Psychology Commons^™

The Effects Of Simultaneous And Successive Tasks And Knowledge Of Results On Add And Non-Add Children, Pamela J. Bishop

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Computerized continuous performance tasks (CPT) are often used to diagnose attention deficit disorders (ADD) The purpose of the present study was to continue the evaluation of a CPT developed from a psychophysical perspective. Specifically, two versions of a monitoring task (simultaneous and successive) were examined in the context of three conditions of knowledge of results (KR); KR to correct detections, false alarms, and irrelevant KR. Thirty children diagnosed with ADD and 30 without ADD performed two 9-minute monitoring tasks. Parents of the children were also interviewed with an adaptive behavior scale to investigate whether ADD children exhibit social functioning at …

Effects Of Cognitive Complexity And Individuating Information On Evaluations Of Other-Race Members, Kenneth G. Weigand

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Social cognition research has examined the variables involved in stereotyping out-group members. The degree of an individual's domain-specific cognitive complexity has been identified as a mediator. Studies have also examined the tempering effects of individuating versus categorical information upon evaluations of out-group members. Most of the related research had defined out-groups according to gender, age and occupational differences. This study defined group membership according to race, and examined the effects of cognitive complexity and individuating information upon the extremity of evaluations made toward other-race members in a sample of 51 White and 46 Black male college subjects. It was hypothesized …

Attentional Processing Of Visual Stimuli: What Makes A Face A Face?, Samuel L. Chapman

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Reaction time (RT) and accuracy have been used to investigate the manner in which humans process visual stimuli for many years. Some researchers have found evidence of serial processing (e.g., Sternberg, 1969a) while others have shown that some visual stimuli are processed in parallel (e.g., Neisser, 1963). There have been very few studies investigating the processing of schematic faces with respect to RT and accuracy. The present study investigates the mechanisms associated with the recognition of schematic faces with respect to RT and accuracy.

Forty-two Old Dominion University students were shown a target face for ten seconds and were then …

Conjunctive Decisions In A Paper-And-Pencil Task, Tracy A. Bean

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Many situations can have a significant effect on response time. Some situations affecting response time require union decisions - decisions based on the 'or' rule. The Hick-Hyman law, as well as Sternberg's linear relationship, are based on union decisions. Most situations in the real world, however, are based on intersection or 'conjunctive' decisions - decisions based on the 'and' rule. The relationship between conjunctive decisions and reaction time is examined in the present research. One question this study attempted to answer is whether there is a functional relationship between mean response time and display size.

The study consisted of 139 …

Examination Of Knowledge And Attitudes About Human Sexuality As Predictors Of Adolescent Sexual Behavior, Diane Waymire

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

This study investigated the variables influencing adolescent sexual behavior. Using cognitive learning theory, social learning theory, and social development as an organizing framework, factors influencing adolescent sexual behavior and the respondent's personal demographics were examined for their contribution to explaining adolescent decision-making about sexual activity.

A convenience sample of high school students from a Riverside county school district provided data for the study. Data was gathered by using a self-administered questionnaire. A total of 55 students from two of the three school sites within the district participated in the study during the winter quarter of 1995.

The findings of the …

The Involvement Of Students With Learning Disabilities And Emotional-Behavioral Disorders In Gang Membership, Melinda L. Kates

Theses & Honors Papers

Commonalities exist between gang members and individuals with learning disabilities and/or emotional-behavioral disorders. These characteristics are low self-esteem, poo social skills, difficulty maintaining personal relationships, and behavioral problems. Through a series of interviews conducted at a private facility for individuals with behavioral disorders, this study investigated the involvement of students with learning disabilities and/or emotional-behavioral disorders in gang membership.

Empowering The Marginal Student: An Innovative Skills-Based Extra Credit Assignment, Ellen N. Junn

Office of the Provost Scholarship

A simple extra-credit assignment explicitly rewarded marginal or failing students for improving their learning and study strategies. The instructor approached individual students who were at risk for failing the course following the midterm exam and gave them the option of earning extra-credit points for regularly documenting a variety of effective learning and study skills. In contrast to control groups of matched marginal students and of nonfailing students, those attempting the extra-credit assignment improved their test performance from midterm to final exam. They were more likely to earn at least a grade of C and less likely to drop out of …

Future Directions In Education And Inclusion Of Students With Disabilities: A Delphi Investigation, Joanne W. Putman, Amy N. Spiegel, Robert H. Bruininks

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

This article reports on a survey of 37 educators regarding future directions in the education of students with disabilities. The survey used the Delphi technique. For the decade of the 1990s and after the year 2000, respondents’ predictions included the following: The movement toward increasing inclusion will occur; the belief will prevail that people with disabilities have a right to participate in inclusive environments; students with mild disabilities will be educated in general classrooms; teachers will increase their use of instructional approaches such as cooperative learning and instructional technology; and researchers will focus on matching instructional needs with learner characteristics.

Occupational Stress, Coping Styles, And Social Resources, Wayne L. Hill

Theses : Honours

Researchers in the stress and coping field have developed a variety of "stress and coping" models to explain the interaction between stressors, social resources, coping styles, and distress symptoms (Edwards & Baglioni, 1990). The present study examined three models to explain the relationship between the variables: direct effect, buffering effect and mediating effect. This study examined effective and non-effective coping styles at work: accommodation, change, avoidance, devaluation, and symptom management. Data were collected on 120 white collar workers' state of mental exhaustion, somatic symptoms, role stressors, coping styles, and perceived social support. The utility of the three models was examined …

The Presenters Of Anger Management Programmes : Their Experiences Of Working In The Context Of Prisons, Monica O'Keefe

Theses : Honours

The study was an exploration of the experiences of eight presenters of anger management programmes in relation to their work in prisons. It was conducted within an interpretive paradigm using a phenomenological framework. From the data analysis, four principal themes emerged. One centred on the impact of the prison environment; another on the work culture of prisons; a third on experiential group processes; and a fourth on personal concerns of the participants. The results suggest the environment and culture of the prison had a strong impact on the presenters personally and had a dominant influence on the way they could …

The Identification Of Individuals With Disabilities In National Databases: Creating A Failure To Communicate, Kevin S. Mcgrew, Bob Algozzine, James E. Ysseldyke, Martha L. Thurlow, Amy N. Spiegel

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to analyze similarities and differences in how students with disabilities are identified in national databases. National data collection programs in the United States Departments of Education, Commerce, Labor, Justice, and Health and Human Services, as well as databases from the National Science Foundation, the American Council of Education, and the College Board, were examined. Nineteen national data collection programs were selected as being potentially useful in the extraction of policy-relevant information on the educational status and performance of students with disabilities. Among these 19 programs there was significant variability in the disability categories used. …

Short Term Effects Of Repeated Masked Priming In Stem Completion Tasks, Anthony Van Andel

Theses : Honours

This thesis examines the effect of time delay and intervening items on masked repetition studies with word stem completion tasks. In the first experiment a masked priming effect was obtained. The effect was strongest 500ms after the presentation of the prime, and decreasing in a linear trend seven seconds after the presentation of the prime. The second experiment found that interpolating a naming task between the masked prime and the stem completion task eliminated the effects of the repeated masked prime. This result is a failure to replicate previous research which found a masked repetition effect over a short delay …

Recognition Of Familiar And Unfamiliar Melodies In Normal Aging And Alzheimers-Disease, James C. Bartlett, Andrea R. Halpern, W. Jay Dowling

Faculty Journal Articles

We tested normal young and elderly adults and elderly Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients on recognition memory for tunes. In Experiment 1, AD patients and age-matched controls received a study list and an old/new recognition test of highly familiar, traditional tunes, followed by a study list and test of novel tunes. The controls performed better than did the AD patients. The controls showed the ''mirror effect'' of increased hits and reduced false alarms for traditional versus novel tunes, whereas the patients false-alarmed as often to traditional tunes as to novel tunes. Experiment 2 compared young adults and healthy elderly persons using …

Prediction Of Wisc-Iii Scores From The Iowa Tests Of Basic Skills And The Cognitive Abilities Test In Order To Predict Premorbid Cognitive Functioning In Children With Traumatic Brain Injury, Kent A. Riley

Masters Theses

The present study examined the relationship of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Form J (ITBS-J) and the Cognitive Abilities Test, Form 4 (CogAT-4) with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition (WISC-III) in order to establish a better method for predicting premorbid intellectual functioning in children with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) aged 6 through 11 years. The subjects included 73 children in grades one through six from four elementary schools within a rural city in southeastern Illinois. The results of the study supported all six hypotheses: The CogAT-4 and ITBS-J significantly predicted the variability observed in WISC-III scores; …

The Effect Of Depression On A Lexical Decision Task, Elizabeth A. Richtfort

Masters Theses

Sixteen depressed and sixteen non-depressed college aged participants completed a lexical decision task containing cognitive triad word - negative word pairs, cognitive triad word - positive word pairs, cognitive triad word - nonword pairs, categorically related pairs, neutral word - neutral word pairs, and neutral word - nonword pairs. Following the lexical decision task, the participants performed a surprise recall task. The depressed participants were expected to recognize the negative words as words more quickly than the positive words and recall a higher percentage of negative words than positive words. These results were not found. All participants responded to the …

A Community-Based Needs And Resource Assessment On Youth Mental Health: Bay Of Islands/Pasadena, Newfoundland, Joanne A. Mills

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In this research project, I undertook a community-based needs and resource assessment on youth mental health within a western Newfoundland community to assist a mental health planning team, the Community Mental Health Initiative (CMHI). CMHI is a stakeholder-based committee dedicated to addressing mental health concerns for all citizens in a geographical area in western Newfoundland, encompassing the city of Corner Brook, the communities along the north and south shore of the Bay of Islands, and the community of Pasadena. The mandate of CMHI includes identifying mental health needs and promoting the general well being of all persons of all ages …

The Relationships Among Competitiveness, Age And Ability In Distance Runners, Robert C. Eklund, Jeffrey J. Martin, Alan L. Smith

Kinesiology, Health and Sport Studies

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships suggested by general achievement motivation literature and the popular literature in sport using the Sport Orientation Questionnaire (SOQ). The current study examined if faster runners are more competitive than slower runners, if older athletes were less competitive than younger athletes, and if faster runners were more goal oriented than slower runners. Distance runners (n=80), ranging from 10 to 61 years old completed race packets containing a cover letter, consent forms, the SOQ and a demographic questionnaire. Runners averaged 32.9 years of age and reported levels of competitiveness and goal …

"The Party”: Role-Playing To Enhance Multicultural Understanding, Ellen N. Junn

Office of the Provost Scholarship

Describes a role-playing activity used to teach the effects of stereotyping and enhance multicultural understanding. Student response.

Judging Statistical Significance: The Effects Of Standard Error Bar Formats And Visual Displays, Rebecca Wilson Miller

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The present study examined various graphical displays for illustrating statistical significance. These displays were created following Dunlap and May's (1989) recommendation about representing statistical significance in figures with error bars derived from the pooled estimate of error variance. In the first experiment, 15 graduate students were asked to judge whether the relationships depicted in a series of graphs and tables were significant or nonsignificant. Four significance levels were combined factorially with three standard error bar formats, unidirectional opposite direction, unidirectional same direction, and bidirectional, and two displays, line graphs and bar graphs. A tabular display was also presented for comparison. …

Visual Information Processing Of Geometric Figures As A Function Of Complexity And Field Of Vision, Karen E. Inn

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether human information processing does occur in parallel in the right hemisphere and serially in the left hemisphere as suggested by the hemisphere strategy model. In addition, this study was also designed to determine if there is a right hemisphere advantage in the processing of nonverbal information as indicated by the material specific theory.

In this 3 x 3 x 3 x 2 x 2 mixed design, Complexity (3) and Gender (2) were the between-subjects variables. Time Factor (3), Field of Vision (3), and Type (2) were the within-subjects variables. Complexity was …

Eyewitness Testimonies For Spousal Abuse As A Function Of Gender Roles And Person Variables, Cynthia L. Barker

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In order to uncover how personality characteristics interact with the suggestibility and recall of events, subject's recollection and interpretation of domestic violence was tested. College students were shonn a film which a husband and wife began arguing; the argument ended in the husband hitting his wife. Encoding was manipulated by giving negative or neutral suggestions about the woman before subjects witnessed the film, and storage was manipulated by giving such suggestions after the .film creating a 2 X 2 experimental design. Attitude and personality questionnaires were also administered to the subjects. In addition to demonstrating the significance of the encoding …

Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment Of Bulimia Nervosa, Lori J. Hikiji

Graduate Research Papers

The purpose of this paper is to define the term bulimia
nervosa as used in research literature, to present the cognitive and behavioral components of the disorder, and to review major controlled research studies based on Fairburn's (1985) cognitive-behavioral treatment of clients having bulimia nervosa.

Community Adjustment Of Young Adults With Mental Retardation: Overcoming Barriers To Inclusion, Richard F. Ittenbach, Brian H. Abery, Sheryl A. Larson, Amy N. Spiegel, Robert W. Prouty

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Movement of persons with mental retardation out of institutions and into community settings is occurring at an ever-increasing pace (Amado, Lakin, & Menke, 1990). State and federal laws have legitimized the basic rights of persons with mental retardation to live, work, and participate in typical community settings. Yet, physical integration is not synonymous with full community inclusion. Numerous barriers remain that serve as obstacles to successful assimilation into community life. For instance, successful social integration depends on attitudinal changes of persons without mental retardation—families, friends, service-delivery professionals, and the general public—toward persons with mental retardation. The way young adults with …

Behavioral Effects Of Tyrosine During Sustained Wakefulness, D. L. Wiegmann, D. F. Neri, R. R. Stanny, S. A. Shappell, A. H. Mccardie, D. L. Mckay

Publications

The fatigue and cognitive performance deficits associated with sleep loss and stress, like that experienced during sustained flight operations and nighttime flying, have motivated the search for effective nonpharmacological countermeasures. The behavioral effects of the potential countermeasure tyrosine, an amino-acid precursor to dopamine and norepinephrine, were examined during an episode of continuous nighttime work involving one night's sleep loss. Volunteers performed nine iterations of a battery of cognitive and subjective tasks for approximately 13 h, beginning at 1930 and ending at 0820 the following morning. Subjects remained awake throughout the day on which the experiment began and were awake for …

Choice Reaction Time And Conjunctions Of Form Size Color And Orientation, Cristina Bubb-Lewis

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Reaction time (RT) is frequently used as a dependent measure in studies that examine the organization of perceptual and cognitive processes. Hick's law states that RT in a choice-reaction-time (CRT) task is a linear function of the amount of information transmitted per stimulus-response event. RT has been used to try to determine whether serial or parallel processing is being employed in CRT tasks (Sternberg, 1966). There is research evidence suggesting a serial, exhaustive search process (Sternberg, 1969a; Wingfield, 1973), as well as findings which suggest parallel processing (Neisser, 1963; Neisser, Novick, and Lazar, 1963) in CRT tasks. All the experiments …

Differential Reinforcement Of Other Behavior And Response Suppression: The Effects Of The Response-Reinforcement Interval, Thomas S. Rieg, Nelson F. Smith, Stuart Vyse

Psychology Faculty Publications

Three experiments were conducted comparing the effects of the relationship between the response-reinforcement interval and the reinforcement-reinforcement interval in a differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) contingency. The experiments followed an acquisition, treatment, and reacquisition sequence where rats were trained to press a lever for food, were exposed to response elimination contingencies (DRO and extinction), and finally tested for the effectiveness of their respective treatment conditions. Experiment 1 shows that the longer the response-reinforcement interval the more effective the suppressive effects of DRO. Experiment 2 shows that it is the relationship of the response-reinforcement interval to the reinforcement-reinforcement interval that …

Student Lives: Dreams And Realities, Ellen N. Junn

Office of the Provost Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Gender Differences In The Network Organization Of Concepts Related To Intimacy, Jodie Yvette Rabalais

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Quantity Of Possessions Transported And Homesickness In Migrants, Rosalynn M. Morrow

Theses : Honours

The study addresses the relationship between the quantity of possessions transported by migrants from their country of origin and reported levels of homesickness. Eighty-nine subjects from the United Kingdom and Eire participated in the study, which was limited to those migrants who have been resident in Australia for less than 5 years (M=2.53). The sample was non random (purposive and accidental), consisting of 51 males and 38 females, and the mean age of the participants on arrival in Australia was 33 years. Participants completed a 32 item, Likert scale, questionnaire which incorporated items from the Fisher (1989) Dundee Relocation Inventory …

Memory Biases In Left Versus Right Implied Motion, Andrea R. Halpern, Michael H. Kelly

Faculty Journal Articles

People remember moving objects as having moved farther along in their path of motion than is actually the case; this is known as representational momentum (RM). Some authors have argued that RM is an internalization of environmental properties such as physical momentum and gravity. Five experiments demonstrated that a similar memory bias could not have been learned from the environment. For right-handed Ss, objects apparently moving to the right engendered a larger memory bias in the direction of motion than did those moving to the left. This effect, clearly not derived from real-world lateral asymmetries, was relatively insensitive to changes …