Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

The Wounded Healer: Finding Meaning In Suffering, Garret B. Wyner

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In modern history, no event has more profoundly symbolized suffering than the Holocaust. This novel “Husserlian-realist” phenomenological dissertation elucidates the meaning of existential trauma through an interdisciplinary and psychologically integrative vantage point. I use the testimony of a select group of Holocaust witnesses who committed suicide decades after that event as a lens to examine what their despair may reveal about an unprecedented existential, moral, and spiritual crisis of humanity that threatens to undermine our faith in human history and reality itself. By distinguishing what they actually saw about our condition from what they merely believed about reality, I show …

Does Crowding Obscure The Presence Of Attentional Guidance In Contextual Cueing?, Steven William Fiske

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The contextual cueing effect was initially thought to be the product of memory guiding attention to the target location. However, the steep search slopes obtained in contextual cueing indicate an absence of attentional guidance. We hypothesized that crowding could be obscuring the presence of attentional guidance and investigated this possibility in 2 experiments. Crowding was manipulated by varying the density of items in the local target region in a contextual cueing task. We observed a significant reduction in search slopes between the novel and repeated conditions when crowding was reduced. Enhancing crowding eliminated the contextual cueing effect. These findings suggest …

Learning Mechanisms For Acquiring Knowledge Of Tonality In Music, Rikka Quam, Matthew Rosenthal, Erin Hannon

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

Most people think that musical knowledge is exclusive to trained musicians. Actually, casual music listeners have implicit knowledge of important structural aspects of music, such as tonality. Tonality contributes to the feeling of anticipation one would experience when hearing someone sing “do re mi faso la ti” without singing the final “do”. Knowledge of tonality may be learned through the statistics of music (Krumhansl, 1990). However, learning mechanisms have rarely been investigated experimentally (Creel et al., 2002). Artificial grammar learning experiments have shown that listeners can acquire highly structured knowledge such as syllable co-occurrence and language syntax through passive exposure. …

Levels-Of-Processing Effects On "Remember" Responses In Recognition For Familiar And Unfamiliar Tunes, Esra Mungan, Zehra F. Peynircioğlu, Andrea R. Halpern

Faculty Journal Articles

We investigated the effect of level-of-processing manipulations on "remember" and "know" responses in episodic melody recognition (Experiments 1 and 2) and how this effect is modulated by item familiarity (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, participants performed 2 conceptual and 2 perceptual orienting tasks while listening to familiar melodies: judging the mood, continuing the tune, tracing the pitch contour, and counting long notes. The conceptual mood task led to higher d' rates for "remember" but not "know" responses. In Experiment 2, participants either judged the mood or counted long notes of tunes with high and low familiarity. A level-of-processing effect emerged …

Using Contextual Cues To Influence The Role Of Priming In The Transformation Of Stimulus Functions: A Relational Frame Theory Investigation In Implicit Social Stereotyping., Jacob Daar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This basic study was designed to explore the conceptualization of prejudice as a form of contextually controlled, derived, and arbitrarily applicable relational responding. Basic studies utilizing RFT methodologies have yielded examples of how stimulus functions of one set of stimuli, such as a stereotyped group, can transform the functions of another stimulus, such as an individual. Priming procedures, as contextual cues, have been used to affect prejudicial responding. Stimuli participating in relational frames have been shown to be sensitive to such priming procedures; however, the role of context in the priming of derived relational responses has not yet been established. …

Indentifying And Understanding User Preferences In Generic Planning Tools, Grisel Ventura

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Planning is an important cognitive work activity. To support this complex task, the development of planning tools is important to support people during decision-making and problem-solving tasks. Nowadays, a large number of manual and electronic tools support this complex activity; manual and electronic planning tools aid people in creating strategies for effective work performance. However, there is limited information on the design of generic planning tools people use for their activities, and why people choose to use the planning tool they do. Some examples of generic tools for planning are calendars, checklists, agendas, etc.

To answer this question, this research …

The Effects Of Cultural Experience And Subdivision On Tapping To Slow Tempi, Sangeeta Ullal

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Our ability to accurately synchronize with rhythmic patterns is constrained by two factors: temporal length and interval structure. By using strategies such as subdivision, we can improve synchronization accuracy at slow tempos, but our ability to utilize subdivisions is constrained by the nature of interval ratios contained in culture-specific subdivision types. Western music falls within a restricted temporal range and its metrical subdivisions contain simple ratios, but Indian music violates these constraints. The present study examines the effects of culture-specific experience on these constraints. American and Indian listeners were asked to perform synchronous tapping to a stimulus with a slow …

The Influence Of Music On The Development Of Children, Theresa Riforgiate, Christopher Chau

Psychology and Child Development

Listening to classical music, like Mozart, is wonderful way to expand one's musical taste. Contrary to popular beliefs, however, this passive engagement with music does not make your child smarter. However, research demonstrates that active participation in music and music instruction help develop memory, perception, language, vocabulary, spoken skills, and reading skills. In order to disseminate these findings, we compiled a list of different opportunities around San Luis Obispo for children's active participation in music. Our goal is to provide parents with a resource to help them facilitate their children's involvement in music.

If These Men Could Still Talk, Rebecca Damphousse

Academic Symposium of Undergraduate Scholarship

For this assignment, two theorists in psychology were selected to engage in conversation. Erik Erikson and Jean Piaget were chosen and their theories of human development were researched. Erikson was asked how his experiences as a child impacted the formation of his theories. The question for Piaget was directed at the permanence, relevancy and universality of his theory into the 21st century. While a large amount of research was conducted, the questions and answers were pure conjecture.

Resolving Incomparability, David Pinkowski

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

When confronted with an important choice between two very different options, an agent often will be at a loss as to how to decide between them. This is often true even if the agent has a good understanding of the pros and cons of each option, and even if she is committed to something like "the best overall decision for me." One way to analyze this situation is to assert that the options are incomparable for the agent. Incomparability arises when, for two options, it seems that one is neither better nor worse than, nor equal to, the other. If …

Inspiring Art And Science, Andrea R. Halpern

Other Faculty Research and Publications

I read Ralf Dahm's article "Finding Alzheimer's Disease" (March-April) with interest for two reasons. First, as a cognitive neuroscientist, I have studied the effect of early-stage Alzheimer's disease on memory and on the appreciation of music and art. In addition, I am a member of a community chorus here in Pennsylvania, the Susquehanna Valley Chorale, which recently commissioned and premiered a choral work on the topic of the ailment, called Alzheimer's Stories.

Spirituality And Organised Religion In Supporting Parents Of Children With Down Syndrome And Intellectual Disability, Divia Pillay

Theses : Honours

Background: Raising a child with an intellectual disability can present parents with many challenges. Factors that have been demonstrated to positively impact on the mental and physical health of parents of children with an intellectual disability include greater clinical, family and social supports. One avenue of support that has been rarely explored is the role of spirituality and organised religion in supporting parents of children with an intellectual disability. Aim: The aim of this literature review was to investigate the role of spirituality and organised religion in the lives of parents of children with intellectual disability, specifically Down syndrome. Methods: …

The Effect Of Initial Entry Training On The Moral And Character Development Of Military Police Soldiers, Kenneth R. Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The U.S. Army conducts extensive training on its core values beginning with initial entry training (IET), commonly referred to as basic training, in order to shape soldiers' behavior and decision making in combat and noncombat situations. This mixed methods study addressed the problem of limited empirical research on the effects of U.S. Army IET on soldiers' moral and character development. The purpose was to explore the effects of Military Police (MP) IET on soldiers in training through a mixed methods quantitative and qualitative model. The theoretical framework for this study was based on Rest's four component model (FCM) of moral …

El Concepto De Audiencia Y La Colaboración Entre Iguales En La Revisión De Textos Escritos, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Brain‐Mind And Structure‐Function Relationships: A Methodological Response To Coltheart, Adina L. Roskies

Dartmouth Scholarship

In some recent papers, Max Coltheart has questioned the ability of neuroimaging techniques to tell us anything interesting about the mind and has thrown down the gauntlet before neuroimagers, challenging them to prove he is mistaken. Here I analyze Coltheart’s challenge, show that as posed its terms are unfair, and reconstruct it so that it is addressable. I argue that, so modified, Coltheart’s challenge is able to be met and indeed has been met. In an effort to delineate the extent of neuroimaging’s ability to address Coltheart’s concerns, I explore how different brain structure‐function relationships would constrain the ability of …

The Visual Experience Of Image Metaphor: Cognitive Insights Into Imagist Figures, Daniel W. Gleason

Faculty Publications & Research

In this essay I investigate how image metaphors – metaphors that link one concrete object to another, such as “her spread hand was a starfish” – promote visualization in the reader. Focusing on image metaphors in Imagist poetry, I assert that the two terms (e.g., the hand and the starfish) of many of these metaphors are similar in shape, and that this “structural correspondence” encourages the reader to visualize those metaphors. Readers may spontaneously form a “visual template,” a schematic middle ground that mediates between those similar shapes, in order to smoothly move between the two images within each metaphor. …

Cognitive Preference And Ethnic Identity Among Anglo And Native American High School Students, Chad Martin Novak

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

According to the Office of Educational Research and Improvement: A Project of the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research, graduation rates for Native Americans from both secondary and post secondary institutions are dismally low at 58% and 7%, respectively. Some research addresses cognitive preference and other ethnic identity, but research animating the cognitive preference---ethnic identity interplay for high school students is absent. These limitations in access to educational opportunities lead to abbreviated quality life experiences and a restriction in individual efficacy and collective agency. The following project assessed ethnic identity using Phinney's Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure and cognitive preference using …

The Relationship Between Working Memory Capacity And Movement Memory Of Dancers, Katrina Louise Muller-Townsend

Theses : Honours

Working memory capacity span tasks are suggested to predict complex cognitive behaviour across varied domains (Conway et al., 2005). However, it has been criticised that expert skills are highly situational and domain specific (Marteniuk, 1974). The current research aimed to investigate whether general memory span was related to movement span, and furthermore, whether this can predict dance learning. It was expected that memory for movement would be positively correlated with measures of working memory, due to the specific components of working memory, such as the capacity of the phonological loop. Furthermore, it was expected on the basis of previous research …

An Erp Study Of Major-Minor Classification In Melodies, Andrea R. Halpern, Jeffrey S. Martin, Tara D. Reed

Faculty Journal Articles

Skip to Next Section COMPOSERS COMMONLY USE MAJOR OR MINOR SCALES to create different moods in music.Nonmusicians show poor discrimination and classification of this musical dimension; however, they can perform these tasks if the decision is phrased as happy vs. sad.We created pairs of melodies identical except for mode; the first major or minor third or sixth was the critical note that distinguished major from minor mode. Musicians and nonmusicians judged each melody as major vs. minor or happy vs. sad.We collected ERP waveforms, triggered to the onset of the critical note. Musicians showed a late positive component (P3) to …

The Effects Of Using A Scripted Or Unscripted Interview In Forensic Interviews With Interpreters, Nicole Pruss

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The current study set out to replicate and expand the results of a study by Pruss (2007) which found that information is lost when interviews are conducted through interpreters. In the present study, Viewers (i.e., mock eyewitnesses) fluent in Spanish watched a video of a burglary and then were interviewed in Spanish about what they had seen. Half of Viewers were randomly assigned to be interviewed by an English-speaking Interviewer through a bilingual Interpreter (Interpreter condition), and the other half were randomly assigned to be interviewed directly by a Spanish speaking Interviewer with no Interpreter (No Interpreter condition). Within each …

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 …

Decision Structuring In Important Real-Life Decisions, Kathleen M. Galotti

Cognitive Science Faculty Work

No abstract provided.

Towards A Diagnostic Framework For Understanding Complex Situations, José J. Padilla, Andres Sousa-Poza, Arturo Tejada, Samuel Kovacic

VMASC Publications

This paper presents a theoretical framework for the concept of understanding and how it can be used for assessing complex situations. Understanding is presented as a cognitive process on how an individual perceives and represents a complex domain based on his/her own predispositions, and how he/she selects knowledge or what may not be knowledge based on the same predispositions towards finding a set of solutions for the situation. Predispositions, in this case, are based on his/her epistemological, ontological and teleological biases while the domain is represented by irreducible and transient conditions. The final outcome is the match or mismatch of …

Historical Perspectives On Attitudes Concerning Death And Dying, David San Filippo Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Beliefs and practices concerning death have changed throughout human history. In pre-modern times, death at a young age was common due to living conditions and medical practices. As medical science has advanced and helped humans live longer, attitudes and responses to death also have changed. In modern Western societies, death is often ignored or feared. Changes in lifestyles and improved medical science have depersonalized death and made it an encroachment on life instead of part of life. This has left many people ill equipped to deal with death when it touches their lives.

Perspectives On The Fears Of Death & Dying, David San Filippo Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This E-Book will examine some perspectives on fear, the fears of death, and constructs used to overcome or deal with the fears of death. By examining the literature on fear in general, a framework can be developed to understand how individuals become fearful. In the section, “Fears of Death,” what people fear about death and why they fear it will be discussed.

Children's Moral Reasoning Regarding Physical And Relational Aggression, Diann Murray-Close, Nickix R. Crick, Kathleen M. Galotti

Cognitive Science Faculty Work

Elementary school children’s moral reasoning concerning physical and relational aggression was explored. Fourth and fifth graders rated physical aggression as more wrong and harmful than relational aggression but tended to adopt a moral orientation about both forms of aggression. Gender differences in moral judgments of aggression were observed, with girls rating physical and relational aggression as more wrong and relational aggression as more harmful than boys. In addition, girls were more likely to adopt a moral orientation when judging physical and relational aggression and girls more often judged relational aggression than physical aggression from the moral domain. Finally, moral reasoning …

Decision-Making Styles In A Real-Life Decision: Choosing A College Major, Kathleen M. Galotti, Elizabeth Ciner, Hope E. Altenbaumer, Heather J. Geerts, Allison Rupp, Julie Woulfe

Cognitive Science Faculty Work

Undergraduate students were surveyed at the beginning stages of a potentially life-framing decision: choosing a college major. We investigated the relationships among individual difference variables (decision-making styles, planning proclivities, and epistemological orientations), cognitive measures of performance (e.g., amount of information gathered and considered); and affective reactions to, and descriptive ratings of, the decision-making process. There were few significant relationships between individual differences and performance measures. However, there were significant relationships found between individual differences measures and affective reactions to, or descriptive ratings of, the decision-making process. We suggest that stylistic measures have their effects in the way individuals frame the …

Mental Concerts: Musical Imagery And Auditory Cortex, Robert J. Zatorre, Andrea R. Halpern

Faculty Journal Articles

Most people intuitively understand what it means to “hear a tune in your head.” Converging evidence now indicates that auditory cortical areas can be recruited even in the absence of sound and that this corresponds to the phenomenological experience of imagining music. We discuss these findings as well as some methodological challenges. We also consider the role of core versus belt areas in musical imagery, the relation between auditory and motor systems during imagery of music performance, and practical implications of this research.

Musical Stem Completion: Humming That Note, Jill A. Warker, Andrea Halpern

Faculty Journal Articles

This study looked at how people store and retrieve tonal music explicitly and implicitly using a production task. Participants completed an implicit task (tune stem completion) followed by an explicit task (cued recall). The tasks were identical except for the instructions at test time. They listened to tunes and were then presented with tune stems from previously heard tunes and novel tunes. For the implicit task, they were asked to sing a note they thought would come next musically. For the explicit task, they were asked to sing the note they remembered as coming next. Experiment 1 found that people …

An Examination Of Factors Related To Women's Perceptions Of Female Celebrities: Body Satisfaction, Awareness And Internalization Of Thinness Standards, And Maternal Influence, Jennifer M. Mayer

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.