Cognitive Science Commons^™

What Will Happen If Science Will Develop A Theory Of Consciousness? Negative Ramifications., Sam S.. Rakover

Journal of Conscious Evolution

For a long time, philosophers and scientists have attempted without success to develop a mind-body theory, a consciousness theory (T_c) to explain the exact relation between the mind and the body, a solution which is based on an assumed connection between consciousness and the activity of the neurophysiological processes in the brain. An important concern of the present paper, then, is to address the question of why, despite the great research effort on the subject, no successful T_c has ever been developed. In response, McGinn (1989) proposes that the human being’s cognitive system is not equipped to …

A Quieter Ocean: Experimentally Derived Differences In Attentive Responses Of Tursiops Truncatus To Anthropogenic Noise Playbacks Before And During The Covid-19-Related Anthropause, Paige E. Stevens, Veda Allen, Jason N. Bruck

Faculty Publications

The effects of anthropogenic noise continue to threaten marine fauna, yet the impacts of human-produced sound on the broad aspects of cognition in marine mammals remain relatively understudied. The shutdown of non-essential activities due to the COVID-19-related anthropause created an opportunity to determine if reducing levels of oceanic anthropogenic noise on cetaceans affected processes of sensitization and habituation for common human-made sounds in an experimental setting. Dolphins at Dolphin Quest Bermuda were presented with three noises related to human activities (cruise ship, personal watercraft, and Navy low-frequency active sonar) both in 2018 and again during the anthropause in 2021 via …

The Influence Of Native Language And Sentence Form On Memory Of Motion Events, Stephanie L. Lopez

LSU Master's Theses

This study utilized four experiments to investigate the extent to which native language influences memory in accordance with linguistic relativity. In Experiment 1, monolingual English speakers and Spanish/English bilinguals were divided into a verbal encoding condition and a verbal suppression encoding condition and watched motion events of low or high physical salience. Participants engaged in a recognition memory task followed by an event memory similarity judgment task. In Experiment 2, native monolingual English speakers were divided into an English-like (or manner-on-verb) description group, a Spanish-like (or path-on-verb) description group, mimicking the language groups of Experiment 1 respectively, and a verbal …

The Effects Of Family Size And Birth Order On Students' Social Emotional And Cognitive Development, Mary Watson

Honors Projects

This project sought to analyze and understand the differences in student’s cognitive and social emotional development based on their number of siblings (also referred to as family size) and birth order. To accomplish this, a 130-question survey was created and emailed to approximately 125 teachers. 27 survey responses were received, which is a response rate of approximately 21.6%. The response data was categorized by only child, oldest child, youngest child, child with one or two siblings, child with three or four siblings, and child with five or more siblings. Though the responses were varied, the data showed that oldest children …

An Exploration Of Manipulating Serotonin To Foster A Successful Life, Grace Rose Paskalides

Senior Theses

This thesis is broken into three sections: methods of naturally increasing serotonin levels, increased serotonin levels impacts on the body and mind and how those physical and mental impacts translate into a fulfilled life. This thesis presents health effects and measures a fulfilled life in terms of: relationship success, academic and professional achievement, and societal impact. The goal is to explore and expand upon existing scientific inferences of the complex neurotransmitter serotonin. It is not a treatment plan. It investigates benefits of imposing serotonin-increasing behavior into one’s life and speculates tangible measures of success that would likely be consequences of …

Perspectives On Psychosis From Dharmashala’S Tibetan Community In Exile, Teddy Daniel

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

What is psychosis? The term itself is relatively recent. Yet clinicians and religious figures have tried to explain ‘psychosis’ from pathological and nonpathological perspectives for hundreds of years. From an allopathic, medical standpoint, psychotic disorders are devastating diseases. Up to 3% of the world’s population struggle with hallucinations, delusions, and cognitive impairments that make it difficult or impossible to function in society. Tibetan Buddhism does not have an exact analogue to the clinical term ‘psychotic disorders’. Nevertheless, Tibetan medicine understands some cases of psychosis as pathological. For instance, the Tibetan word smyo nad (སྡོ་ནད་) roughly translates to madness. Yet in …

Sensing Fear: Fast And Precise Threat Evaluation In Human Sensory Cortex, Wen Li, Andreas Keil

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Animal models of threat processing have evolved beyond the amygdala to incorporate a distributed neural network. In human research, evidence has intensified in recent years to challenge the canonical threat circuitry centered on the amygdala, urging revision of threat conceptualization. A strong surge of research into threat processing in the sensory cortex in the past decade has generated particularly useful insights to inform the reconceptualization. Here, synthesizing findings from both animal and human research, we highlight sensitive, specific, and adaptable threat representations in the sensory cortex, arising from experience-based sculpting of sensory coding networks. We thus propose that the human …

Beyond Machine Learning: An Fmri Domain Adaptation Model For Multi-Study Integration, Lauryn Michelle Burleigh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Traditional machine learning analyses are challenging with functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) data, not only because of the amount of data that needs to be
collected, adding a particular challenge for human fMRI research, but also due to the change in
hypothesis being addressed with various analytical techniques. Domain adaptation is a type of
transfer learning, a step beyond machine learning which allows for multiple related, but not
identical, data to contribute to a model, can be beneficial to overcome the limitation of data
needed but may address different hypothesis questions than anticipated given the analysis
computation. This dissertation assesses …

Factors Affecting Consumers’ Purchase Intentions Towards Recycled Products, Sherine Esmat

Theses and Dissertations

The work executed addresses the status of recycling industry in Egypt and its relation to the current sustainability trends as well as climate change issues. It also identifies the main concerns of consumers when purchasing recycled products. Consequently, identifies the key pillars that need to be applied or communicated with the target consumers to enhance the concept of selling recycled products and increase its market share. Since this industry is significantly broad, the focus of the study was only on recycled PET plastic bottles (rPET), this is to ensure attaining accurate and reliable results.

An interview and a site visit …

Measurement And Scale Development Skills For Public Health Doctoral Scholars, Manoj Sharma

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Web-based synchronous teaching is gaining popularity all over the world. In web-based synchronous teaching, both pedagogical robustness and the building of content expertise are mandatory. I taught a new doctoral course, HED 763 Measurement and Scale Development in Social and Behavioral Health in the Spring of 2022. The specific teaching techniques that I used were (a) enhanced pedagogical features that included delivery as web-based synchronous, organizing the course in Canvas and making it available from day 1, recording all lectures beforehand in Panopto, utilizing case studies, employing WebEx and its breakout sessions feature, guest lectures, and having weekly skill-building activities …

The Case Of The Disappearing Owner: Do Dogs Show Behavioral Evidence Of Violation Of Expectation?, Rita Kanagat

Theses and Dissertations

The What the Fluff challenge became a series of viral YouTube videos that started in 2018. In the videos, a person stood behind a blanket in a doorway in front of their dog and lifted and lowered the blanket revealing and obscuring themselves, and finally disappearing with a final blanket drop. The dogs’ reactions were varied but were suggestive of a violation of expectation response. We conducted a community science study that employed methodologies consistent with the What the Fluff Challenge paradigm that were conducted in the owners’ homes with their dogs. Each owner was required to run a control …

Gender Bias In Story Recounting, Cecilia Garcia, Zali White, Keeley Trainer, Madison Oliver

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Gendered language permeates sections of our lives in ways that we may not realize. Previous research indicates a relationship between biases and gendered language; however, it has primarily been conducted with children as the participants rather than adults (Seitz, et al., 2020). This study aimed to investigate this and identify the relationship between gendered language and implicit bias. Passages using gendered language can alter the listener's perspective in terms of the gender identification of an otherwise unlabeled protagonist. Therefore, to explore this phenomenon, participants of this study were given an androgynous story with masculine and feminine phrases. Then, a multiplication …

1-Back Matching And Mismatching By Pigeons, Thomas Zentall

Psychology Research Data

No abstract provided.

The Construct Validity Of The Wechsler Abbreviated Scale Of Intelligence, Second Edition (Wasi-Ii) And The Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales, Second Edition (Rias-2), Mckenzie K. Sopoci

Masters Theses

The Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, Second Edition (WASI-II; Wechsler, 2011) and the Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales, Second Edition (RIAS-2; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2015) are two intelligence tests created to assess general intelligence, using four subtests reflecting two verbal and two nonverbal (perceptual reasoning) tasks. Both tests overlap to assess individuals between the ages of 6 to 90, and while the WASI-II is specified by the publisher as a screening measure, the RIAS-2 is not. Tests like the WASI-II and RIAS-2 may provide more efficient assessment of general intelligence, which can reduce assessment time and allow professionals to engage in …

Neurobiology Of Ptsd In Adults And Children: The Impact Of Stress-Induced Brain Abnormalities Across The Lifespan, Catherine Clover

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the scholarly community, there is disagreement about the effects of PTSD or chronic stress on the brain of adults and children. Though PTSD or chronic stress are known to negatively affect neurobiological structures, specifically due to prolonged glucocorticoid excess, volumetric discrepancies between traumatized and control groups are not unanimously confirmed. This review sought to address the common understandings in academia of the effects of PTSD on the brains of adults and children. Literature on this topic indicated that, in adults, the hippocampus, cingulate gyrus, and prefrontal cortex bilaterally appeared to decrease in gray matter volume and the corpus callosum …

Sustaining Breaths For Restorative Rest: A Preliminary Evaluation Of Sleep, Mental Health, And Cognitive Function Following Hypoglossal Nerve Stimulation For Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Elliottnell Perez

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep-related breathing disorder that produces repetitive obstruction or collapse of the upper airway. Positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy is the gold standard treatment for OSA. Hypoglossal nerve stimulation (HNS) is considered an alternative treatment for patients who are unable to tolerate PAP therapy. The purpose of the study was to examine sleep, mental health, and cognitive health outcomes before and after HNS to determine its viability as an alternative treatment.

Methods: The study utilized a single-group, pretest-posttest design. Objective and subjective sleep was measured using actigraphy, sleep diary, and questionnaires. Objective and subjective …

Bypass Language En Route To Meaning At Your Peril, Lindsay N. Harris, Charles A. Perfetti, Elizabeth Hirshorn

CISLL Publications

The learning account of the puzzle of ideography cannot be dismissed as readily as Morin maintains, and is compatible with the standardization account. The reading difficulties of deaf and dyslexic individuals, who cannot easily form connections between written letter strings and spoken words, suggest limits to our ability to bypass speech and reliably access meaning directly from graphic symbols.

Infant-Maternal Behaviors During Non-Maternal Infant Handling Interactions In Captive Long- Tailed Macaques (Macaca Fascicularis), Kristy Abney

All Master's Theses

The main caregiver of an infant Long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) is their mother. However, mothers often allow infant-handling interactions with other individuals in their group. While there are many hypotheses to explain the infant-handling phenomenon, there are few systematic investigations of how mothers respond to non-mother infant-handling interactions. At Alpha Genesis Inc., I conducted 33 focal follows for each mother-infant dyad (N = 10) over an eight-week period on captive macaques to determine if infant behaviors during infant-handling interactions resulted in mothers interrupting the interaction; if mothers were more likely to interrupt infant-handling interactions when infants showed signs …

Types Of Questions Teachers Ask To Engage Students In Making Sense Of A Student Contribution, Nishat B. Alam

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In the student-centered classroom, a teacher’s interpretation and response to student mathematical contributions plays an important role to shape and direct students’ opportunities for sense-making. This research used a scenario-based survey questionnaire to examine what types of questions middle and high school mathematics teachers indicate they would ask to engage students in making sense of a high-leverage student mathematical contribution and their reasoning about why particular questions are or are not productive. From the results, it could be concluded that teachers asked more productive questions after seeing a set of possible questions. Their beliefs about the productivity of the questions …

Tools For Collective Thought: Augmenting Collaborative Sensemaking, Jacob Zimmerman

Pomona Senior Theses

As some pioneers of personal computing argue, we have yet to reach the potential that computing offers to enhance our cognition. Some modern scholars of tools for thought give a prerogative to develop transformative tools for thought (Matuschak & Nielsen, 2019), recognizing that the tools we may use enable new thought patterns and thus new cognitive abilities. As cognition is mediated both by our tools and by the minds of others, I evaluate the current state of literature on tools built to support collaborative sensemaking, a domain of collective cognition characterized by various interdependent cognitive processes. To apply and test …

Effects Of Social Context On Salivary Cortisol And Attention In Tufted Capuchins (Cebus [Sapajus] Apella), Andrew Desana

Master’s Theses

Social context alters cognitive performance, but the mechanisms for this remain unclear. One possibility is that stressors associated with social contexts mediate changes in cognitive performance by influencing attention. We conducted two experiments to investigate how social context affects performance on an attention task in capuchin monkeys (Cebus [Sapajus] apella). We additionally validated and measured physiological stress through salivary cortisol. In experiment one, capuchins were exposed to three conditions where they were either isolated or paired with an affiliative or agonistic social partner separated by a barrier. In experiment two, subjects received affiliative and agonistic conditions without barriers to allow …

Explicit Rule Learning: A Cognitive Tutorial Method To Train Users Of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Systems, Anne Linja

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Today’s intelligent software systems, such as Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning systems, are sophisticated, complicated, sometimes complex systems. In order to effectively interact with these systems, novice users need to have a certain level of understanding. An awareness of a system’s underlying principles, rationale, logic, and goals can enhance the synergistic human-machine interaction. It also benefits the user to know when they can trust the systems’ output, and to discern boundary conditions that might change the output. The purpose of this research is to empirically test the viability of a Cognitive Tutorial approach, called Explicit Rule Learning. Several approaches have been used …

The Influence Of Early Childhood Parental Feeding Behaviors On Self-Regulation & Food Decision-Making In Young Adults, Natasha Singareddy

CMC Senior Theses

This study used data from a diverse set of undergraduates from the Claremont Colleges to examine the relationship between cognitive control (impulsivity and response inhibition) and self-regulatory ability as an indicator of sustained early childhood parental feeding behaviors in adulthood. In addition, the current study explored if early childhood parental feeding behaviors predicted food decision-making in adulthood as a result of perceived taste and nutritional value of food items. It was hypothesized that heightened impulsivity and impaired response inhibition as measures of cognitive control would correlate to poorer self-regulation, in turn reflecting a particular mode of early childhood parental feeding …

Identifying The Main Causes For Support Of Crime Control Theater Forms, And Understanding How To Correct The Public’S Perception, Erisjames M. Elliott

CMC Senior Theses

Much research has been completed on the forms of crime control theater (CCT), and the impact that the existence of CCT laws have on society. Research on CCT laws has shown that they are definitively unsuccessful in providing the safety they were created to provide. This thesis will utilize completed research to explain the main psychological phenomena holding people back from decreasing their support for CCT laws. It will also describe proven methods of correcting misinformation in order to change the perceptions of people who support crime control theater laws, and provide suggestions for how research should be continued.

Investigating Collaborative Explainable Ai (Cxai)/Social Forum As An Explainable Ai (Xai) Method In Autonomous Driving (Ad), Tauseef Ibne Mamun

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Explainable AI (XAI) systems primarily focus on algorithms, integrating additional information into AI decisions and classifications to enhance user or developer comprehension of the system's behavior. These systems often incorporate untested concepts of explainability, lacking grounding in the cognitive and educational psychology literature (S. T. Mueller et al., 2021). Consequently, their effectiveness may be limited, as they may address problems that real users don't encounter or provide information that users do not seek.

In contrast, an alternative approach called Collaborative XAI (CXAI), as proposed by S. Mueller et al (2021), emphasizes generating explanations without relying solely on algorithms. CXAI centers …

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words: Factors Influencing Disability Accommodations, Alicia E. Martin

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Because not all disabilities look the same it is difficult to label a person with disabilities just by looking at them. Given that our knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions impact how we interpret our world and our willingness to act, people, including professors, may be biased toward providing accommodations for those with easily recognizable disabilities and biased against those with non-recognizable disabilities, and this may impact the disabled person’s ability to learn. This thesis aims to address whether professors’ disability-related attitudes, perceptions of accommodation reasonableness, and willingness to provide accommodations differ when the disability is recognizable (student is pictured in a …

Birds Of A Feather: Exploring Social Facilitation Effects On Learning And Suboptimal Choice In Pigeons (Columba Livia), Peyton Mueller

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

The social facilitation effect describes a change in the behavior of an individual due to the presence of another organism of the same species (i.e., a conspecific). Many theories exist that attempt to explain why this change in behavior exists across species. A set of four experiments were executed to best explain how pigeons learn in the presence of non-competing conspecifics. The first experiment sought to replicate an interesting effect previously found in cockroaches and rats, such that conspecific presence inhibits performance early in training but facilitates it with increased training. The second experiment placed the novel response acquired in …

Processing Speed – A Potential Candidate Cognitive Endophenotype For Bipolar Disorder, Mirona Letitia Dobri, Taya Prince, Alexandre Paim Diaz, Giovana B Zunta-Soares, Sudhakar Selvaraj, Rodrigo Machado-Vieira, Thomas D Meyer, Marsal Sanches, Jair C Soares

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic multifactorial disorder that presents with cognitive impairment as one of its main features, in patients as well as in their first-degree relatives. However, the profile of cognitive dysfunction in BD patients and their relatives is not yet well defined. Various neurocognitive deficits have been proposed as endophenotypes for BD. In the present study, we explored the susceptibility to neurocognitive deficits in BD patients and their siblings compared to healthy controls.

METHOD: A sample consisting of patients diagnosed with BD (

RESULTS: Compared to healthy controls, BD patients and their unaffected siblings showed deficits …

The Contribution Of Phonological Overlap To The Cognate Effect: An Event-Related Potential Study Of Persian-English Bilinguals, Zahra Fotovatnia

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the contribution of phonological overlap to visual word recognition. More specifically, this study aimed at testing the phonological account of the cognate effect (i.e., faster and more accurate mental processing of cognates than noncognates) in visual word recognition in Persian and English, which are languages with different scripts. The phonological account attributes the cognate effect to the phonological similarity of cognates (form and semantically related words) in addition to the conceptual similarity that cognates and noncognates (semantically related words) have and to the degree of phonological similarity between cognates in two languages. …

Making Scientific Information Usable: Development And Assessment Of A Novel Intervention To Boost Healthy Lifestyle Decision-Making, Brittany Nelson

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Context—Improving diet can reduce the risk of chronic health conditions such as cancer and heart disease. However, people continue to make poor dietary health decisions. A novel intervention based on the science of behavior change and incorporating Human-Centered Design (HCD) methodology is needed to boost informed dietary decision-making.

Objective—This research presents a Behavior Change Wheel (BCW), Human-Centered Design (HCD) approach to develop a novel high-usability video intervention that will increase informed decision-making for whole-grain dietary decisions. The intervention will target college students, improving habits that can carry on throughout later adulthood.

Design—Study 1 consisted of preliminary data …