Cognition and Perception Commons^™

Music And Movement Share A Dynamic Structure That Supports Universal Expressions Of Emotion, Beau Sievers, Larry Polansky, Michael Casey, Thalia Wheatley

Dartmouth Scholarship

Music moves us. Its kinetic power is the foundation of human behaviors as diverse as dance, romance, lullabies, and the military march. Despite its significance, the music-movement relationship is poorly understood. We present an empirical method for testing whether music and movement share a common structure that affords equivalent and universal emotional expressions. Our method uses a computer program that can generate matching examples of music and movement from a single set of features: rate, jitter (regularity of rate), direction, step size, and dissonance/visual spikiness. We applied our method in two experiments, one in the United States and another in …

Word Of Mouth And The Forecasting Of Consumption Enjoyment, Stephen He, Samuel Bond

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The digital era has permitted rapid transfer of peer knowledge regarding products and services. In the present research, we explore the value of specific types of word-of-mouth information (numeric ratings and text commentary) for improving forecasts of consumption enjoyment. We present an anchoring-and-adjustment model in which the relative forecasting error associated with ratings and commentary depends on the extent to which consumer and reviewer have similar product-level preferences. To test our model, we present four experiments using a range of hedonic stimuli. Implications for the provision of consumer WOM are discussed.

Analyzing The Determinants Of Group Identity Among Alevis In Turkey: A National Survey Study, Cigdem Sirin

Selected Works Temporary Series

This study systematically explores the factors that affect collective identity associations within the Alevi community in Turkey by employing the social identity approach and examining survey data collected through fieldwork. The results show that Kurdish Alevis express lower levels of attachment to their religious identity as compared to Turkish Alevis. The results also indicate that personal experiences of discrimination tend to increase one's prioritization of Alevi identity. Last, no significant differences are observed regarding group identity between Alevis who reside in urban areas and those who live in rural areas.

Emotion, Community Development, And The Physical Environment: An Experimental Investigation Of Measurements, George E. Boone

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

A wide range of research fields have studied how emotions and behavior are affected by the physical environment. This gestalt theorist approach of experimental research as well seeks to measure emotion (using the valence-arousal scale) and micro-scale community development interactions when weighted physical environment factors are adjusted. Community development (CD) interactions at the micro-scale have received but slight attention from scholars in the CD research field and this study aims partially to investigate developing objective measures from social observations. CD interactions from recordings along with self-reported emotion through surveys in four quasi-experimental groups (where the environments were constructed based on …

Metaphor And Analogy: The Sun And Moon Of Legal Persuasion, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

Drawing on recent studies of social cognition, decision making, and analogical processing, this article recommends that lawyers turn to novel characterizations and metaphors to solve a particular kind of persuasion problem that is created by the way judges and juries think and decide. According to social cognition researchers, we perceive and interpret new information by following a process of schematic cognition, analogizing the new data we encounter to the knowledge structures embedded in our memories. Decision-making researchers differentiate between intuitive and reflective processes (System 1 and System 2), and they agree that in System 1 decision making, only the most …

Motivation In Athletes With And Without Autism Spectrum Disorder: Sq, Eq And Aq Relationships To Preferred Feedback, Julia C. Harreschou

Scripps Senior Theses

All athletes are driven by motivation, sources or reasons to push their bodies to their limits and continue to do so regularly. There have been several studies concerning motivation in typical athletes, and many regarding social motivation in people with High Functioning Autism (HFA), however most have been limited to children, and there have been no investigations into HFA athletes’ motivation. The current study looks into the role of social dimensions in athletics, and tests how one’s gender and placement on the Empathy Questionnaire (EQ), Systemizing Questionnaire (SQ), and on the Autism Questionnaire (AQ) affect intrinsic motivation in athletics. It …

From College Student To Change Agent: A Triadic Model Of Self-Efficacy, Attribution, And Appraisal, Joshua M. Garrin

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

Beyond their newfound emancipation and opportunities for self-discovery, college students in the young adult stage of development are expected to achieve balance between their autonomous new world and the impending pressures of postgraduation life. The college student must not only reconcile issues related to identity formation, goal pursuits, and career exploration, but is expected to begin the process of identifying and developing the skills required to address salient social themes. How students establish competency beliefs, negotiate controllability over future outcomes, and appraise challenges have deep implications in their capacity to discover their social change “voice.” The following discussion proposes a …

The Lives Of Others: Social Rationality In Animals, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Andrew J. King

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Darwin (1871) boldly claimed that humans and other animals differ very little in their cognition; a statement that has raised the ire of many scientists (Bolhuis & Wynne, 2009; Penn, Holyoak, & Povinelli, 2008). Rather than stating this continuity as a fact, we will explore the similarities and differences between humans and animals in the social rationality of their decision making. We find this a fruitful exercise because it can profit researchers of both humans and animals. Our purpose here is to provide an evolutionary background of social rationality: Why do animals attend to the lives of others? To this …

Ego Depletion And Boredom: Does Boredom Compromise Future Acts Of Self-Control?, John Lemay

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study explored how boredom might influence self-control when participants believed that willpower is unlimited or limited. After completing one of two questionnaires, which induced the belief that willpower is either unlimited or limited, participants then completed one of three tasks. The tasks consisted of a non-ego depleting self-control task, an ego-depleting self-control task, and a task shown to induce boredom, with the nondepleting and depleting conditions having been replicated from research by Job, Dweck, and Walton (2010). In the non-depleting condition, participants completed a task that involved crossing out all occasions of the letter “e” found on two pages …

Age Differences In Reward Anticipation And Memory, Kristen L. Cushman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Aging research on item- and associative-recognition memory has demonstrated that older adults are deficient in forming associations between two unrelated stimuli. Although older adult performance on tests of item-recognition is similar to younger adult performance, older adults perform worse than younger adults on tests of associative memory (Naveh-Benjamin, Hussain, Guez, & Bar-On, 2003). In addition to the idea that younger adult performance on associative-recognition tests is superior to that of older adults, research has shown that reward cues can enhance motivated learning and item memory performance of younger adults. In an fMRI study that examined the influence of reward anticipation …

Teleological Reasoning In Adults: Believing In The Purpose Of Events, Carrie Jeanette Guggenmos

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Teleological reasoning reflects the general tendency to view objects, behaviors and events in terms of their “purpose.” Although healthy educated adults tend to refrain from committing errors in teleological reasoning about objects, our knowledge regarding how adults reason about events is limited. It has been suggested that teleological reasoning biases our interpretations of emotionally significant and unexpected life events of which a physical or social cause is absent or unsatisfactory. The current investigation seeks to better understand the types of events that evoke a teleological perspective and the conditions and individual difference factors that facilitate it. The results revealed that …

Asymmetry In Resting Alpha Activity: Effects Of Handedness, Ruth E. Propper, Jenna Pierce, Mark W. Geisler, Stephen D. Christman, Nathan Bellorado

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha band power during rest shows increased right, and/or decreased left, hemisphere activity under conditions of state or trait withdrawal-associated effect. Non-right-handers (NRH) are more likely to have mental illnesses and dispositions that involve such withdrawal-related effect. The aim of the study was to examine whether NRH might be characterized by increased right, relative to left, hemisphere activity during rest. Methods: The present research investigated that hypothesis by examining resting EEG alpha power in consistently-right-handed (CRH) and NRH individuals. Results: In support of the hypothesis, NRH demonstrated decreased right hemisphere alpha power, and therefore increased right hemisphere …

Frequency-Specificity And Pattern-Specificity Of The Buildup Of Auditory Stream Segregation, David Michael Weintraub

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

During repeating sequences of low (A) and high (B) tones in an "...ABAB..." pattern, the likelihood of hearing two separate streams ("streaming") increases with more repetitions of the patterns, a phenomenon referred to as "buildup". Previous studies have shown that buildup is frequency specific (Anstis & Saida, 1985) and that its biasing effects decays over several seconds (Beauvois & Meddis, 1997). No study has examined whether the frequency specificity of buildup persists for such a long duration. To address these issues, Experiment 1 tested the decay of frequency-specific and non-frequency specific buildup. The results revealed that (1) frequency-specific buildup effects …

Bayesian Approaches To Assessing Architecture And Stopping Rule, Joseph W. Houpt, Andrew Heathcote, Ami Eidels, J. T. Townsend

Psychology Faculty Publications

Much of scientific psychology and cognitive science can be viewed as a search to understand the mechanisms and dynamics of perception, thought and action. Two processing attributes of particular interest to psychologists are the architecture, or temporal relationships between sub-processes of the system, and the stopping rule, which dictates how many of the sub-processes must be completed for the system to finish. The Survivor Interaction Contrast (SIC) is a powerful tool for assessing the architecture and stopping rule of a mental process model. Thus far, statistical analysis of the SIC has been limited to null-hypothesis- significance tests. In this talk …

Navigating The Diverse Dimensions Of Stereotypes, With Domain Specific Deficits: Processes Of Trait Judgments About Individuals With Disabilities, Christina G. Boardman

Scripps Senior Theses

Stereotype groups are interrelated. For example, in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, racial minorities are referred to special education at a much higher rate than are majority racial groups (Tse, Lloyd, Petchkovsky, and Manaia, 2005; Harry, Arnaiz, Klingner, Sturges, 2008). The Stereotype Content Model describes stereotype relationships in terms of an interaction between competence and warmth. Warmth is the more consistent dimension. The nature of competence remains elusive (Fiske, Cuddy, and Glick, 2007; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, and Xu, 2002). Knowledge of relationships between stereotype groups, which themselves may be effects of bias, could factor into observed competence effects. …

Designing An "Information-Experience" Using Creativity Science Theory And Tools, Stephanie Belhomme

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

An “information-experience” encapsulated by a technological/digital audio-visual tool presents data and potentially meaningful information to prompt actionable knowledge concerning: “unspoken creative process elements;” their profound impacts on both how well our “physiology of creativity” functions; but also on how well foundational creative thinking and behavioral prerequisites (energy, motivation, imagination, and ownership) are leveraged.

The product: 1) introduces the user to one component of the CPS (Creative Problem Solving) Facilitation Process - Exploring the Challenge; 2) features a content specific component which prompts exploration of the many correlations between societal, organizational / community, human physiological / behavioral data, and the direct …

Temporal Shifts In Weapon Focus: Comparing Retrograde And Anterograde Effects, William Blake Erickson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When an eyewitness suffers an impairment of memory for a criminal's face because the criminal used a weapon during the commission of the crime, this impairment is called the weapon focus effect. Literature provides two explanations for how this effect arises: some implicate the narrowing of attentional cues to the weapon during the commission of a crime because arousal of the victim increases, while others claim that the weapon is merely a novel object in most everyday contexts, and novel objects demand more attention than contextually appropriate ones. The current study employed a simulated crime paradigm taking place in a …

Fighting The Current: Recalling Specific Self-Relevant Memories, John Walden Ransom

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study was designed to address whether recalling specific autobiographical memories is more difficult when they are self-relevant compared to non-relevant. In recent years, a number of experimental studies have indicated that self-relevant memories are more likely to be recalled without a specific time frame or very much detail. Unfortunately, these findings have not been integrated into the popular executive resources theory of autobiographical memory recall or theories of independent semantic and episodic memory stores. This study tested the hypothesis that self-relevant memories will be accessed in the semantic store and therefore will require more executive resources to generate …

Facial Expression Processing Is Holistic Or Feature-Based Depending On Stimulus Format: Evidence From The Composite Face Illusion And Gaze-Contingent Stimulus Presentations, Emily R. Prazak

Psychology Honors Projects

Controversy exists over whether facial expression recognition is a holistic or feature-based process. The present research explored whether stimulus format (photographic vs. schematic) affects the type of processing used. In a composite/noncomposite expression recognition task, holistic processing was observed for photographic stimuli and feature-based processing was observed for schematic stimuli. Moreover, holistic processing in the photographic condition increased when more than one individual was presented. Results suggest that facial expression processing is holistic under natural viewing conditions and provide a potential resolution to the previous controversy. Such findings may be corroborated by an ongoing follow-up study using gaze-contingent stimulus presentations.

Public Support For Military Interventions Across Levels Of Political Information And Stages Of Intervention: The Case Of The Iraq War, Cigdem Sirin

Selected Works Temporary Series

This study examines the effect of political information levels and intervention stages on the formation and continuity of public support for military interventions by analyzing survey data pertaining to the 2003 military intervention in Iraq. The results show that before and immediately after the launch of the intervention, politically uninformed individuals expressed higher support for the war compared to politically informed ones. However, as the intervention proceeded and casualties were incurred, higher rates of decrease in support were observed among the politically uninformed. Politically informed individuals, on the other hand, demonstrated more stable levels of support throughout the course of …

Public Support For Military Interventions Across Levels Of Political Information And Stages Of Intervention: The Case Of The Iraq War, Cigdem Sirin

Departmental Papers (PS)

This study examines the effect of political information levels and intervention stages on the formation and continuity of public support for military interventions by analyzing survey data pertaining to the 2003 military intervention in Iraq. The results show that before and immediately after the launch of the intervention, politically uninformed individuals expressed higher support for the war compared to politically informed ones. However, as the intervention proceeded and casualties were incurred, higher rates of decrease in support were observed among the politically uninformed. Politically informed individuals, on the other hand, demonstrated more stable levels of support throughout the course of …

An Erp Study Of Responses To Emotional Facial Expressions: Morphing Effects On Early-Latency Valence Processing, Zoe Ravich

Scripps Senior Theses

Early-latency theories of emotional processing state that at least coarse monitoring of the emotional valence (a pleasure-displeasure continuum) of facial expressions should be both rapid and highly automated (LeDoux, 1995; Russell, 1980). Research has largely substantiated early-latency differential processing of emotional versus non-emotional facial expressions; however, the effect of valence on early-latency processing of emotional facial expression remains unclear. In an effort to delineate the effects of valence on early-latency emotional facial expression processing, the current investigation compared ERP responses to positive (happy and surprise), neutral, and negative (afraid and sad) basic facial expression photographs as well as to positive …

Creation Of False Memories And Beliefs: Expectancy Consistent Errors Based On Gender Stereotypes, Arianna Stelling

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

This study was a series of three experiments which examined the effects of gender stereotypes on the creation of false-memories. Participants were undergraduate students who viewed a short one-scene video depicting a couple on a date. The video featured a man and a woman displaying a mixture of typical, atypical, or a combination of both gender stereotypical behaviors. Following the video, participants completed a quiz to determine whether they created false memories consistent with gender stereotypes. Participants completed an attitudinal scale to gauge their views on gender stereotypes. It was hypothesized that participants would create stereotype- consistent false memories and …

Agenda Setting From The Oval Office: An Experimental Examination Of Presidential Influence Over The Public Agenda, José Villalobos, Cigdem Sirin

Selected Works Temporary Series

This study employs an experimental approach to isolate and directly test the extent to which presidents can affect public perceptions of issue importance and support for policy action, taking into consideration key factors that condition such effects. Our findings provide new empirical evidence that presidents can, in fact, positively influence public opinion through agenda setting, particularly by increasing the perceptual importance of low salience foreign policy issues. However, the results also indicate that such positive effects do not translate into public support for policy action; instead, presidential appeals actually decrease support. Last, our study offers new evidence that employing bipartisan …

Agenda Setting From The Oval Office: An Experimental Examination Of Presidential Influence Over The Public Agenda, José Villalobos, Cigdem Sirin

Departmental Papers (PS)

This study employs an experimental approach to isolate and directly test the extent to which presidents can affect public perceptions of issue importance and support for policy action, taking into consideration key factors that condition such effects. Our findings provide new empirical evidence that presidents can, in fact, positively influence public opinion through agenda setting, particularly by increasing the perceptual importance of low salience foreign policy issues. However, the results also indicate that such positive effects do not translate into public support for policy action; instead, presidential appeals actually decrease support. Last, our study offers new evidence that employing bipartisan …

Examining The Role Of Identity In Negotiation Decision Making: The Case Of Cyprus, Cigdem Sirin

Selected Works Temporary Series

This study examines the effects of ethnic and social identities on negotiation decision making in the context of the Cyprus conflict. I conduct a theory-driven case study of the 1959 Zurich-London agreements on Cyprus, analyzing the positions of Turkey, Greece, Britain, and the Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities during the negotiation process. I find that even in the presence of adversarial ethnic ties, decision makers who have a shared (and salient) social identity are more likely to employ collective-serving decision strategies and seek evenhanded solutions that will not jeopardize their mutual interests. In contrast, decision makers with severe ethnic fragmentation …

Examining The Role Of Identity In Negotiation Decision Making: The Case Of Cyprus, Cigdem Sirin

Departmental Papers (PS)

This study examines the effects of ethnic and social identities on negotiation decision making in the context of the Cyprus conflict. I conduct a theory-driven case study of the 1959 Zurich-London agreements on Cyprus, analyzing the positions of Turkey, Greece, Britain, and the Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities during the negotiation process. I find that even in the presence of adversarial ethnic ties, decision makers who have a shared (and salient) social identity are more likely to employ collective-serving decision strategies and seek evenhanded solutions that will not jeopardize their mutual interests. In contrast, decision makers with severe ethnic fragmentation …

Predictors Of Bullying In An Adolescent School Sample, Schell Hufstetler

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Author's abstract: Bullying is a pervasive problem in our society. Contributing to this problem is the fact that bullying is not well understood. This makes it difficult to design successful interventions. The current study aims to create a complete picture of bullying in order to increase understanding of this behavior. For this study, 59 adolescents completed a survey packet including measures of bullying behaviors and other variables expected to relate to bullying. The results revealed that bullying is a problem for both genders. Multivariate analyses revealed males to be more directly and indirectly aggressive, but there were no significant gender …

Trauma Severity And Defensive Emotion-Regulation Reactions As Predictors Of Forgetting Childhood Trauma, Bette L. Bottoms, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Michelle A. Epstein, Matthew J. Badanek

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Using a retrospective survey, we studied a sample of 1679 college women to determine whether reports of prior forgetting of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and other traumas could be explained by trauma severity and individual differences in the use of defensive emotion-regulation reactions (i.e., repressive coping, dissociation, and fantasy proneness). Among victims of physical abuse (but not sexual abuse or other types of trauma), those who experienced severe abuse and used defensive reactions were sometimes more likely to report temporary forgetting of abuse, but other times less likely to report forgetting. We also found unanticipated main effects of trauma severity …

General Recognition Theory Extended To Include Response Times: Predictions For A Class Of Parallel Systems, James T. Townsend, Joseph W. Houpt, Noah H. Silbert

Psychology Faculty Publications

General Recognition Theory (GRT; Ashby & Townsend, 1986) is a multidimensional theory of classification. Originally developed to study various types of perceptual independence, it has also been widely employed in diverse cognitive venues, such as categorization. The initial theory and applications have been static, that is, lacking a time variable and focusing on patterns of responses, such as confusion matrices. Ashby proposed a parallel, dynamic stochastic version of GRT with application to perceptual independence based on discrete linear systems theory with imposed noise (Ashby, 1989). The current study again focuses on cognitive/perceptual independence within an identification classification paradigm. We extend …