assessed at 12 and 18 months using the AMBIANCE measure.

Results: Disrupted caregiver behavior distinguished children with disorganized attachment from children with secure attachment but not from children with resistant attachment.

Social Determinants Of Health And Disease Working Together, Amresh Srivastava

Psychiatry Presentations

No abstract provided.

Schizophrenia: General Findings And Current Status, Amresh Srivastava

Psychiatry Presentations

No abstract provided.

Catatonia Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Amresh Srivastava

Psychiatry Presentations

No abstract provided.

An Integrated Cognitive-Affective Model Of Suicidal Thinking And Behavior, Laura L. Fazakas-Dehooa

Digitized Theses

Despite a growing body of research, a ∞mprehensive understanding of suicide remains elusive. The current dissertation involved the development of an integrated cognitive affective theory of suicidal thinking and behavior, and the initial assessment of components of this theoretical model in three separate, but related studies. In Study 1, the integrity of the model was assessed in a sample of 397 (83 male and 314 female) undergraduate students. The resulting fit indices (CFI=.87; GFI=.90; RMSEA=.09) of the structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis indicated an adequate fit between the hypothesized model and the data in the sample, with the model amounting …

A Description Of The Functions Of Observational Learning In Sport, Barbara D. Law

Digitized Theses

The purpose of this dissertation was to describe athletes’ use of the functions of observational learning in various sport situations. A secondary purpose was to explore whether the Functions of Observational Learning Questionnaire (FOLQ; Cumming et al., 2005) could be used to examine naturalistic observational learning use with various groups of sport participants. To achieve these purposes, three studies were conducted. Study 1 examined the relationship between skill level, age, and use of the functions of observational learning in a sample of golfers. Study 2 explored the relationship between use of the functions of observational learning and self-efficacy beliefs in …

A Buddhist Reading, Doug Vincent

Digitized Theses

How do you study texts as a Buddhist? How do you reconcile Buddhist notions of a text’s impermanence (anitya), insubstantiality (nihsvabhava, sunyata), and dependent origination (pratityasamutpada) - notions that destabilize any conviction that a text is an entity capable of supporting predication - with literary study, which operates under the assumption that not only are texts entities (objects of study) but also that discovering new predicates about them is one of the most valuable and significant things you can do with them? Moreover, how do you reconcile the goal of Buddhist practice - the cessation of suffering (duhkha) - with …

Assessing Personality In The Employment Interview: The Impact Of Rater Training And Individual Differences On Rating Accuracy, Deborah M. Powell

Digitized Theses

Personality variables can be a useful addition to personnel selection systems. Although typically measured in this context using self-report measures, there is evidence that employment interviewers can make valid judgments of personality; however, not all interviewers are equally accurate. This dissertation examined the effectiveness of systematic training as a way of improving the accuracy of interviewers’ personality ratings. According to Funder’s (1995) Realistic Accuracy Model (RAM), individuals who are knowledgeable about the behavioral cues of personality traits should be skilled in making accurate judgments of others. According to RAM, such knowledge is obtained through the experience of making judgments and …

Beyond The Dotted Line: Psychological Contracts And Their Relations With Organizational Commitment, Kate Mcinnis

Digitized Theses

Understanding the commitments both an employee and his or her employer make to each other is important to organizations. I explore these commitments by examining the relation between employee commitments and employer psychological contracts (i.e., promises employers make to their employees). Traditionally, psychological contracts have been measured based on the contents of the contract (e.g., promotion opportunities), making it difficult to generalize findings across work arrangements. Instead, I adopt and extend a new approach to examining psychological contracts by looking at the contracts’ features (e.g., stable). Employees from a variety of organizations completed surveys on their organizational commitment and perceptions …

Context Effects In The Comprehension And Production Of Figurative Language, Sarah A. L. Mccormick

Digitized Theses

An experiment was conducted to examine the production of familiar proverbs following either a figurative discourse context or one of two literal contexts. Materials from Ferretti, Schwint and Katz (2007) were adapted for a cloze task. Data were collected for 42 proverbs from 240 participants. Booklets presented a series of context paragraphs each followed by a sentence stem of one to four words, which participants were asked to complete as they thought most appropriate. Item analysis revealed a higher percentage of target completions following a literal context containing content words of the target proverb, and with each succeeding word in …

Context Effects In The Comprehension And Production Of Figurative Language, Sarah A. L. Mccormick

Digitized Theses

An experiment was conducted to examine the production of familiar proverbs following either a figurative discourse context or one of two literal contexts. Materials from Ferretti, Schwint and Katz (2007) were adapted for a cloze task. Data were collected for 42 proverbs from 240 participants. Booklets presented a series of context paragraphs each followed by a sentence stem of one to four words, which participants were asked to complete as they thought most appropriate. Item analysis revealed a higher percentage of target completions following a literal context containing content words of the target proverb, and with each succeeding word in …

Children’S Mental Health Services: Investigating Factors Related To Help-Seeking And Agency Involvement Patterns, Juliana I. Tobon

Digitized Theses

In order to better understand what happens once a parent contacts a children’s mental health centre for help with their child’s psychosocial problems, the current study examined predisposing, need, and enabling/inhibiting factors associated with (1) a pattern of contacting multiple agencies/professionals (high-volume) versus one agency and (2) a simultaneous (overlapping) versus sequential pattern of involvement with multiple agencies/professionals. The strongest predictor of a high-volume help-seeking pattern was parent history of mental health service use. Other significant predictors were lower parental depression and residing in an area with ten or more child serving agencies. The simultaneous agency involvement pattern was associated …

Declarative And Procedural Current Job Knowledge As Predictors Of Performance In Emerging Military Jobs, Glen A. Smith

Digitized Theses

Hierarchical goal analysis and an algorithm (Job Similarity Index) were used to examine the declarative and procedural knowledge shared between current military jobs (n = 256) and three jobs required to operate Uninhabited Aerospace Vehicles. Job analysts (n = 35) provided job similarity ratings by comparing three emerging jobs with the current job sample. Military participants (n = 26) performed as Vehicle Operators, Payload Operators, and Mission Commanders in a synthetic environment to demonstrate the knowledge shared between current and emerging jobs. JSI explained variation in rater-assessed Vehicle Operator performance, while job analyst ratings explained variation in Vehicle Operator time-related …

Maternal Psychosocial Distress And Breastfeeding And Their Impact On Infant Development, Lauren Heather Switzer

Digitized Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine a hypothesized causal relationship testing whether breastfeeding serves as a mediating pathway variable between maternal psychosocial distress and infant development. A longitudinal prospective study was conducted by telephone interview with 665 mothers and their children. Structured interviews, using standardized measures, were conducted prenatally and again when the children were greater than 24 months old. The hypothesized causal relationship was examined by path analysis, which indicated that, while breastfeeding did not act as a mediator, increased breastfeeding duration was significantly associated with an elevation in infant development score. Findings were similar for both …

Developmental Changes In The Neural Correlates Of Symbolic And Nonsymbolic Number Comparison, Ian Holloway

Digitized Theses

Symbolic numerals are ubiquitous in everyday life. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms that connect numerical symbols to their semantic referents or how these mechanisms change over developmental time. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we assessed developmental changes in the functional neuroanatomy of symbolic and non-symbolic number processing. Children (age 6-9) and adults compared the relative magnitude of symbolic and non-symbolic stimuli. I investigated brain areas which were significantly more activated by symbolic than non-symbolic comparison. Results revealed several areas including the bilateral angular and supramarginal gyri. An examination of age-related differences in symbolic versus non- symbolic comparison …

Development Of Geographic Song Preferences And The Neural Responses To Local Geographic Song In Songbirds, Alexandra M. Hernandez

Digitized Theses

This thesis examined the role of early song experience on the development of geographic song preferences in female songbirds and the neural responses to local geographic song in adult birds. By hand-rearing nestlings to control song exposure early in life I was able to look at the role of experience versus inherited factors on local song preferences. After tutoring with local, foreign or no song, female hand-reared house finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) were found to have an experience-independent preference for local geographic song, and no differential Zenk activation to songs heard early in life (tutor) over song from a distant location. …

Disentangling Automatic And Controlled Processes In Children’S Attention To Negative Emotion, Priscilla V. Burnham

Digitized Theses

There are striking individual differences in emotion development. Variations in emotion development have been associated with typical development as well as developmental psychopathology. While understanding emotional reactivity is important, the emergence of self-regulatory abilities is also critical in understanding emotion development. The interaction between emotional reactivity and self-regulation has an important influence on childhood psychological development. Current paradigms used to evaluate individual differences in attention to threat-related stimuli cannot clearly disentangle automatic and controlled processes that have been hypothesized to underlie performance. The main goal of the present research was to develop a means of disentangling automatic and controlled processing …

Early Adolescent Weight Perception As A Predictor Of Smoking Among Young Adult Women: An Investigation Of Conceptual Models, Sarah D. Peacock

Digitized Theses

Smoking and weight concerns develop in adolescence. Research suggests there may be a positive association between weight concerns and smoking. This study evaluated the relationship between weight perceptions in early adolescence and young adult smoking, and described the relationship between psychological distress, weight perception and smoking behaviour among girls. The study involved a secondary analysis of data from a prospective study of a cohort of Ontario adolescents. This study used information collected when the cohort was in Grade .gistic regression and structural equation modeling were used to examine the relationship between smoking and weight perception over the study period. Analyses …