Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

Behavioral And Eye-Movement Correlates Of Item-Specific And Relational Memory In Autism, Greta Nicole Minor

Theses and Dissertations

Recent work has challenged past findings that documented relational memory impairments in autism. Previous studies have often relied solely on explicit behavioral responses to assess relational memory integrity, but successful performance on behavioral tasks may rely on other cognitive abilities (e.g., executive functioning) that are impaired in some autistic individuals. Eye-tracking tasks do not require explicit behavioral responses, and, further, eye movements provide an indirect measure of memory. The current study examined whether memory-specific viewing patterns toward scenes differ between autistic and non-autistic individuals. Using a long-term memory paradigm that equated for complexity between item and relational memory tasks, participants …

Psychiatric Diagnostic Decision-Making: Investigating The Theory Of The Dual-Process Model, Christopher S. Kleva

Theses and Dissertations

Diagnostic decision-making is an important component of clinical practice; however, there is substantial diagnostic unreliability within mental health diagnoses. The lack of reliability emphasizes the importance of investigating diagnostic decision-making; however, the research to date is limited, primarily relying on a vague definition of decision-making based on the dual-process model. The present study is an exploratory attempt to apply the dual-process model to explain how mental health clinicians (n = 30, 73.3% cisgender female, 96.7% psychologists) arrive at making diagnostic decisions through the use of an interactive interview mechanism. For each participant, we are able to create a figure …

Neural Correlates Underlying The Interactions Between Anxiety And Cannabis Use In Predicting Motor Response Inhibition, Richard Ward

Theses and Dissertations

The ability to effectively withhold an inappropriate response is a critical feature of cognitive control. Prior research indicates alterations in neural processes required for motor response inhibition in anxious individuals, including those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and those who engage in regular cannabis use. However, thus far most research has examined how anxiety-related symptoms and cannabis use influence response inhibition in isolation of one another. The current study examined the interactions between anxious symptomology and recent cannabis use in a sample that recently experienced a traumatic event using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the completion of a Stop-Signal …

Proactive And Reactive Cognitive Control Under Threat Of Unpredictable Shock: A Combined Eye-Tracking And Eeg Study Using Multilevel Modeling, Salahadin Lotfi

Theses and Dissertations

We are constantly bombarded by environmental distractors in daily life which interfere with internal, ongoing goals, thus cognitive control processes need to be in place to adapt to maintain these goals in light of the environmental demands. These cognitive processes (generally referred to cognitive control) are thought to be adjusted reactively or proactively to deal with distractors. There is little evidence on how state anxiety dynamically interacts with these two modes of cognitive control. Taking advantage of a multimodal methodology, through two experiments, we replicated existing findings of reactive and proactive control processes via utilizing a Flanker task in a …

Data-Driven Approach To Dynamic Resting State Functional Connectivity In Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Carissa Weis

Theses and Dissertations

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a heterogenous psychological disorder that may result from exposure to a traumatic event. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), symptoms of PTSD have been associated with aberrations in brain networks that emerge in the absence of a given cognitive demand or task, called resting state networks. Most previous research in resting state networks and PTSD has focused on aberrations in the static functional connectivity among specific regions of interest (ROI) in the brain and within canonical networks constrained by a priori hypotheses. However, dynamic fMRI, an approach that examines changes in brain network characteristics over …

The Association Of Aerobic Fitness With Resting State Functional Connectivity And Verbal Learning And Memory In Healthy Young Adults, Kyle Joseph Jennette

Theses and Dissertations

The beneficial effects of exercise and cardiopulmonary fitness on general health, quality of life, and reduction of mortality are well known in older adults. There is evidence to support the positive effects of exercise and aerobic fitness on psychiatric and neurocognitive function in children, adults, and older adults. Indeed, many studies have explored the positive effects of aerobic fitness on slowing cognitive decline associated with normal and pathological aging. However, comparatively fewer empirical studies in the literature exist to support and understand the effects of aerobic fitness on the developing brain, particularly during adolescence and young adulthood, especially as it …

Shaped By The Environment: The Influence Of Childhood Trauma Exposure, Individual Socioeconomic Position, And Neighborhood Disadvantage On Brain Morphology, Elisabeth Kathleen Webb

Theses and Dissertations

The relationship between an individual’s socioeconomic position (SEP) and their overall physical and mental health has been well demonstrated. Far less is known about how area-level factors, such as neighborhood disadvantage, “get under the skin”. Previous research indicates lower SEP and childhood trauma negatively effects brain structure and function. The hippocampus, amygdala, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) are particularly vulnerable to adversity. The current study investigated how individual SEP, childhood trauma, and neighborhood disadvantage impact these structures. Two-hundred and fifteen individuals were recruited from an Emergency Department in southeastern Wisconsin. Two-weeks post-traumatic injury, participants completed a structural magnetic resonance imaging …

Behavioral Hypervigilance In A Normative Population, Karly Weinreb

Theses and Dissertations

Hypervigilance is conceptualized as a symptom of trauma-related disorders, however it can also occur in a normative population. To distinguish normative hypervigilance from trauma-related hypervigilance, 372 participants (123 trauma-exposed and 249 non-trauma-exposed) completed a questionnaire assessing hypervigilance in contexts. Trauma-exposed participants reported greater levels of hypervigilance in 3 contexts.

Evaluation Of Cognitive Control Using Non-Gaussian Reaction Time Distributions In Fractionated Executive Function Tasks, Dmitriy Kazakov

Theses and Dissertations

The present study seeks to further investigate and refine the three-factor model of executive function (EF; Inhibition, Shifting, and Monitoring/Updating) known as the unity/diversity framework (Miyake et al., 2000). Past work in this area utilized “power” tasks that prioritize accuracy and difficulty, but real-world problem-solving incentivizes quick and efficient solutions. Ten computerized reaction time (RT) tasks: four elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs; Jensen, 1987; Santos, 2016) with progressively increasing task demands and six EF tasks. The ratio scale of RT necessitated the use of non-Gaussian statistics to better describe distribution shape, while diffusion modeling (DM; Ratcliff, 1978) was used to interpret …

Cannabis-Using Youth Demonstrated Blunted Rostral Anterior Cingulate Cortex Activation, But Normal Functional Connectivity, During An Emotional Go/No-Go Task, Kristin Elizabeth Maple

Theses and Dissertations

Cannabis use has been associated with deficits in self-regulation, including inhibitory control. Cannabis users have previously exhibited both structural and functional deficits in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), a region involved in self-regulation of emotional response and inhibitory control. The present study aimed to examine whether abstinent cannabis users demonstrated abnormal functional activation and connectivity of the bilateral rACC during an emotional inhibitory processing task, and whether gender moderated these relationships. The study also aimed to examine whether bilateral rACC activation and connectivity in cannabis users was related to perceived stress. It was hypothesized that cannabis users would exhibit …

Visual And Verbal Serial List Learning In Patients With Statistically-Determined Mild Cognitive Impairment, Victor J. Wasserman

Theses and Dissertations

Objective: To compare verbal versus visual serial list learning test performance in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and assess relationships between serial list learning and hippocampal volume. Methods: Patients were diagnosed with non-MCI, amnestic MCI (aMCI), and combined mixed/dysexecutive MCI (mixed/dysMCI). Outcome measures included immediate/delay free recall, and delay recognition performance from the 12-word Philadelphia Verbal Learning Test (PrVLT) and the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised (BVMT-R). Lateral hippocampal volumes were obtained. Results: Non-MCI patients scored better than other groups on P(r)VLT immediate/delay free recall. aMCI patients scored lower than other groups on P(r)VLT delay recognition. Non-MCI patients were …

Structural Integrity Of Attention Networks In Cross-Modal Selective Attention Performance In Healthy Aging, Michelle Kassel

Theses and Dissertations

The influence of structural brain changes in healthy aging on cross-modal selective attention performance was investigated with structural MRI (T1- and diffusion-weighted scans). Eighteen younger (M=26.1, SD=5.7) and 18 older (M=62.4, SD=4.9) healthy adults with normal hearing performed a reaction time (RT) cross-modal selective attention A/B/X task. Participants discriminated syllables presented in either visual or auditory modalities, with either randomized or fixed distraction presented simultaneously in the opposite modality. Within the older group only, RT was significantly slower during random (M=573.24, SE=33.66) compared to fixed (M=554.04, SE=33.53) distraction, F(1,34)=5.41, p=.026. Average gray matter thickness and white matter integrity were lower …

Pathways Linking Clinician Demographics To Mental Health Diagnostic Accuracy: An International Perspective, Julia Brechbiel

Theses and Dissertations

Significant research efforts have focused on examining the effect of patient factors on providing diagnoses across clinical settings; however, the influence of clinician demographics have received less attention. This study aimed to understand the impact of nonclinical factors such as clinician characteristics and response time on diagnostic accuracy. The study used data from a WHO field study of the ICD-11 development (n = 1822) that required clinicians to diagnose two case vignettes. Clinicians’ slower response times had a significant positive impact on their rates of diagnostic accuracy. However, there was no evidence that clinicians’ demographic features were directly related to …

Neural Circuitry Underlying The Intrusion Of Task-Irrelevant Threat Into Working Memory In Anxiety, Daniel Stout

Theses and Dissertations

Dispositional anxiety is an important risk factor for the development of anxiety and other psychological disorders. Symptoms commonly expressed by highly anxious individuals include intrusive memories, uncertainty, and worry — all occurring in the absence of immediate threat. This raises the possibility that anxious individuals have difficulty governing threat’s access to working memory, the mental workspace where goal-related information is actively retained for guiding on-going behavior. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while 81 subjects completed a well-validated working memory task, I show that threat-related and neutral distracters unnecessarily gain access to working memory, as evidenced by increased neural activity …

Attention Deficits And Perception Of Emotion In Groups, Agnes Renee Strojewska

Theses and Dissertations

The present study investigated the relationship between attention deficits and the recognition of emotions of either individuals or groups (ensembles). Previous research has suggested that individuals with ADHD may have deficits in social cognition, specifically in recognizing the internal (emotional) states of others, though it remains unclear whether these deficits are a discrete component of ADHD or merely the byproduct of the inattention characteristic of the disorder. Perception of ensemble characteristics, or ensemble coding, has recently been the target of increased interest in perception research, and appears to represent a powerful mechanism for processing sensory information, particularly in situations when …

Interrupting The Conspiracy Of Silence: Historical Trauma And The Experiences Of Hmong American Women, Ia Xiong

Theses and Dissertations

The Hmong have endured a history of oppressive and traumatic experiences. The Secret War was particularly significant as it resulted in genocide, dislocation, and oppression for the Hmong. In addition, the Hmong experience and their involvement as U.S. allies remained largely a secret for several decades. Current research suggests that Hmong Americans experience a high prevalence of mental health issues including depression, anxiety, and substance abuse as well as other health disparities. The purpose of this project was to explore how a history of massive group trauma and secrecy maintained about the Hmong may contribute to the current conditions of …

Facilitating Visual Selective Attention Via Monetary Reward: The Influence Of Feedback, Hedonic Capacity, And Lifetime Major Depressive Disorder, Lauren Elizabeth Taubitz

Theses and Dissertations

Recently, several researchers have demonstrated that reward enhances visual selective attention; however, no one has evaluated how individual differences in reward sensitivity or psychopathology involving disturbances in hedonic capacity (e.g., Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)) affect this process. In this investigation, a novel incentivized visual search task was developed to unite the literatures on reward facilitation of attention with the studies of individual differences in hedonic capacity and remitted MDD (rMDD). 161 undergraduates responded to self-report measures and completed standard and incentivized visual search tasks. In the standard task, subjects had to indicate if a letter F (target) was present or …

Female Adolescent Trauma Survivors Worldviews: Is This A Defining Moment In My Life Or Does This Moment Now Define My Life?, Carey Lynn Sorenson

Theses and Dissertations

What is your life experience? Do you feel you have taken an active role in your life experiences or do you feel as though life "just happens to you"? Trauma is an event that comes into one's life, without invitation, and can alter the meaning and value of every event thereafter. Many times, exposure to trauma can leave one feeling like he or she is a passive participant in life and that his or her efforts are fruitless.

This researcher tapped into the worldview of sixteen adolescent trauma survivors by conducting qualitative interviews to gain an understanding of how their …