Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Effect Of Speaking Rate On Vowel Variability Based On The Uncontrolled Manifold Approach And Flow-Based Invertible Neural Network Modeling, Jaekoo Kang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Variability is intrinsic to human speech production. One approach to understand variability in speech is to decompose it into task-irrelevant (“good”) and task-relevant (“bad”) parts with respect to speech tasks. Based on the uncontrolled manifold (UCM) approach, this dissertation investigates how vowel token-to-token variability in articulation and acoustics can be decomposed into “good” and “bad” parts and how speaking rate changes the pattern of these two from the Haskins IEEE rate comparison database. Furthermore, it is examined whether the “good” part of variability, or flexibility, can be modeled directly from speech data using the flow-based invertible neural networks framework. The …

Food-As-Medicine: An Everyday Strategy Of Health, Rachel Rebecca Bogan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Using food-as-medicine, a valuable strategy of health, as its focus, this dissertation examines why and how New Yorkers use food to negotiate their health. I argue that while using food medicinally is a common health practice, food-as-medicine operates unequally among different groups of New Yorkers. I attribute this inequity, in part, to how those in power, including public health experts, biomedical doctors, and the food industry, operationalize food-as-medicine as a health remedy and to a neoliberal, healthist context that ties people’s morally “correct” uses of food-as-medicine to their abilities to access “good” citizenship and optimal health.

I chose to write …

Three Essays On Exchange Rate Models And Their Applications, Azza A. Mansour

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chapter 1: This chapter attempts to identify the determinant of exchange rate pass-through into producer and destination prices using highly disaggregated firm-level data of importers and exporters of the Egyptian economy from 2009 to 2013. The main findings assert the hypothesis of complete exchange rate pass-through into destination prices at the lowest level of significance for the average exporting firm that is also importing. Furthermore, the firm with the highest import intensity has a lower percentage of pass-through into destination prices, indicating that the marginal cost channel plays a more significant role in determining the speed of the exchange rate …

Connect Or Protect: The Impact Of Ghosting On Potential Partner Perception And Pursuit, Maureen Coyle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As an increasing number of individuals seek meaningful connections in online dating, it is important to understand how online dating users’ perceptions and behaviors vary because of contact being terminated with them without warning (i.e., being ghosted) and their regulatory focus. Research on how being ghosted affects users’ expectations and pursuit of potential partners is limited, despite ghosting being a pervasive online dating experience. Also, the role of users’ motivational systems of goal pursuit, namely regulatory focus (promotion focus: motive to affiliate/connect with others, prevention focus: motive to avoid rejection/protect the self), on users’ expectations and pursuit of potential partners …

Semantic Network Activation Contributes To The Relationship Between Mood And Inhibition, James S. Maniscalco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Prior research has identified several relationships between mood and executive functions. Very broadly, these findings generally suggest that positive moods are associated with enhanced cognitive performance, particularly in working memory and learning. However, recent studies note that there are some instances in which negative moods may benefit select executive skills, such as those involved in divided attention and inhibition. In sum, these findings indicate that positive moods favor top-down, heuristic, or relational processing, whereas negative trait moods favor bottom-up, detail-oriented processing. However, a clear mechanism by which these effects occur has yet to be identified.

The most compelling theories that …

Improving The Assessment Of Practical Judgment Ability In Older Adults, Crystal G. Quinn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Judgment is an important aspect of executive functioning and critical to many aspects of real-world behavior. As the older adult population and incidence of dementia rises, the assessment of judgment during neuropsychological evaluations is important for informing diagnosis, understanding functional and cognitive competence, and designing effective treatment plans. The Test of Practical Judgment (TOP-J) is an objective verbal measure with two versions (i.e., 9 items and 15 items) that is increasingly used by neuropsychologists; however, initial validation research was conducted with a small, highly-educated non-Hispanic White sample. As a result, normative data and content may not be appropriate for individuals …

A Schema-Theoretic Approach To Hierarchy In Eighteenth-Century Tonality, Simon K. S. Prosser

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Prevalent modern-day theories of tonal hierarchy for eighteenth-century music, especially those influenced by the ideas of Heinrich Schenker, have been called into question by schema theorists such as Robert Gjerdingen and Vasili Byros, who argue from both cognitive and historical evidence that eighteenth-century tonal cognition was sequential or “windowed” rather than hierarchical. This dissertation seeks to recuperate the concept of tonal hierarchy in eighteenth-century music, drawing on research that reconstructs the implicit tonal theories of the partimento and thoroughbass traditions, as well as concepts of hierarchy from schema theory itself, to formulate a historically and cognitively grounded theory of tonal …

The Relationship Of Pathological Narcissism To Empathic Functioning, Antonia M. Mcmaster

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined the relationship of pathological (grandiose and vulnerable) expressions of narcissism to empathic functioning by comparing performance-based and self-report assessments of empathy. Current research suggests that narcissism is related to more impairments in affective than cognitive empathy, and that narcissistic individuals over-report their empathic capabilities overall on self-report measures because empathy is a socially-desirable trait, and they may wish to appear more empathic in order to manage the positive impression of others. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted in an undergraduate college sample of eighty-nine participants using a cross-sectional study design. It was hypothesized that self-reported pathological (grandiose and …

Does Exposure To Interviewer Feedback Bias Observer Perceptions Of The Suspect? A Test Of Two Pathways To A Feedback Effect, Aria Amrom

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Confronting suspects with feedback, such as “We know you are lying, you need to tell us the truth,” during an interrogation is a common tactic used by police. Can this feedback influence the perceptions of factfinders who later observe video recordings of these sessions? Amrom et al. (2020) proposed two pathways through which feedback might affect observers: a direct feedback pathway by which observers infer the suspect’s credibility from the interviewer’s feedback, and an indirect misattribution pathway by which observers infer credibility from the suspect’s feedback-induced change in demeanor. Given the increasing frequency with which interrogations are video recorded for …

Pilot Study Of The Effects Of Mobile Based Resonant Frequency Breathing On Cognitive Performance In Healthy Young Adults With Elevated Stress, Daniel Saldana

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Objective: Prior research has shown a bidirectional relationship between breathing, emotions, behavior, and cognitive functions thought to be mediated by the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Studies have shown that deep or diaphragmatic breathing interventions are associated with improved affect and decreased stress levels, but little attention has been paid to the effects of breathing training on cognition. The few studies that have looked at this have shown improved attention, memory, and executive functioning as a result of breathing interventions. While suggestive of positive benefits, these studies used control groups that are either inactive or inappropriate for determining their respective mechanisms …

The Victims’ Voices: A Routine Activity Approach To Jail And Prison Victimization, Victor St. John

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The study explores the occurrence of victimization while incarcerated in American jails and prisons. Consistent with the Routine Activity Approach – which explains that victimization occurs due to the convergence of a suitable target and a motivated offender in time and space, and the absence of a capable guardian, handler, and place manager –, this study investigates the applicability of the approach within the correctional setting, namely the influence of place management, access to informal guardians, and the victims’ perception of correctional officers’ capability on preventing victimization (the formal guardian). A mixed methods design was employed, analyzing 87 semi-structured interviews …

The Effect Of Psilocybin On Personality, Ravital Labua

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As classic psychedelics are increasingly legalized and reintroduced into the psychotherapeutic frame, a deeper understanding of their effect on personality and overall wellbeing - as well as their clinical contraindications and potential pitfalls - will prove essential. As a result, this study represents a preliminary investigation into the effect of psilocybin exposure on a range of personality constructs.

Methods: Data was collected through a collaboration with The Psychedelic Society, an organization that legally administers psilocybin truffles in the Netherlands to self-selecting retreat attendees who have been screened for mental health disorders in accordance with Johnson et al.’s (2008) widely accepted …

Treatment, Diagnostic, Demographic, And Historical Factors Affecting Mental Health Diversion Outcomes, Amanda L. Reed

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The deinstitutionalization movement, which began in the 1950s and culminated in the closure of most psychological institutions by the 1980s, promised to usher in a new era of community mental health (Torrey et al., 2010). While the movement, which began largely due to advances in psychological treatment and the exposure of widespread abuses in asylums, was well-intentioned, it ultimately created new problems for people experiencing mental illness. Many of the programs designed to handle the influx of newly-released patients were never fully funded or well-received (Human Rights Watch, 2003). The criminal justice landscape also changed dramatically around the same time, …

Afterlives Of Discovery: Speculative Geographies In The Colombian Political Landscape, Heidi A. Rhodes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation considers how the temporal remains of the Age of Discovery and its doctrine persist in a racial-geographical ranking of human and non-human, terrestrial and planetary life and worth. Across this work, I interpret a series of historical moments and their objects of speculative geographic cultural production: a state mapping program, a painting, a biomedical project, a de-monumenting protest action. As repositories of codified belief and repertoires of Discovery’s political and affective modes of racialized domination, I read these materials from the Colombian archives of coloniality and liberalism to illuminate their implications for Colombia’s national becoming as a liberal …

Cross-Linguistic Morphosyntactic Influence In Bilingual Speakers Of Jamaican Creole And Jamaican English, Taryn R. Malcolm

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Bilingualism in Jamaica is of considerable consequence, as most individuals are early bilinguals, speaking both a variety of Jamaican Creole (JC) from birth and having standardized English (sE) as the language of instruction in education. Immigrants from Jamaica to the United States are an ideal population to examine how cross-linguistic influence (CLI) impacts morphosyntax as JC and sE differ in morphosyntactic constructions, including verb tense- marking, subject-verb agreement, and copula use. While much of the work in the field of CLI has examined spoken language pairs with varying degrees of similarity (or difference) between the languages, examining CLI in a …

From Rulay To Rules: Perceptions Of Prison Life And Reforms In The Dominican Republic’S Traditional And New Prisons, Jennifer Peirce

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project explores the implementation of reforms to the prison system in the Dominican Republic, with an emphasis on how incarcerated people perceive their conditions and daily life in confinement. In 2003, the Dominican Republic established a New Prison Management Model, focused on international human rights standards and rehabilitation. This model now manages over half of the prison facilities and a third of the incarcerated population, while the previous, “traditional” model continues to operate in tandem. The “new” and reformed facilities (Centers for Correction and Rehabilitation) feature new buildings, programs, and correctional officer staff with multi-disciplinary training. In contrast, the …

Motivation Of Networking Behavior: A Study Of Novel Interventions, Jeremy D. Rothstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Networking is a critical yet potentially underutilized career self-management strategy. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the extent to which novel reading and writing exercises could foster networking motivation and network use. The first set, based on Social-Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), was designed to increase participants’ confidence about their ability to engage in effective networking, and help them believe that networking is a valuable activity. The second set, based on Goal-Setting Theory (GST), was designed to help participants practice setting effective career development objectives and networking goals linked to those objectives. The Networking Information Control (NIC) condition was …

Covid, Immigrant Nonprofits, And Online Services: A Case Study Of An Esol Program In Queens, Sabrina Lara

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The coronavirus pandemic has presented challenges to both the public and private spheres of life. For public facing staff in nonprofit organizations, there has been a need to adapt service delivery from in-person to online services. This transition has presented benefits and challenges for participants, especially immigrants who regularly depend on nonprofits for different service needs, as well as nonprofit staff. This case study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement, an immigrant-serving nonprofit organization in Queens, New York, and it analyzes how they addressed the transition to fully online service delivery. This organization …

How Frustration Impacts The Relationship Between Potential For Child Physical Abuse Perpetration And Emotion Processing, Amanda L. Zwilling

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research conducted over the past 20 years has substantiated the serious, long-lasting impacts of child physical abuse (CPA) has on individuals, families, and society. Research has also suggested several appreciable risk factors for perpetration of CPA. Intergenerational transmission of abuse, described as the personal experience of abuse or neglect during childhood, is prominent in the literature as a predictor of subsequent perpetration of CPA. However, the majority of individuals who experience abuse in childhood do not subsequently engage in perpetration of child abuse as adults. As such, the literature has sought to investigate risk factors that mediate the relationship between …

Bodies On The Line: The Politics Of Regulating Pornography In Los Angeles, Christopher J. Baum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the regulation of sexually explicit media in the United States – specifically in Los Angeles – and the site used to understand it is the modern pornography industry at its points of production. I argue that since the industry's formation in the early- 1970s, regulatory efforts have focused on controlling porn worker’s bodies as a way of enacting broader social transformations and reshaping the domains of erotic life. Drawing from eighteen months of ethnographic research, I explore several interlocking forms of regulation. I begin by examining the formation of pornographic production cultures during what I call the …

Orban's Hungary: Lack Of Freedoms Becoming The Motivation For Hungarian Emigration, Fanni Sampson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the past 10 years Hungary has gone through some major systematic changes since the Orban administration took office. The implementations of the Orban government serve the benefits and power of his party and aim to limit the freedom of Hungarian citizens. Orban, throughout these changes, emphasizes the importance of preserving the Hungarian national identity, which he defines as far-right conservative christian values and takes control over everything that does not fit under this definition. This thesis argues that the Hungarian government is becoming increasingly dictatorial under the Orban administration which not only challenges the life of Hungarian citizens but …

Por Ellas: A Latina’S Autoethnography On Emotions, Achievement And Agentic Learning, Ivonne Barreras

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the United States, students of Spanish-speaking descent classified as Hispanic, Latino, or Latinx attending public school districts continue to demonstrate alarmingly high academic underachievement and dropout rates. Standards-based learning environments and related assessments tend to marginalize people whose lived realities already make the prospect of achievement daunting. In other words, people living amid high-risk factors, including low educational and occupational aspirations, health, or family-related absenteeism, counterculture or early pregnancy, are often among those whose decision to drop out is most often influenced by social and academic experiences (Rumberger, 2011). Research on neuroplasticity and mindfulness explains the influence emotions have …

From An Art To A Science: Features And Methodology In Computational Authorship Identification, Jonathan I. Manczur

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nearly thirty years ago, the United States Supreme Court revaluated the criteria for accepting forensic science and expert testimony, challenging Forensic Linguistics to assert itself as a reputable science. Much work has been produced in the interim to that end, but much still needs to be accomplished to satisfy the judicial standards. Computational linguistics has the potential to provide that necessary analytical framework. This paper’s intent is two-fold. First, there are two competing theories on the proper features necessary to identify an unknown author. Four features were drawn from the syntactic computational linguistics tradition and four from computational stylometry to …

The Lopez Effect Remixed: The Significance Of Mattering Through A Hip-Hop Lens In Education And Beyond, Kashema Hutchinson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this dissertation is to examine the theoretical frameworks of mattering (Rosenberg & McCullough, 1981; Schlossberg, 1989; Love, 2018) in traditional and non-traditional spaces through a Hip-hop lens. When mattering is applied to marginalized groups, it centers them to a certain extent. In my dissertation, I examine how Dr. Nadia Lopez, the former principal of junior high school, Mott Hall Bridges Academy (MHBA), employed mattering in her holistic approach to education. Her dedication to her students, faculty and staff went viral on the popular blog Humans of New York in January 2015. Lopez’s commitment is to “open a …

Phonetic Contrast In New York Hasidic Yiddish Vowels: Language Contact, Variation, And Change, Chaya R. Nove

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study analyzes the acoustic correlates of the length contrast in New York Hasidic Yiddish (HY) peripheral vowels /i/, /u/, and /a/, and compares them across four generations of native speakers for evidence of change over time. HY vowel tokens are also compared to English vowels produced by the New York-born speakers to investigate the influence of language contact on observed changes. Additionally, the degree to which individual speakers orient towards or away from the Hasidic community is quantified via an ethnographically informed survey to examine its correlation with /u/-fronting, a sound change that is widespread in the non-Hasidic English-speaking …

Put Yourself First (In A Sexy Way): Postfeminist Beauty Messaging And Resistant Media Texts, Margarita Artoglou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The makeover montage trope is one of the most recognizable in media content aimed at young women, sending the message that social status and acceptance are only a new outfit and face of makeup away. While this trope and its message have been heavily critiqued by scholars, the message that beauty—and all its social benefits—can be achieved through consumerism has not disappeared, though the means by which this message is conveyed has changed. As a result of companies co-opting feminist rhetoric, conforming to standards of beauty has been recast as a “choice” one makes for herself, often wrapped in the …

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Mexican Return Migration Across The Life Course, Mara G. Sheftel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Foreign-born individuals make up a growing share of older adults in the US. Older immigrants offer an important vantage point from which to investigate integration because outcomes at older ages can be considered “final” measures providing empirical evidence for theoretical understandings of the forces impacting immigrant trajectories. However, considering the non-negligible portion of immigrants that ultimately return to their country of origin it is impossible to get the full range of immigrant outcomes without considering returnees. Further, patterns of return may differ across the life course with distinct economic, social, and health considerations at older ages. However, the impact of …

Divergent Expectations And Dynamic Price Discovery, Shankar Narayanan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Purpose: To provide empirical evidence supporting the claim that divergent expectations underlie price formation during the U.S. equity market opening hours. We focus on earnings announcements to support this claim. This dissertation argues that the clarity of earnings announcements and a firm’s balance sheets is inversely associated with the quality of price discovery during the opening hours after the earnings announcements, as ambiguities in information underlie divergence in expectation. We look at short-term volatility during the opening half-hours of U.S. equity markets after the earnings announcements to assess the quality of price discovery. We also consider changes in short-term …

From The Voices Of Five African American Teenage Girls: Demystifying The Role Of Stress In School, Selena M. Williams-Yii

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study explored how African American Teenage Girls framed and navigated their stressful experiences in educational contexts. Drawing from one-on-one interviews and focus groups, this study aimed to raise awareness about the ways African American Teenage Girls defined, interpreted, and internalized the tensions of stress in a school setting. This exploratory qualitative study was grounded in the conceptual frameworks of Black Feminist Theory (BFT), and Critical Race Theory (CRT). These theories were used to explore how systemic oppression may cause stress. By sharing their collective and individual stories, this study revealed my participants grappled with sources of stress, such as …

The Federalist Papers' Account Of Human Nature, Jeffrey P. Smith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper is an analysis of the account of human nature found in The Federalist Papers. This interpretation assumes The Federalist is a work of political rhetoric and advocacy, but also one of genuine significance as political science and philosophy. As a book, The Federalist is a coherent whole, which offers a coherent account of human nature, despite the collective nature of its authorship, the time pressures of its publication, and the piecemeal nature of its workmanship. This understanding of human nature is the thread which runs through all its analysis and numbers. Its arguments asserting the inadequacies of …