Psychology Commons^™

Perceptions Of Secondary Trauma And Memory Accuracy In Criminal Justice Professionals, Kimberley D. Williams

Student Theses

Previous research has examined the association between memory and frequent and accumulated exposure to traumatic events with conflicting results (Artwohl, 2002; Conway, 2012; Honig & Sultan, 2004; Oulton et al., 2018; Strange & Takarangi, 2015). The present study aims to build on previous research by examining public perceptions of memory accuracy and secondary trauma in off-duty criminal justice professionals (CJP) and laypeople. Survey data from n = 208 participants was examined. Participants read two mock trial testimonies describing a fatal hit and run bicycle accident, one from an off-duty CJP witness and one from an off-duty non-CJP witness. Participants completed …

Does Pleasurable Music Indirectly Better Learning?: A Multimodal Approach, Elizabeth Anna Roeglin

Undergraduate Honors Papers

Recent research has shown that musical pleasure is due to the combination of uncertainty and surprise a musical piece elicits. Additionally, research has demonstrated that music influences arousal and mood, both of which affect learning. However, current research has not adequately tested whether pleasurable music indirectly improves learning by influencing mood/arousal. This study attempts to do so. Twenty-seven participants completed a survey that included the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire. Eighteen participants, whose scores demonstrated that they feel emotion-evoking and/or mood-regulatory pleasure from listening to music, came in for further testing. These participants experienced a music condition, in which they listened …

The Role Of Age And Biological Sex On Short-Term Memory In The Syrian Hamster (Mesocricetus Auratus), Laura E. Garcia, Mario Gil

Research Symposium

Background: Aging plays an important role in cognitive function, memory, and mental health. As we age, some cognitive functions become weaker. Aging is also a critical risk factor for dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. With recent advances seen in public health, humans are living longer years. This makes it a challenge to make those added years healthy. For this reason, it is important to continue studying its effects by using, the Syrian hamster, as a model. The purpose of the study is to identify other factors that might also have a role in short-term memory, besides aging.

Methods: All behavioral …

The Effect Of Study Music Tempo On Short Term Memory Retention In Reading And Verbal Comprehension, Payton Ballinger

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

This study experimentally investigated the effect of background music on retention as it relates to short term memory. Eighty undergraduate participants from various fields of study at Pepperdine University were randomly assigned to either listen to or read a preselected passage while listening to preselected excerpts of fast or slow tempo music. All participants were then asked to complete a 10 question test covering the material presented. There was a main effect specifically for music tempo in that participants who were exposed to background music at a slower speed while either reading or listening to a passage scored higher on …

Neuroplasticity In The Dentate Gyrus: A Multimethod Investigation On Hippocampal Ltp Following Prenatal Alcohol Exposure, Monica Goncalves-Garcia

Psychology ETDs

Studies have demonstrated alcohol-related deficits in LTP associated with histaminergic and glutamatergic impairments. The histaminergic H3R inverse agonist ABT-239 has shown promise in reversing these deficits. The present study focuses on another H3R inverse agonist, SAR-152594, and its impact on LTP deficits following moderate PAE. The findings reveal that systemic administration of 1 mg/kg of SAR-152594 reverses deficits in potentiation fEPSPs in adult male rats exposed to moderate PAE. Time-frequency analyses of evoked responses indicate PAE-related reductions in power during the fEPSP and increased power during later components of evoked responses, both reversed by SAR-152594. These results provide further evidence …

The Ddhd2-Stxbp1 Interaction Mediates Long-Term Memory Via Generation Of Saturated Free Fatty Acids, Isaac O Akefe, Saber H Saber, Benjamin Matthews, Bharat G Venkatesh, Rachel S Gormal, Daniel G Blackmore, Suzy Alexander, Emma Sieriecki, Yann Gambin, Jesus Bertran-Gonzalez, Nicolas Vitale, Yann Humeau, Arnaud Gaudin, Sevannah A Ellis, Alysee A Michaels, Mingshan Xue, Benjamin Cravatt, Merja Joensuu, Tristan P Wallis, Frédéric A Meunier

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The phospholipid and free fatty acid (FFA) composition of neuronal membranes plays a crucial role in learning and memory, but the mechanisms through which neuronal activity affects the brain's lipid landscape remain largely unexplored. The levels of saturated FFAs, particularly of myristic acid (C14:0), strongly increase during neuronal stimulation and memory acquisition, suggesting the involvement of phospholipase A1 (PLA1) activity in synaptic plasticity. Here, we show that genetic ablation of the PLA1 isoform DDHD2 in mice dramatically reduces saturated FFA responses to memory acquisition across the brain. Furthermore, DDHD2 loss also decreases memory performance in reward-based learning and spatial memory …

Multiple Timescales Of Temporal Context In Risky Choice: Behavioral Identification And Relationships To Physiological Arousal, Hayley R. Brooks, Peter Sokol-Hessner

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

Context-dependence is fundamental to risky monetary decision-making. A growing body of evidence suggests that temporal context, or recent events, alters risk-taking at a minimum of three timescales: immediate (e.g. trial-by-trial), neighborhood (e.g. a group of consecutive trials), and global (e.g. task-level). To examine context effects, we created a novel monetary choice set with intentional temporal structure in which option values shifted between multiple levels of value magnitude ("contexts") several times over the course of the task. This structure allowed us to examine whether effects of each timescale were simultaneously present in risky choice behavior and the potential mechanistic role of …

Development Of A Repeatable Overnight Memory Task To Study The Effect Of Nocturnal Seizures On Memory, Nahal Destiny Heydari

Theses and Dissertations

Memory impairment is a common comorbidity of epilepsy, particularly in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) for whom the hippocampus and surrounding memory-dependent regions are directly involved in seizure activity. Sleep is known to facilitate memory consolidation processes; however, whether, or the extent to which, nocturnal seizures disrupt memory processes in TLE is unknown. Investigating the effect of nocturnal seizures on memory requires a task designed to assess memory in the morning for material learned the evening before a period of sleep, ideally over multiple days. Accordingly, we have created a psychometrically sound, word paired-associates (WPA) memory task with five …

The Effects Of Forgetting And Disclosure On Mock Jurors' Perceptions Of An Alleged Rape, Johnathan Meier

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Memory recall and forgetting is a complex process. Memories can be completely forgotten (e.g., Ebbinghaus, 1885/1964; Murre, 2015) or repressed and recovered at a later time (e.g., Key et al., 1996; Foster-Lee et al., 1999). Instances of sexual assault may be disclosed to a close acquaintance or medical professional at the time of the event or kept secret until the time of reporting to authorities (e.g., Pica et al., 2020a). In the current study, mock jurors’ perceptions of credibility and guilt, as well as the amount of compensation awarded to the plaintiff, will be assessed in response to testimony depicting …

An Examination Of Working Memory In Dancers And Non-Dancers, Mason Low

All Master's Theses

The present study examined the behavioral working memory differences between dancers and non-dancers. Previous research has indicated that dance can provide an enhancing effect on working memory, particularly in non-dancers. A Dance History Questionnaire along with the letters backward, digits backward, digits forward, letters forward, and abstract visual subtests of the Test of Learning and Memory II was used to collect data. The current study found that dancers had greater visuospatial memory than non-dancers and that dance experience may have an effect on certain working memory tests such as the letters forward subtest.

Laypeople’S Perceptions Of Secondary Trauma In Criminal Justice System Workers, Mariah Simone

Student Theses

This study sought to examine laypeople’s perceptions of secondary trauma experienced by criminal justice system workers. Specifically, how these perceptions of exposure to secondary trauma influence laypeople’s perceptions of those workers’ memory ability. To investigate these perceptions, we collected data from 70 participants in a Pilot Study, 383 participants in Study 1, and 408 participants in a Replication of Study 1 regarding their perceptions of secondary trauma in various criminal justice careers. Specifically, using a modified Autobiographically Memory Questionnaire to examine how their perceptions of secondary trauma exposure affects their perceptions of memory ability in these workers. We also collected …

Moderate-To-Vigorous Intensity Cycling Exercise Immediately After Visual Learning Enhances Delayed Recognition Memory Performance, Andrew C. Venezia, Lauren R. Weiss, Kristy A. Nielson, J. Carson Smith

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

A single bout of acute aerobic exercise has been shown to improve long-term memory, though it is unclear if exercise before learning or after learning is optimal for memory enhancement. Although some research has demonstrated that exercise before learning is ideal, investigations have consistently shown that acute arousal post-learning is a powerful memory enhancer. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation was to compare the effects of self-perceived hard cycling before or after learning on recognition memory for emotional and neutral images, and examine the relationship between central noradrenergic activity and memory performance. Seventy-two males and females (18–35 years of age) …

Recall Me Maybe: The Effects Of Music-Evoked Mood On Recognition Memory, Caroline Grace Coey, Youstina Tadros, Sinead Doogan, Melody Alvarez

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

The current study aims to further explore the relationship between musically evoked emotional states and recognition capabilities. Previous research has demonstrated emotional congruency between musical stimuli and subsequent task performance (Mitterschiffthaler et al., 2007). The background music’s emotional valence provides additional insight into how to guide the perception of events and how music-evoked emotions can impact memory (Scherer & Zentner, 2001; Hanser et al., 2015). For instance, happy people will have an easier time remembering positive experiences, rather than sad, or negatively valanced ones while those who are sad will better remember negative experiences, rather than happy, or positively valanced …

Beyond Burial - Transforming Death: A New Ritual Of Farewell And The Ecological Return Of The Body To Nature, Chang Xie

Masters Theses

Burial and funeral culture have been shaped by human self-awareness and reflect an anthropocentric worldview. The modern funeral industry's multi-billion-dollar enterprise is based on the principle of protecting, sanitizing, and beautifying the corpse to promote the idea of human exceptionalism. However, this practice overlooks the natural process of decay and the potential beauty in returning the body to the earth, with which the body shares the same chemical basis as the earth itself. Modern science has provided Eco-friendly green burial methods, such as soil modification, ice burial, and water burial, making it suitable to contribute to natural ecology using human …

The Effects Of Acute Exercise Intensity On Memory: State-Dependent Learning, Lauren E. Fuglaar, Rylie S. Mangold, Sierra N. Petty

Honors Theses

The Encoding-Specificity Paradigm states that memory recall will be enhanced when contextual factors are congruent between memory encoding and memory retrieval (i.e., state-dependent learning). However, minimal research has evaluated this paradigm in the exercise domain. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of acute exercise intensity on memory while considering these potential state-dependent effects. Forty-eight university students completed a within-subject experiment involving seven laboratory visits, during which they encoded a list of 15 words and were subsequently asked to free-recall as many of these words as possible. The encoding and retrieval phases were matched or mismatched by …

The Effectiveness Of Visual Vs. Auditory Presentation Of Information On Memory, Hannah L. Edwards

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

This research project aimed to determine whether it was easier for individuals to memorize and recall words when being presented with a visual presentation than with an auditory presentation. Method: To gather data, an online survey was designed and conducted to test participants more sufficiently. This study consisted of individuals that were 18 years or older and who have good visual and auditory abilities. This study was conducted using two lists of 10 words that contained six letters, three syllables, and were nouns. Half of my participants were presented with 10 words visually whereas the other half of the participants …

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 …

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 …

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 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 Project That Claire, Uh I Mean The Student Completed: Relative Clauses And Repair Disfluencies, Claire O’Shaughnessy

Honors Theses

Several areas of psycholinguistics focus on the role of memory in language processing. Two of these areas are repair disfluencies and complex syntactic structures; however, these two topics have traditionally been investigated completely separately from one another. The current experiment combines these two topics by presenting listeners with spoken sentences containing subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs) and object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs) in which the semantic similarity between the critical noun phrases (NPs) was manipulated. In addition, the sentences could be spoken fluently, or there could be a repair disfluency in which the reparandum contained information that would be potentially helpful in …

Pupil Dilation Is Not Associated With Memory For Prior Remembering, Sana Aftab

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This experiment was conducted to assess the relationship between pupil dilation and memory for prior remembering. Prior remembering is the judgment of whether a memory was previously remembered. Previous studies have suggested that pupil dilation can change in response to emotional stimuli as well as “old” versus “new” stimuli in recognition memory tests. The present experiment had participants view emotional and neutral context image-word pairs before they completed two separate cued-recall tests. Critically, some image-word pairs changed between tests. During the second cued-recall test, participants were also asked to make a judgment about whether they previously retrieved a given word …

Accuracy Of Recollection Without Rehearsal, Carolyn Lowe, Jen Bui, Ella Marks, Maddie Rowe

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Priming refers to the influence of encountered objects on future responses to similar objects (Wang et. al., 2003). Cross-modality priming occurs when the stimuli are presented in one modality and tested within another (Marinis, 2018). However, there is not much research done on verbal and visual cross-modality priming. This study looks at the effects of cross-modality implicit priming on recall and recognition. Participants read 8 different priming stories. After each, participants completed a visual memory task where they looked at a slide of several images for 5 seconds, and then wrote which images they remembered. After this, they answered 2 …

Stuck In The Past? Rumination-Related Memory Integration, Paula T. Hertel, C. Wahlheim, William A. Price, Emily M. Crusius, Christina L. Patino

Psychology Faculty Research

Memories connected to ruminative concerns repetitively capture attention, even in situations designed to alter them. However, recent research on memory updating suggests that memory for benign substitutes (e.g., reinterpretations) might be facilitated by integration with the ruminative memories. As a first approach, two experiments (Ns = 72) mimicked rumination-related memories with rumination-themed stimuli and an imagery task. College undergraduates screened for ruminative status first studied and imaged ruminative cue-target word pairs, and then in a second phase they studied the same cues re-paired with benign targets (along with new and repeated pairs). On the test of cued recall of …

The Effects Of Divided Attention In Free Recall: Affecting Trace Accumulation By Dividing Attention, Anne Olsen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

How environmental information stores in memory directly affects our ability to retrieve the information. This thesis investigates the effects that dividing attention during study has on the storage of contextual information. Through several experiments, participants were asked to study and later recall word lists using a mixed-pure design with strengtheners varying as either repetition or study time. Experiment 1 investigates the effects of divided attention on the formation of inter-item associations and Experiments 2-6 manipulate strengthening item and context information in a memory trace when cognitive load is strained at various levels. Experimental results indicated that dividing attention during study …

Temporal And Spatial Properties Of Orientation Summary Statistic Representations, Jacob S. Zepp

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of the current work was to determine the amount of information that contributes to the formation of summary statistical representations (SSRs), as well as the time course over which these representations are formed. While the prevailing interpretation of SSRs within literature is that the summaries are formed through a compulsory rapid integration across all information in a scene, debate exists on the necessity of this unique processing mode. To investigate the formation of SSRs, two experiments were conducted. In the first, results from an orientation averaging task were compared to results from a whole-report task, over equivalent stimulus …

Pervasiveness Of Effects In Sample-Based Experimental Psychology: A Re-Examination Of Replication Data From Nine Famous Psychology Experiments, Samantha Moore, Craig P. Speelman, Marek Mcgann

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Data previously reported from successful replications of 9 famous experiments (Zwaan et al., 2018) were re-analysed. Rather than the null hypothesis significance tests performed in the original study, this study performed a pervasiveness analysis, which examined the number of people in the original samples that demonstrated the effect each experiment is renowned for. Seven of the 9 experiments were shown to exceed the pervasiveness threshold adopted in this study. That is, in each of these 7 experiments, over 80 % of participants demonstrated the target effect, indicating support for Zwaan et al.’s claim that these effects are robust. The remaining …

The Effect Of Eye Contact On Auditory Recall, Sara Grace Lill, Isha Kapoor, Oluwatoni Akanda, Khanh Nguyen

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

Memory is at the basis of perception and provides functionality to our daily lives. Auditory stimulation has been shown to bias eye movement and improve memory (Liping, et. al, 2021), but the mechanisms behind the guidance of eye movements remain unclear (Higgins, et. al, 2014). This study investigates the correlation between eye contact and memory, focusing on recall, and exploring eye contact’s potential to enhance recall during both immediate and delayed assessments (Craft 21 Recall). Thirty undergraduate students from Belmont University, completed the Craft 21 Recall assessment after watching a video featuring a virtual speaker reading a short story. The …

The Effect Of Visual Alcohol Cues On Risk Taking Behavior Based On Memory Primes And Individual Drinking Habits, Madison Mccue

CMC Senior Theses

Given the strong presence of alcohol cues in the media, this study aimed to investigate whether exposure to a visual alcohol cue versus a neutral cue would elicit memories about alcohol and increase the likelihood to engage in risk taking behavior, particularly for individuals who consume higher levels of alcohol or who report positive memories associated with alcohol. Through an online Qualtrics survey, 110 college student participants watched either two video advertisements for alcohol brands (alcohol cue), or two advertisements for soda brands (neutral cue), and then completed a memory cue task to assess if positive, neutral or negative memories …