Biological Psychology Commons^™

Neural Dedifferentiation In Relation To Risk For Alzheimer's Disease, Nathan C. Hantke

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research indicates that as an individual's age increases, the task-related spatial extent of neural activation increases. This decrease in neural specificity, or dedifferentiation, is often demonstrated by older adults during challenging cognitive tasks. Cognitively intact individuals at-risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD), as deemed by having an apolipoprotein-E ε4 allele or a family history of AD, demonstrate increased fMRI activation as compared to individuals at lower risk. Using a low effort, high accuracy event-related semantic memory task involving the presentation of famous and non-famous names, we examined spatial neural specificity through a measure of dedifferentiation using …

Attachment: The Antidote To Trauma, Joshua Straub

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Trauma and loss in life are inevitable. And all too often the traumatic experience itself can be enough to paralyze the mental, emotional, and spiritual state of any given person. Unable to interpret the traumatic experience, many instead are left defined by it. Helping clients discern the objective experience and their subjective reactions to it will help free them from the emotions and beliefs that subsequently control their lives. Based on the most relevant attachment theory research and clinical techniques, this workshop teaches the attentional strategies necessary to helping clients overcome trauma.

A Study Of Possible Pre-Cognitive Advantages Of Bilingualism, Marisela Gutierrez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Past research has suggested that second language acquisition has a beneficial effect on the development of inhibitory control processes in children and adults. This has been referred to as the "bilingual advantage" and is most commonly quantified using the Simon task. Whether the bilingual advantage extends to precognitive mechanisms has not yet been examined. The goals of this study were to examine the bilingual advantage in university students; and to examine whether the bilingual advantage extends to the precognitive filtering mechanism of sensorimotor gating. It was predicted that, as compared to monolinguals, bilingual university students would have greater inhibitory control, …

Does Type Of Stimulus Influence Task-Irrelevant Evaluative Categorization Processes?, Guadalupe Corral

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The effect of stimulus type on task-irrelevant evaluative categorization was examined in two separate studies by using the P3 component from event-related brain potentials. The first study presented idiosyncratic stimuli consisting of individuals that were rated by participants as either positive or negative within sequences of pictorial and verbal stimuli. The second study presented sequences of novel and familiar stimuli consisting of previously normed unattractive and neutral individuals. It was hypothesized that pictures would elicit task-irrelevant evaluative categorization processes and so would novel stimuli (relative to words and familiar stimuli, respectively). Task-irrelevance was examined by assessing P3 peak amplitude to …

Phonological Facilitation Through Translation In A Bilingual Picture-Naming Task, Paul Amrhein, Aimee Knupsky

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

We present a critical examination of phonological effects in a picture-word interference task. Using a methodology minimizing stimulus repetition, English/Spanish and Spanish/English bilinguals named pictures in either L1 or L2 (blocked contexts) or in both (mixed contexts) while ignoring word distractors in L1 or L2. Distractors were either phonologically related to the picture name (direct; FISH–fist), or related through translation to the picture name (TT; LEG–milk–leche), or they were unrelated (bear–peach). Results demonstrate robust activation of phonological representations by translation equivalents of word distractors. Although both direct and TT distractors facilitated naming, TT facilitation was more consistent in L2 naming …

Event-Related Potential Evidence For Multiple Causes Of The Revelation Effect, P. Andrew Leynes, Joshua Landau, Jessica Walker, Richard J. Addante

Psychology Faculty Publications

Asking people to discover the identity of a recognition test probe immediately before making a recognition judgment increases the probability of an old judgment. To inform theories of this “revelation effect,” event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded for revealed and intact test items across two experiments. In Experiment 1, we used a revelation effect paradigm where half of the test probes were presented as anagrams (i.e., a related task) and the other items were presented intact. The pattern of ERP results from this experiment suggested that revealing an item decreases initial familiarity levels and caused the revealed items to elicit similar …

9/11 Stress About Coping With 9/11 Stress, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article identifies paradoxes and conceptual difficulties with behavioral scientists and expert advice on coping with 9/11-related stress.

Discounting And Reciprocity In An Iterated Prisoner’S Dilemma, David W. Stephens, Colleen M. Mclinn, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

The Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma (IPD) is a central paradigm in the study of animal cooperation. According to the IPD framework, repeated play (repetition) and reciprocity combine to maintain a cooperative equilibrium. However, experimental studies with animals suggest that cooperative behavior in IPDs is unstable, and some have suggested that strong preferences for immediate benefits (that is, temporal discounting) might explain the fragility of cooperative equilibria. We studied the effects of discounting and strategic reciprocity on cooperation in captive blue jays. Our results demonstrate an interaction between discounting and reciprocity. Blue jays show high stable levels of cooperation in treatments with …

Temporal Response Of The Human Visual System To Suprathreshold Luminance And Opponent Colour Contrast Gratings, Melanie Bucking

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The goal of the present study was to characterize the temporal processing of both suprathreshold luminance and opponent-colour defined contrast in the human visual system. We used a detection task in five experiments; following a 900 Hz, 2-cycle tone, observers were presented with a sinusoidal grating stimulus. The interval separating the waming tone and the presentation of the grating was manipulated to determine the influences of attentional dwell time in a cross-modal task. This theory states that the first of two successive events will interfere with the processing of the second event. In all four luminance experiments the gratings were …

The Effect Of Ethanol And Hypoglycemia On Rat Performance In The Radial Arm Maze, Monica Ann Gaffney

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Both hypoglycemia (HG) and ethanol (ETH) intoxication can cause serious impairment in physiological and psychological functioning. Their combination could cause more severe cognitive impairment than either condition alone. This experiment investigated the effects of hypoglycemia, ethanol intoxication, and their combination on rat radial arm maze performance. Eleven male rats were trained to a stable, low error rate performance in achieving food rewards in an eight arm radial arm-maze. Rats were then given either insulin (2 units/kg) or saline in combination with ETH doses of 250, 500, 1000, or 1500 mg/kg 20 minutes prior to the maze run. Treatment order was …

Alcohol, Pregnancy And The Developing Child, Sandra J. Kelly

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Women: The Ignored Majority, Carol T. Mowbray, Daphna Oyserman, Catherine J. Lutz, Rogeair Purnell

Psychology Faculty Publications

The major thrust of psychiatric rehabilitation is to provide skill development and supports enabling individuals to function in their roles of choice. The model thus contains an underlying assumption that meaningful life roles are “chosen” roles. It therefore may tend to overlook the impact on persons’ lives of the roles that they are given. These given or ascribed roles include those based on gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class. Self-definitions, behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, and values are all likely to be structured within such social roles, which can also serve as important social identities (Oyserman & Markus, 1993). In spite of increased …

Animal Memory Processes For Number And Time: Pigeons, Methamphetamine, And The Internal Clock Model, James W. Coyle

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The mode-control model of counting and timing (Meek & Church, 1983) suggests that discriminations based on number and time may be controlled by the same internal clock mechanism. In Experiment 1, two groups of pigeons were initially trained to perform delayed symbolic matching-to-sample (DSMTS) at a 5s fixed baseline delay, with sample stimuli that consisted of sequences of flashing light. Testing was conducted with a range of delays (0, 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 10s). In the Number Group, control by number was established by varying the number of flashes while holding time constant. In the Time Group, control by time, …

The Effects Of Stroke On The Comprehension Of Affective And Nonaffective Prosody, Mona Matheney Tiernan

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of stroke on the comprehension of prosody. Thirty two inpatient volunteers (16 with right hemisphere and 16 with left hemisphere stroke) and 16 controls participated in the study. A 3(Group) x 2(Gender) x 2(Task) mixed design was used. The independent variables were the subject group, gender and the prosody task (affective or nonaffective). The dependent variables were the percentage of correct responses to the affective and nonaffective prosody tasks. A 3(Group) x 2(Gender) x 2(Task) AN0VA revealed a significant main effect for group, E

Evidence For Common Coding Of Temporal And Nontemporal Information In Pigeons, Stephen Bridson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Two experiments found evidence that pigeons commonly code temporal and visual samples that are associated with the same comparisons in many-to-one matching. In Experiment 1, pigeons were trained to match temporal (2-sec and 8-sec keylight durations) and color (red and green) samples to line tilt comparisons (vertical and horizontal). Similar rates of forgetting were found for all samples. Furthermore, retention of sample information appeared more similar for samples which shared common comparisons than those that did not. In Experiment 2, pigeons learned new comparison (circle and triangle) associations with either temporal or visual samples from Experiment 1. When tested on …

Effects Of Sleep Loss On Information-Processing In An Absolute Judgment Task As A Function Of Task Difficulty, Frieda O'Steen Carlton

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The effects of 36 hours of sleep loss on information-processing were assessed in an absolute judgment task. Of the 24 subjects employed, 12 served in the sleep-loss (experimental) and control conditions, respectively. All subjects were tested individually for a total of ten sessions; the control group was tested on ten consecutive days, whereas the experimental subjects were tested every four hours over a 36-hour period of sleep loss, and at a recovery session following approximately 12 hours of rest and recovery. The task required subjects to make absolute judgments of the size of two small circles of light and to …

State-Dependent Learning With Caffeine, Barbara A. Cooper

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Introduction

• The study investigates state-dependent (SD) learning, where performance is influenced by the drug state during learning.
• Caffeine, a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant, is the focus, with high doses administered to subjects.
• The research aims to determine if caffeine can serve as a discriminative stimulus in a T-maze shock escape task.

Method

• Subjects: 20 naive male albino rats, selected based on activity levels.
• Experimental design involved two groups: one receiving caffeine and the other saline.
• The T-maze apparatus was used for training and testing, with specific dimensions and shock delivery mechanisms.

Procedure

• A 30-minute free exploration period was conducted …