Digital Commons Network^™

Binaural: Trauma And Disability Representation In Cinema, Joshua Grossberg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the year 2019, the film business is undergoing profound change. Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon have become major distribution outlets, threatening the hegemony of traditional Hollywood studios and altering the kinds of movies that receive a theatrical release. Gone is the middle budget film, replaced by franchises like Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Fast and the Furious and Star Wars based on already popular intellectual property. But that's not all. In the wake of the fallout of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and the #MeToo Movement, for the first time serious efforts are being made both outside and inside the industry …

An Affective Events Theory Analysis Of Conflict Perception Emergence, Michael J. Covell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Popular conceptualizations of conflict conflate conflict perception with other discrete constructs such as disagreement and emotions. This makes research using those conceptualizations difficult to interpret. I invoke affective events theory to describe how constructs conflated with conflict perception, as well as negative prescriptive expectancy violations (EVs), may collectively serve as antecedents to conflict perception. By reconceptualizing conflict perception as an evaluative judgment and distinguishing between episodic (short-term) and global (long-term) conflict perceptions, my model describes how episodic conflict perceptions cumulatively influence global conflict perceptions over time. Two types of events (disagreements and negative prescriptive EVs) were proposed to predict episodic …

Popular Education In The Civil Rights Movement: Bridging Depth And Scale, Amanda Altman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis looks at the question of how the direct actions of the civil rights movement worked synergistically with grassroots educational projects like the Citizenship Schools. This thesis makes the case that the lesser-known history of the popular education work of the civil rights movement provides important clues as to why activists were able to organize mass mobilizations and formulate increasingly transformative strategies for change, like the rise of the Freedom Democratic Party. I look at the popular education work of the civil rights movement through an in-depth case study of the Citizenship Schools. The Citizenship Schools were a network …

Imagining Africa: An Analysis Of Tropes And Motifs In Turn Of The Century Black Music, Shane Ortale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

References to Africa exist in different forms in diasporic music from every country in the New World. In the case of the United States, an abundance of song lyrics of black writers and musicians from the turn of the twentieth century contain imaginings of the African continent. This thesis analyzes the many ways that these depictions were produced within the minstrel and vaudeville genres. While these artists faced many obstacles that limited the scope of their lyrical content, they used diverse strategies to undermine the racist world in which they lived. By juxtaposing and conflating tropes about black folks in …

Effects Of Pre-Tests And Feedback On Performance Outcomes In Massive Open Online Courses:What Works And What Doesn’T?, Maria Janelli

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This experimental study examined the effects of pre-tests and feedback on learning outcomes in a five-week massive open online course (MOOC). The participants (N = 399) were adults from around the world who self-enrolled in the American Museum of Natural History’s (AMNH) climate change MOOC (called Our Earth’s Future) offered on the Coursera platform. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. Learners in the first treatment group took pre-tests without receiving feedback. Learners in the second treatment group took pre-tests and received basic (correct/incorrect) feedback. Learners in the third treatment group took pre-tests and received elaborate feedback. The …

Black Women At Work In Corrections In The Era Of Mass Incarceration: Documenting Demographic Changes In The New York City Department Of Correction, Carolyn Fisher

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Recent work has popularized the idea that mass incarceration arose in the wake of the civil rights movement to maintain the social and economic subordination of African Americans previously enforced under Jim Crow. This discussion has not accounted for the many black Americans working in corrections, particularly in large metropolitan jail systems. This paper documents the increase in black women working as correction officers and administrators in the New York City Department of Correction since the late 1970s and explores the implications of this growth on the strict racial argument about mass incarceration. Using administrative and archival sources, it argues …

A Volitional Theory Of Aesthetic Value, John Dyck

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I defend a volitionalist theory of aesthetic value. The volitionalist theory is a species of response-based models of aesthetic value: It holds that aesthetic value is based in a kind of human response. Traditional response-based theories of aesthetic value hold that value is based in responses of cognition, perception, desire, or pleasure. The volitional theory offers a new response as the home of aesthetic value: the will. We find things beautiful, I argue, because we orient our selves towards them; we find things ugly, I argue, because we orient our selves against them. The volitionalist theory I …

Dermatoglyphic Measures In Relation To Depressive Symptoms Among Non-Clinical Adolescents And Young Adults, Yosefa A. Modiano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Depressive disorders are highly prevalent and can be devastating. Increasingly, depressive symptomatology is understood from a dimensional perspective such that non- or sub-clinical presentations may share a similar etiology. Depression etiology is believed to include genetic and environmental factors that may contribute to underlying vulnerability (diathesis) by way of neurodevelopment. Birth cohort studies have provided empirical evidence of the relationship between prenatal insult and later experience of adverse outcomes, including increased risk for depressive disorders. Retrospective investigation of the possible influence of prenatal disturbance on later experience of depressive symptoms has methodological limitations. Dermatoglyphic measurements offer a more methodologically viable …

Memory-Guided Selective Attention: An Instance Theory Of Automatic Attentional Control, Nicholaus Paul Brosowsky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Cognitive control enables flexible goal-directed behavior via attention and action selection processes that prioritize goal-relevant over irrelevant information. These processes allow us to behave flexibly in the face of contradicting or ambiguous information and update behavior in response to the changing environment. Furthermore, they are thought to be in direct opposition to learned, automatic processing in that they enable us to disregard learned behaviors when they are inconsistent with our current goals. The strict dichotomy between stimulus-driven and goal-driven influences, however, has downplayed the role of memory in guiding attention. The position forwarded in this thesis is that a memory-based …

Reimagining The Flute Masterclass: Case Studies Exploring Artistry, Authority, And Embodiment, Sarah Carrier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work explores the flute masterclass as an aesthetic, ritualized, and historically reimagined cultural practice. Based on fieldwork that took place between 2017 and 2019 in the United States, in Italy, and on the social media platforms Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, I argue that the masterclass—an extension of the master/apprentice system that dominates learning in the classical music tradition—is characterized by embodied qualities of artistry and authority. These qualities are not inherent, but are perceived through subjective, social, familied, and affective bodies.

Chapter One outlines the main themes and the research design. Chapter Two is a case study that analyzes …

Performing Rhythmic Dissonance In Ligeti’S Études, Book 1: A Perception-Driven Approach And Re-Notation, Imri Talgam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Interpretive approaches to the Études have been limited by Ligeti’s choice of notation, which creates several layers of difficulty in the presentation of complex rhythms. In order to resolve some of these difficulties, this dissertation includes a complete re-notation of four Etudes, using a methodology based on research in cognition and perception of rhythm.

Based on this new score, the notion of rhythmic dissonance is developed as an analytical tool to investigate in-time perception of rhythmic complexity, drawing on existing work on metric entrainment and metric dissonance. Different compositional strategies for the production of rhythmic dissonance are shown to have …

A Musician Centered Toolkit For Audiologists, Ava Bonavita

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The toolkit for audiologists working with musicians includes a set of materials for use in a musician centered audiology practice. Given the rise in streaming of music by individuals of all ages and the recognition of susceptibility of musicians to hearing loss, the prevalence of hearing loss is on the rise necessitating the need for materials and protocols to better protect, educate, and treat music lovers of all ages who may be prone to hearing loss. Music induced hearing loss typically falls under the category of recreational noise exposure, a subset of noise induced hearing loss (NIHL). Musicians are the …

Electroencephalographic Asymmetry, Emotion Regulation, And Their Relationships With Depression Risk, Aliza Jacob

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Research investigating patterns of electroencephalographic (EEG) brain asymmetry aids our understanding of neural systems involved in the processing of emotion, motivation, and psychopathology. Withdrawal-motivated negative emotions characteristic of depression are associated with relative right prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity, whereas approach- motivated positive emotions are associated with relative left PFC activity. Styles of emotion regulation (ER), or modulation of the intensity and duration of emotional responses, are also associated with presence (e.g., suppression, or maladaptive ER) versus absence (e.g., cognitive reappraisal, or adaptive ER) of depression vulnerability. Most PFC asymmetry studies of emotion, depression, and/or ER rely upon EEG recorded …

Getting The Benefit Of The Doubt: The Effect Of Randomization Ratio On The Placebo Response, Taiki Matsuura

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Placebos are commonly employed in clinical trials as inactive treatments to which experimental treatments are compared against in order to control for psychological “noise.” Randomized double-blind placebo control studies are considered the “gold standard” in epidemiologic research because they can provide the strongest possible evidence of causation if designed correctly (Hulley, Cummings, Browner, & Grady, 2007). One phenomenon that poses a threat to the integrity of this evidence is the placebo response (PR), or referred to as the “placebo effect.” Expectancy is considered a central PR mechanism and boasts the most empirical support among all proposed mechanisms. Expectancy is not …

Neural Correlates Of Automatic Emotional Processing And Emotion Regulation In Empathy And Psychopathy-Related Coldheartedness, Danielle Difilipo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that is defined, in part, by a lack of empathy. Psychopathy-related empathic deficits have been associated with atypical behavioral and neural responses to emotional facial expressions. Although the mirror neuron system (MNS) has been implicated in empathy, very few studies have examined the role of MNS functioning as it pertains to empathy impairments in psychopathy. Moreover, there is very little empirical research regarding emotion regulation in psychopathy, and specifically whether emotional responses can be intentionally upregulated. The present study sought to clarify whether the MNS is functionally intact in adults with subclinical psychopathic traits, particularly …

The Origins Of The Jones Act Of Puerto Rico, Stephanie Mercedes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

After the Spanish-American War that ended in 1898, Puerto Rico was given to the United States by Spain as a war booty, becoming a US colony. The first law ever created by the United States to control Puerto Rico was the Foraker Act (also known as the Organic Act of 1900). This established a civilian government in Puerto Rico. It also extended the federal government rulings to the island. After its creation, the Puerto Rican population began to wonder what their political status was since nothing was concretized until the Jones Act was signed. The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, …

Murine Genetic Variance In Sugar And Fat-Conditioned Flavor Preferences: Roles Of Dopamine, Opioid And Nmda Receptors And Nutritive Sensing, Tamar T. Kraft

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As obesity and diabetes have emerged as a severe public health crisis, understanding the mechanisms underlying the consumption of sugars and fats has become a topic of vigorous study. From a biological standpoint, genetic dispositions, neurochemical and hormonal influences, and predetermined orosensory and postingestive signals that modulate the hunger and satiety process may govern physiological aspects of the obesity puzzle. In addition to an innate appetite and attraction for simple carbohydrates and fats, learning plays an important role in modulating preferences for sugar- and fat-rich foods in rodents, including inbred mouse strains. Marked genetic variance has been observed among murine …

The Interaction Of Attention And Memory On The Reorienting Negativity, John C. Moses

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The three-stage model of distraction asserts that when we are presented with salient but task-irrelevant information, our sensory systems first detect the distracting stimulus by way of sensory memory buffers, which is indicated electrophysiologically by the mismatch negativity (MMN). Following detection, attentional resources are involuntarily allocated towards the processing of the distraction, as represented by the P3a. Finally, attentional resources are shifted away from the distracting stimulus and returned to the task-relevant information, as indicated by the reorienting negativity (RON). A great deal of research has focused on this last step in the model, largely centering around defining the mechanisms …

Structure And Function Of Dopamine In The Inner Ear And Auditory Efferent System Of A Vocal Fish, Jonathan T. Perelmuter

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The neuromodulator dopamine is considered essential for coordinating the internal motivational state of an organism with appropriate behavioral responses to stimuli in the external environment. This could be accomplished by modifying the function of neural circuits involved in sensory processing such that they are “tuned in” and optimally sensitive to important stimuli during critical time windows. While dopamine modulation of auditory processing has been studied in the central nervous system, neuromodulation can also occur outside the brain, in the inner ear. The majority of investigations of dopamine in the ear are conducted using rodents and focus on its role in …

Intention And Interpretation In Law, Cosim J. Sayid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I provide a Gricean theory of communication to constitutively explain the basis of duties, immunities, powers, privileges, and rights – the legal profile– possessed by actors within a legal system in virtue of their legally authoritative communicative intentions. This allows me to clearly speak to what is communicated between legal agents and how to interpret – how to figure out – that content, using available evidence. That account is then applied to statutory interpretation and contract law. Using a notion I call creative interpretation, which I develop by analogy to some species of literary and musical interpretation, I …

“Let’S Call Painful Sex Disorders Sexual Disabilities Instead”: A Feminist Disability Critique Of Feminist Representations And Medical Representations Of Sexual Disorders Of Pain, Oyku Akin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Historically, gender and sexuality have been privileged sites of analysis in feminist theory. Critical feminist engagements with “sexual dysfunction” employ gendered analysis’ of medical and pharmaceutical interventions to sexuality in capitalist modernity in order to underscore the ideological dimensions of modern sexuality. Although sexual disorders of pain received little attention from feminist academics until recently, contemporary feminist work on sexual pain disorders mimic the previous work on sexual dysfunctions in terms of analysis. Analysing recent major feminist contributions employing different epistemological orientations to the study sexual disorders of pain, I show that gender continues to be the privileged common category …

Assessment Of Third Wave Therapy Assumptions About The Relation Between Emotional Schemas And Psychoemotional Functioning, Emily Rachel Edwards

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Recent advancements in emotion theory propose that emotional schemas – individualized conceptualizations and beliefs about emotions – serve a fundamental function in guiding psychoemotional processes. These advancements have progressed alongside the development of third-wave therapies, which presume emotional schemas to be deeply involved in perpetuating psychological distress and emotional dysfunction. To critically assess the validity of this presumption, the current research proposed and evaluated an integrative model of psychoemotional functioning.

Two studies were completed using a combination of behavioral, performance-based, and self-report measures of emotional schemas and psychoemotional functioning. Though further research is needed, results suggest the integrated model of …

The Position Of A Woman: A Poetics Of Grace Paley’S Political Storytelling, Jamie Zabinsky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

While literary critics have long shown modest interest in writer-activist Grace Paley’s short fiction, no scholarship has yet focused on her extensive record of nonfiction writing. This thesis concentrates on Just As I Thought, an anthology of Paley’s essays, articles and speeches organized by Paley herself in lieu of any memoir or autobiography. Hannah Arendt’s theorizations of time, thought and standpoint serve as frameworks to establish the essay collection, arranged according to Paley’s political life along a timeline of feminist history, as a political storytelling project. Political storytelling, in the Arendtian sense and in context of this thesis, aims …

Examining Financial Stress And Coping Among U.S. Cancer Patients And Survivors: Quantitative Analyses Of Survey Data., Meredith J. Doherty

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Financial hardship, a growing problem for cancer patients and survivors, is associated with increased pain and symptom burden, reduced quality of life and psychological wellbeing, poor treatment adherence, and early mortality. Nearly one in three cancer patients reports that cancer caused some financial stress or strain. Emerging research has begun to explore the coping strategies used by cancer-affected individuals to manage the direct and indirect costs associated with cancer and its treatment. This dissertation seeks to answer three research questions: (1) what are the measurable characteristics of different cost-coping strategies? (2) what behavioral, institutional, and social factors are associated with …

Investigating The Feasibility Of Advanced Law Enforcement Resilience Training (A.L.E.R.T.): An Innovated And Practical Intervention To Enhance Police Mindfulness And Resilience, Stephanie B. Stern

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Policing is thought to be one of the most stressful occupations. Without effective strategies to cope with chronic work-related stress, police are vulnerable to developing mental and physical health problems. The police literature and research highlights the need for proactive, evidence-based interventions to help police maintain their resilience throughout their careers. The current study sought to bridge a gap between police literature, research and practice by developing and testing the feasibility of using the Advanced Law Enforcement Resilience Training (A.L.E.R.T.) mobile app to help police learn and practice mindfulness skills after engaging in a brief in-person training. Using a pre-test, …

Systems Analysis Of Faculty Hiring Process Within Academia, Nicole P. Farrell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There are three levels of performance discussed in organizational behavior management (OBM): (a) the organization level, (b) the process level, and (c) the job/performer level. Among these three levels of performance, individuals often focus least on the process level – which is the level that explains “how” work gets done (Rummler & Brache, 1995). However, if the processes are not effective, workers cannot complete tasks adequately, regardless of the contingencies applied by an organization. One way researchers can evaluate the effectiveness of processes within an organization is through the use of systems analysis. The purpose of the present study was …

Neurogenesis Is Altered Between And Across Brain Regions After Neurodegeneration And Injury, Alice Perez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Adult neurogenesis is the addition of new neurons in the adult brain. In mammals, neurogenesis is largely restricted to the hippocampus and olfactory bulb, which underlie learning, memory, and olfaction. In songbirds, new neurons are incorporated into telencephalic regions that subserve the production, perception, and maintenance of song. Studies of the regulation of neurogenesis have exclusively focused on a single brain region and within a single hemisphere. Interestingly, it has yet to be investigated whether there are correlations between numbers of new neurons across regions and hemispheres within the same animal. Here we examined these differences in a rat model …

Examining Relations Between Executive Functions And Decoding: A Meta-Analytic Investigation, Teresa Ober

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Introduction: The Simple View of Reading (SVR) is one of several established models of reading that present decoding and linguistic comprehension as critical skills in the development of reading competencies. Previous research has highlighted the connection between reading comprehension and cognitive skills, including those which fall under the term of executive functions (EF; for a review, see Follmer, 2018). EF may also be critical in the development of decoding. According to the dual route model of word recognition (Coltheart, 2006), decoding involves two separable processes; the phonological route, involving encoding and retrieval of letter-sound associations (also called phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence rules), …

The Development Of Face Morphing Task To Assess Self Other Differentiation, Esen Karan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Self-Other Differentiation (SOD) refers to a developmental process of acquiring a consolidated, integrated, and individuated sense of self. SOD develops at a) perceptual (e.g., facial perception) and b) representational (e.g., traits, mental states, and beliefs) levels. Impairments in representational SOD (R-SOD) are associated with many forms of psychopathology, particularly borderline personality disorder (BPD) and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Few studies to date have examined the perceptual aspects of SOD (P-SOD), which are hypothesized to develop from infancy onwards in tandem and in interaction with R-SOD. Given that the human face is one of the key characteristics that humans use to …

Does Ethnic Identity, In-Group Preference, And Acculturation Protect Latinas With A History Of Interpersonal Trauma From Developing Symptoms Of Ptsd?, Evelyn M. Ramirez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Previous research suggests ethnic identity, a sense of belonging to a particular cultural group, may be protective against symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the role of ethnic identity, in-group preference (i.e., an individual’s preference for interactions with members of their own ethnic group) and acculturation (i.e., the level of comfort with the mainstream culture) have not been investigated as protective factors for Latinas with a history of interpersonal and sexual trauma. In this study, ethnic identity, in-group preference and acculturation were assessed via self-report on the Scale of Ethnic Experience in two samples of undergraduate Latina and non-Latina …