Digital Commons Network^™

Understanding Why Individuals Maltreated As Children Do Not Retrospectively Self-Report, Kristin S. Lynch

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Individuals with documented histories of childhood maltreatment who do not retrospectively self-report these childhood experiences demonstrate better emotional and psychological outcomes in adulthood. Understanding why these individuals do not retrospectively self-report is important for the development of effective interventions focused on mitigating the long-term consequences of maltreatment. The current study compared maltreated individuals who did not retrospectively self-report (O-R group) to those who did retrospectively self-report (O+R group) to examine theoretical explanations related to intentional nondisclosure (i.e., social desirability and discomfort during the interview) and memory processes (i.e. infantile amnesia, use of mental health services, avoidant coping …

Moralists Or Moral Hypocrites? Leveraging Moral Psychology And Social Identity Theory To Increase Support For Reparations Amongst White Americans, Andre Oliver

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The economic gains America made from the enslavement of Africans have long been considered its original sin; indeed, most people living today would agree that such an enterprise was morally depraved. Yet, due to moral opposition, many White Americans reject reparative policies (i.e., reparations) that are developed to remedy the damages done to African Americans by slavery and the subsequent continued discrimination. The present research attempts to address two broad hypotheses across four empirical research studies. The first hypothesis tests whether White Americans' rejection of reparative policies related to slavery and Black discrimination is inherently a moral objection to taboo …

Receptions Of Mental Health Emergency Services In New York City, Daniel R. Samost

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mental health emergency response has become a highly scrutinized topic following the Black Lives Matter movement and several notable incidents of mental health emergency service users being killed by police responders. Qualitative interviews were conducted with mental health emergency service users to better understand the experience of using mental health emergency services, garner critical feedback of the service, and explore recommendations to improve future response. A total of 23 participants conducted interviews and detailed 40 incidents of mental health emergency service utilization. These interviews were then coded and analyzed. There were a few major findings from the data. Just over …

Interoceptive Forecasting And Recall: The Role Of Anxiety Sensitivity And Disgust Sensitivity, David Lloyd Yap

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Predicting and remembering emotional states (affective forecasting and recall) are adaptive processes that allow individuals to engage with the future and past to guide behavior, yet these processes are prone to bias. Although affective forecasting and recall biases are common across healthy populations, more pessimistically biased affective forecasts and recall have been linked to greater anxiety and depression symptom levels and to emotional disorders. A crucially understudied aspect of affective forecasting and recall is the perception of the somatic (interoceptive) symptoms that accompany emotions. This study investigated forecasting and recall accuracy of somatic symptom levels (i.e., interoceptive forecasting and recall). …

Collaborative Memory And Metamemory: The Impact Of Normative And Informational Motivations On Conformity, Karen Rodriguez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Collaborative memory studies have typically explored the cognitive mechanisms that underlie differences between collaborative and individual memory performance. Despite the social nature of collaboration, few studies have examined the impact of social motivations on collaborative memory. When retrieving information with groups, people may not only be motivated by a desire to be accurate (i.e., informational motivations), but may also be guided by social norms (i.e., normative motivations), such as prioritizing agreeability or alignment with group members (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). Similarly, retrieving information with others may also prompt individuals to reflect more on their own memory processes. However, few studies …

Enjoyment In The Classroom: Reciprocal Student-Teacher Dynamics In Israeli Math Education, Yonaton Gutterman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Enjoyment is increasingly recognised as a keystone emotion in contemporary models of academic motivation and learning (Pekrun, 2006; Ryan & Deci, 2020). Grounded in Control-Value, Expectancy-Value, and Self-Determination theories, the present study tracked reciprocal affective processes in Israeli mathematics classrooms across ten lessons. Seven teachers and their 257 students (112 fourth-graders; 145 eighth-graders) completed parallel post-lesson questionnaires assessing feedback use, enjoyment, and perceived difficulty. Multilevel ordinal mixed-effects models, latent-growth curve models, and Bayesian random-intercept cross-lagged panel models were estimated to disentangle within-person fluctuations from between-person differences (Hamaker et al., 2015). Confirmatory-factor analyses supported scalar invariance of the key scales over …

Using Machine Learning Methods To Evaluate Undergraduates’ Executive Function In The Context Of Game-Based Measurement, Ming Chen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Traditional performance-based measurements have faced criticism due to their potential to induce test fatigue and their limited ecological validity. In contrast, game-based assessments have demonstrated the capacity to engage participants effectively in tests and enhance ecological validity by replicating real-world scenarios. Nevertheless, conventional statistical approaches may prove insufficient in capturing the intricate, non-linear associations between participants' gaming performance and their cognitive capabilities. Leveraging the potential of machine learning (ML) techniques, which can model complex problems, offers a promising avenue for estimating students' performance in video games. This dissertation aims to explore various ML methods for the validation of three game-based …

Giving Voice To The Frames Of War: A Digital Humanities Framework For Evaluating War Crimes Databases, Leila Markosian

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Developments in digital technologies have complicated existing debates around the ethics of cataloging war crimes and human rights violations. Digital humanities methods of evaluating digital scholarship can help to construct a framework for evaluating war crimes databases, a process which requires a fine-tuned critical analysis aimed towards understanding the purpose of compiling the database, the platform or media template through which the database is presented, and the communicative potentials of the database. The following paper presents a survey of the existing literature on war crime databases and the politics of memory; a model of how war crimes database analyses may …

Scripted For Surveillance: Parole Revocation Hearings And The Performance Of Procedure In New York, Kelsey G. Greeff

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines parole revocation hearings in New York as complex performances that extend carceral control beyond prison walls. Drawing on a composite vignette from the Bronx parole court, it analyzes the interplay between procedural reform, constitutional due process, and neoliberal governance. Using a dramaturgical framework informed by Michel Foucault’s discourse analysis and Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, the study identifies four interrelated processes: the judge as director, who orchestrates hearings according to institutional priorities; normalization, where repetition embeds structural inequality as routine; type-marking, the classification of parolees into predefined roles through accumulated records and cues; and the extension of …

“Justice, Justice Pursue”: Coworker Reactions To Religious Workplace Accommodations, Joshua A. Nagel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines coworker reactions to religious accommodations in the workplace, a growing necessity as religious diversity increases, and recent legislation strengthens protections for religious observances. Religious accommodations can provoke perceptions of differential treatment, impacting coworker morale, cooperation, and organizational cohesion. While extensive research exists on disability accommodations, religious accommodations differ fundamentally as they often relate to moral beliefs and are viewed variably in terms of necessity and controllability. Drawing on organizational justice theories, this dissertation applies and modifies Colella’s (2001) and Colella et al.’s (2004) models for coworker perceptions of distributive and procedural fairness of disability accommodations to the …

Characterization Of The Attentional Profile In Women And Girls With A Fragile X Premutation Allele, Shira Russell-Giller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The fragile X premutation (PM), characterized by 55 to 200 CGG repeats in the FMR1 gene, is associated with diverse clinical outcomes, including cognitive and neuropsychiatric changes. Despite most individuals with a PM presenting without overt clinical symptoms, adults face increased risks for conditions associated with a PM, including higher rates of attention and executive difficulties. This dissertation investigates the developmental trajectory of attention and executive functioning changes in females with a PM using a series of prospective studies employing the Attention Network Test (ANT). Study 1 re-analyzed prior data on sustained attention in women with a PM, revealing significant …

The Spaces Between: A Phenomenological Exploration Of Classical Music Performance Practice, Fifi Zhang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In his theory of duration, the philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941) asserts that the present moment is “both a perception of the immediate past and a determination of the immediate future…a joint system of sensations and movements.” In an ideal musical performance, this sensori-motor apparatus guides every one of the performer’s decisions on stage, resulting in an aural experience that is spontaneous, visceral, and deeply personal. In practice, much of today’s classical music performance culture, which relies heavily on visual notation and prioritizes fidelity to the composer’s intent, is antithetical to fundamental artistic values such as creativity, individual self-expression, and direct …

The Interaction Of Multilingualism And Depressed Mood On Cognitive Set-Shifting, Annalise Caviasco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although findings are mixed, many researchers believe there are cognitive benefits to multilingualism, a phenomenon dubbed the “bilingual advantage”. Of these apparent benefits, cognitive flexibility, or the ability to shift thinking styles based on the context or specific demands of a certain situation, is thought to be highly relevant. Current literature suggests that one aspect of multilingualism, the practice of “code-switching” between languages throughout their daily lives, is related to increased general cognitive flexibility compared to monolinguals. Another branch of research on cognitive flexibility investigating the role of affect in cognition demonstrates that clinical depression as well as transient negative …

Disability Theatre Communities: Engaging Artists And Audiences In Contemporary International Performance, Joseph Paul Hill

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Disability Theatre Communities” examines how communities are constructed in, through, and around contemporary international disability theatre performances. It explores ideas of community formation and intersection across three case studies to elucidate the various ways in which disability theatre artists, productions, companies, and organizations attract, engage, and educate variable artist and audience communities. The project analyzes Rome, Italy’s Teatro Patologico and its Integrated Theatre of Emotion, a theatrical training program for neurodivergent performers; Wales-based writer, theatre-maker, and dramaturg Kaite O’Reilly, whose international collaborations center d/Deaf and disabled performers and foreground audience accessibility; and the biennial BIT (Blind in Theatre) International Festival …

The Sonic Hedgehog Effector Smoothened Modulates Cholinergic Interneuron Activity, Physiology, And Striatum-Dependent Behaviors, Santiago Uribe-Cano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The striatum is a central node in action selection and associative learning, integrating cortical, thalamic, and neuromodulatory input. Among its principal modulators, dopamine (DA) and acetylcholine (ACh) are known for their temporally coordinated yet mechanistically distinct influences on striatal output. However, the upstream signals that regulate their dynamic interplay, particularly within cholinergic interneurons (CINs)—the primary source of striatal ACh—remain incompletely characterized. This dissertation investigates the role of Smoothened (Smo), a G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) effector of Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) signaling, in modulating ACh signaling dynamics in the striatum.

Building on evidence that midbrain DA neurons co-release Shh and that CINs …

Teaching And Technology: "You Can't Just Do The Same Thing Online", Sakina Laksimi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how faculty at the City University of New York navigated the abrupt transition to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing how pedagogy is shaped by technological, institutional, and social conditions. Drawing on twenty-two interviews with twelve faculty across eight disciplines, I use a grounded theory approach to analyze how instructors adapted courses, reimagined assessment, and sustained connection with students amid crisis. Three overlapping pedagogical orientations emerged: improvisational, relational, and design-based teaching. These approaches highlight how faculty balanced responsiveness, care, and intentional course design in environments mediated by digital platforms and marked by inequity. The study situates …

Non-Linear Heart Rate Variability: Investigating Cardiac Complexity Of Psychopathic Traits, Khaya A. Roach

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychopathy is a complex personality disorder characterized by distinct emotional and interpersonal deficits, and affects approximately 25% of the prison population and 4.5% of nonincarcerated populations. The manifestation of psychopathy can be understood through two distinct variants, each demonstrating unique etiological pathways and clinical presentations. Primary psychopathy is characterized by core interpersonal and affective deficits, including shallow emotions and manipulativeness, while demonstrating reduced autonomic responsivity and lower anxiety levels. Secondary psychopathy presents with higher levels of impulsivity, anxiety, and emotional dysregulation, showing stronger associations with various psychopathologies. Treatment outcomes also vary between the variants, with primary psychopaths typically showing poor …

Alerted And Anxious? The Effects Of Mobile Crime Alerts On Perceptions Of Personal And Public Safety, Amanda C. Benjamin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mobile crime alert platforms promise to enhance personal and public safety by delivering frequent notifications about nearby dangers—claims that, until now, have not been experimentally tested. For-profit applications like Citizen deliver real-time, geo-targeted push notifications about nearby crime incidents to over 9 million users, often operating outside the bounds of institutional oversight. Although marketed as tools to enhance awareness and protection, these platforms may simultaneously empower users through information while also potentially amplifying anxiety, heightening threat perceptions, and eroding trust in community. Despite their increasing prominence and integration into public safety communications, the psychological and behavioral impacts of mobile crime …

The Effect Of Tbi On Working Memory And Anxiety In Rats, Mariola Sobolewska

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a significant public health concern, often leading to cognitive and emotional impairments. This study examined the effects of TBI on working memory and anxiety-like behavior in young male Sprague-Dawley rats using the Radial Arm Maze (RAM) and Elevated Plus Maze (EPM), which are behavioral assessments. The RAM tests spatial working memory by evaluating the animal’s ability to remember and efficiently navigate multiple arms to retrieve rewards. The EPM assesses anxiety-like behavior based on the animal’s preference for open versus closed arms. The study utilized young male Sprague-Dawley rats, a well-established rodent model known for its …

The Architecture Of Exclusion: Disability, Race, And The History Of New York City’S 600 Schools, Francine Almash

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the largely erased history of New York City’s 600 schools—segregated public schools created to house students labeled as emotionally disturbed or socially maladjusted. These institutions, operating throughout the mid-20th century, disproportionately served Black and Puerto Rican youth, many of whom were placed in these schools under vague behavioral criteria and with little to no pathway for return to general education settings.

Combining archival research, longitudinal policy analysis, historical media review, and critical race and disability studies frameworks—including DisCrit (Disability Critical Race Theory)—this project situates the 600 schools at the intersection of institutional racism and ableism. It argues …

Double Exposure: Motherhood And Filmmaking, Eddy Berzak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project explores the intersection of motherhood and filmmaking through a reflexive documentary that examines how women directors have historically navigated the tensions between creative careers and raising children. Drawing on feminist film theory and autoethnographic methods, the fourteen-minute video essay analyzes three pioneering autobiographical documentaries from the 1970s—Joyce at 34 (1973), Nana, Mom and Me (1974), and Women Are Naturally Creative: Agnès Varda (1977)—alongside original footage documenting my own experience as a mother with deferred filmmaking aspirations. The project employs reflexive documentary techniques to weave together film analysis and personal narrative, investigating the central question: why didn't I …

Inhibition Of Return And Attentional Blink: Aspects Of A Singular Attentional Process?, Kathleen Rowe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Inhibition of Return (IOR) and Attentional Blink (AB) are two distinctly defined phenomena that display some intriguingly similar properties. They both describe suppression effects following a visual stimulus that has captured attention, both may be preceded by an enhancement, and both share partially overlapping effect time windows which can be manipulated by task difficulty. The current study attempted to measure the two phenomena simultaneously to test our hypothesis that behavioral indices of AB and IOR will display significant spatial and temporal overlap, suggesting the two phenomena may reflect, at least in part, different aspects of a singular attentional process. To …

Socioeconomic Stasis And Racial Immobility In The United States: How Does American Political Polarization Contribute To African American Poverty?, Carmel Agnant

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

African Americans in the United States presently exist in a poverty-stasis, a perpetual social and economic underclass positioning despite a constantly evolving American economy, society, and bodies of legislations due to political polarization. This follows a lengthy history of racial immobility (preventing a racial group from economic mobility) and stagnation since America’s era of sectional polarization over slavery. African Americans lack access to build wealth and have always struggled with societal exclusion. Legislation created and enacted that would support them politically, legally, socially, and/or economically are consistently met with legislative gridlock or countervailing measures to reverse and nullify advancements in …

Prerogative In Common: On The Emancipatory Potential Of Radical Mutuality Amid Sovereign Decisionism, Matthew Builes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In times of crisis, liberal democracies resort to authoritarian measures that undermine core democratic values. Dominant thought in the study of emergency-era law and politics appeal to a dichotomy of normal and exceptional times, to critique or justify the turn to sovereign decisionism. While this strategy seems clear-cut, the persistence of exceptional spaces and the crises that supposedly generate them challenge existing frameworks by blurring the line between norm and exception. This project explores the prospect of radical mutual aid, as a transformative response to the enduring crisis of modernity.

Mechanisms Of Sleep Regulation In Drosophila Melanogaster, Anfal A. Abuhilal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sleep is a fundamental biological need, and sufficient sleep is required for physical and mental well-being. Sleep is regulated by two biological mechanisms: sleep-wake homeostasis and circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythms are near 24-h rhythms in behavior and physiology that are generated by endogenous mechanisms. In mammals, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) is the central circadian pacemaker, which is known to receive a significant amount of serotonergic input that likely modulates sleep rhythms. In addition to circadian modulation, sleep is subject to homeostatic regulation. Several neuromodulators have been proposed as mediators of sleep homeostasis. Serotonin has been implicated in sleep drive and …

Unveiling The Precision Of Physiological Signals In Prediction Error During Fear Learning: Insights From Associative Strength And Generalized Uncertainty, Haja H. Jallo-Jamboria

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Prediction error (PE) is the discrepancy between expected and actual outcomes. It is a central mechanism in associative learning particularly within fear-conditioning paradigms. Identifying physiological markers of PE in aversive contexts has important implications for refining learning models and enhancing clinical interventions for anxiety-related disorders. This study examined skin conductance response (SCR) as a potential physiological index of PE by analyzing both anticipatory and omission-related responses across multiple learning phases. Participants completed a Pavlovian fear-conditioning paradigm in which two conditioned stimuli (CS+) signaled threat at different reinforcement probabilities: CS+100 (certain threat) and CS+50 (uncertain threat), alongside a non-reinforced safety cue …

Behavioral Biomarkers Of Vulnerability In The Aba Model, Nora Ozer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe psychiatric disorder with the highest mortality rate among mental health conditions, yet effective biological treatments remain limited. The activity-based anorexia (ABA) paradigm, which combines food restriction with wheel access to model the hyperactivity and self-starvation cycle characteristic of AN, shows considerable individual variability in vulnerability. Understanding what predisposes certain individuals to develop the full ABA phenotype while others remain resilient could inform early intervention strategies for human AN. This study employed continuous behavioral monitoring technology to identify early predictors of vulnerability to activity-based anorexia in mice, with the goal of discovering behavioral biomarkers that …

The Role Of Parent Psychiatric Symptoms In The Intergenerational Continuity Of Child Neglect: A Prospective Examination, Cody D. Stitzel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Parental history of childhood neglect is a risk factor for offspring neglect. When a parent and their offspring both experience neglect in childhood, the phenomenon is referred to as the intergenerational continuity of child neglect. Understanding how child neglect is continued from one generation to the next is essential for creating effective interventions and prevention strategies that may help break the cycle. Since links between childhood neglect and heightened risk for various psychiatric symptoms have consistently been identified in research, as well as links between various psychiatric symptoms and heightened risk for child neglect, it may be that parents’ psychiatric …

Liberated Learning Spaces: A Visual Playlist, Tarilyn R. Little

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Liberation can be defined as “the act of setting free” or “being free from limits on thoughts and behavior.” Both an action and a state of being, liberation has long been centered as a key function of education, particularly for those who live in historically and systemically marginalized identities. Despite the long-standing existence of liberation-focused pedagogies and activism aimed at transforming schools and students’ lived experiences, educational institutions in the United States have struggled to live out these ideals, often sustaining and replicating systems and practices of oppression. Drawing on historical and contemporary conversations in education and psychology, Liberated Learning …

Improving The Assessment Of Functional Ability In Older Adults, Aneela Rahman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Deficits in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) are a hallmark of dementia, and the unprecedented aging of the population strongly motivates early identification of older adults at-risk for functional decline. In 2015, the White House Conference on Aging emphasized the need to improve detection of diminished capacity across important areas of functioning. To date, there is very limited research on early IADL changes in cognitively unimpaired (CU) individuals and those with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), who may be in early preclinical dementia stages. Additionally, little is known about how changes in functional brain networks …