Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Anxiety And Its Impact On Memory, Blakeney C. Coleman, Ryan M. Yoder

Honors Theses

From influences on our memories of common words to even eyewitness testimonies, anxiety can shape our view of the world (Amir et al., 1996). Our research attempted to show a relationship between anxiety and its effects as an impact on memory as is supported by the Theory of Attentional Control (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992). A video from Simons’ and Chabris’ (1999) study on Inattentional Blindness was used to assess whether anxiety is adaptive or maladaptive to functions of our memory. Our study did not find significance regarding the impact of anxiety on memory. However, the relevance and interest of studies …

The Influence Of Publicized Suicides On Depressive Symptoms, Kallie R. Stephens, Andrew Terranova

Honors Theses

The aim of the current study was to examine how media influences cognitions and emotions. It was hypothesized that those who viewed a media report on suicide would have higher levels of death thought accessibility, while also displaying a more negative mood. Gender differences were also considered. The study consisted of 71 participants, predominantly White (84.5%) with an average age of 19.93 (SD = 5.41). The design of the study was experimental in nature. Participants viewed either a neutral news report or a news report on suicide. After reading, participants completed a word completion task to measure death thought accessibility …

Arousal And Anxiety Level Influences On Golf Putting Performance, Chloe Paulsen, Ryan Yoder

Honors Theses

Arousal levels can help and hinder performance in various sports and many athletes manipulate arousal levels during practice or competitions. Professional golfers typically putt in complete silence but studies have shown that stimulus can help performance. Twelve participants completed general and sport anxiety questionnaires before completing 3 golf putts at a target under 30 seconds with a music stimulus for each group. Music stimulus had an affect on the moderate arousal level groups showing the best performance with the slowest time to complete the putting task. This shows that putting may be performed better with moderate auditory arousal to produce …

Neurosexism: The Extent To Which Sex And Gender Differences In Mental Illness Are Neurologically Explained Versus Socially Constructed, Christie Dionisos

Honors Theses

In the growing age of neuroscience, we are rapidly churning out answers to questions about the mind and mental illness that have always evaded us. While increased neurological understanding is valuable to mental illness, our current understanding of mental illness comes with historical baggage that has negatively shaped society’s beliefs connecting females to illness. Our definitions of mental illness and its association with women came out of a history of stigmatization against women, disease, and Otherness. This has manifested into the pathologization of female experience as mental illness. The onset of new brain science had a similar agenda to make …

Effects Of Perceived Audiences On Discrimination Learning In Pigeons ( Columbia Livia ), Peyton M. Mueller, Matthew Murphy

Honors Theses

The social facilitation effect is a phenomenon frequently discussed in the subfield of social psychology. Some studies have examined the social facilitation or inhibition effects in nonhuman animals, though few have examined the effect of perceived audiences on their cognitive functioning. In order to study this effect, three different video stimuli were presented to one subject while solving a memorization discrimination task. It was hypothesized that the pigeon would learn a task at different rates based on the type of perceived audience presented. No significant results were found due to the fact that the subject was unable to learn the …

Contagious Or Not Contagious: Is That The Question? Evaluating The Effects Of Disease Contagion On Memory For Word Lists, Laura Pazos

Honors Theses

Researchers have suggested that individuals possess a disease-avoidance system designed to detect and remember potential sources of harmful pathogens, a system termed the behavioral immune system. Recently, Fernandes, Pandeirada, Soares, and Nairne (2017) reported an increase in memory for objects associated with individuals that are contaminated with a disease. My thesis extends this finding by examining whether disease-related memory benefits are due to the mere presence of a disease or whether the disease needs to be perceived as contagious and thereby threatening to facilitate memory. Two experiments, one between- and one within-subjects, were designed to test memory performance in the …

Gender Differences In Adhd, Jillian Vogley

Honors Theses

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a learning disability that is very prevalent in today’s society. A closer look at this disability reveals that there are differences with males and females with regards to how the symptoms manifest. Females have a tendency to exhibit inattention whereas males are often hyperactive, which is much more obvious to others around them. This difference in symptoms has led to a drastic difference in terms of how ADHD is diagnosed and causes it to be underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed in females compared to males. The consequences that this delayed diagnosis may have on females can be severe. …

Increasing The Frequency Of Tutors' Reinforcement Of Compliance Behaviors, Sruthi Rameshkumar

Honors Theses

Abstract

Compliance behaviors occurring prior to the delivery of an instruction, such as handing over preferred items, making eye contact, and folding hands in the ready position help prepare students for success in discrete-trial training (DTT) interventions. These behaviors are usually taught in early intervention with a continuous reinforcement schedule, but once they are mastered, they are rarely revisited or maintained. Without intermittent reinforcement of these behaviors, they are likely to decrease in frequency and may lead to the use of restrictive or intrusive methods to gain compliance during DTT sessions. The current study used a multiple-baseline across participants design …

An Analysis Of Performance-Based Perception In Competitive Baseball Players, Grant Schlimgen, Michael Dodd

Honors Theses

Abstract: The correlation between performance hitting a baseball and perceived ball size has been described in previous work (Witt & Proffitt, 2005). The article in question used recreational softball players to demonstrate that greater performance led to a perceived change in softball size, but discussed a desire to replicate their experiment with competitive professionals. Using athletes from a semi-collegiate baseball team during their summer season, we were able to find a correlation that although weaker, continues to propagate the relationship found in previous studies. The finding of a weaker relationship also sheds new insight into why elite athletes may fare …

Bridging Act-R And Project Malmo, Developing Models Of Behavior In Complex Environments, David M. Schwartz

Honors Theses

Cognitive architectures such as ACT-R provide a system for simulating the mind and human behavior. On their own they model decision making of an isolated agent. However, applying a cognitive architecture to a complex environment yields more interesting results about how people make decisions in more realistic scenarios. Furthermore, cognitive architectures enable researchers to study human behavior in dangerous tasks which cannot be tested because they would harm participants. Nonetheless, these architectures aren’t commonly applied to such environments as they don’t come with one. It is left to the researcher to develop a task environment for their model. The difficulty …