Psychology Commons^™

Testing Candidate Cerebellar Presymptomatic Biomarkers For Autism Spectrum Disorder, Zoe Wilson Hawks

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosed on the basis of social impairment, restricted interests, and repetitive behaviors. Contemporary theories posit that cerebellar-mediated error signaling impairments contribute to the causation of ASD. However, the relationship between infant cerebellar functional connectivity (fcMRI) and later ASD behaviors and outcomes has not been investigated. Such work is critical to establish early (presymptomatic) cerebellar correlates of ASD. Methods: Data from the Infant Brain Imaging Study (n=94, 68 male) were used to evaluate cerebellar fcMRI as a presymptomatic biomarker for ASD. Specifically, brain-behavior associations were analyzed for 6-month cerebellar connections in relation …

Clear Adjustment: Status Self-Concept Clarity And Emotion Regulation, Isidro Landa

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

One factor associated with a person’s adjustment during important life transitions is self-concept clarity (SCC)—“the extent to which the contents of an individual's self-concept (e.g., perceived personal attributes) are clearly and confidently defined…”. However, it is not fully understood why and for whom SCC predicts adjustment. Recent work suggests that SCC may function as a resource for regulatory functions, allowing one to focus on long-term self-relevant goals rather than narrowly focusing on regulating immediate discomfort associated with uncertainty. It is possible that having high SCC facilitates emotion regulation in such a way that it allows one to engage and further …

Targeted Memory Reactivation During Mind-Wandering In Younger And Older Adults, Jessica Nicosia

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Mind-wandering (MW) is a universal cognitive process that is prevalent across individuals and in our everyday lives. It is estimated that over 95% of Americans experience MW every day and that ~30% of our everyday thoughts consist of MW. Despite its pervasiveness in our everyday lives, the nature of how MW interacts with other cognitive processes remains a scientific blind spot. Two interrelated issues regarding the nature of MW in the context of healthy aging were ad-dressed across five experiments. First, given the frequency of MW in our everyday lives, it is important to understand if it serves a functional …

Which Task To Choose? The Impact Of Associative Retrieval Of Event Files On Voluntary Task-Switching Performance In Younger And Older Adults, Emily Carole Streeper

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Previous task-switching research has demonstrated how prior experience can impact subsequent task-switching performance (i.e., reaction times, task choice) through associative retrieval, the creation and retrieval of event files. Event files, episodic traces which contain information about the stimulus, prior context, and action performed, can be implicitly retrieved when re-encountering information from the prior experience (e.g., stimulus repetition). The effect of associative retrieval on task-switching performance has been examined in younger adults, but few studies have investigated this effect in older adults. This gap is especially glaring in the voluntary task-switching literature where only one study to date has explored how …

Positron Emission Tomography From 1930 To 1990: The Epistemology And Process Of Scientific Instrumentation, Rick Shang

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a groundbreaking detection system that, among many other applications, enabled neuroscience researchers to detect and image physiological changes in the brain associated with cognitive operations as subjects perform a task. This technology helped researchers learn to explore the physiological basis of human cognition in new ways and was the immediate forerunner of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a technology that continues to dominate the neurosciences. PET was also the founding invention of a new field of cognitive science: human functional neuroimaging. Indeed, some would say that PET encouraged a particular way of understanding the brain …

The Disunity Of Perception, Benjamin Austin Henke

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues for disunity in perceptual processing: rather than outputting to a single ‘centralized’ cognitive system, separate perceptual processing pathways produce different person-level representations for different purposes. I argue that this disunity has important implications for abstract theorizing in the philosophy and cognitive science of perception, for experimental methodology, and for our understanding of the normative role of perception itself. The first three chapters explore models in cognitive neuroscience which support perceptual disunity. In Chapter 1, I argue that a version of Milner and Goodale’s (2006) influential ‘two visual streams hypothesis’ survives its recent empirical challenges. In Chapter 2, …

Impulsivity And Brain Organization In Childhood Suicide: An Adolescent Brain And Cognitive Development (Abcd) Study, Katherine Lopez

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Rates of suicide have steadily increased across all age cohorts, revealing a particularly concerning rise in suicide among much younger age groups (10-15 years old). Recent efforts aimed at understanding suicide in youth have leveraged work from the adult literature to more pointedly examine candidate risk factors associated with childhood suicide. A noteworthy body of work has begun to clarify the role that impulsivity plays in elevating suicide risk among adults and adolescents, a critical link warranting further research in childhood suicide given the vast and well-documented changes occurring in self-control and brain maturity throughout development. Here, we examined a …

Personality Pathology And Cognitive Aging: The Role Of Interpersonal Stress, Patrick Joseph Cruitt

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Research on the relationship between normal-range personality and cognitive aging has demonstrated consistent, but modest, effects. The current investigation seeks to increase our understanding of unhealthy cognitive aging by examining the maladaptive extremes of personality. Borderline and avoidant personality disorder (PD), but not obsessive-compulsive PD, were hypothesized to show prospective associations with cognitive aging. Interpersonal stress was expected to mediate these relationships. The current investigation tested these hypotheses in two longitudinal studies of older adulthood: the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center cohort (ADRC, N = 434, Mage = 69.95, 56% women) and the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network study (SPAN, …

Altered Network Organization And Screen Time Use In Childhood Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (Adhd), Elizabeth Jane Hawkey

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have been associated with alterations in functional connectivity involving networks in the developing brain that support optimal cognitive control. However, a clear profile of altered connectivity has yet to emerge, and it remains unclear whether changes in behavioral patterns such as screen time (ST) contribute to ADHD symptomatology and altered connectivity in networks that support cognitive control. The current study examined connectivity between large-scale networks associated with cognitive control (CC), measures of executive function (EF) which index CC, and ST in children with ADHD. Methods: Our sample included 11,874 children (ages 9-11, 52% male) …

Does The Combination Of Spacing And Testing Promote Transfer Beyond Either Strategy Alone?, Zeynep Oyku Uner

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Testing and spacing improve long-term retention and their combination boosts retention further. Despite the combined benefits of spaced testing, it is unclear whether these benefits extend to situations where students learn from lengthy and complex textbooks and need to use concept knowledge in novel ways. To address this issue, in the current study, college students were asked to read from a textbook and review key concepts twice, either back-to-back within the same session or in two sessions spaced two days apart. To review concepts, students either took definition quizzes with feedback (short-answer in Experiment 1, multiple-choice in Experiment 2) or …

Positron Emission Tomography From 1930 To 1990: The Epistemology And Process Of Scientific Instrumentation, Rick Shang

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a groundbreaking detection system that, among many other applications, enabled neuroscience researchers to detect and image physiological changes in the brain associated with cognitive operations as subjects perform a task. This technology helped researchers learn to explore the physiological basis of human cognition in new ways and was the immediate forerunner of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a technology that continues to dominate the neurosciences. PET was also the founding invention of a new field of cognitive science: human functional neuroimaging. Indeed, some would say that PET encouraged a particular way of understanding the brain …

Parental Well-Being, Technoference, And Parent-Child Interactions During The 2nd Year Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Katherine Whitaker, Katherine G. Golway, Cara Cashon Phd

Undergraduate Research Events

- Parent-child interactions during the first five years of life have been associated with the child’s social and cognitive development (Edwards, Sheridan, & Knoche, 2008).

- The amount and quality of parent-child interactions may be associated with a parent’s mental health (Milkie et al., 2020).

- Mothers with depression tend to show increased withdrawal and intrusion from their infants during interactions than non-depressed mothers (Field, 1995).

- Increased distractions from technology during parentchild interactions may be associated with differences in infants’ social and cognitive development (Reed, Hirsch- Pasek, and Golinkoff, 2017).

- Technoference refers to the, sometimes invasive and persuasive, …

Autonomy And The Folk Concept Of Valid Consent, Joanna Demaree-Cotton, Roseanna Sommers

Law & Economics Working Papers

Consent governs innumerable everyday social interactions, including sex, medical exams, the use of property, and economic transactions. Yet little is known about how ordinary people reason about the validity of consent. Across the domains of sex, medicine, and police entry, Study 1 showed that when agents lack autonomous decision-making capacities, participants are less likely to view their consent as valid; however, failing to exercise this capacity and deciding in a nonautonomous way did not reduce consent judgments. Study 2 found that specific and concrete incapacities reduced judgments of valid consent, but failing to exercise these specific capacities did not, even …

Translational Evaluation Of Treatment Integrity Following Training With Varying Destructive Behavior Rates, Alexandra Hardee

Theses & Dissertations

Behavior analysts often use behavioral skills training to teach caregivers to implement treatment for their child’s destructive behavior with high levels of integrity. Even when trained to high levels of integrity, caregivers may revert to undesirable behaviors, and treatment integrity may decrease if high rates of destructive behavior occur (i.e., relapse). In the present study, we implemented a translational evaluation with adult participants to determine the impact of training under low- or high-rate destructive behavior on treatment integrity during subsequent treatment challenges involving exposure to high rates of destructive behavior only. Participants trained to implement the treatment package under conditions …

Who Creates Strong Passwords When Nudging Fails, Shelia M. Kennison, Ian T. Jones, Victoria H. Spooner, D. Eric Chan-Tin

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The use of strong passwords is viewed as a recommended cybersecurity practice, as the hacking of weak passwords led to major cybersecurity breaches. The present research investigated whether nudging with messages based on participants’ self-schemas could lead them to create stronger passwords. We modeled our study on prior health-related research demonstrating positive results using messages based on self-schema categories (i.e., True Colors categories -compassionate, loyal, intellectual, and adventurous). We carried out an online study, one with 256 (185 women, 66 men, 5 other) undergraduates and one with 424 (240 men, 179 women, 5 other) Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers, in …

Stigma And Social-Emotional Health In Youth With Learning Differences, Kelsey Maki

Doctoral Dissertations

Youth diagnosed with specific learning disorder (SLD) and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), defined collectively for the purposes of this study as youth with learning differences, experience poorer social-emotional health outcomes in comparison to their typically developing peers. These youth additionally experience stigma from their peers, teachers, and broader community, which may impact social-emotional health. As a secondary data analysis of a larger study, the present study investigated the role of stigma consciousness alongside demographic variables, self-esteem, and peer relationships in social-emotional health outcomes. Due to the possible differences between youth diagnosed with SLD, ADHD, and comorbid SLD/ADHD, group differences …

Experiences Of Uc Santa Barbara Female Alumni Exposed To A Gender-Based Mass Shooting, Erin G. Carpenter

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past five decades, mass shootings have emerged as a highly politicized, social problem that generates considerable public sentiment and media attention (Elsass et al., 2014; Rocque & Duwe, 2018; Shultz et al., 2014). Moreover, the increase in mass shootings carried out on or near college campuses have led researchers to focus more intently on the predictors and consequences that characterize these types of attacks (Boykin & Orcutt, 2018; Elsass et al., 2014; Fox & Savage, 2009). One college mass shooting that has received limited empirical attention is the 2014 mass shooting that occurred in Isla Vista, a town …

Acceptance: A Research Overview And Application Of This Core Act Process In Aba, Dr. Michael Bordieri, Phd

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

Acceptance describes mediating behaviors in which an individual reduces escape and avoidance behaviors in response to unwanted private events while also encouraging increased appetitive control. Given the recent resurgence of interest in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy/Training (ACT) in ABA, a review of this core treatment process is warranted. Acceptance enjoys strong empirical support within the psychological and contextual behavioral science literatures, with treatment outcome studies, self-report measures research, and behavioral laboratory tasks all supporting the process. A review of select publications in behavior analytic journals found that acceptance also enjoys preliminary evidence of effectiveness across a variety of populations and …

Supporting Children With Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Routines And Environmental Factors Affecting Sleep Quality, Constance Lew, Susan Macdermott, Karen Park, Becki Cohill

Summer 2021 Virtual OTD Capstone Symposium

Background: Sleep difficulties are more common among children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). There is limited research on sleep strategies used by parents of children with NDDs or resources written by occupational therapists. The study examines current sleep concerns and strategies used by parents of children with NDDs, including those affecting time it takes to fall asleep, duration of sleep, routines, and environmental factors that influence sleep.

Method: Parents and caregivers of children with NDDs (n=22) and with no diagnosis (n=6) participated in a survey and optional interview to assess current concerns and strategies used to address sleep. Data gathered included …

Inducing Cognitive Reflection And Its Impact On Contradictory Belief Holding, Meg Powers, Keith Lyle Phd

Undergraduate Research Events

Cognitive reflection is the propensity to reflect on one’s intuitions. 1 Some people are more likely than others to engage in cognitive reflection. This tendency can be measured with the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT). 2

Cognitive reflection appears to be an important individual difference factor. For example, lower CRT performance has been linked to greater belief in conspiracy theories 3 and greater social conservatism. 4 Hence, it is important to test whether reflection can be induced among people who do not spontaneously engage in it.

The present research will also test whether cognitive reflection is related to yea yeaing . …

The Mediating Role Of Interpersonal Skills In The Relationship Between Depressive Symptomatology And Dating Violence In Young Mothers, Lauren Catherine Wallace

Theses and Dissertations

Young mothers are an understudied group at high-risk for dating violence (DV) victimization and perpetration. Psychological distress, such as depression, increases young mothers' risk for DV (Thomas et al., 2019). In turn, depressive symptomology is associated with difficulties in interpersonal competence (Jones et al., 2019), which may increase DV risk (Bonache et al., 2017). In addition, young mothers may have few chances to learn the interpersonal skills associated with healthy adult romantic relationships due to a mismatch in developmental level and parenting status (Herrman et al., 2019; Moore et al., 2007). Using interpersonal stress generation theory (Hammen, 1991, 2006), we …

Enhancing Discharge Preparation For Adults With Substance Use Disorder Within A Residential Treatment Facility, Piper Virva, Susan Macdermott, Becki Cohill, Karen Park

Summer 2021 Virtual OTD Capstone Symposium

The community reintegration process is a vital aspect of the recovery journey, which requires sufficient planning and preparation prior to discharge from treatment (Read & Stoffel, 2019). Individuals enrolled in a residential treatment program for SUD indicated that higher levels of assistance and preparation during the transition to community living and involvement in comprehensive discharge planning would better prepare them for community reintegration (Manuel et al., 2017). Historically, the role of occupational therapy (OT) with this population has been to facilitate the resumption of meaningful roles, identify supportive habits and routines, and address executive functioning deficits related to SUD (Champagne …

Independent Contributions Of Structural And Functional Connectivity: Evidence From A Stroke Model, Lynsey M. Keator, Grigori Yourganov, Alexandra Basilakos, Argye E. Hillis, Gregory Hickok, Leonardo Bonilha, Chris Rorden, Julius Fridriksson

Faculty Publications

Altered functional connectivity is related to severity of language impairment in poststroke aphasia. However, it is not clear whether this finding specifically reflects loss of functional coherence, or more generally, is related to decreased structural connectivity due to cortical necrosis. The aim of the current study was to investigate this issue by factoring out structural connectivity from functional connectivity measures and then relating the residual data to language performance poststroke. Ninety-seven participants with a history of stroke were assessed using language impairment measures (Auditory Verbal Comprehension and Spontaneous Speech scores from the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised) and MRI (structural, diffusion tensor …

Body Trust Moderates The Relationship Between Physical & Emotional Awareness & Eating Disorders In Adolescents, Emma G Roberts, Rowan Hunt, Cheri Levinson Phd

Undergraduate Research Events

Eating disorders (EDs) have a complex relationship with interoceptive awareness (i.e., awareness of inner bodily sensations; IA). Research suggests that physical hyper-awareness and tendency to distract from bodily sensations are positively associated with ED symptoms, and body trust (i.e., experiencing one’s body as safe and trustworthy) is negatively associated with ED symptoms (Lattimore et al, 2017; Merwin et al, 2010; Duffy et al, 2020). While physical awareness (PA) and emotional awareness (EA) have been shown in nonclinical samples to be beneficial for affect regulation, similar facets of IA are associated with higher symptomatology in ED samples (Price & Hooven 2018). …

Assessing Instrumental Weapons Violence Against Teachers, Elena Gonzalez Molina, Kailyn Bare, Kayleigh Zinter, Susan D. Mcmahon

DePaul Discoveries

Violence against teachers is a critical issue for learning communities. Among the most serious forms of harm include weapon violence. While there has been extensive research on weapon carrying and traditional weapon use within schools, there has been little investigation into instrumental weapon violence against teachers. The current study utilizes qualitative survey data to investigate contributing conditions related to teacher’s experiences of instrumental weapon’s violence through direct content analysis. Results from this study aim to expand our understanding of the nature and nuance of teacher-directed instrumental weapon violence.

The Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status And Blood Pressure, Christopher Bell

DePaul Discoveries

This paper examines the literature surrounding the relationship between blood pressure/hypertension and income. In addition, it examines blood pressure data in order to identify potential relationships between hypertension and income, race, and education. In reviewing the literature, the overall profile of the relationship between income and blood pressure in the United States is negative. However, there are some interesting nuances to this relationship that are discussed based on race and gender. Moreover, when looking abroad, evidence shows that the relationship between blood pressure and income can vary greatly depending on context. In looking at data from a youth sample, it …

Driving Habits, Cognition, And Health-Related Quality Of Life In Middle-Aged And Older Adults With Hiv, Josiah J. Robinson, Tess Walker, Cierra Hopkins, Brittany Bradley, Peggy Mckie, Jennifer S. Frank, Caitlin N. Pope, Pariya L. Fazeli, David E. Vance

Graduate Center for Gerontology Faculty Publications

Cognitive impairment is known to increase with aging in people living with HIV (PLWH). Impairment in cognitive domains required for safe driving may put PLWH at risk for poor driving outcomes, decreased mobility, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). This study described the driving behaviors of middle-aged and older PLWH and examined correlations between driving behaviors and cognitive functioning (Aim 1), and driving behaviors and HRQoL domains (Aim 2). A sample of 260 PLWH ages 40 and older completed a comprehensive assessment including a battery of cognitive tests, an HRQoL measure, and a measure of self-reported driving habits. Associations between …

Applying Theoretical Models Of Positive Emotion To Improve Pediatric Asthma: A Positive Psychology Approach, Brooke N. Jenkins, Judith T. Moskowitz, Jill Halterman, Zeev N. Kain

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Positive emotion, encompassing feelings such as joy and happiness, has been shown to predict a multitude of health outcomes. However, the role of positive emotion in pediatric asthma is not understood. No work to date has examined how positive emotion may offer benefits to children and adolescents with asthma. Based on theory and models of positive emotion and health, we hypothesize that positive emotion may improve asthma outcomes through mediators such as health behaviors and health-relevant physiological functioning. Moreover, boosting positive emotion during times of stress may be particularly relevant in mitigating asthma symptoms. In the present commentary, we elaborate …

Agency Rescues Competition For Credit Assignment Among Predictive Cues From Adverse Learning Conditions, Mihwa Kang, Ingrid Reverte, Stephen Volz, Keith Kaufman, Salvatore Fevola, Anna Matarazzo, Fahd H. Alhazmi, Inmaculada Marquez, Mihaela D. Iordanova, Guillem R. Esber

Publications and Research

A fundamental assumption of learning theories is that the credit assigned to predictive cues is not simply determined by their probability of reinforcement, but by their ability to compete with other cues present during learning. This assumption has guided behavioral and neural science research for decades, and tremendous empirical and theoretical advances have been made identifying the mechanisms of cue competition. However, when learning conditions are not optimal (e.g., when training is massed), cue competition is attenuated. This failure of the learning system exposes the individual’s vulnerability to form spurious associations in the real world. Here, we uncover that cue …

Physical Activity As A Mediator Between Race/Ethnicity And Changes In Multimorbidity., Jason T. Newsom, Emily C. Denning, Miriam R. Elman, Anda Botoseneanu, Heather G. Allore, Corey L. Nagel, David A. Dorr, Ana R. Quiñones

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Studies report racial/ethnic disparities in multimorbidity (≥2 chronic conditions) and their rate of accumulation over time as well as differences in physical activity. Our study aimed to investigate whether racial/ethnic differences in the accumulation of multimorbidity were mediated by physical activity among middle-aged and older adults.