Cognition and Perception Commons^™

Investigating Affective Pathways For The Influence Of Justification On Self-Control, Morgan Hill

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

People struggle with temptation in their everyday lives. Research often attributes failures in self-regulation to overwhelming and uncontrollable impulses. However, research also supports the idea that cognitive factors (e.g., justification) can license tempting behavior and allow individuals to behave in ways that run counter to their long-term goals. In addition, it is likely that affect plays a role in justification-based self-control failure. The current set of three studies investigated the role of affect in justification-based self-control failure. Study 1 tested the prediction that recall of past successes would result in increased positive affect. Study 2 assessed whether justification results in …

Values Vs. Self-Interest As Determinants Of Attitudes: Through A Construal Level Theory Lens, (Sometimes) Self-Interest Wins, Austin D. Eubanks

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study (n = 335) attempted to conceptually replicate Hunt, Kim, Borgida, and Chaiken (2010) with a high-powered design to investigate whether values and self-interest differentially impact attitudes depending on psychological distance. Participants were assigned to complete a task that made self- or other-focused values more accessible, then indicated their attitudes about a student fee increase at a university to fund scholarships the participants would not be eligible to receive (thus going against their own financial self-interest for the well being of someone else). The memo describing the fee increase was manipulated such that the increase would be occurring …

Gratitude Intervention Modulates P3 Amplitude In A Temporal Discounting Task, Andrea L. Patalano, Sydney L. Lolli, Charles A. Sanislow

Charles A. Sanislow, Ph.D.

Complexities And Challenges Of Nonduality, Elizabeth Stephens

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

States of consciousness referred to as nonduality, awakening, enlightenment, moksha, peak experience, unitive states, or void states, among other terms, have garnered increasing secular attention and have become a topic of psychological and neuroscientific research. A review of the literature revealed many challenges to studying this set of states, such as inconsistent conceptualizations, a variety of models and theories, and conflicting descriptions indicating that the actual experience may not live up to the superlative descriptions found in historical texts or the expectations put forth by nondual teachers. A great deal more empirical research on this topic is needed, and researchers …

Mooney Face Stimuli For Visual Perception Research, Caspar M. Schwiedrzik, Lucia Melloni, Aaron Schurger

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

In 1957, Craig Mooney published a set of human face stimuli to study perceptual closure: the formation of a coherent percept on the basis of minimal visual information. Images of this type, now known as "Mooney faces", are widely used in cognitive psychology and neuroscience because they offer a means of inducing variable perception with constant visuospatial characteristics (they are often not perceived as faces if viewed upside down). Mooney's original set of 40 stimuli has been employed in several studies. However, it is often necessary to use a much larger stimulus set. We created a new set of over …

Music As A Catalyst For Altered States Of Consciousness And Peak Experiences In The Treatment Of Depression, Anxiety, And Ptsd, Paul Battles

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Abstract This paper investigates the therapeutic uses of altered states of consciousness (ASC) and peak experiences (PE) for the treatment of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the ways in which music can be used to facilitate or enhance these experiences. ASC’s and PE’s can help uncover hidden or repressed unconscious material and potentially change the way an individual views and interacts with his or her world. In cases of people suffering from depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), these emotional, cognitive, and perceptual changes have been shown to have sometimes profound and long- lasting therapeutic effects, …

Neurotracker Cognitive Function And Its Relationship To Gpa In College Students, Justin Tran, Caroline Gallagher Poehls

Honors Thesis

Abstract

Introduction: The NeuroTracker system is a training tool used to enhance one’s cognitive abilities. It has been previously tested to improve athletic performance and core cognitive abilities in a variety of populations, but it has yet to be used as a cognitive test to examine its ability to distinguish academic ability in college students. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between a student’s grade point average (GPA), major, minutes exercised, and visual tracking speed utilizing the NeuroTracker System.

Methods: Forty-five students volunteered for the study (20 male and 25 female, 20.2±1.09years, ht=170.44±9.48cm, wt=70.98±15.66kg) and were …

Social Work Trauma Interventions: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Kassie Baumann

Senior Honors Theses

According to Lynne Weilart (2013), in her article on the reasons why people seek out therapy, trauma is the number one reason people attend counseling. Many different trauma-informed approaches are designed specifically to address the consequences of trauma and to facilitate healing. Some of these approaches are as follows: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT); Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT);Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT); Trauma Systems Therapy (TST); Trauma Assessment Pathway (TAP); and Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competency (ARC) (de Arellano, Danielson, Ko, & Sprauge, 2008). The effectiveness of each trauma intervention will be examined. DBT is one of these trauma interventions that is growing …

Measuring Physiological Responses To Sensation In Typical Adults, Sarah Button, Kristen Christensen, Emily Minor

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Objective: Sensory processing issues can have a large negative impact on the ability to participate in daily occupations such as ADLs, access to work, school and leisure environments, and social interactions (Dunn, 2001). The evidence documenting sensory processing issues in adults is sparse. Physiological information can be used as objective evidence to support the claim that those with over-responsivity to sensations are experiencing their environment differently than the typical population. Understanding more about sensory processing in adults may lead to increased recognition of the problem and more opportunities for intervention to increase occupational participation. The purpose of this quantitative study …

Dancing, Mindfulness, And Our Emotions: Embracing The Mind, Body, And Sole, Alisha M. Collins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project examines dance, as an intervention and mindfulness practice that assists with managing our emotions. There is a need for dance therapy in social institutions such as, healthcare facilities, schools, and community centers. Dance therapy has the potential to reduce negative emotions, create mindfulness, improve self-expression, and promote a healthy well-being. I am proposing that dance therapy is applied as a regular practice in social institutions to develop mindfulness and promote emotional stability.

In this study, I argue that dance therapy can contribute to our well-being long term. In addition to this written thesis, a visual component of …

The Predictors Of Juvenile Recidivism: Testimonies Of Adult Students 18 Years And Older Exiting From Alternative Education, La Toshia Palmer

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this descriptive, qualitative study was to identify and describe the importance of the predictors of juvenile recidivism and the effectiveness of efforts to prevent/avoid juvenile recidivism as perceived by previously detained, arrested, convicted, and/or incarcerated adult students 18 years of age and older exiting from alternative education in Northern California. A second purpose was to explore the types of support provided by alternative schools and the perceived importance of the support to avoid recidivism according to adult students 18 years of age and older exiting from alternative education.

Methodology: This qualitative, descriptive research design identified …

Network Specialization During Adolescence: Hippocampal Effective Connectivity In Boys And Girls, Jeffrey D. Riley, E. Elinor Chen, Jessica Winsell, Elyssia Poggi Davis, Laura M. Glynn, Tallie Z. Baram, Curt A. Sandman, Steven L. Small, Ana Solodkin

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Adolescence is a complex period of concurrent mental and physical development that facilitates adult functioning at multiple levels. Despite the growing number of neuroimaging studies of cognitive development in adolescence focusing on regional activation patterns, there remains a paucity of information about the functional interactions across these participating regions that are critical for cognitive functioning, including memory. The current study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to determine how interactions among brain regions critical for memory change over the course of adolescence. We obtained functional MRI in 77 individuals aged 8–16 years old, divided into younger (ages 8–10) and older (ages …

Multisensory Integration And Autistic Traits Using Non-Sociolinguistic Information, Sébastien A. Lauzon, Samantha E. Schulz, Zack I. Cohen, Ryan A. Stevenson

Western Research Forum

Background: Sensory processing issues are one of the most common complaints in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). One area of sensory difficulties in ASD that has been the focus of intense research in recent years is multisensory integration (MSI), or the ability to bind auditory and visual information into a single, unified percept. While integration of social or linguistic information is consistently shown to be an area of difficulty in ASD, results are less clear with simple, non-sociolinguistic stimuli. This study aims to address this ambiguity by determining whether MSI of non-sociolinguistic sensory information is related to traits and symptomatology …

Sourcing Enchantment: From Elemental Appropriation To Imaginal Symbolics, Schwartz, Michael

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

Critical theorists and social commentators agree that modernity and postmodernity suffer from historical pathologies of world disenchantment. What might be done? Drawing on John Sallis’ phenomenology of the elemental and Tibetan Buddhist teachings on elemental practices, this paper investigates the imagination in its doubling as imaginal in generating a symbolics of the self, world, and other that is always already enchanted; an aesthetics of existence where the world itself shows forth like a work of art replete with exorbitant logics.

Tasseography From Jung's Perspective, Avetisian, Elizabeth

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

Approaching from Jung’s perspective this paper aims to understand how the unconscious communicates through symbolism that may be the basis for synchronicity arising from mantic procedures. A particular ritual of divination called tasseography will be studied whereby the seer interprets patterns in coffee grounds intuitively and by following a standard system of symbolism to foretell the seeker’s future life events or provide answers to seeker’s pressing life questions. The paper will examine various processes involved in the experience of tasseography and its ritual that enable the reader to predict the seeker’s future or bring light to the present or past …

Do Gender Differences In Perceived Prototypical Computer Scientists And Engineers Contribute To Gender Gaps In Computer Science And Engineering?, Joyce Ehrlinger, E. Ashby Plant, Marissa K. Hartwig, Jordan J. Vossen, Corey J. Columb, Lauren E. Brewer

Faculty Publications

Women are vastly underrepresented in the fields of computer science and engineering (CS&E). We examined whether women might view the intellectual characteristics of prototypical individuals in CS&E in more stereotype-consistent ways than men might and, consequently, show less interest in CS&E. We asked 269 U.S. college students (187, 69.5% women) to describe the prototypical computer scientist (Study 1) or engineer (Study 2) through open-ended descriptions as well as through a set of trait ratings. Participants also rated themselves on the same set of traits and rated their similarity to the prototype. Finally, participants in both studies were asked to describe …

The Signature Of Undetected Change: An Exploratory Electrotomographic Investigation Of Gradual Change Blindness, John E. Kiat, Michael D. Dodd, Robert F. Belli, Jacob E. Cheadle

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Neuroimaging-based investigations of change blindness, a phenomenon in which seemingly obvious changes in visual scenes fail to be detected, have significantly advanced our understanding of visual awareness. The vast majority of prior investigations, however, utilize paradigms involving visual disruptions (e.g., intervening blank screens, saccadic movements, “mudsplashes”), making it difficult to isolate neural responses toward visual changes cleanly. To address this issue in this present study, high-density EEG data (256 channel) were collected from 25 participants using a paradigm in which visual changes were progressively introduced into detailed real-world scenes without the use of visual disruption. Oscillatory activity associated with undetected …