Biological Psychology Commons^™

Exploring The Intersectionality Between Homelessness And Addiction: A Review, Antonia Miranda

Honors Projects

The homelessness crisis and drug epidemic have been, and continue to, ravage the nation in a manner that is both detrimental to society and humanity. The correlation between substance abuse and homelessness is enormous, though not necessarily causal. The conditions of being homeless coupled with the prevalence of mental illness drastically increases the susceptibility to substance abuse and addiction. On the other hand, addiction and substance abuse can contribute to someone entering homelessness. The intersectionality between the two is frequently ignored, yet critical to address. Informed by research regarding both conditions, the implications for public policy and reform are huge. …

No Fixed Limit For Storing Simple Visual Features: Realistic Objects Provide An Efficient Scaffold For Holding Features In Mind, Yong Hoon Chung

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Prominent theories of visual working memory postulate that the capacity to maintain a particular visual feature is fixed. In contrast to these theories, recent studies have demonstrated that meaningful objects are better remembered than simple, non-meaningful stimuli. Here, we test whether this is solely because meaningful stimuli can recruit additional features — and thus more storage capacity — or whether simple visual features that are not themselves meaningful can also benefit from being part of a meaningful object. Across five experiments (each N=30) we demonstrate that visual working memory capacity for color is increased when colors are part of recognizable …

Are We Ovary-Acting? All Visuospatial Abilities May Not Be Equally Affected Throughout The Menstrual Cycle., Caroline G. Haynes, Audrey N. Wade

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

Are we ovary-acting? All visuospatial abilities may not be equally affected throughout the menstrual cycle.

Department of Psychological Sciences & Neuroscience, Belmont University, Nashville, TN

Visuospatial skills pertain to the ability to conceptualize and comprehend visual representations of objects and the spatial relationships among objects. They are integral for the proper functioning of other cognitive systems such as memory, attention, and reasoning (Kaufman, 2007). Sex hormones are one of many factors reported to affect visuospatial processing, with estrogen specially being associated with poor performance on visuospatial tasks in females (Hausmann, 2000). The current study investigated performance differences on three visuospatial …

Memory And Attention While Scuba Diving At Shallow And Deep Depths: An Open Water Study, Leanne Boucher, Joshua Feingold, Kelly Concannon, Stephanie Talavera, Jaime Tartar, W. Matthew Collins

Journal for Sports Neuroscience

SCUBA diving requires a high level of cognitive functioning, however, many divers anecdotally report poor memory and attentional skills while underwater. Few studies have documented cognitive deficits resulting from an open-water dive. Here, 23 divers completed both shallow (8 m) and deep (28 m) dives over two days in the open-water. The order of the dives was counterbalanced across participants. While at depth, they completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory to assess anxiety levels, learned and were tested on a list of 36 words, and completed the trail making task (TMT) to assess executive functioning. They also gave saliva samples to …

Neuroanatomy In Mild Cognitive Impairment: Relationship To Functional Skills, Treatment Expectancy, And Comorbid Depression, Sara Rushia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a neurocognitive disorder defined by cognitive decline in older adults. Although MCI has been studied for decades, there remain important areas to be explored in order to adequately characterize aspects of this disorder that provide information valuable for possible interventions and disease progression to dementia, including a better understanding of the neuroanatomical variables relevant to this disorder. Such neuroanatomical variables include cortical thickness, hippocampal volume, and white matter hyperintensities (WMHs). This dissertation consists of three separate studies aimed at addressing gaps in the literature on MCI in relation to brain morphometrics and under-studied characteristics involved …

Psychology In The Modern World, Kutay Agardici

Open Educational Resources

This syllabus is created for the two courses I will be teaching at City College in the psychology dept. Topics include cognition, language, learning, memory, nature vs. nurture, abnormal psychology, social psychology, etc.

Testing An Overtraining Protocol For Fear Learning In Humans, Gordon M. Haskell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Successful regulation of fear memories is a fundamental tenet to the exposure-based therapies often employed by mental health professionals for individuals with PTSD, phobias, and other anxiety disorders. Consequently, the efficacy of these treatment methodologies is largely dependent on the strength of the fear memory, as stronger memories are often characterized by an increased resistance to extinction and heightened fear recovery. However, there is little consensus within the scientific community regarding how to effectively maximize fear memory strength in human studies, and the literature exploring the impact of variability in acquisition parameters on memory strength is sparse. Here, we tested …

Cross-Modal Perception Of Identity By Sound And Taste In Bottlenose Dolphins, Jason N. Bruck, Sam F. Walmsley, Vincent M. Janik

Faculty Publications

While studies have demonstrated concept formation in animals, only humans are known to label concepts to use them in mental simulations or predictions. To investigate whether other animals use labels comparably, we studied cross-modal, individual recognition in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) that use signature whistles as labels for conspecifics in their own communication. First, we tested whether dolphins could use gustatory stimuli and found that they could distinguish between water and urine samples, as well as between urine from familiar and unfamiliar individuals. Then, we paired playbacks of signature whistles of known animals with urine samples from either the same …

Differential Neural Correlates Underlying Different Cognitive Control Strategies And Their Relationship With The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, Carroll Bentley

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Impulsivity is defined as a rapid unplanned action to a stimulus, where the person does not consider the consequences of their actions (Moeller et al., 2001). Various measurement techniques exist in the study of impulsivity and include self-report, behavioral and physiological measures. This breadth of measurement techniques affords researchers the opportunity to understand what is likely a multifaceted nature of this construct. Previous literature shows mixed results between the relationship of the three measures. The present study seeks to add clarity between the three different modalities of measuring impulsivity. To address this relationship, an undergraduate sample (n = 171) completed …

Does Chronic Risperidone Administration Affect Food Reinforcement In Adulthood In Mice?, Francis Torres, Paul Soto

LSU Master's Theses

Second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) increase weight gain and food consumption in humans and non-human animals. It has been speculated that SGAs increase the reinforcing effects of food, which increases food consumption and drives weight gain. The current study evaluated the effects of risperidone on sucrose reinforcement in male and female C57BL/6J mice using economic demand assessments. Demand for sucrose was measured by varying the fixed ratio (FR) value required to produce sucrose delivery across experimental sessions using five FR values: 1, 5, 15, 30, and 45. The effects of acute risperidone administration on demand for sucrose were first assessed by orally …

Classical Conditioning Of Cognitive States, Arthur Burns

Neuroscience Honors Papers

Classical conditioning has been a fundamental concept and practice throughout the history of psychology. While classical conditioning traditionally seeks to elicit target behaviors in correlation to specific stimuli, we sought to do the same with cognitive states in place of behaviors. Specifically, we wanted to determine the effectiveness of conditioning states of cognitive arousal in human participants in conjunction with cues presented in a designed learning task. We designed a cognitive task specifically for this research, referred to as “the Tone Pitching Task”, which utilized a combination of working memory and mental processing in order to elicit cognitive arousal and …

The Evolution Of Quantitative Sensitivity, Margaret A H Bryer, Sarah E. Koopman, Jessica F. Cantlon, Steven T. Piantadosi, Evan L. Maclean, Joseph M. Baker, Michael J. Beran, Sarah M. Jones, Kerry E. Jordan, Salif Mahamane, Andreas Nieder, Bonnie M. Perdue, Friederike Range, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Masaki Tomonaga, Dorottya Ujfalussy, Jennifer Vonk

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

The ability to represent approximate quantities appears to be phylogenetically widespread, but the selective pressures and proximate mechanisms favouring this ability remain unknown. We analysed quantity discrimination data from 672 subjects across 33 bird and mammal species, using a novel Bayesian model that combined phylogenetic regression with a model of number psychophysics and random effect components. This allowed us to combine data from 49 studies and calculate the Weber fraction (a measure of quantity representation precision) for each species. We then examined which cognitive, socioecological and biological factors were related to variance in Weber fraction. We found contributions of phylogeny …

Boosting Brain Waves Improves Memory, Richard J. Addante, Mairy Yousif, Rosemarie Valencia, Constance Greenwood, Raechel Marino

Psychology Faculty Publications

Have you ever wanted to improve your memory? Or have you struggled to remember what you studied? Memory uses special patterns of activity in the brain. This experiment tested a new way to create brain wave patterns that help with memory. We wanted to see if we could improve memory by using lights and sounds that teach the brain waves to be in sync. People wore special goggles that made flashes of light and headphones that made beeping noises. This trained the brain through a process called entrainment. The entrainment put the brain in sync at a specific brain wave …

Social Justice Approaches To Cognitive, Emotional, And Language Development During Childhood And Adolescence, Angélique M. Blackburn

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

With contemporary events that have spotlighted social injustices, including the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States and the COVID-19 pandemic, any discussion of child development should take into account the diverse experiences of children facing injustice. In this article, I focus on social justice as it pertains to child development and how this topic has been addressed in literature targeted at students of child development theory. I focus on the contribution of two recent books (Anthis, 2020; De Houwer, 2021) within the greater context of reviewing literature regarding social inequities in cognitive, emotional, and language development. Anthis (2020) …

Cerebellum-Seeded Functional Connectivity Changes In Trait-Anxious Individuals Undergoing Attention Bias Modification Training, Katherine Elwell

All NMU Master's Theses

Anxiety and anxiety related disorders are increasing at a drastic rate in the past decade, with the NIMH reporting that 31.1% of U.S. adults will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. Anxiety is commonly characterized by increased attention bias to threat. Attention Bias Modification (ABM) is a new treatment used to reduce individual’s attention bias towards threat. The extent to which ABM leads to underlying neural changes is still unknown. The cerebellum is a neglected brain structure, with new research provides evidence that cerebellum’s functional connectivity and shared networks with threat processing regions has a direct …

Predicting Inattentional Blindness With Pupillary Response In A Simulated Flight Task, Kellie D. Kennedy

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Inattentional blindness (IB) is the failure of observers to notice the presence of a clearly viewable but unexpected visual event when attentional resources are diverted elsewhere. Knowing when an operator is unable to respond or detect an unexpected event may help improve safety during task performance. Unfortunately, it is difficult to predict when such failures might occur. The current study was a secondary data analysis of data collected in the Human and Autonomous Vehicle Systems Laboratory at NASA Langley Research Center. Specifically, 60 subjects (29 male, with normal or corrected-to-normal vision, mean age of 34.5 years (SD = 13.3) were …

The Effect Of A Mindfulness-Based Intervention On Attention And Cognitive Control As A Function Of Smartphone Notifications., Joshua D. Upshaw

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Barriers to accessing mobile technology, particularly smartphones, have decreased substantially since the iPhone’s release in 2007, resulting in increased ownership and usage across all ages, genders, and races. Despite their ubiquity in our society, relatively little empirical work has investigated the influence of smartphones on our higher order executive functioning. Prior work has linked smartphone use with impaired cognitive control during cognitively demanding tasks, especially in heavier smartphone users. The goals of the current study were twofold. First, the study aimed to examine the effects of smartphone notifications on cognitive control and attention. And second, to determine the effects of …

Antidepressants, Circadian Rhythms, And Cognition: The Effects Of Ssris And Snris On Circadian Rhythms And Cognitive Performance, Gabriel Gilmore

Masters Theses, 2020-current

It has been well documented that individuals with depression commonly experience sleep disturbances. Decreased sleep quality, diminished sleep efficiency, and increased nighttime awakenings are all typical ailments. Deficits in cognitive functioning often co-occur, including impairments in working memory, learning, inhibition, and set shifting. Many studies have found that upon taking antidepressants (i.e. serotonin agonists), individuals with depression experience normalized sleep and cognitive performance. The impact of antidepressants, especially SSRIs and SNRIs, on sleep stages, particularly REM and slow wave sleep, has been the subject of numerous studies. However, there is currently very limited literature that examines their impact on sleep …

Everyday Memory In People With Down Syndrome, Yingying Jennifer Yang, Zachary M. Himmelberger, Trent Robinson, Megan Davis, Frances Conners, Edward Merrill

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Although memory functions in people with Down Syndrome (DS) have been studied extensively, how well people with DS remember things about everyday life is not well understood. In the current study, 31 adolescents/young adults with DS and 26 with intellectual disabilities (ID) of mixed etiology (not DS) participated. They completed an everyday memory questionnaire about personal facts and recent events (e.g., school name, breakfast). They also completed a standard laboratory task of verbal long-term memory (LTM) where they recalled a list of unrelated words over trials. Results did not indicate impaired everyday memory, but impaired verbal LTM, in people with …

Regulation Of Self-Love, Kruti Surti

Dissertations

While the concept of self-love is well-known in today’s society, it remains unknown how self-love can be increased. Increasing self-love may help individuals decrease stress and promote well-being. The current study tested how self-love and pleasantness can be increased and whether anxiety levels and personality traits such as neuroticism and conscientiousness are associated with self-love increase. In this study, participants (N = 108; 86 women, 20 men, 1 gender queer, 1 other (not specified)) completed questionnaires related to self-compassion, self-efficacy, anxiety, and personality. Then, participants completed an online self-love regulation task in which they read prompts that encouraged them …

Evaluating Brain Performance Enhancing Drugs, Kristina Toropova

Open Educational Resources

Students read about drugs which enhance student academic performance.They will connect the found information to prior course material, addressing neuroanatomy and neurophysiology as well as connect to the attention course chapter. Students will also delve into the ethical components of the use of brain enchasing drugs and compare them to sports performance-enhancing drugs.

Authentication Schemes' Impact On Working Memory, Janine D. Mator

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Authentication is the process by which a computing system validates a user’s identity. Although this process is necessary for system security, users view authentication as a frequent disruption to their primary tasks. During this disruption, primary task information must be actively maintained in working memory. As a result, primary task information stored in working memory is at risk of being lost or corrupted while users authenticate. For over two decades, researchers have focused on developing more memorable passwords by replacing alphanumeric text with visual graphics (Biddle et al., 2012). However, very little attention has been given to the impact authentication …

Fundamental Principles Of Metacognition: A Qualitative Study Of Metacognition, Pedagogy And Transformation, Philip Hulbig

Educational Studies Dissertations

This study investigated the transformative quality of a metacognitive education. It examined a transformative metacognitive education from both the subjective personal perspective of the student who has gone through the process of transformation and the more objective pedagogical perspective of the professors who work to bring forth such transformational experiences in their students. Through interview and analysis these perspectives were integrated to produce a pedagogical theoretical framework derived from experience and grounded in observations about metacognition across various scientific disciplines. The personal elements of metacognition that promote educational transformation from within the students were contrasted with the pedagogical approaches of …

Effects Of Human-Animal Interactions On Affect And Cognition, Elise L. Thayer, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Human-animal interaction has clear positive effects on people’s affect and stress. But less is known about how animal interactions influence cognition. We draw parallels between animal interactions and exposure to natural environments, a research area that shows clear improvements in cognitive performance. The aim of this study is to investigate whether interacting with animals similarly enhances cognitive performance, specifically executive functioning. To test this, we conducted two experiments in which we had participants self-report their affect and complete a series of cognitive tasks (long-term memory, attentional control, and working memory) before and after either a brief interaction with a dog …

Dog And Owner Characteristics Predict Training Success, Jeffrey R. Stevens, London M. Wolff, Megan Bosworth, Jill Morstad

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Teaching owners how to train their dogs is an important part of maintaining the health and safety of dogs and people. Yet we do not know what behavioral characteristics of dogs and their owners are relevant to dog training or if owner cognitive abilities play a role in training success. The aim of this study is to determine which characteristics of both dogs and owners predict success in completing the American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen training program. Before the first session of a dog training course, owners completed surveys evaluating the behavior and cognition of their dog and themselves. …

Stress, Resilience, And Impulsivity, Kendra Clark, Adam Runyan, Carissa Philippi

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Stress is a phenomenon that everyone will experience. Stress that is unmanageable can become chronic, which is linked to various negative psychological effects (Le Fevre, Matheny, & Kolt, 2003). Although stress research often focuses on the negative long-term effects, there are times where individuals develop a trait known as resilience. Resilient individuals eventually learn how to buffer the negative effects of stress (Cicchetti, 2010), and researchers have begun investigating the positive effects of resilience on stress (Cicchetti, 2010; Kermott, Johnson, Sood, R., Jenkins, & Sood, A., 2019). Currently, few studies have been conducted to identify any additional traits that may …

Social Comparison Tendencies And The Reward Value Of Same-Sex Beauty Among Heterosexual Women, Melissa M. Martin Ms.

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Previous studies have suggested that heterosexual women, but not heterosexual men, find same sex beauty rewarding. This finding has been attributed to a “greater bisexual interest among heterosexual women”, but no other explanations have been offered or tested. The current study aimed to explore social comparison tendencies as a potential alternate explanation to this previously observed finding. Twenty-three heterosexual women completed a series of questionnaires designed to assess their social comparison tendencies (the social comparison orientation scale, the physical appearance comparison scale, and the intrasexual competition scale). They also completed a “pay-per-view” keypress task to measure the reward value of …

Frontal Alpha Wave Asymmetry In Regard To Affect, Monica Leigh Sewell

All Master's Theses

This study examines frontal alpha brain wave asymmetry (FAA) in relation to emotion processing. Previous research has shown that differences between left versus right FAA could exhibit a neurological marker for emotional intelligence (EI), mental health, and stress. Behavioral data were collected using Profile of Emotional Competence Questionnaire, Perceived Stress Questionnaire, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7. This was followed by a series of resting EEG recordings. This study hypothesizes that participants who are mentally healthy, have higher EI scores and lower stress will display greater left FAA. The hypothesis is partially supported; participants with depression had greater …

The Interactive Effects Of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (Bdnf) Polymorphisms And Posttraumatic Stress Disorder On Neurocognitive Functioning In U.S. Military Veterans, Colton Shafer Rippey

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is associated with mild-to-moderate deficits in neurocognitive functioning. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene, namely, the Met allele, may also be associated with mild deficits in neurocognitive functioning. However, findings are inconsistent and may be sensitive to environmental epigenetic moderators such as psychopathology.

The current study analyzed data from European-American U.S. military veterans (n = 1,244) who participated in the 2011 National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study (NHRVS). Multivariate analyses of covariances were conducted to evaluate the unique and interactive effects of the Met allele and probable PTSD on …

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 …