Psychology Commons^™

Object Categorization In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asd), Jaime Vitrano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate hierarchical object categorization in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), examining three levels of category inclusiveness (superordinate, basic, subordinate) across three tasks (sequential touching task, generalized imitation task, sorting task) in three domains (animals, tools, kitchen utensils) in the same group of children with ASD. Previous research on the categorization abilities of children with ASD has shown mixed results. This study was designed to clarify past discrepancies in the literature.

Ten children with ASD participated in this study (mean CA = 4 years, 10 months; range 3 to 6 years; mean VMA …

The Effects Of Childhood Sexual Abuse On Parenting, Erin Ann Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a pervasive problem that has been the focus of substantial empirical research. While negative outcomes such as psychiatric diagnoses or health problems have been well documented, the literature regarding the effects of CSA on parenting is sparse and has produced conflicting results. Moreover, the existing research on CSA's effect on later parenting has several methodological limitations (e.g., retrospective data) and has failed to find any consistent explanatory mechanisms/pathways for which CSA is most likely to impede parental success. The present study examined whether a history of CSA leads to negative parental outcomes (i.e., how they …

The Role Of Emotional Support Consistency And Child Risk Factors In Predicting Pre-K Cognitive And Social-Emotional Development, Amy Lynn Cannell-Cordier

Dissertations and Theses

The quality of children's daily experiences in preschool classrooms is predictive of their school readiness and later achievement (Duncan et al., 2007; La Paro & Pianta, 2000). One particularly important aspect of these experiences is the quality of emotional support provided by teachers and peers in the classroom (Hamre & Pianta, 2005; Howes et al., 2008; Mashburn, 2008; National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning, 2012). Traditionally, emotional support quality has been calculated as the average of ratings taken across the school year and is meant to represent children's average daily experience, without regard to any variability which exists within …

Investigating Sleep Behaviors In Autistic Infants, Alanna R. Flynn

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is defined by social, emotional, and learning deficits. Past research suggests that ASD and sleep problems often co-occur. The goal of this research was to investigate sleeping behaviors in autistic infants in comparison to typically developing infants (TD). The data of this study has been acquired at the University of California San Diego Autism Center of Excellence. One main goal of this center is to identify early indicators of ASD in infants (1-3 years of age), which could lead to earlier treatment and better therapy techniques. The current study used a sleep questionnaire to compare parent-reported …

An Analysis Of The Impact Of Emotional Literacy Instruction On At-Risk Students, Shannon H. Garcia

Dissertations

This study examined the impact of social-emotional literacy instruction for at-risk adolescents ages 13 to 18 at the high school level. Of particular interest is the impact of social-emotional literacy instruction on at-risk youth Grades 9-12 in secondary high schools’ 8-week-long social-emotional literacy class through Project AWARE, particularly in the areas of suspension, expulsion, attendance, connectivity, attitude toward school, resiliency, and relational aggression rates; the data were analyzed using archival data and teacher interview. Project AWARE, the social-emotional literacy intervention examined in this study, educates and provides mentorship for at-risk students, while also providing a group educational component on relationships …

Fatalism, Diabetes Management Outcomes, And The Role Of Religiosity, Vincent Berardi, John Bellettiere, Orit Nativ, Slezak Ladislav, Melbourne Hovell, Orna Baron-Epel

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

This study aimed to determine whether fatalistic beliefs were associated with elevated levels of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and to establish the role of religiosity in this relationship. A cross-sectional survey was conducted on a sample of 183 Jewish adults with diabetes visiting a large medical center in northern Israel. Self-administered questionnaires assessed level of religiosity, fatalistic beliefs, diabetes management behaviors, and demographic/personal characteristics; laboratory tests were used to measure HbA1c. Multivariate regression indicated that fatalism was significantly associated with HbA1c (β = 0.51, p = 0.01). The association was no longer statistically significant after including self-reported religiosity in the …

Summary Of The Performance Effects Of Sustained Operations, Valerie Gawron

Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments

Sustained operations missions are performed in diverse environments. These environments include military command and control, process control, medical practice, and security surveillance. Research on the related fatigue effects of sustained operations is reviewed for each of these diverse environments. For military surge operations, both ground and airborne command and control operators show similar decrements in visual performance as a function of sleep loss. Other decrements include increased number of errors in vigilance tasks and reaction time tasks. In process control experiments, longer shifts resulted in more variance in reaction time to grammatical reasoning tasks. Night shift was associated with slower …

Developing Wildland Firefighters’ Performance Capacity Through Awareness-Based Processes: A Qualitative Investigation, Alexis L. Waldron, Vicki Ebbeck

Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments

Wildland firefighting is environmentally and socially a risky and complex occupation. Although much attention has been given to understanding the physical components in fighting wildland fire, much less time has been devoted to understanding and developing the capacity of wildland firefighters to handle the dynamic pressures of the physical and social environments. The purpose of this study was to explore the receptiveness, utility, effectiveness, and potential improvements for a mindful and self-compassionate awareness program developed for the wildland fire environment. The program was based on the use of a conceptual tool to refocus awareness and move self-compassionately through key aspects …

Workplace Aggression: A Multi-Study Examination Of Work And Nonwork Consequences, Caitlin Ann Demsky

Dissertations and Theses

Workplace aggression has been associated with a number of detrimental employee and organizational outcomes, both at work and away from work. This dissertation includes three studies that expand our knowledge of the implications of workplace aggression in the work and nonwork domains. Further, this research illuminates the processes through which this relationship occurs by utilizing various sources of data from employees in a variety of contexts including universities, long term health care, and the USDA Forest Service. In Study 1, which was published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, multi-source data are utilized to identify the indirect effects of …

Auditory Reaction Time And Behavioral Working Memory Differences Between Musicians And Non-Musicians, Benjamin Richardson, Zach Felke, Marisha Medrano, Grace Whorley, Hannah Williams

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

Previous research investigating working memory functioning between musicians and non-musicians has demonstrated differences related to music experience in auditory reaction tasks. This body of research suggests music experience may be related to faster reaction times to auditory stimuli. In addition to reaction times recorded by clicking a mouse while listening to a tonal oddball, participants in the current study performed six subtests of the TOMAL-2, a standardized measure of working memory ability, documenting participants visual, auditory, and executive functioning modules of working memory. Our hypotheses are that means of performance on all three subtests of the TOMAL-2 will be higher …

Electrophysiological And Behavioral Working Memory Differences Between Musicians And Non-Musicians, Benjamin Richardson, Zach Felke, Grace Whorley, Marisha Medrano, Hannah Williams

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

The current study is an examination of P300 differences between musicians and non-musician groups during a visual oddball task, in addition to behavioral subtests of the TOMAL-2 measuring visual and auditory working memory. Previous research has demonstrated higher amplitude P300 waveforms with shorter latencies of P300 onset in musician groups, indicating a more sensitive and accurate stimulus detection system. Fluctuations of P300 amplitude and latency activity near parietal areas have been used to quantify differences in updating processes of working memory possibly associated with differences in amounts of music experience. The current study is designed to partially replicate a method …

The Relationship Between Gender And Perceived Stress Levels In College Students, Meghan Gilbert

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

Previous research on stress in adults demonstrates that stress, even perceived stress, can take a toll on an individual’s health. Research also indicates that the severity of stress in college students has been rapidly increasing, which indicates a need for more investigation in this area. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a difference between the stress levels of male and female college students and, if so, whether there is another factor involved that can account for this difference. The participants consisted of students attending Brigham Young University who were also active members of The Church …

The Influence Of Family Upbringing On The Facial Inference Process, Kara Pellegrini, Christopher Benner-Kenagy, Meghan Gilbert, Jacqueline Licea, Jonathan Ojeda, Jordan Segura-Mitchell

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

This study examined personality trait inferences on the basis of facial expressions by showing participants multiple photographs of either one young female face or one young male face, exhibiting three distinct facial expressions. Participants from two parent homes were asked to indicate which parent was more nurturing, and which parent enacted more disciplinary measures. Results demonstrated that responses to these two questions influenced participant trait responses to the angry and sad facial expressions. Results were discussed in terms of overall environmental influence on the inference causal attribution process.

Student Usage And Perceptions Of Digital Devices In The Classroom And While Driving, Elena Larrabee, Hannah Williams

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

The purpose of this study is to examine Central Washington University students’ use of electronic devices for non-class related purposes and while driving. For the purposes of the study, electronic devices are defined as cellphones, tablets, laptops, and any other devices that are non-essential to the classroom environment, and non-classroom purposes are defined as any non-course specific activities performed on an electronic device during lecture. The survey has two parts, the first focusing on electronic device usage in the classroom, and the second focusing on electronic device usage while operating a vehicle. The survey is administered online, and focuses on …

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, The Primary Motor Neuron Disease, Jacob P. Naumann

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a degenerative neurological disease that damages nerve cells in the brain, in particular the neurons that are involved in voluntary muscle movements. Internationally the disorder is also known as Charcot’s disease and motor neuron disease. In the United States, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease, motor neuron disease, and more colloquially ALS. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is the most prominent of the five motor neuron diseases, distinguishing itself from the others through degeneration of both upper motor neurons (UMN) and lower motor neurons (LMN) respectively. The “Father of neurology” Jean-Marie Charcot founded …

Gender Differences In The Relationship Between Impulsivity And Disordered Eating Behaviors And Attitudes, Alyssa Lundahl, Laura C. Wahlstrom, Christa C. Christ, Scott F. Stoltenberg

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Objective: We investigated relationships among gender, impulsivity and disordered eating in healthy college students.

Method: Participants (N = 1223) were healthy, undergraduate men (28.5%) and women (71.5%), who completed the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale — Version 11 (BIS-11) and a four-factor version of the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-16).

Results: As predicted, mean scores on all four EAT-16 factors were significantly higher for women than for men. Attentional impulsivity was related to poorer self-perception of body shape, more dieting, and a greater preoccupation with food for the sample as a whole. Moreover, motor impulsivity was related to poorer self-perceptions of body shape …

The Relation Of Hyperactivity To Parenting Stress Within The Parent-Child Relationship In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Heather Davis

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

Research indicates that parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience more total stress and more stress within specific domains of the parent-child relationship. Specific externalizing behaviors such as hyperactivity have been related to elevated adverse parent-child outcomes in families with typically developing children. To date, the relation of child hyperactivity to parenting stress has not been examined in children with ASD. This study investigated the extent to which child hyperactivity differs between children who are typically developing (TD) and children with ASD. In addition, this study also examined the relation of child hyperactivity to parenting stress. Participants included …

Building Resources At Home And At Work: Day-Level Relationships Between Job Crafting, Recovery Experiences, And Work Engagement, Allison Marie Ellis

Dissertations and Theses

Work engagement is an increasingly popular construct in organizational and occupational health psychology. However, despite substantial advances in our understanding of work engagement at the between-person level, scholars have argued for increased investigation into what drives engagement on a daily level for individual employees. In the current study, a within-person, day-level design was employed to examine the relationships between nonwork mastery experiences, job crafting behaviors, and daily work engagement. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (Hobfoll, 1989) theory, nonwork mastery experiences and job crafting were operationalized as employee-driven, resource-building strategies that assist employees in generating important psychological and job resources that …

Dynamic Job Satisfaction Shifts: Implications For Manager Behavior And Crossover To Employees, David Ellis Caughlin

Dissertations and Theses

In this dissertation, I investigated job satisfaction from a dynamic perspective. Specifically, I integrated the momentum model of job satisfaction with the affective shift model and crossover theory in an effort to move beyond traditional, static conceptions of job satisfaction and other constructs. Recent research and theoretical development has focused on the meaning of job satisfaction change for workers and how such change impacts their decisions to leave an organization. To extend this line of inquiry, I posited hypotheses pertaining to: (a) job satisfaction change with respect to positive work behavior (i.e., organizational citizenship behavior, family-supportive supervisor behavior); (b) the …

Task-Switching In Bilinguals: Further Investigation Of The Bilingual Advantage, Jennifer M. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Recent research has suggested that speaking more than one language may lead to benefits across a variety of different cognitive tasks (Bialystok, Craik, Green, & Gollan, 2009). This effect has been dubbed the Bilingual Advantage. It has been suggested that this advantage relates to more the development of greater efficiency with processes involved in task-switching. The current study used a task-switching task to investigate three of these processes: reconfiguration, monitoring, and inhibitory control processes.

Monolingual and bilingual participants were presented blocks of trials in which they had to either categorize words as either abstract or concrete, or pictures as human-made …

Neural Mechanisms Of Inhibitory Control: Predictors Of Eating Behavior In Obesity, Kaylie Carbine, Michael Larson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Obesity is a prominent public health concern associated with increased risk of high blood pressure, chronic diseases, and mortality (National Institutes of Health, 2011). Understanding the neural underpinnings of obesity may prove beneficial for effective weight control interventions. Specifically, decreased ability to inhibit responses toward food-related cues may be associated with impulsive eating and subsequent weight gain (Batterink, Yokum, & Strice, 2010). Response inhibition is defined as one’s ability to withhold a prominent response in order to correctly respond to environmental or taskrelevant information (Ko & Miller, 2013). Weight and inhibitory control are negatively correlated, indicating that individuals with reduced …

Examining The Effect Of Education Type On Common Misconceptions Of Traumatic Brain Injury, Monica De Iorio

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

It has been widely shown that misconceptions related to traumatic brain injury (TBI) are held among both family members of people with TBI and the general public. These misconceptions have the potential to increase the distress of people with TBI and negatively impact rehabilitation processes. Although increased education has often been suggested to reduce misconceptions, few studies have examined which methods are most effective in providing information to the public. In the current study, I investigated the effects of existing education materials – either a TBI factsheet or personal stories of people with TBI. These materials are currently easily accessible …

Ethnicity, Qualifications, And Peer Influence: Relative Effects In A Simulated Hiring Decision, Victoria Lynn Kerns

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Past research has examined the effects observed when résumés varying only in a name or a particular characteristic that is often stereotyped against receive differential feedback (see, for example, Derous et al., 2009). The current study sought to build on that design, adding the influence of peers as a possible way to reduce this discrimination in hiring.

Participants viewed two résumés varying in qualifications, one belonging to a seemingly Anglo candidate and one belonging to a seemingly Arab candidate. They chose a candidate for the position in the presence of peer influence which favored one candidate over another, or peer …

An Investigation Of Short-Term Memory Functioning In A Neurodevelopmental Rat Model Of Schizophrenia, Ashley M. Moyett

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Schizophrenia is a debilitating disorder characterized by positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms. Cognitive deficits affect one’s learning and memory due to a dysfunction in the brain, inhibiting a normal functioning life. The self-medicating hypothesis states that ninety percent of people with schizophrenia smoke, because nicotine use improves these cognitive deficits. The cytokine hypothesis states that inflammation due to prenatal infection is associated with schizophrenia. These increased proinflamatory cytokines can damage the brains of the fetuses, which can cause schizophrenic-like symptoms in rats. The present study used Lipopolysaccharides to activate the cytokine-mediated inflammatory response injected into pregnant dams. A T-maze was …

Image Segmentation Using Fuzzy-Spatial Taxon Cut, Lauren Barghout

MODVIS Workshop

Images convey multiple meanings that depend on the context in which the viewer perceptually organizes the scene. This presents a problem for automated image segmentation, because it adds uncertainty to the process of selecting which objects to include or not include within a segment. I’ll discuss the implementation of a fuzzy-logic-natural-vision-processing engine that solves this problem by assuming the scene architecture prior to processing. The scene architecture, a standardized natural-scene-perception-taxonomy comprised of a hierarchy of nested spatial-taxons. Spatial-taxons are regions (pixel-sets) that are figure-like, in that they are perceived as having a contour, are either `thing-like', or a `group of …

‘Edge’ Integration Explains Contrast And Assimilation In A Gradient Lightness Illusion, Michael E. Rudd

MODVIS Workshop

In the ‘phantom’ illusion (Galmonte, Soranzo, Rudd, & Agostini, submitted), either an incremental or a decremental target, when surrounded by a luminance gradient, can to be made to appear as an increment or a decrement, depending on the gradient width. For wide gradients, incremental targets appear as increments and decremental targets appear as decrements. For narrow gradients, the reverse is true. Here, I model these phenomena with a two-stage neural lightness theory (Rudd, 2013, 2014) in which local steps in log luminance are first encoded by oriented spatial filters operating on a log-transformed version of the image; then the filter …

Does Thin Always Sell? The Moderating Role Of Thin Ideal Internalization On Advertising Effectiveness, James A. Roberts, Chloe' A. Roberts

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Much of the current focus on the use of ultra-thin models in fashion magazines can be attributed to Madison Avenue which still operates under a “Thin Sells” ethos. Research to date, however, has provided equivocal evidence of the efficacy of thin models in advertising (Yu 2014). The present study’s two related objectives include: (1) determining whether model size has an impact on advertising effectiveness, and (2) if internalization of the thin ideal moderates this relationship. Study results suggest model size in fashion advertisements has no main effect on advertising effectiveness. Additionally, thin ideal internalization moderates the model size – advertising …

A Linearized Model For Flicker And Contrast Thresholds At Various Retinal Illuminances, Albert Ahumada, Andrew B. Watson

MODVIS Workshop

Watson and Ahumada (1992 SID) predicted flicker thresholds for bright displays using a temporal contrast sensitivity function (TCSF). Under the assumptions that the falling limb of the TCSF is linear at all retinal illuminations and that the Ferry-Porter law can be extended to supra-threshold levels, the thresholds for any of the three variables (frequency in Hz, log10 contrast, and retinal illuminance in log Trolands) can be predicted from the other two from a linear model with four parameters.

Romps, Riots, And Revels In The Land Of Make-Believe : Imaginative Play As A Prerequisite For Social And Emotional Development In Early Childhood Through Adolescence, Shoshana Balk

Graduate Student Independent Studies

This paper explores the impact of imaginative play on child development, as well as its educational benefits when incorporated into the learning environment.

Can Two Dots Form A Gestalt? Measuring Emergent Features With The Capacity Coefficient, Robert D. Hawkins, Joseph W. Houpt, Ami Eidels, James T. Townsend

Psychology Faculty Publications

While there is widespread agreement among vision researchers on the importance of some local aspects of visual stimuli, such as hue and intensity, there is no general consensus on a full set of basic sources of information used in perceptual tasks or how they are processed. Gestalt theories place particular value on emergent features, which are based on the higher-order relationships among elements of a stimulus rather than local properties. Thus, arbitrating between different accounts of features is an important step in arbitrating between local and Gestalt theories of perception in general. In this paper, we present the capacity coefficient …