Cognitive Science Commons^™

Forward, Amy Hamilton

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

Understanding Russia’S Cyber Policies, Strategies, And Doctrines, Bryan Hancock, Hanh Nguyen, Olga Karpoyan, Ekzhin Ear, Shouhuai Xu

Military Cyber Affairs

This study analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of Russia’s cyber policies, strategies, and doctrines through a systematic set of attributes, leading to key insights: (i) Russia has proactively adapted its cyber policies, strategies, and doctrines to its evolving environment; (ii) Russia actively conducts cognitive warfare, but remains equally vulnerable to it; and (iii) Russia’s cyber posture faces significant challenges, including a limited technological base, shortage of skilled personnel, and restrictive approach to information control, all of which undermine the effectiveness of its strategies. These insights offer valuable implications for US Cyber Command and the Department of Defense.

Characterizing Cyberattacks Against Operational Technology Infrastructures Through The Lens Of Attack Flows, Sherman Kettner, Caleb Chang, Ekzhin Ear, Shouhuai Xu

Military Cyber Affairs

Operational Technology (OT) infrastructures play a critical role in modern society and economy. However, their increasing connectivity with public networks such as the Internet has made them vulnerable to cyberattacks, much like traditional Information Technology (IT) systems. In particular, cyberattacks against OT infrastructures remain relatively underexplored and little understood. In this paper, we aim to deepen our understanding of cyberattacks against OT infrastructures. For this purpose, we propose a methodology, including novel cybersecurity metrics to analyze the attack flows of these attacks in an end-to-end fashion, which allows us to draw useful insights. We demonstrate the utility of the methodology …

A “Teaching As Emergent Learning” Approach To Teaching Deep Creativity, Steven Greenstein, Iain Kerr, Emily Olson

LASER Journal

Creativity is the process by which a change that is new and different emerges. We call it deep when it yields novel forms of both quantitative and qualitative change. If we are to take on the most pressing and persistent challenges to our social, global, and planetary well-being, we need novel approaches of a qualitatively different kind than those that have failed to bring about radical change in the past. In other words, we need deep creativity. The paradox at the heart of ``ideation-first" approaches to creative practice (e.g., brainstorming or ideating) is that if creativity aims to produce outcomes …

The Social Standing Versus The Mind Standing Of Older Adults In Egypt: Cross-Sectional Analysis Of The Relationship Between Social Capital And Cognitive Functions, Shaza H. Shinaishen Dr

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Egypt's population, much like that of other countries, is expected to age considerably over the course of the coming decades. Although biological and socioeconomic predictors of cognitive function have been studied widely, personal level social capital remains unexplored, especially in LMICs.

Purpose: This study primarily investigates the relationship between individual social capital and cognitive functioning among older adults aged 65 years and older in Egypt using the structural and cognitive components of social capital, including group membership, civic engagements, and caregiving roles.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey on 363 older individuals in different geographical and demographic segments of Egypt using …

Trauma In The Middle Ages: The Viking Experience Of Trauma Through Saga, Kagan L. Vogt

University Honors Theses

Trauma is a fundamental part of human experience and the ways in which human beings experience trauma differs drastically depending on the time and culture represented. Research on trauma in the Middle Ages does exist, however, often offers windows into very narrow intersections within the study of historical trauma. Other cultures and particularly oral traditions lack the same attention from scholars in trauma. The specific experience of Vikings as referenced in the oral tradition of sagas offers a unique window into the traumatic experience of Vikings as well as how they responded to trauma. This unique response to trauma is …

Neural Representations Of Valence And Arousal In Kung Fury, Jason A. Davis

Cognitive Science Senior Theses

Emotions are a core component of human experience and behavior, yet after decades of scientific research, it is still difficult to uncover the neural substrates related to emotion. Recent advances in neuroscience have examined how we interpret emotional signals from static images of facial expressions, but less work has sought to understand how the brain constructs our emotional experiences (Chen, 2020). To investigate such idiosyncratic experiences across participants, we employed naturalistic stimuli to model the real-time, reliable changes in activity that correspond to changes in emotional experience. A primary element of emotional experience is core affect, defined as the mental …

Effects Of Consuming Short-Form Videos On Young Adults’ Fine Motor Skills, Dragon Tanaghon Chew, Jerome Gabriel Gay, Hien Than, Zhi Qin Ko

Introduction to Research Methods RSCH 202

The composition of short-form video (SFV) consumption can affect cognitive abilities, including motor skills. This study addresses a potential concern due to the lack of data. By presenting two experimental designs, the study explores the impact of SFV consumption on the motor skills of young adults. The first experiment employs a between-subjects design, where 60 participants are randomly assigned to two groups, with one group exposed to 30 minutes of SFV content. The second experiment adopts a cross-sectional design based on self-reported historical SFV consumption, where motor skill is compared between groups with low (< 3 hours/day) and high (≥3 hours/day) SFV consumption. Typing performance is used as an indicator of motor skill for the first experiment and finger tapping test is used in the second. The results will compare pre- and post-intervention performance. The findings would enhance practical understanding and illustrate the relationship between social media and motor skills.

Key words: Short-form video, motor …

The Effect Of Birthweight And Gestational Age On Cognitive Function In Midlife: The Bogalusa Heart Study, Eunsun Gill, David J Libon, Soo Jung Kang, Ileana De Anda-Duran, Lydia A Bazzano, Wei Chen, Camilo Fernandez-Alonso, Emily W Harville

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

BACKGROUND: Although the relationships between birthweight, gestational age (GA), and cognitive function (CF) before midlife have been demonstrated, the relationships after midlife and potential racial disparities remain inconclusive. This study examined the association between birthweight, GA, and midlife CF stratified by race.

METHOD: 1,032 subjects from the Bogalusa Heart Study (67% Whites, 33% Blacks, mean age 48.1 ± 5.3 years) were studied. Cognition was assessed with tests measuring verbal episodic memory, working memory, attention, graphomotor information processing speed, and global CF. Each test was standardized by sex and age, then averaged. The global CF was computed by averaging all cognitive …

When Avatars Go To School: The Effect Of Virtual Reality On Learning And Error Correction, Lauren Barack

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The pandemic in 2020 led to an increasing dependency on technology particularly in learning environments. National educational assessments in the proceeding years have indicated steep, measurable learning loss. While a fully virtual learning environment is not the norm today, we chose to investigate how virtual reality (VR) environments influence learning in college students.

Our primary research goal was to look at how students learn and remember information gathered in virtual spaces. In particular, we examined whether sensory inputs in the VR environment, including spatial audio and haptic feedback, such as vibrations felt in a handheld controller, would help to better …

The Sound Of Music: Why Do Humans Find Enrichment In Music While Non-Human Primates Do Not?, Sonetta Im Ty

Honors Projects

Music has been observed as an effective enrichment for captive animals across multiple species. However, studies have shown that it is ineffective for promoting welfare in non-human primates (Suborder Haplorhini). These findings were unexpected, given the evolutionary roots shared between humans and non-human primates. This paper addresses several possibilities for this observation, including differences in ear anatomy, brain structure, and music perception between humans and non-human primates.

Investigating The Associations Of Cognitive Health, Health Behaviors, And Personality In Older Community-Dwelling Adults, Yan-Jhu Su

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Cognitive decline poses a significant public health challenge, with profound implications for aging populations. This dissertation investigates the associations between health behaviors, leisure activities, personality traits, and cognitive function in older U.S. adults, using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey (CAMS). This work comprises three studies that explore both cross-sectional and longitudinal perspectives on cognitive aging.

Study 1 examines the complex interactions between personality traits, education, health behaviors, and cognitive function. The study is divided into two parts: Study 1a explores the role of health behaviors—smoking, alcohol use, and physical activity—as …

Field Journal: The Excluded Middle, Carrie E. Kouts

Masters Theses

What does it look like to engage with organisms and landscapes at the periphery of anthropocentric value structures? How does one break the internalized myth that the “built” environment is excluded from the natural world? When does a hyper-mobile and hyper-commodified society confront the exponential crisis of animal death? Within this series of journal entries, field notes, collection observations, weird prose, and sensory musings, one will find questions on the nature of being human and the complex narratives of care we encounter in a world shared with more-than-humans. Each handwritten vignette and photograph from daily life weaves a non-linear and …

Transplant Transplant(Ed) Transplant(Ing), So Jung Yoon

Masters Theses

Boundaries shape our lives and identities. The tangible presence of boundaries becomes a medium for engaging with the world—such as who occupies a space and how, or what tools are deemed valid in a design process. These boundaries aren’t always visible; they’re embedded in systems, habits, and assumptions that shape how we move, create, and are recognized. They extend far beyond fixed geographies and the specific positions we occupy within them.

Transplanting is the process by which things are moved or move across boundaries in hopes of being planted, finding a place to stay. Though it can be a search …

Determinants Of Integration: Migration Difficulty, Mental Health, And Social Connections Among Eritrean Immigrants, Shewit Woldemichael

Master's Theses

This thesis explores how the experience of migration hardship affects integration outcomes of Eritrean migrants in the U.S. and the Netherlands. Using original survey data and the Immigration Policy Lab’s Integration Index (IPL-24), this paper investigated the intersection of economic, psychological, and social interactions that facilitate integration outcomes. This research finds that migration hardship doesn’t just make people’s lives more difficult; it breaks down the social ties and mental well-being that are essential for economic success measured by integration.

Are Cycles Of Neural Activity The Algorithm Of The Brain?, Edwin Omondi Onyango

Computer Science Senior Theses

We propose that precisely timed neural activity cycles can serve as structural primitives for memory and computation in a system that exhibits associative learning like the brain. Inspired by biologically grounded mechanisms such as calcium-dependent plasticity, spike-timing-dependent learning, and phase-sensitive excitability, we construct a spiking neural network model in which repeated temporal coincidences drive the formation of self-sustaining activity loops. These cycles, once formed, persist as dynamic memory traces: not stored as static weights, but as reverberating patterns that replay in time when these loops are restarted. We show that noise alone fails to induce stable structure, but even sparse, …

Causation Analysis Of Crane-Related Accident Reports By Utilizing Chatgpt And Complex Networks, Yifan Wang, Junyu Chen, Bo Xiao, Shane T. Mueller, Jingjing Guo

Michigan Tech Publications

This study integrates ChatGPT and complex network (CN) techniques into an accident analysis framework designed to reduce manual effort in accident causation analysis. The proposed framework supports construction stakeholders in extracting causal factors (CFs) from accident reports and identifying both critical CFs and key causal paths. A multistep research design was adopted to develop and validate this novel framework for analyzing crane-related construction accident reports using ChatGPT and CN techniques. First, ChatGPT was prompted to extract CFs from a database of crane-related accident reports. Second, evaluation metrics and an expert questionnaire survey were developed to assess ChatGPT’s performance in CF …

How We Show Up Matters: Transformative Adult Social Emotional Learning To Build Equity-Centered Schools, Samantha L. Rummage-Massey

Dissertations

Transformative Social Emotional Learning (tSEL) expands traditional SEL by integrating equity and social justice to cultivate student development and as a framework for educator growth and systemic change in education (Jagers et al., 2019). Unlike traditional SEL, which primarily targets students, tSEL emphasizes educators’ role in disrupting inequitable practices, making it a powerful tool for reimagining schools as justice-oriented spaces. This qualitative case study explores how tSEL professional development influences educators’ sense of identity, agency, and belonging, along with their reflections on systemic inequities and application of Critical Pedagogy (Freire, 1970) in personal and professional contexts. Data collection included semi-structured …

A Comparative, Quantitative Analysis Of Birth Outcomes Among Women With Intellectual Or Developmental Disabilities, Jocelyn T. Reddix

MUSC Theses and Dissertations

Women who are pregnant or planning to give birth deserve equitable resources, respect, and assurances to ensure a healthy and safe pregnancy, including women of childbearing age who are diagnosed with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD). These women are more likely to experience negative perinatal, delivery, and postpartum health outcomes (Tarasoff et al., 2020). Healthcare providers, clinicians, and the family and friends of those with IDD must understand the impact and implications of the prenatal and postpartum journey for this group of women. This comparative research examined 2021 birth outcomes of women in the United States with IDD compared to …

Notetaking Reimagined: The Impact Of Combining Text And Visuals For Effective Learning, Sarah J. Mussetter

Art 895 Research Papers

This Mixed-Methods Narrative Case Study examines previous research on the effects of visual/ illustrative notes and their effect on knowledge coding, retention, and retrieval processes. It adds to current research in the form of a case study of a high school advanced photography course in Livingston, MT and the effect that adding visuals to notetaking practices affects student performance and memory throughout the semester. This study also proposes a method of introduction to visual notetaking that can be implemented in classrooms regardless of subject matter.

Reason And All My Senses: Surveying The Post Enlightenment Frame Of Reason Through Contemporary Philosophy, Cognitive Psychology, And Cognitive Linguistics, Joshua T. Lowe Rev. Dr.

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

This dissertation argues that Christian theology and practice are aided and enriched by a more complete understanding of reason by surveying recent studies and views in theology, philosophy, cognitive psychology, and cognitive linguistics. Since the Enlightenment, Christian theology has assumed widely the Enlightenment model of human reason as ideally acontextual, that is, free from constraints of contexts, and therefore universal, that is, applicable in all contexts. Recent developments from a variety of perspectives challenge this model of rationality. Some challenge the acontextualism of the Enlightenment understanding by showing how it arose from and depends on a context, and that context …

Using Neural Networks To Better Understand Static And Dynamic Components Of Facial Expression Recognition, Yi-Fan Li, Anne Bibiana Sereno

MODVIS Workshop

Facial expressions are crucial social information for human communication. In the real world, facial expressions are dynamic; however, much of existing research in facial expressions relies on static stimuli. This static approach may limit the ecological validity of our understanding of the emotional information on faces. Our study aims to investigate the dynamic and static information contained in different emotional categories of facial expressions (e.g., happy, sad). Four convolutional neural networks are introduced as models to be trained with a large-scale dynamic facial expression dataset (short videoclips of 16 frames of 7 different emotional categories) in four different ways: ordered …

Bilateral Symmetric 3d Reconstructor (Biased): A 3-Dimensional Object Re- Construction Model Demonstrating Human-Like Shape Constancy, Doreen Hii

MODVIS Workshop

No abstract provided.

Building Cognitive Relationships Through Piano Lessons, Alice Benavides

D.U.Quark

No abstract provided.

Storytelling: A Natural Mnemonic, Hailey Stephens

Honors Theses

The present study explored the effectiveness of storytelling as a teaching method in enhancing memory performance for educational material compared to traditional lecture-based instruction. Memory plays a crucial role in learning, and effective teaching strategies should facilitate information encoding, retention, and retrieval. Storytelling, an ancient yet often overlooked pedagogical tool, has been shown to engage students emotionally and cognitively, making presented content more memorable. In the present study, participants were randomly assigned to either a storytelling-based instruction group or a traditional lecture group. Both groups received instruction on the ASSURE Model and were tested immediately after the lesson and again …

Childhood Experiences Of Care, Emotional Abuse And Self-Esteem Among University Students, Shaymaa Riyadh Harbi, Yousef Jamal

Effat Undergraduate Research Journal

Childhood abuse is a global issue with deep-rooted consequences. In addition, childhood abuse causes stress associated with early mental health interruption. Child abuse also causes children to suffer and can lead to long-term outcomes such as low self-esteem in their teenage years. Thus, this work has examined the relationship between childhood experience and self-esteem. The sample population of this work was comprised of public and private university students from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The sample size of this work was 155 students. Data collection was done using self-administered questionnaire. In addition, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE) and Family Relationship in Childhood Questionnaire …

Transforming Criminal Justice Leadership With A Servant-Oriented Trauma-Informed Approach, Janina Cich

Forensic Scholars Today

This paper explores the transformative potential of a criminal justice leadership model by integrating principles of servant leadership, emotional intelligence, and trauma-informed care, focusing on rebuilding community trust, improving officer well-being, and fostering equitable, empathetic public service. This transformative module emphasizes humility, accountability, and emotional awareness to address the deep-rooted effects of trauma on both criminal justice personnel and the communities they serve. Through proactive strategies, such as open communication, cultural competence training, and mental health support, future leaders can cultivate resilient, community-focused agencies prioritizing healing, justice, and human dignity.

A Review Of Studies Assessing Modifiable Risk Factors For Dementia Among Family Caregivers In The United States Based On Behavioral Risk Factorsurveillance System (Brfss), Shruthi Ranjithkumar

2025 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementia (ADRD) face an increased risk of developing dementia due to advanced age and modifiable risk factors. The 2024 Lancet Commission Report identified 14 such risk factors, whose mitigation could reduce dementia cases by 45%. Despite this, research on modifiable dementia risk factors among ADRD caregivers remains limited. This study investigates whether peer-reviewed studies utilizing Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data assess modifiable dementia risk factors among ADRD caregivers. A PubMed search retrieved 27 relevant articles, which were analyzed for risk factors identified by the Lancet Commission, including traumatic brain injury, …

Does An Impaired Sense Of Smell Make It Harder To Think About Things Like Garlic?, Ishrat N. Khan

Honors Scholar Theses

According to sensorimotor-based (also called "embodied" or "grounded") theories of semantic memory, accessing conceptual knowledge about things involves reactivating—or “simulating”—the sensory and motor experiences that we have had with them. For instance, thinking about things for which olfactory experience is dominant (e.g., garlic or a rose) would involve simulating their smell. However, evidence for olfactory simulation when thinking about "smelly” things is sparse and mixed. We tested smell-impaired (“anosmic”) and control participants (N=130 in the anosmic group and N=190 in the control group) on three tasks (1) Picture-Word Verification, (2) Semantic Property Verification, and (3) Free Recall. We predicted that …

Effects Of Reflective Journaling And Nudges On Academic Motivation And Engagement, Lakshmi Satya Sai Veda Mahita Uppuluri

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the effects of reflective journaling and motivational nudges on academic motivation and engagement among college students. Grounded in Self- Determination Theory (SDT), the research examines how different interventions influence intrinsic motivation, and academic behaviors such as class attendance, participation, and preparation. The study employed a between-group experimental design with three conditions: a control group, a journaling group, and a journaling group that also received daily motivational nudges. Results showed that students in the journaling groups—particularly those who received nudges—experienced a significant increase in academic motivation. While changes in academic engagement were not significant, the effect size suggested …