Psychology Commons^™

Zoom Fatigue: Case Presentation And Brief Review, Alan Lucerna, James Espinosa, Risha Hertz, Robin Lahr, James Lee

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

In this review, we discuss the phenomenon of what has been called Zoom Fatigue—a sense of fatigue as well as physical and emotional stress that can be associated with teleconferencing (especially long teleconferences with minimal breaks). The Zoom Fatigue Scale is discussed as well as various theories to explain the phenomenon. Some preventive strategies are discussed.

Hailey's Hearing Aids, Hailey Marie Garcia

Whittier Scholars Program

Individuals from the deaf and hard-of-hearing community are likely to experience more anxiety and depression due to defective cognitive, social, communicational, and emotional skills (Azizi et al., 2019). The word “disability” is embedded with historical negative connotations with phrases such as “deaf and dumb” because if they were deaf or mute then they were automatically labeled as inferior (Horovitz, 2007). Since the 18th century, the DHH community has been seen as incapable, even inhuman, hence the development of emotional deficiencies that bleed into one’s perception of society and their self esteem (Gallaudet, 1886).

How do you navigate a hearing world …

Enhancing The Battleverse: The People’S Liberation Army’S Digital Twin Strategy, Joshua Baughman

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

Operationalizing Deterrence By Denial In The Cyber Domain, Gentry Lane

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy Through A Trust In Science Training Intervention, Nathan Dumessa

All Dissertations

Vaccine hesitancy is an ongoing public health issue that has been underscored by the COVID-19 pandemic and has implications for future pandemics and other vaccines. This research aimed to understand and address the factors associated with hesitancy. Study 1 was a correlational study that measured several factors that could predict vaccine hesitancy among Black and White participants recruited online (n = 364). Findings suggest that trust in science was the strongest predictor of attitudes towards the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness, which in turn strongly predicted vaccine hesitancy. Study 1 established the direct and indirect relationships between several predictors of …

An Erp Measure Of Non-Conscious Memory Reveals Dissociable Implicit Processes In Human Recognition Using An Open-Source Automated Analytic Pipeline, Richard J. Addante, Javier Lopez-Calderon, Nathaniel Allen, Carter Luck, Alana Muller, Lindsey Sirianni, Cory S. Inman, Daniel L. Drane

Psychology Faculty Publications

Non-conscious processing of human memory has traditionally been difficult to objectively measure and thus understand. A prior study on a group of hippocampal amnesia (N = 3) patients and healthy controls (N = 6) used a novel procedure for capturing neural correlates of implicit memory using event-related potentials (ERPs): old and new items were equated for varying levels of memory awareness, with ERP differences observed from 400 to 800 ms in bilateral parietal regions that were hippocampal-dependent. The current investigation sought to address the limitations of that study by increasing the sample of healthy subjects (N = 54), applying new …

Exploring The Intersectionality Between Homelessness And Addiction: A Review, Antonia Miranda

Honors Projects

The homelessness crisis and drug epidemic have been, and continue to, ravage the nation in a manner that is both detrimental to society and humanity. The correlation between substance abuse and homelessness is enormous, though not necessarily causal. The conditions of being homeless coupled with the prevalence of mental illness drastically increases the susceptibility to substance abuse and addiction. On the other hand, addiction and substance abuse can contribute to someone entering homelessness. The intersectionality between the two is frequently ignored, yet critical to address. Informed by research regarding both conditions, the implications for public policy and reform are huge. …

Mechanisms Of False Memories In Bilinguals, Bianca Valentina Gurrola

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Research on false memory in bilinguals has discovered that false memories can transfer across languages and occur at a higher rate than for within-language false memories (Marmolejo et al., 2009). However, the exact conditions that cause the stronger between-language false memory effect are not clear, nor is it clear how language proficiency influences the production of false memories. The present study had three goals. First, we tested whether the stronger between- language false memory effect relative to the within-language effect would replicate. Second, we examined whether bilinguals could integrate information across languages to form false memories by implementing a mixed-language …

Updating Of Protagonist Information In Narratives, Luke Mcclanahan

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of the present research was to further examine contested findings in the research literature surrounding the processes readers use to maintain and update their mental representation of contextual information in a text. Research indicates that whether information is directly relevant to the goal of a story’s protagonist influences whether it will be used as a basis for later validation (Levine & Kim, 2019; Levine & Klin, 2001; Lutz & Radvansky, 1997). Some prior research that indicates that participants fail to validate inconsistent contextual information (Albrecht & Myers, 1995; Smith et al., 2020; Smith & O’Brien, 2012) relies on …

Lineups, Showups, And Simultaneous Showups: A Replication And Extension Of The Red Box Study, Lana Dranow

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The reliability of eyewitness identification procedures and the following testimony in a court of law has been highly contested in recent decades. There are two main types of identification procedures most commonly used by law enforcement officers in the United States: lineups and showups. Prior research has indicated that lineups consistently yield the most accurate identifications due to the presence of fillers (plausible alternatives to a suspect) alongside the suspect when compared to showups. This is commonly attributed to two main theories- filler siphoning theory and diagnostic feature detection theory. In a study conducted by Colloff and Wixted (2020), researchers …

Age-Of-Acquisition (Aoa) Impacts Spelling Error Detection : Evidence From An Online Proofreading Task, Madison Laks

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

During reading, words are processed faster if they are rated as being acquired early in life compared to later in life (i.e., age of acquisition effects; AoA). Given that the task demands for proofreading differ from reading, we investigated if AoA effects extend to an online proofreading task. Specifically, early- and late-acquired target words were embedded in sentence frames after being matched for a variety of potentially confounding variables, including word frequency, length, imageability, OLD-20, and familiarity (using the stimulus set from Juhasz & Sheridan, 2020). The participants rapidly proofread these sentences for spelling errors, and our results showed that …

Understanding The Evolution Of Enforcement Systems In Resource Dilemmas, Devin M. Flener

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

The effective management of resources on Earth is a pressing global social dilemma. An alternative solution to the traditional managing methods of these common pool resources is communal self-management facilitated through principles of restorative justice and developed through exploratory learning. We examined how communication, restorative justice techniques, and opportunity for exploratory learning impacted groups’ ability to develop a strong conceptual understanding of enforcement as well as an enforcement system in order to maintain an effective conservation strategy. Participants (N=288) were randomly assigned to 72 four-person groups in six separate conditions. Each group played nine rounds of a computer-simulated foraging task …

Memory For Metaphors: Verbatim Memory Held For Literal Sentences Vs. Metaphors, Taylor Suneson

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Certain literary features of text (metaphor, idiom, etc.) are said to be foregrounded, or stand out from the surrounding text. Prior research (Miall & Kuiken, 1994) demonstrates that foregrounded text slows readers down, which is consistent with attention being grabbed. Do features of literary text, more specifically metaphors, improve memory as a result of being foregrounded? The present study investigated the effect of reading metaphoric phrases on reading time, memory accuracy, and decision times. We predicted that when a textual phrase was read as a metaphor, verbatim memory would be better retained than when that same phrase was read as …

Rigid And Non-Rigid Images: Effects On Prospective Person Memory In Missing Persons Cases, Lauren Terry

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Every day in the United States, people are reported missing with the hopes that a recovery will be made using missing person alerts and the help of the public. This paradigm for finding missing persons hinges on the prospective memory of the individuals that see the missing person alert. Prospective person memory (PPM) is a form of event-based prospective memory wherein the “event” is a sighting of the missing person, and the associated action is reporting the sighting to authorities (Lampinen et al., 2009). PPM may be improved through increased facial recognition abilities. Previous research has indicated an increase in …

The Origins Of The Iraq War: The Role Of Anthrax In The Weapons Of Mass Destruction Claims, John P. Koenig

Student Theses and Dissertations

The 2001 Anthrax Attacks were a critical factor in the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) claims that sparked the Iraq War. Despite its significance, little systematic work has been done regarding the topic. Existing studies primarily focus on the role of the Military Industrial Complex and intelligence failures as the primary explanations for the origins of the Iraq War. These explanations are limited, as they rely on hindsight biases. This thesis contends that anthrax was the catalyst for WMD claims that sparked the Iraq War. The 2001 Anthrax Attacks reinforced the belief that Iraq harbored WMDs and posed a threat …

Creative Problem Solving Using Visual Thinking, Jacob L. Ravnborg

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Creative Problem Solving Using Visual Thinking

This project explores the concept of visual and semantic thinking and how they can be incorporated into Creative Problem Solving sessions. Visual thinking is the ability to conjure mental images as part of the thinking process. This type of thinking is hard-wired into the human brain and can be seen in individual behavior and language. Meanwhile, semantic thinking is using language and grammar to convey meaning. It is a sequential process that depends on cultural and social references. The project argues that both types of thinking are essential and recommends specific guidelines for including …

Building Resilience With Creativity: A Reflective Card Deck Prototype, Lakshmi Sithambaram

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The increasing complexity and adversity in today's world emphasize the need for resilience as a critical skill to navigate these challenges. The World Economic Forum identifies resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility as essential skills for thriving in the 21st century. But how can we intentionally develop resilience? Through this project, I explore the relationship between creativity and resilience and how creativity skills can be deliberately cultivated to build resilience. To achieve this, I developed a prototype of a reflective card deck that offers a unique approach to help individuals gain knowledge, make connections, explore their relationship with the skill, and …

The Association Between Mobile Phone Use And Suicidal Ideation, Brendan Wolf

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Research suggests that suicidal ideation can increase among people who feel that they do not belong (i.e. thwarted belongingness) and who perceive themselves to be a burden on others (i.e. perceived burdensomeness). However, it is not known whether these risk factors for suicidal ideation are moderated by smartphone use and social media use. I hypothesized that the association of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness would be stronger at higher levels of mobile phone use and social media use. Undergraduate student participants (N = 81) were incentivized via class credit to participate in a two-week longitudinal study. They completed questionnaires about …

An Evaluation Of Therapeutically Applied Role-Playing Games For Psychological And Social Functioning Amongst Youth/Young Adults, Adam Thomas Soleski

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) are “a collaborative narrative game where group members role-play a character that they create in order to solve puzzles, uncover treasure, and defeat monsters in a fictional environment that is created together using formal rules and participation structures'’ (Davis & Kilmer, 2020). TTRPGs have begun to increase in popularity and evoke new interest in exploring whether these new treatment modalities result in positive mental health outcomes. Specifically, therapeutically applied role-playing games (TARPGs) are TTRPGs that integrate therapeutic mechanisms in order to promote improved psychological and social functioning. The goal of the present study was to examine …

What Cognitive Processes Drive Attentional Bias, And How Does Stress Affect Them?, Colton L. Hunter

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Attentional biases toward or away from emotionally evocative stimuli have been well documented and related to clinical outcomes such as social anxiety. Some work has suggested that stress modulates attentional biases, but there are a number of inconsistencies in this literature regarding the direction of that modulation, highlighting a need to examine moderators of that effect. Sex differences in stress effects could potentially explain this inconsistency, as acute stress can affect males and females differently. It is also possible that stress differentially influences multiple component processes underpinning attentional bias, but these processes have not been well character, and to date …

Steps Toward Healing From The Possessive Other: The Vital Role Of Fantastical Literature In Trauma Theory, Rebekah Izard

English (MA) Theses

Fantastical narratives such as fairy tales and magical realist literature utilizes fantastic and intangible spaces to unpack that which is often beyond the limitations imposed on our understanding by reality: the stunting experience of individual and generational traumas. This study aims to contribute to the current literary discourse’s understandings of fantastic literature and its subgenres as a tool for healing from trauma through the application of ontological notions of Selfhood and Otherness supplied by 20th century philosopher, Paul Ricoeur, and the notion of Orientalism by postcolonial scholar, Edward Said. The dialogue generated by these schools of thought provide a space …

Stimulus–Response Congruency Effects Depend On Quality Of Perceptual Evidence: A Diffusion Model Account, Blaine Tomkins

Psychology Faculty Publications

Individuals often need to make quick decisions based on incomplete or “noisy” information. This requires the coordination of attentional, perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral mechanisms. This poses a challenge for isolating the unique effects of each subprocess from behavioral data, which reflect the summation of all subprocesses combined. Sequential sampling models offer a more detailed examination of behavioral data, enabling us to separate decisional and non-decisional processes at play in a task. Participants were required to identify briefly presented shapes while perceptual (duration, size, location) and response features (location-congruent/-incongruent/-neutral) of the task were manipulated. The diffusion model (Ratcliff, 1978) was used …

The Role Of Attention Control In Automation Performance, Claire Textor

All Dissertations

Research in human-automation interaction has demonstrated that some individuals are more severely impacted by the negative effects of unreliable automation (i.e., exhibit lower performance) than others. A body of work has sought to explain this variability through individual differences, primarily investigating the role of working memory. However, not all studies have demonstrated a clear relationship between working memory capabilities and performance when using automation. Engle’s (2002) controlled attention theory of working memory posits that the relationship between working memory and other cognitive constructs such as fluid intelligence can be explained through a shared reliance on attention control. Studying the role …

The Influence Of Prediction Error Strength On Reconsolidation, Kevin D. Mohawk

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

It has been well established that consolidated memories can be reactivated and enter a labile state where they are once again vulnerable to modification. Reactivated memories, therefore, need to be restabilized or reconsolidated. Prediction error (PE) is one of the most common ways of reactivating consolidated memories, yet no studies have examined how varying the strength of PE influences reconsolidation. The present study aimed to determine if the strength of PE is an important factor for triggering reconsolidation and if so, how PE strength influences the reconsolidation process, whether through strengthening or weakening the memory. To vary PE strength, participants …

The Effect Of Sleep And Emotion On Pattern Separation, Alanna N. Osmanski

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Prior work on the relationship between sleep and memory suggests that the sleep state is an optimal time for memory consolidation to occur. During slow wave sleep, newly encoded information in the hippocampus is repeatedly activated, driven by slow oscillations that originate in the neocortex. This process that occurs during slow wave sleep facilitates the long-term storage of memories. A widely accepted view of emotion and sleep is that emotional memories are preferentially consolidated during sleep so that they are easily accessible for retrieval, whereas neutral memories tend to be less accessible. However, recent meta-analyses of sleep, emotion, and memory …

Comparing Comics And Illustrated Texts In Multimedia Learning, Jackson S. Pelzner

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this research was to examine how different forms of media, in particular science comics and illustrated texts, contribute to different patterns of learning. While the standard illustrated text seen in a textbook has been a useful tool for instruction, science comics appear to be an alternative that could be used in lieu of media that use the traditional illustrated text format. The comic format, known more for its visual appeal to readers, is consistent with the principles of the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2009), though comprehension may require different mechanisms (Cohn, 2013a). It was hypothesized …

The Dynamics Of Emotion-Related Impulsivity: An Analysis Of Emotional Control And Daily Emotion-Driven Urges And Actions Via Ecological Momentary Assessment, Jeremy B. Clift

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emotion-related impulsivity, or the engagement in impulsive reactions specifically in response to emotions, has been identified as a crucial transdiagnostic factor. Mixed evidence from ecological momentary assessments (EMA) underscores a potential discrepancy between the existing measurements of emotion-related impulsivity at trait and state levels. Unlike previous EMA studies examining emotion-related impulsivity through measures of urgency, the current study tested Carver and colleagues’ (2008) reflexive responding to emotion framework by investigating the relationship between emotional control and emotion-related impulsivity. Participants (N = 197) with varying levels of emotional control completed one week of EMA to investigate two central questions. First, we …

Addicted To The Beloved? - A Comparison Of Craving For And Attention To The Beloved, And Vape Stimuli, Oluchi Onyegbula, Caitlyn Harriman, Sandra Langeslag

Undergraduate Research Symposium

People who are in love seem to be addicted to their beloved. People who are in love have attentional biases for the beloved and people who are addicted have attentional biases for the substance they are using. This raises the question of how similar craving and attention are for the beloved and an addictive substance. However, there are no studies that directly compared craving and attention to the beloved and addictive stimuli. The aims of the current research were to directly compare subjective emotional experiences and sustained motivated attention for the beloved and vape stimuli, in people who are both …

The Big Five And Dark Triad: The Role Of Personality In The Development Of Passion, Hannah Behar

Honors Theses

The present work explored the connection between personality and the Dualistic Model of Passion (DMP) and weather psychological safety moderated this relationship. The first study comprised 109 Introduction to Psychology students at the University of Richmond, and the second study measured 128 MTurk participants. The web-based survey administered to both samples consisted of measures assessing Harmonious Passion (HP), Obsessive Passion (OP), the Big Five traits, the Dark Triad traits, and Psychological Safety (PS). Due to reliability concerns, only OP and the Dark Triad traits could be used to assess the MTurk sample. Results from regression analysis showed that among MTurk …

Perceiving The Poster: How Suspicion Of Motives May Impact Perceptions Of Potential Allies Engaging In Online Activism, Kathrina Z. Durante

Honors Theses

Social media posts signaling support for various social and racial justice movements have emerged as an important aspect of social media use. However, little research has investigated how these posts and the social media users behind them are perceived by members of disadvantaged groups﹘those the messages are presumably intended to “help.” Though the post’s content and poster’s identity are likely important, the primary aim of this study is to investigate an individual difference variable in the perceiver, specifically disadvantaged group members’ Suspicion of Motives Index (SOMI) scores, which measure a general tendency to perceive White individuals’ attempts at non-prejudice to …