Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Effect Of Social Context & Group Decision Making Formats On An Evaluative Task, Joyce Bowers

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A review of the literature on decision making indicated a lack of research attention given to the effects of the dynamics of the social context surrounding participation on decision outcomes. The present study examined the relationship between social context and group decision making formats, and its implications for the effective implementation of group participation in decision making The effectiveness of three decision -making formats, the nominal technique, the interacting technique, and the consensus technique, were compared under conditions of cooperation and competition on the three decision effectiveness dimensions of quality, acceptance, and synergy.

Two-hundred and forty-eight undergraduate students, working in …

Aging And The Restructuring Of Precued Movements, Paul Amrhein, George Stelmach, Noreen Goggin

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

A precue paradigm was used to examine the time it takes to restructure a planned motor response. Two groups of subjects, a young group, and an elderly group, performed an aiming task in which 75% of the trials involved no change of movement parameters. On remaining trials, subjects had to change one or more of the movement parameters. Elderly subjects had slower reaction times (RTs), movement times, and made more errors in both conditions. Elderly subjects had proportionally longer RTs overall, independent of restructuring a movement plan. Preparation of arm and direction also exhibited a proportional increase in RT. However, …

Misattribution Of Interpersonal Attraction: A Case Of Mistaken Chemistry Or Cognition, William John Bowman Ii

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Prior research endorsed two theories of misattribution of interpersonal attraction. Both the two-component theory and the excitation transfer theory demonstrate misattribution and, in combination, enhance the probability of misattribution. However, which theory provides the primary source of misattribution has not been distinguished. The present study asked 60 undergraduate males to rate their interpersonal attraction toward a female in a video recording engaging in self disclosure. A manipulation of different levels of environmental saliency and physiological arousal was used to determine which condition or combination of conditions is most likely to elicit misattribution of interpersonal attraction. An analysis of variance followed …

Age Differences In Bimanual Coordination, Paul Amrhein, George Stelmach, Noreen Goggin

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

A bimanual coordination experiment was conducted in which two groups of 10 male and female participants, elderly (67 to 75 years of age) and young (21 to 25 years of age), produced unimanual, bimanual symmetrical (equal extent amplitude), and bimanual asymmetrical (unequal extent amplitude) movements. In addition to an overall increase in performance latency, the elderly group exhibited a linear increase in response initiation (RT) with increases in task complexity similar to that of the young group. However, the elderly participants showed a proportional increase over the young participants in response execution latency (MT). Further, the elderly group had a …

0482: Dr. Walter Freeman's Papers From Huntington State Hospital, 1897-1984, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

Please note: this collection does not contain individual patient hospital records or records about individuals who stayed here. The items in this collection come from a specific doctor who worked here and his research.

This collection consists of historical materials from the Huntington State Hospital during the period 1897 through 1984. The collection includes correspondence of hospital personnel and patients, administrative records, newspaper clippings, and a large number of photographs. Significant to the collection are files relating to transorbital lobotomies performed by Dr. Walter Freeman in the early 1950's as part of a larger lobotomy project in West Virginia. The …