Psychology Commons^™

Challenges Facing A Complementary-Systems Approach To Abstract And Episodic Speech Perception, Conor T. Mclennan

Psychology Faculty Publications

It has been nearly a decade since the publication of
Goldinger’s [4] Psych. Review paper in which he
presented his episodic theory of lexical access.
Moreover, Goldinger’s (and others’) empirical
work [3, 14] providing evidence for episodic
representations predates the formal presentation of
his episodic theory. This is an appropriate time to
note how the field has progressed in the past decade
with respect to the debate over the nature of lexical
representations. As evidenced by the two main
papers, the emphasis is no longer on whether there
are abstract and/or episodic representations. Instead,
the focus is now on the …

Phobias: The Evolutionary Trend, Grant Brown

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Perceived Desirability Of Given Names: Identifying A Relationship Between Given Names And Associated Personality Traits, Ellen D. Parks

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

This study was designed to determine whether participants would have better recall for names with phonetic properties that matched a paired personality trait. In other words, phonetically attractive names paired with positive traits and phonetically unattractive names paired with negative traits should have higher rates of recall than names whose phonetic properties did not match a paired personality trait, such as phonetically attractive names paired with negative traits or phonetically unattractive names paired with positive traits. Given names were deemed to be phonetically attractive or unattractive based on the number of sonorants (soft consonant sounds such as l, m, n, …

Maintenance Of Visual Stability In The Human Posterior Parietal Cortex, Erik Chang, Tony Ro

Publications and Research

Visual stability refers to our stable visuospatial perceptions despite the unstable visual input caused by saccades. Functional neuroimaging results, studies on patients with posterior parietal cortex (PPC) lesions, and single-unit recordings in the lateral intraparietal sulcus of primates indirectly suggest that the PPC might be a potential locus of visual stability through its involvement with spatial remapping. Here we directly explored the role of the PPC in visual stability by applying transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) while participants performed a perisaccadic displacement detection task. We show that TMS over the PPC but not a frontal control site alters sensitivity to displacement …

The Social Construction Of Authorship: An Investigation Of Subjectivity And Rhetorical Authority In The College Writing Classroom, Johannah Rodgers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although we use the term author on a daily basis to refer to certain individuals, bodies of work, and systems of ideas, as Michel Foucault and other critics have pointed out, attempting to answer the question “What is an Author?” is by no means a simple proposition. And, starting from the position that there is no single, or definitive answer to this complex question, this dissertation seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion of the genealogy of authorship by investigating the ways in which conceptions of the author have informed models of the writing subject in the field of rhetoric …

Un Proyecto De Educacion Ambiental En Torno A La Sequia En Chihuahua: Proceso, Resultados Y Aplicaciones Ulteriores (An Environmental Education Project In The Context Of Drought In Chihuahua: Process, Results And Ulterior Applications), Sara Soledad Garcia, V. Reyes, P. Ocha Tovar

Teacher Education

No abstract provided.

The Case Against Dog Breed Discrimination By Homeowners’ Insurance Companies, Larry Cunningham

State of the Animals 2007

Breed discrimination by insurance companies is on the rise in the United States. Insurers are refusing to write homeowners’ policies for people who own breeds that the insurance industry considers to be dangerous. Their decisions are based solely on the breed of the animal, not the individual characteristics of the particular dog. Dog bites are certainly a public health concern. However, the insurance industry’s approach to the problem is based on faulty assumptions and improper use of dog-bite statistics. The insurance industry has prejudged entire breeds of dogs as being “too risky,” instead of taking a more reasonable dog-by-dog approach …

Delgadina: Un Imaginario Colectivo Sin Fronteras (Delgadina: A Collective Imaginary Without Borders), Sara Soledad Garcia

Teacher Education

Este ensayo examina la variante y la recepción del romance ''Delgadina" transmutado en un corrido/canción popular mexicana entre la frontera de Mexico y los Estados Unidos, especificamente en las regiones de Chihuahua y El Paso, Texas. Reconociendo la importancia de los estudios anteriores hechos por Beatriz Mariscal acerca de las variantes del romance "Delgadina", recopiladas en El Cancionero General de Cuba(1) , y la interpretación feminista de Maria Herrera Sobek(2), el presente trabajo se ha propuesto abrir nuevas dimensiones en el estudio de este romance tratando sus variantes, su recepción e interpretación en la frontera. Se trata de un intento …

Real-World Face Recognition: The Importance Of Surface Reflectance Properties, Richard Russell, Pawan Sinha

Psychology Faculty Publications

The face recognition task we perform most often in everyday experience is the identification of people with whom we are familiar. However, because of logistical challenges, most studies focus on unfamiliar-face recognition, wherein subjects are asked to match or remember images of unfamiliar people's faces. Here we explore the importance of two facial attributes - shape and surface reflectance - in the context of a familiar-face recognition task. In our experiment, subjects were asked to recognise color images of the faces of their friends. The images were manipulated such that only reflectance or only shape information was useful for recognizing …

Beauty Is In The ‘We’ Of The Beholder: Greater Agreement On Facial Attractiveness Among Close Relations, P Matthew Bronstad, Richard Russell

Psychology Faculty Publications

Scientific research on facial attractiveness has focused primarily on elucidating universal factors to which all raters respond consistently. However, recent work has shown that there is also substantial disagreement between raters, highlighting the importance of determining how attractiveness preferences vary among different individuals. We conducted a typical attractiveness ratings study, but took the unusual step of recruiting pairs of subjects who were spouses, siblings, or close friends. The agreement between pairs of affiliated friends, siblings, and spouses was significantly greater than between pairs of strangers drawn from the same race and culture, providing evidence that facial-attractiveness preferences are socially organized.

Gender And Other Social Effects In People’S Perceptions Of Domesticated Animals, Clayton Wagner Bell, A. Hayden Brown

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

It is no secret that people possess radically differing opinions and philosophical beliefs regarding domesticated animals. These contradictory perceptions are especially evident when examining people’s thoughts regarding the mental capabilities of animals and issues related to animal welfare. To determine whether or not gender and social environments play a role in these various perceptions, a survey was formulated and randomly distributed to 1000 undergraduate students across the University of Arkansas campus. Upon examination of the survey results, some very intriguing correlations became apparent. Of particular interest were the differences between the perceptions of males and females regarding domesticated animals. Women …

Social Attributions Of Asymptomatic Women Towards Anorexia Nervosa: A Qualitative Study, Natalie Mcdonald

Theses : Honours

Anorexia nervosa (AN) has been identified as a complex, potentially lethal medical and psychological disorder, typically associated with a poor prognosis (Nordbo, Espeset, Gulliksen, Skarderud, & Holte, 2006; Signorini, De Filippo, Panico, De Caprio, Pasanisi, & Contaldo, 2007, 2007; Strober, Freeman, Lampert, Diamond, Teplinsky, & DeAntonio, 2006). The current review highlights the social and psychological elements attributed to AN by sufferers (Kelley, 1973; Nordbo et al., 2006; Woolrich, Cooper, & Turner, 2006), and through a social-cognitive explanation of attribution theory, identified the conceptual relevance of lay attributions towards AN and the lack of researched connection between the two concepts (Furnham …

Individual Differences And The Impact Of Forward And Backward Causal Relations On The Online Processing Of Narratives, Stephen W. Briner, Christopher A. Kurby, Danielle S. Mcnamara

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper investigated the impact of causality on reading time by examining the contributions of forward antecedent and backward consequence connections. Undergraduate students read four narrative texts, sentence by sentence. Reading times for each sentence were regressed onto the number of antecedents connecting forward to a sentence and backward to prior sentences. Overall, forward antecedents and backward consequences explained unique variance in reading times, with increases in antecedents and consequences predicting decreases in reading time. However, causal consequences did not contribute unique variance to participants with higher literature knowledge. Further, the presence of forward antecedents significantly attenuated reading time differences …

Audiovisual Speech Perception: A Speech Production Approach, Michelle A. Jarick

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of these studies was to test the main assumptions outlined in the Motor Theory of speech perception that (1) speech perception is linked to speech production, (2) audiovisual integration of speech occurs automatically and after the motor commands are activated, and (3) we perceive the intended gestures, which are extracted by a specialized ‘phonetic module’ in the brain. In Experiment 1, we used a Stroop-like paradigm, where participants viewed and listened to a speaker producing speech syllables (/aba/ or /aga/) in three conditions: audio-only, visual-only, and audiovisual. Participants were asked to ignore irrelevant speech stimuli, and to identify …

Memory For Non-Focal Words, John Jones

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In two experiments a modified flanker paradigm was used to simultaneously present a focal word and an incidental non-focal word. The participants' task was to process the focal word in one of two conditions: naming aloud or a conceptual decision (concrete or abstract). The focal and non-focal words were either semantically related or not. Participants were instructed to direct their attention at the focal word.  Furthermore, the presentation of the focal word was brief to reduce the possibility of eye movement to the non-focal word. Memory was measured with implicit and explicit memory tests. Evidence was found to suggest implicit …

Relationships In Aging, Cognitive Processes, And Contingency Learning, Sarah Reeder

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study investigated the influence of age, processing speed, working memory,and associative processes on the acquisition of contingency information. Young and older adults completed positive (+.65) and negative (-.65) contingency tasks that measured their ability to discover the relationship between a symptom (e.g., FEVER) and a fictional disease (e.g., OLYALGIA). Both d' scores, i.e., contingency learning, and contingency estimates, i.e., contingency judgment, were examined. Participants were also asked to complete cognitive tasks that measure the constructs of processing speed, working memory resources, associative memory, and associative learning. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the direct and indirect relationships between …

Audio Narration And Reading Ability In Programmed Instruction, Wendy Jaehnig

Dissertations

This study compared the effects of audio, textual, and audio-textual narration in a programmed instructional module on the performance of individuals with different reading abilities. One hundred eighty-four college students were randomly assigned to audio, textual, or audio-narration. Dependent variables were posttest score and instruction completion time. An ANCOVA was used to analyze the results, with ACT reading test scores as the covariate. No differences were found between the groups on posttest scores (p = .56) or completion time (p = .90), and there was no interaction between narration type and reading score for either dependent variable. Audio …

Aging And Associative And Inductive Reasoning Processes In Discrimination Learning, Courtney Ortz

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate how associative and inductive reasoning processes develop over trials in feature positive (FP) and feature negative (FN) discrimination learning. Younger and older adults completed initial and transfer tasks with either consistent or inconsistent transfer. Participants articulated a rule on every trial. The measure of discrimination learning was the number of trials it took participants to articulate the exact rule. In the initial task, older adults articulated the rule more slowly than younger adults in FP discrimination and took marginally more trials to articulate the rule in FN discrimination than younger adults. Age …

Memory & Cognition: What Difference Does Gender Make?, Donna J. Bridge

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Small but significant gender differences, typically favoring women, have previously been observed in experiments measuring human episodic memory performance. In three studies measuring episodic memory, we compared performance levels for men and women. Secondary analysis from a pairedassociate learning task revealed a superior ability for women to learn single function pairs (i.e. words that are represented in only one pair), but performance levels for double function pairs (i.e. pairs that contain words that are also used in one other pair) were similar for men and women. We also reanalyzed data from a recognition experiment that used pictures as stimuli, and …

Explorations Of Self: A Philosophical Inquiry, Meredith Rathbun

Senior Honors Projects

Asking “Who am I?” seems to be something that everybody ponders. This concept of “I”—what is it? We all have an individual and unique “I”—something that has been with each of us since birth, something that has changed and grown, but also stayed the same in many ways. My question “What is The Self?” is imperative. What is it that experiences life, if not The Self? When a 99-year-old man watches his last sunset, reflecting on his life, what inside of him is doing that reflecting? As you read my ideas on this page, what inside of you is processing …

Investigating The Effects Of Real-Time Visual Feedback On Computer Workstation Posture, Sigurdur Oli Sigurdsson

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a package intervention that included discrimination training, real-time visual feedback, and self-monitoring on postural behavior at a computer workstation in a simulated office environment. A total of 21 participants were screened for participation, and eight of those participated throughout the study. A non-concurrent multiple baseline design across participants was used to assess the effects of the interventions across three postural variables. Following an information-only phase, participants were exposed to the intervention for the lowest stable postural variable. For most targeted postural variables, the intervention implemented in this study led …

Building The Emotionally Learned Negotiator, Erin Ryan

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Love Styles And Reactions To Romantic Betrayal, Melissa R. Bausmer

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Melissa R. Bausmer in January of 2006.

Is Pigmentation Important For Face Recognition? Evidence From Contrast Negation, Richard Russell, Pawan Sinha, Irving Biederman, Marissa Nederhouser

Psychology Faculty Publications

It is extraordinarily difficult to recognize a face in an image with negated contrast, as in a photographic negative. The variation among faces can be partitioned into two general sources: (a) shape and (b) surface reflectance, here termed 'pigmentation'. To determine whether negation differentially affects the processing of shape or pigmentation, we made two sets of faces where the individual faces differed only in shape in one set and only in pigmentation in the other. Surprisingly, matching performance was significantly impaired by contrast negation only when the faces varied in pigmentation. This provides evidence that the perception of pigmentation, not …

The “Mozart Effect”: Musicological And Scientific Perspectives, Donald J. Polzella, Richard P. Benedum

Psychology Faculty Publications

The “Mozart effect” suggests that merely listening to Mozart’s music enhances human cognitive processing. Although the “Mozart effect” has generated a great deal of attention since it was first proposed, replicating the Mozart effect has proven elusive, and it has been argued that the effect is attributable not to the music, but rather to changes in arousal and mood. Even so, it may be that the music of Mozart increases arousal and improves mood to a greater degree than do other stimuli, including the music of other composers.

Methodological Challenges For Identifying And Coding Diverse Knowledge Elements In Interview Data, Victor R. Lee, Moshe Krakowski, Bruce Sherin, Megan Bang, Gregory Dam

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper, as part of a symposium on the analysis of clinical interview data and the development of a framework for analyzing students' intuitive science knowledge, identifies and discusses methodological challenges encountered when specifying the knowledge elements and resources are invoked dynamically during a clinical interview. Drawing from interviews with middle school students about the seasons and an analysis of knowledge in terms of 'nodes', two classes of problems are identified: those associated with identification of nodes and those associated with their application as codes to a transcript-based data corpus. We posit that these challenges are common ones associated with …

Proximity In Context: An Empirically Grounded Computational Model Of Proximity For Processing Topological Spatial Expression., John D. Kelleher, Geert-Jan Kruijff, Fintan Costello

Conference papers

The paper presents a new model for context-dependent interpretation of linguistic expressions about spatial proximity between objects in a natural scene. The paper discusses novel psycholinguistic experimental data that tests and verifies the model. The model has been implemented, and enables a conversational robot to identify objects in a scene through topological spatial relations (e.g. ''X near Y''). The model can help motivate the choice between topological and projective prepositions.

Public Reasoning About Criminal Justice: The Role Of Victim, Offence, And Offender Characteristics And Victim-Offender Relationships. Public Reasoning About Criminal Justice: Effects Of Victim Age And Victim-Offender Relationship, Donald Foy

Theses : Honours

The formulation and amendment of legislation which forms the basis for the operation and administration of the Australian criminal justice system may be the role given to elected government officials but it is the citizens who elect them who bear ultimate responsibility. The way that members of the public reason about criminal justice issues therefore has the capacity to greatly influence decision making in this area. This paper will review some of the research which has attempted to explain the influence that several variables may have on the way that people reason about criminal justice. These research topics include fear …

When Red Lights Look Yellow, Joanne M. Wood, David A. Atchison, Alex Chaparro

Publications

Purpose. Red signals are typically used to signify danger. This study was conducted to investigate a situation identified by train drivers in which red signals appear yellow when viewed at long distances (∼900 m) through progressive-addition lenses.

Methods. A laboratory study was conducted to investigate the effects of defocus, target size, ambient illumination, and surround characteristics on the extent of the color misperception of train signals by nine visually normal participants. The data from the laboratory study were validated in a field study by measuring the amounts of defocus and the distances at which the misperception of the color of …

Using Scenario-Based Training To Teach Single Pilot Resource Management Related To The Use Of The Brs Parachute, Shayna Danielle Strally

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

The Ballistic Recovery System is an emergency parachute for single engine aircraft which, when released, lowers the aircraft to the ground to prevent terrain collision. This study sought to examine the effects of scenario-based training on pilot’s use of the BRS. Of particular interest was the point at which the pilot decides to deploy the BRS. Single pilot resource management was included as a training objective, as it encompasses relevant cognitive skills such as decision making and situational awareness. The results showed participants in the scenario-based training condition performed significantly better than participants in a traditional training condition on several …