Psychology Commons^™

Behavioral And Neural Correlates Of Misses During Cued Recall, Lindsey Sirianni

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Recognition memory is thought to rely upon both recollection and familiarity. When people recall an episode from the past it is generally considered to reflect the memory process of recollection. Therefore, if people can successfully recall an item, they should be able to recognize it. However, in cued recall paradigms of memory research, participants sometimes correctly recall a studied target word in the presence of a strong semantic cue but then fail to recognize that word as actually having been studied. This paradox and underlying cognitive processes have been minimally studied by scientists, leaving this phenomenon poorly understood. Extant research …

Neurological Correlates Of The Dunning-Kruger Effect, Alana Lauren Muller

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a metacognitive phenomenon in which individuals who perform poorly on a task believe they performed well, whereas individuals who performed very well believe their performance was only average. To date, this effect has only been investigated in the context of performance on mathematical, logical, or lexical tasks, but has yet to be explored for its generalizability in episodic memory task performance. We used a novel method to elicit the Dunning-Kruger Effect via a memory test of item and source recognition confidence. Participants studied 4 lists of words and were asked to make a simple decision about …

Training To Inhibit Negative Content Affects Memory And Rumination, Shimrit Daches, Nilly Mor, Paula T. Hertel

Psychology Faculty Research

Depressive rumination, the tendency to engage in repetitive self-focus in response to distress, seems to be affected by a variety of cognitive biases that in turn maintain negative emotional states. The current study examined whether the difficulty in inhibiting attention to negative information contributes to rumination and to rumination-related biases in memory. Seventy-nine ruminators underwent a 3-week computer-based training, designed to increase either inhibition of negative words or attention to them. On immediate post-training trials, as well as on 2-week follow-up tests, we found evidence for transfer of inhibition training. Training effects also occurred on session-by-session and post-training measures of …

The Revelation Effect In Autobiographical Memory, Vincent A. Medina

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The revelation effect is a memory illusion in recognition memory where items are more likely to be considered old if they are immediately preceded by a cognitive task (for a review, see Abfalg, Bernstein, & Hockley, 2017). Recent research has shown that the revelation effect appears in past and future episodic judgments so long as the tasks are autobiographical in nature (Westerman, Miller, & Lloyd, 2017). Aging is a factor that has not yet been studied in the revelation effect literature in terms of autobiographical memory. It has implications because of aging’s significant impact on mental time travel. During this …

Fluency & Over The Counter Drug Warning Labels, Jonathan M. Cecire

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Fluency is defined as the ease with which something is processed (Jacoby & Dallas, 1981; Okuhara, 2017). Recent research has shown that the fluency of a drug’s name can have an effect on people’s perceptions and evaluation judgments (Dohle & Siegrist, 2013, Dohle & Montoya, 2017). Research has also shown that the fluency of information can have an effect on people’s memory and performance (Diemand-Yauman, Oppenheimer, & Vaughan, 2011). The purpose of this study was to see how manipulating the fluency of warning labels could affect people’s perceptions, adherence, memory, and behaviors. Results showed that labels with fluent formats improved …

Over Certain Undecidedness These Heartstring Intimations, Martha Hemingway

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

over certain undecidedness these heartstring intimations is the culmination of a two-year-long abstracted cycle of textured conversation, internal eye contact, and endless playlist-making. Hemingway’s work is based in process-oriented reflections on habitual behavior, manifestation of sentiment, and sense of self. Her paintings draw inspiration from the ways in which we approach and avoid our internal and external routines – how degrees of our subconscious considerations affect how we extend ourselves to others. Individual auditory preferences of different colliding souls have carved a space for her in a language of empathetic abstraction – attempting to elaborate the curious beauty and pain …

The Use Of Behavior Skills Training And Behaviorally Based Interventions In Memory Care, Claire Gallagher

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Abstract

The current study examines the effects of using Behavior Skills Training (BST), an evidenced-based practice for teaching, to train direct care staff members in a Memory Care Community to employ a multi-component, behaviorally-based intervention with residents that have a memory impairment. This study utilizes single case methodology with a stacked AB design replicated across three staff members, three residents, and three transition environments. The design is comprised of a baseline condition, training with BST, a post-training condition with in-vivo coaching, and a maintenance probe. Results include an increase in the percent independence with which staff participants accurately complete the …

Familiarization Through Ambient Images Alone, Nia Imani Gipson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The term “ambient images” has begun to show up in much of the current literature on facial recognition. Ambient images refer to naturally occurring views of a face that captures the idiosyncratic ways in which a target face may vary (Ritchie & Burton, 2017). Much of the literature on ambient images have concluded that exposing people to ambient images of a target face can lead to improved facial recognition for that target face. Some studies have even suggested that familiarity is the result of increased exposure to ambient images of a target face (Burton, Kramer, Ritchie, & Jenkins, 2016). The …

Individual Differences In Verbal And Visuospatial Learning Efficiency, Thomas Spaventa

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

There is a great deal of variability in how quickly people learn and how long they remember information. Zerr and colleagues (2018) found a robust and stable relationship between an individual’s rate of learning and the durability of their memory, with faster learners tending to retain more after a delay. The relationship between the rapidity and longevity of learning was characterized as learning efficiency. The present study extends these findings by testing whether learning efficiency generalizes across divergent verbal and visuospatial tasks. An ancillary aim was to assess learning efficiency using a continuous measure that can capture fine-grained individual differences …

Reconsolidation: Unique Cognitive Process Or State Dependent Learning?, Chris Kiley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Accessing a previously consolidated memory trace brings it back into a labile state where it must then undergo a re-stabilization process known as reconsolidation. During this process memories are susceptible to interference and may be updated with new information. Reconsolidation has been demonstrated in animals as well as in the procedural and episodic human memory systems. However, it is still unclear when the effect will occur. Some studies suggest that reconsolidation is only necessary when new information is presented in the same spatial context or when prediction error occurs. More recent work has provided evidence that reconsolidation could be due …

Emotion Processing In The Survival Paradigm, Destiny Valentine

Psychology

The literature shows that words processed according to their survival relevance typically produce a memory advantage. Similarly, words containing an emotional connotation tend to lead to better memory. The current study examined whether combining both the survival processing effect and the emotion processing advantage would cause an interaction that amplified the effects on memory. Using a modified version of the traditional survival processing paradigm, participants rated emotion words (positive, negative, or neutral) on their relevance to a survival context or home-moving control context. They were later given a surprise recall task for the rated words. The results did not show …

The Effects Of Language In Music On Memory, Cat Terrell

Undergraduate Theses

This thesis focused on the effect of both instrumental and vocal music on performance on cognitive tests designed to test memory in order to gain more insight into whether the presence of language in music affects memory. Four hypotheses were tested concerning the effect of music type, question type, the interaction of the two, and personal experience with music/music training on memory assessment performance. The study found no significant effect of background condition on memory assessment performance, a significant effect of question type on memory assessment performance, no significant effect of the interaction between background condition and question type on …

The Effects Of Cognitive Stimulation Of Instagram On Anxiety, Fear Of Missing Out, Memory, And Self-Esteem, Anna Destino

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

With the increasing use of social media in the daily lives of undergraduate college students, it is important to investigate the effects of social media on psychological well-being and cognitive function. Lillard and Peterson (2011) found that overstimulating children’s televisions shows, such as SpongeBob, negatively impacted children’s impulsive behaviors and attention. The current research focused on emerging adults and considered the effect of overstimulation of social media, specifically Instagram, on anxiety level, self-esteem, fear of missing out (FoMo), and memory. Participants were randomly assigned into either the control (coloring on an Ipad) or experimental (Instagram stimulation) group and after a …

An Evaluation Of Police Interviewing Methods: A Psychological Perspective, Cassandra Neal

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This paper discusses false confessions and memory’s fallibility and how they can decrease the reliability of an investigative interview. In an effort to remedy this issue, the three most popular interview techniques utilized by police officers during an investigation were examined to decipher which one elicits the most reliable testimony. In order to determine which of the three methods out of the Reid Technique, Cognitive Interview, and PEACE Method is the most reliable, literature on the different techniques was examined to see which method resulted in the most accurate information, free from false statements. As a result of this evaluation, …

Understanding Perirhinal Contributions To Perception And Memory: Evidence Through The Lens Of Selective Perirhinal Damage, Marika C. Inhoff, Andrew C. Heusser, Arielle Tambini, Chris B. Martin, Edward B. O'Neil, Stefan Köhler, Michael R. Meager, Karen Blackmon, Blanca Vazquez, Orrin Devinsky, Lila Davachi

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Although a memory systems view of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) has been widely influential in understanding how memory processes are implemented, a large body of work across humans and animals has converged on the idea that the MTL can support various other decisions, beyond those involving memory. Specifically, recent work suggests that perception of and memory for visual representations may interact in order to support ongoing cognition. However, given considerations involving lesion profiles in neuropsychological investigations and the correlational nature of fMRI, the precise nature of representations supported by the MTL are not well understood …

An Analysis And Comparison Of Wms-Iii And Wms-Iv Verbal Paired Associates: Practical Implications For Neuropsychologists, Anthony Paul Andrews

Theses and Dissertations

The current study examined the performance of clinical outpatients on the Verbal Paired Associates (VPA) subtest from current and prior versions of the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS). It was predicted that VPA from the WMS-III (VPA3) would be similar in agreement to the WMS-IV (VPA4) and that VPA4 would show a stronger relationship than VPA3 with intellectual abilities, sustained attention, and executive function abilities as assessed by the WAIS-IV; CPT-2; and the TMT, Category Test, and Stroop, respectively. Thirty-six adults were administered both the WMS-III and the WMS-IV, along with the other measures as part of a larger neuropsychological battery. …

Does Testing Episodic "Lion-Tiger" And/Or "Tiger-Stripes" Associations Facilitate Later "Lion-Stripes" Learning, Deana Vitrano

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The current experiments examined Pyc and Rawson’s (2010) mediator effectiveness hypothesis (MEH) as one potential explanation of the beneficial effects of testing relative to restudying in paired-associate learning. In two experiments, participants learned cue-mediator-target triads (e.g., lion-tiger-stripes) broken down into separate components. Specifically, participants learned and then restudied or were tested on cue-mediator (List 1) and mediator-target (List 2) word pairs in Session 1, and in a Session 2 given 48 hours later learned cue-target (List 3) word pairs. According to Pyc and Rawson, compared to restudying, testing on List 1 cue-mediator and List 2 mediator-target word pairs should lead …

When Is Test-Potentiated Learning Item-Specific Versus Generalized?, Carol Bolte

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The current experiments used short (< 1 min) and long (24-hour) retention intervals in the Test-Potentiated Learning (TPL) paradigm to investigate pair specific versus generalized testing effects (TEs) using weakly related English word pairs. The design of the present experiments improved the design used by Cho, Neely, Crocco, and Vitrano (2017), who used Swahili-English pairs. The present design allows for (a) an assessment of both between- and within-subjects pair-specific vs. generalized TEs within the same experiment and (b) better controlled comparisons of the pair-specific and generalized TEs. There was no TE at the short retention interval. At the long retention interval, the TE for tested pairs studied before and after the review test was greater than the generalized TEs obtained for (a) untested pairs studied before and after the review test and (b) untested pairs that were only studied after the review test. Thus, a pair-specific TE occurred, unlike in Cho et al. (2017). The potential reasons for why weakly related English word pairs show pair-specific TEs but Swahili-English pairs do not are discussed.

Stress Of College Students And Memory With The Implementation Of Brief Mindfulness, Rebecca Lopez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

College students are faced with stressors which can negatively impact memory function, thereby, negatively affecting academic performance. This study used a field experiment design to investigate the effects of brief mindfulness on levels of distress and memory functioning between first-year community college students engaging in a brief mindfulness intervention (n = 29) and a control group (n = 28) by using ANCOVA, MANOVA, correlations, and descriptive statistics. Research questions examined whether a brief mindfulness intervention lowered levels of distress in a treatment group. Second, the study examined whether the intervention of brief mindfulness in a treatment group improved memory function. …

Domestication And Cognitive Complexity, David R. Brodbeck, Madeleine I. R. Brodbeck, Keeghan Rosso

Animal Sentience

Marino and Merskin (2019) list a number of tasks that sheep can perform well. As comparative psychologists, we are not surprised by these results. Indeed, many domesticated animal species show similar abilities.

Behavioral Interference Of Memory Reconsolidation As A Treatment For Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms, Benjamin Darnell

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is best conceptualized as a failure of the stress response to naturally resolve following trauma exposure (e.g., Orcutt, Bonanno, Hannan, & Miron, 2014). Current treatments are effective for some, but not all who suffer from PTSD (e.g., Bradley, Greene, Russ, Dutra, & Westen, 2005; Lee et al., 2016), and relapse is common (Ursano et al., 2004; Davidson et al., 2001). Considering that PTSD is a memory-based disorder, a treatment that could augment trauma memories has the potential to address the limitations of current interventions. Research on memory suggests that, if a memory is retrieved under the …

Trauma Memory: The Role Of Alexithymia And Emotion Regulation, Jennifer Milliken

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Alexithymia is a clinical term used to describe individuals who struggle to connect to their emotional experiences. Alexithymia is observed among individuals with a variety of mental health problems (Taylor, 2000; Taylor, Bagby, & Parker, 1997), and may characterize more severe clinical presentations (e.g., Frewen, Dozois, Neufeld, & Lanius, 2008). In addition, alexithymia seems to be related to adverse treatment outcomes (Kosten, Krystal, Giller, Frank, & Dan, 1992; Ogrodniczuk, Piper, & Joyce, 2011). This study adds to the current literature by examining the effect of alexithymia and emotion regulation (i.e., emotion suppression; emotion acceptance) on variables associated with trauma memory …

The Role Of Encoding Specificity In Incidental Learning: Implications For Explicit And Implicit False Memories, Cassady Mclaughlin

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This research investigated false memories via spreading activation and the influence of encoding specificity on explicit and implicit memory tests in incidental learning situations. It was hypothesized that congruent conditions would have higher rates of both false memories for associated items as well as more accurate memories for presented items. It was also expected that this effect would be larger among those in implicit memory conditions compared to explicit conditions. The participants (n=175) were presented with Deese-Roediger-McDermott semantically associated word lists via a Stroop task, in which they were not told to remember the words presented, but to instead identify …

The Influences Of Culture And The Self On Children’S Memory Encoding And Delayed Retrieval, Hongyuan Qi

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Culture and the self form a dynamic system that shapes children’s memories. However, how these two constructs influence specific memory processes still requires further investigation. The present dissertation contains four studies that examined the influences of cultural backgrounds and self-views on children’s memory encoding and delayed retrieval. Participants across four studies were recruited in the year range of 2016 to 2018. A total of 243 Grade 1 and 2 (the younger group) and Grade 3 and 4 (the older group) children participated, with an age range of seven to ten years. Specifically, 121 Chinese children were from Mainland China and …

Impaired Object-Location Learning And Recognition Memory But Enhanced Sustained Attention In M2 Muscarinic Receptor-Deficient Mice, Carola Romberg, Susan Bartko, Jürgen Wess, Lisa M. Saksida, Timothy J. Bussey

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2018, The Author(s). Rationale: Muscarinic acetylcholine receptors are known to play key roles in mediating cognitive processes, and impaired muscarinic cholinergic neurotransmission is associated with normal ageing processes and Alzheimer’s disease. However, the specific contributions of the individual muscarinic receptor subtypes (M1–M5) to cognition are presently not well understood. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the contribution of M2-type muscarinic receptor signalling to sustained attention, executive control and learning and memory. Methods: M2 receptor-deficient (M2−/−) mice were tested on a touchscreen-operated task battery testing visual discrimination, behavioural flexibility, object-location associative learning, attention and response control. Spontaneous …

The Consequences Of Processing Of Goal-Irrelevant Information During The Stroop Task In Younger And Older Adults, Jessica Nicosia

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Recent evidence from memory paradigms indicates that older adults can sometimes benefit more from processing goal-irrelevant information than younger adults, however these studies have often failed to simultaneously provide evidence of age-related control deficits. In the present experiments, participants initially studied a list of words. They then received a color-naming Stroop task where neutral words were either previously studied or new words. Across three experiments, participants were given different types of memory tests to examine the lingering effects of the neutral words during color-naming in younger and older adults. The results from all three experiments (including an attempted replication study) …

Procedural-Memory, Working-Memory, And Declarative-Memory Skills Are Each Associated With Dimensional Integration In Sound-Category Learning, Carolyn Quam, Alisa Wang, W. Todd Maddox, Kimberly Golisch

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper investigates relationships between procedural-memory, declarative-memory, and working-memory skills and adult native English speakers’ novel sound-category learning. Participants completed a sound-categorization task that required integrating two dimensions: one native (vowel quality), one non-native (pitch). Similar information-integration category structures in the visual and auditory domains have been shown to be best learned implicitly (e.g., Maddox et al., 2006). Thus, we predicted that individuals with greater procedural-memory capacity would better learn sound categories, because procedural memory appears to support implicit learning of new information and integration of dimensions. Seventy undergraduates were tested across two experiments. Procedural memory was assessed using …

The Relationship Between Cognitive And Neural Bases Of Metamemory Judgments, Alexandra M. Gaynor

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Metamemory monitoring, the process of making subjective assessments of the status of one’s own memory, is crucial to guiding behavior and effective learning. Past cognitive research has shown that subjective confidence judgments are inferential in nature, and based on cues available at the time of the judgment. When confidence is based on cues that are related to objective memory performance, metamemory accuracy is high. However, past studies have shown that metamemory monitoring tends to be inaccurate because individuals base their confidence on information that is not predictive of memory success, such as the fluency with which items were encoded during …

Rumination And Rebound From Failure: Investigating How Trait And State Forms Of Ruminative Thought Influence Attention To Errors And The Ability To Correct Them In A Challenging Academic Environment, Ronald C. Whiteman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Rumination is a recurrent and repetitive manner of thinking that can be triggered by blockage of personally-relevant goals, creating a temporary state of abstract and evaluative self-focus that can also become a chronic trait-like style of responding to personal challenges. Despite claims that rumination helps down-regulate unwanted emotion, cope with problems, and lead to goal attainment, it often increases negative affect, interferes with problem solving, and exacerbates goal-state discrepancies, particularly for women. Given the pervasiveness of rumination and its potential impact on cognitive processes and emotional states, one important yet untested question is how it might impact individuals’ ability to …

Effects Of Context And Individual Differences On Memory For Prior Remembering., Marcus L. Leppanen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Though people often remember experiences from their lives, they are also able to remember whether a memory has previously been retrieved, which is known as memory for prior remembering. Frequent failures of memory for prior remembering can have negative consequences on how people perceive their own cognitive health. The recurrence of traumatic memory retrieval can be interpreted as a consequence of intrusive memory for prior remembering. This dissertation was conducted to improve our understanding of the factors that influence the efficacy of memory for prior remembering. The two factors that were investigated were context change and individual differences. Participants ( …