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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Menstrual Cycle And Visual Information Processing, Michelle Nash Dec 2008

Menstrual Cycle And Visual Information Processing, Michelle Nash

Theses and Dissertations

This project examined the effects menstruation may have on visual attention in women. A recent study examined electroencephalographic (EEG) gender differences using a visual object recognition task. Results indicated certain EEG amplitudes (specifically, P300 and N400) are greater in women than men. This study extended the previous findings to determine if these increased EEG amplitudes vary across menstrual phases. Eighteen female participants participated in a series of 3 EEG recording sessions using the same visual object recognition task from the previous study; 18 male participants completed this task once. Analyses from 15 of the 18 female and 16 of the …


Sensation Seeking And Visual Selective Attention In Adults With Hiv/Aids, David J. Hardy, Steven A. Castellon, Charles H. Hinkin, Andrew J. Levine, Mona N. Lam Nov 2008

Sensation Seeking And Visual Selective Attention In Adults With Hiv/Aids, David J. Hardy, Steven A. Castellon, Charles H. Hinkin, Andrew J. Levine, Mona N. Lam

Psychological Science Faculty Works

The association between sensation seeking and visual selective attention was examined in 31 adults with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Sensation seeking was measured with Zuckerman’s Sensation Seeking Scale Form V (SSS-V). Selective attention was assessed with a perceptual span task, where a target letter-character must be identified in a quickly presented array of nontarget letter-characters. As predicted, sensation seeking was strongly associated (R2 = .229) with perceptual span performance in the array size 12 condition, where selective attention demands were greatest, but not in the easier conditions. The Disinhibition, Boredom Susceptibility, and Experience Seeking subscales of the …


The Effects Of Acute Stress On Human Prefrontal Working Memory Systems, Anthony J. Porcelli, Daniel Cruz, Karen Wenberg, Michael D. Patterson, Bharat B. Biswal, Bart Rypma Oct 2008

The Effects Of Acute Stress On Human Prefrontal Working Memory Systems, Anthony J. Porcelli, Daniel Cruz, Karen Wenberg, Michael D. Patterson, Bharat B. Biswal, Bart Rypma

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

We examined the relationship between acute stress and prefrontal-cortex (PFC) based working memory (WM) systems using behavioral (Experiment 1) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; Experiment 2) paradigms. Subjects performed a delayed-response item-recognition task, with alternating blocks of high and low WM demand trials. During scanning, participants performed this task under three stress conditions: cold stress (induced by cold-water hand-immersion), a room temperature water control (induced by tepid-water hand-immersion), and no-water control (no hand-immersion). Performance was affected by WM demand, but not stress. Cold stress elicited greater salivary cortisol readings in behavioral subjects, and greater PFC signal change in fMRI …


Development And Validation Of The Counterfactual Thinking For Negative Events Scale, Tarika Daftary Kapur, Mark S. Rye, Melissa B. Cahoon, Rahan S. Ali Apr 2008

Development And Validation Of The Counterfactual Thinking For Negative Events Scale, Tarika Daftary Kapur, Mark S. Rye, Melissa B. Cahoon, Rahan S. Ali

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

We examined the psychometric properties of the newly created Counterfactual Thinking for Negative Events Scale (CTNES) in two studies involving university undergraduates. In Study 1 (N = 634), factor analysis revealed four subscales that correspond with various types of counterfactual thinking: Nonreferent Downward, Other-Referent Upward, Self-Referent Upward, and Nonreferent Upward. The subscales were largely orthogonal and had adequate internal consistency and test–retest reliability. The CTNES subscales were positively correlated with a traditional method of assessing counterfactual thinking and were related as expected to contextual aspects of the negative event, negative affect, and cognitive style. In Study 2 (N …


Multicultural Experience Enhances Creativity: The When And How, Angela K. Y. Leung, William W. Maddux, Adam D. Galinsky, Chi-Yue Chiu Apr 2008

Multicultural Experience Enhances Creativity: The When And How, Angela K. Y. Leung, William W. Maddux, Adam D. Galinsky, Chi-Yue Chiu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Many practices aimed at cultivating multicultural competence in educational and organizational settings (e.g., exchange programs, diversity education in college, diversity management at work) assume that multicultural experience fosters creativity. In line with this assumption, the research reported in this article is the first to empirically demonstrate that exposure to multiple cultures in and of itself can enhance creativity. Overall, the authors found that extensiveness of multicultural experiences was positively related to both creative performance (insight learning, remote association, and idea generation) and creativity-supporting cognitive processes (retrieval of unconventional knowledge, recruitment of ideas from unfamiliar cultures for creative idea expansion). Furthermore, …


Employing Strategy In Measures Of Executive Functioning, Amanda A. Yocum Jan 2008

Employing Strategy In Measures Of Executive Functioning, Amanda A. Yocum

ETD Archive

Although various dementia-related executive deficits have been identified, the functional state of the frontal lobe during healthy aging remains unclear (Raz et al., 2005). The proposed study examines the use of strategy in measures of executive functioning in younger and older adults. Specifically, the strategy types of a nonverbal fluency task are shown to differentially correlate with the actual output generated by participants. The strategies employed here are compared between the two age groups, illustrating that older adults use the best strategy significantly less than younger adults, even when controlling for output differences, which may support the frontal lobe hypothesis …


Trait Arousability And Its Impact On Adaptive Multimedia Training, Sae Schatz Jan 2008

Trait Arousability And Its Impact On Adaptive Multimedia Training, Sae Schatz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Today's best intelligent, adaptive, multimedia trainers have shown excellent performance; however, their results still fall far-short of what good human tutors can achieve. The overarching thesis of this paper is that future intelligent, adaptive systems will be improved by taking into account relevant, consistent, and meaningful individual differences. Specifically, responding to individual differences among trainees will (a) form more accurate individual baselines within a training system, and (b) better inform system responses (so that they interpret and respond to observable data more appropriately). One variable to consider is trait arousability, which describes individual differences in sensitivity to stimuli. Individuals' arousability …


Analytic-Holistic Thinking, Information Use, And Sensemaking During Unfolding Events, Mei-Hua Lin Jan 2008

Analytic-Holistic Thinking, Information Use, And Sensemaking During Unfolding Events, Mei-Hua Lin

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

In complex domains such as commerce, military operations, transportation, and humanitarian efforts, practitioners are sometimes overwhelmed by uncertain, contradictory, and dynamic information. They must obtain, organize, interpret, and use this information often under time pressure and high stakes during sensemaking. While sensemaking is a gateway to information management, sensemaking also depends on information management; the gathering and use of information provides the raw material for sensemaking. These processes work together to help people understand complex situations but are vulnerable to cultural as well as individual variation in cognition. This study investigated individual cognitive and personality differences that may affect information …