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Biological Psychology Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Biological Psychology

Music And Its Effects On The Brain, Caitlyn Herron Jan 2021

Music And Its Effects On The Brain, Caitlyn Herron

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper will discuss, in short, how music influences our brain, as well as some behavioral and physiological effects as a result. The brain consists of many regions responsible for different cognitive processes, such as learning, memory, recall, speech, and our emotions. It has been found that music helps to facilitate all of these cognitive processes, regardless of its emotional valence or whether the music is active or passive, such as singing or listening to it, respectively. It was discovered that music influences our ability to learn novel concepts related to mathematics, reading, and even language acquisition. It was also …


An Erp Investigation Of Reward Signals For Differing Classes Of Reinforcing Stimuli, Darin R. Brown May 2019

An Erp Investigation Of Reward Signals For Differing Classes Of Reinforcing Stimuli, Darin R. Brown

Psychology ETDs

In order to successfully traverse an actively complex environment, an agent is required to learn from the consequences of their actions. For over a century, models of behavior have been developed demonstrating these consequence-based learning systems. More recently, underlying biological systems have been found to adhere to these constructs of learning. The electroencephalographic signal known as the Reward Positivity (RewP) is thought to reflect a dopamine-dependent cortical signal specific to reward receipt. Importantly, this signal has been shown to adhere to an axiomatic (rule-like) positive reward prediction error, whereby it is evoked following outcomes that are better than expected. These …


Understanding The Role Of The Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex In Emotional Memory Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation And Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, R. Rachel Weintraub-Brevda Sep 2017

Understanding The Role Of The Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex In Emotional Memory Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation And Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, R. Rachel Weintraub-Brevda

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Emotional stimuli can have both beneficial and detrimental effects on memory, such that emotional stimuli can be distracting from current neutral working memory goals, while also leading to enhanced episodic memory for the distracting emotional stimuli. Recent evidence suggests that the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) has multiple roles in the enhancing effects of emotion on memory through top-down/controlled processes, including 1) coping with negative distraction and 2) elaborative encoding of negative information. Additionally, previous research has alluded to hemispheric differences in the VLPFC (Chapter 1). However, previous research has been correlational, with no strong laterality tests of the VLPFC. Two …


Neural Mechanisms Of Action Switching Moderate The Relationship Between Effortful Control And Aggression, Eric L. Rawls Aug 2016

Neural Mechanisms Of Action Switching Moderate The Relationship Between Effortful Control And Aggression, Eric L. Rawls

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Aggression and violence are social behaviors that exact a significant toll on human societies. Individuals with aggressive tendencies display deficits in effortful control, particularly in affectively charged situations. However, not all individuals with poor effortful control are aggressive. This study uses event-related potentials (ERPs) to decompose the chronology of cognitive functions underlying the link between effortful control and aggression. Specifically, this study investigates which ERPs moderate the effortful control - aggression association. We examined three successive ERP components (P2, N2 and P3) for stimuli that required effortful control. Results indicated that N2 activation, but not P2 or P3 activation, moderated …