Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

Empowering Nurses Of Minority In The Face Of Incivility And Bullying: Through The Lens Of Phenomenology, Corrine Floyd

Dissertations

Abstract

Up to 85% of nurses have reported exposure to incivility in the workplace (Hunt & Marini, 2012). The often-subtle nature of incivility toward nurses in a minority population may partially explain why it remains a problem. Healthcare organizations realize the need for civility to counter the high turnover rate, staff shortages, and low job satisfaction reported by nurses, but lack understanding of how nurses of a minority population perceive incivility and bullying. This study aimed to answer the research question how do nurses with minority representation experience incivility and bullying versus empowerment in the workplace? A descriptive phenomenological design …

Comparison Of Longitudinal Changes In Resting State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Between Alzheimer’S And Healthy Controls, Berk Can Yilmaz

Theses

Resting State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rs-fMRI) is a technique that is widely used for analyzing brain function using different approaches and methods. This study involves rs-fMRI analysis of Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) signals acquired from Alzheimer’s disease (AD) Patients and Healthy Controls (HC). Each subject in the study had both functional and anatomical images with at least one rs-fMRI scan with their Anatomical (T1) scans. Previous rs-fMRI studies have demonstrated that AD shows differences in Amplitude of Low Frequency (<0.1 Hz) Fluctuations (ALFF), and Regional Homogeneity (ReHo) measures according to HCs.

The aim of the study is to investigate individual and group level differences using ReHo and mALFF related …

Critical And Creative Thinking Practices And Principles To Improve Audiovisual Production, Paula Andrea Avila Jimenez

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

The purpose of capstone is to address the application of Critical and Creative Thinking practices and principles to improve audiovisual production that intends to communicate complicated health information. This paper synthetized the application of the principles of the Habits of Mind (HOM) as Critical and Creative Thinking tool to improve audio-visual (AV) production. The project that spurred this specific question was my experience working as a Research Assistant (RA) at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute (DF) where I developed videos and booklets to help Latino patients to understand the purposes of chemotherapy in advanced cancer. Five principles of Habits of …

We All Feel Feelings, Ben Ohene

Theses and Dissertations

Consisting of three illustrated books, We All Feel Feelings is designed as a vehicle for the discussion of emotional and mental health with young boys. These books will help foster a mindset of openness and acceptance through different methods of displaying and understanding emotions.

Clusters Of Individuals Experiences Form A Continuum Of Persistent Non-Symbolic Experiences In Adults, Jeffery A. Martin

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

Persistent forms of nondual awareness, enlightenment, mystical experience, and so forth (Persistent Non-Symbolic Experience) have been reported since antiquity. Though sporadic research has been performed on these experiences, the scientific literature has yet to report a large-scale cognitive psychology study of this population. Method: Assessment of the subjective experience of 319 adult participants reporting persistent non-symbolic experience was undertaken using 6-12 hour semi-structured interviews and evaluated using grounded theory and thematic analysis. Results: Five core, consistent categories of change were uncovered: sense-of-self, cognition, affect, perception, and memory. Participants’ reports formed phenomenological groups in which the types of change …

Memory And Stereotypes For Lesbian/Gay Characters, Amber Rose Williams

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Stereotype-consistency bias refers to the idea that people tend to remember stereotypical information about others better than non-stereotypical information (Fyock & Stangor, 1994). Limited research has examined how people may use stereotype-consistency bias when recalling information about LGBT characters in narratives (Bellezza & Bower, 1981; Clark & Woll, 1981; McGann & Goodwin, 2007; Snyder & Uranowitz, 1978). This line of research suggests that, instead of genuinely remembering stereotypical information better, participants tended to guess stereotypical answers to questions they do not know. In contrast to those studies, the experiment I conducted for this thesis suggests that heterosexual young adults tend …

Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging As A Diagnostic Biomarker Of Hiv-Associated Neurocognitive Disorders (Hand), Mikki Schantell

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

Objective: The goal of this study was to do an exploratory analysis to determine if gray matter brain volumes and cortical thickness measures obtained from structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) can discriminate people with HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND), neurocognitively unimpaired people with HIV (NU PWH), and HIV-negative controls (HIV- controls) using linear discriminant analyses.

Methods: A total of 231 participants, including 110 PWH and 121 HIV- controls, completed a neuropsychological (NP) battery and an sMRI protocol. The bilateral gray matter volumes and cortical thickness brain regions were analyzed using 18 linear discriminant models to assess the discriminability of gray matter …

A Case For Delirium Risk Prediction Models To Aid In Triaging Resources To Those Most At Risk An Integrative Literature Review, Tammy Perttula

Nursing Masters Papers

Abstract

Delirium is a complex syndrome resulting from compounding effects of acute illness, comorbidities, and the environment. It results in adverse outcomes: elevated mortality rates, length of stay, readmissions, institutionalization, long-term cognitive changes, and diminished quality of life. The rate of iatrogenic delirium is astounding, ranging from 10%-89%. There are no curative treatments; thus, primary prevention is the key. The purpose of this literature review is to identify and critique the research for the accuracy of risk stratification and feasibility in practice. Support for interventions that prevent delirium is mounting; however, interventions are resource-intensive and often not implemented. Researchers have …

Sense Of Purpose In Life And Five Health Behaviors In Older Adults, Eric S. Kim, Koichiro Shiba, Julia K. Boehm, Laura D. Kubzansky

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Accumulating evidence shows that a higher sense of purpose in life is associated with lower risk of chronic conditions and premature mortality. Health behaviors might partially explain these findings, however, the prospective association between sense of purpose and health behaviors is understudied. We tested whether a higher sense of purpose at baseline was associated with lower likelihood of developing unhealthy behaviors over time. Prospective data were from the Health and Retirement Study, a national sample of U.S. older adults. Our sample included 13,770 adults assessed up to five times across eight years. Among people who met recommended guidelines for a …

Mental Associations And Music Therapy: Including The History Of Associationism And The Neurology Of Associations, Dianna Rose

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Associations are formed in our minds based upon three elements: sensory experience, emotions, and memories. These associations, unique to each individual, dictate thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and actions. Some are necessary and supportive, while others can be maladaptive. Established associations can be changed, and new associations can be formed, to align with a client’s goals. The literature presents a strong history of associationism, as well as a body of research that demonstrates the neurological processes of how mental associations are formed. There are also studies showing how music activates the brain. However, there is a lack of research which draws direct …

Transdiagnostic Multimodal Neural Correlates Of Psychosis Dimensions, Dov Bernard Lerman-Sinkoff

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Psychosis refers to a debilitating set of symptoms that impacts individuals, their communities, and society at large. Current psychiatric nosology treats psychosis as a categorical construct. However, recent evidence suggests that a dimensional approach that cuts across extant nosological boundaries may more accurately represent the underlying phenomena contributing to dysfunction in psychosis. One putative domain of transdiagnostic variation is cognitive control, a construct that refers to the set of functions that enable and support goal-directed behavior and regulation of one’s thoughts and actions. Previous analyses in both healthy individuals and individuals with psychosis have led to a number of findings …

Investigating The Link Between Executive Function And Creativity In School Aged Children, Katherine Crenshaw

Honors Theses

The primary purpose of this research was to examine links between executive function (i.e., EF or conscious control) and creativity in school aged children. To accomplish this, participants completed measurements of creativity (i.e., Alternative Uses) and EF (i.e., the Backwards Digit Span to test working memory, the Delay of Gratification task to test inhibition). I also examined whether a creative manipulation (i.e., free coloring or coloring task-relevant materials) would impact EF performance in the Dimensional Card Change Sort (DCCS) focused on cognitive flexibility. While I did not find evidence for a relationship between my measures of EF and creativity, I …

Mode Of Delivery And Infant Cognitive Development, Madison Olson, Laura M. Glynn

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The rate of nonindicated cesarean births is increasing each year within the United States. Although cesarean delivery can function as a life- saving intervention, emerging evidence suggests that it may also be associated with deleterious developmental consequences for the child. Here we test the hypothesis that mode of delivery is associated with cognitive development during infancy. 229 pregnant women were recruited and their infants’ cognitive development was assessed at 6, 12 and 24 months with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Medical charts were reviewed by obstetric nurses to determine prenatal medical risk and birth outcomes, including mode of delivery. …

Searching For Neural Mechanisms Of Social Cognition, Chandler Siemonsma, Cristina Uribe, Louanne Boyd, Aaron Schurger, Deanna Hughes, Tian Lan

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Social cognition involves the integration and pruning of perceptual information which leads to the formation of an abstract representation, which is also known as the perceptual gist. This study examined 87 differences in visual perception of Mooney face stimuli of differing sizes and the relationship to gist formation in ten individuals with autism compared to neurotypical controls. Parents of both groups completed the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2) to assess social functioning in real-world scenarios.

Promoting Resilience In Self-Management (Prism): Adverse Childhood Experiences And Impacts On Emotion Regulation, Kasey Ann Macedo

Honors Scholar Theses

PRISM (Promoting Resilience in Self-Management) is a mindfulness-based intervention that aims to strengthen emotion regulation skills among individuals by employing cognitive behavioral therapy components. The purpose of the current study is to identify the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and depression, as well as to examine the changes in emotion regulation strategies of participants by comparing pre and post test data. The participants were voluntarily recruited from the Cornerstone Foundation, a homeless shelter, food pantry, and community center in Vernon, CT. The 13 participants completed PRISM through four weeks of two-hour workshop sessions in a small-group format. Results indicate …

Positive Emotions And Favorable Cardiovascular Health: A 20-Year Longitudinal Study, Julia K. Boehm, Ying Chen, Farah Qureshi, Jackie Soo, Peter Umokoro, Rosalba Hernandez, Donald Lloyd-Jones, Laura D. Kubzansky

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

No studies have examined whether positive emotions lead to favorable cardiovascular health (CVH) early in the lifespan, before cardiovascular disease is diagnosed. Moreover, the direction of the association has not been thoroughly investigated. Among younger adults, we investigated whether baseline positive emotions were associated with better CVH over 20 years. We also considered whether baseline CVH was associated with subsequent positive emotions during the same period.

Participants included 4196 Black and White men and women from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study. Positive emotions and cardiovascular-related parameters were each assessed in 1990 (this study's baseline), with repeated …

Perceived Impact Of Non-Contact Boxing On Daily Life And Occupational Participation At Home Among Individuals With Parkinson's Disease, Kristen E. Bignal

Student Capstone Papers

The aim of this project was to determine whether individuals with Parkinson's disease perceive an impact on their daily life and occupational participation at home secondary to participation in non-contact boxing.

Semi-structured open-ended interview questions were conducted with 17 participants (3 female) who have been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease for(i.e., self-care, home and health maintenance, sleep, intimacy, social and leisure interests, etc.) in the home environment. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed utilizing thematic analysis.

Data analysis derived three overarching themes including psychological benefits, sense of community, and framework to develop routines. Subsequent research exploring how non-contact boxing directly impacts specific …

Emotional Intelligence Methods Utilized By Successful Major League Baseball Closers To Perform Successfully In High Pressure Situations, Joshua Rosenthal

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand the similarities that exist in the descriptions of emotional intelligence methods utilized by retired successful Major League Baseball closers to appraise, express, regulate, and utilize their emotions to perform successfully in high pressure situations.

Methodology: The dissertation was a qualitative case study. Twelve of the top 50 retired save leaders in Major League Baseball were interviewed to understand the similarities in the descriptions of emotional intelligence methods used to perform successfully in high pressure situations. This study attempted to understand what exactly elite closers did to utilize emotional intelligence …

Startle Response In Women With The Fmr1 Premutation And Risk For Anxiety Disorders, Azalfa Lateef

Senior Theses

Background: The FMR1 premutation, which occurs when there is an expansion of 55 -200 repeats of the CGG trinucleotide on the FMR1 gene, is associated with an increased risk for anxiety disorders. Indices of autonomic regulation may prove to be useful biomarkers for psychopathological risk, including stress and anxiety. In the general population, diminished habituation to a startle response is linked to a variety of psychological disorders, including anxiety, yet little is known about this relationship in those with the FMR1 premutation. Given the increased risk for anxiety in those with the FMR1 premutation, the present study aims to examine …

Distality Of Attentional Focus And Its Role In Postural Balance Control, Christian Kupper, Karen Roemer, Elizabeth Jusko, Karen Zentgraf

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Education and Professional Studies

The role of attentional focusing in motor tasks has been highlighted frequently. The “internal–external” dimension has emerged, but also the spatial distance between body and attended location. In two experiments, an extended attentional focus paradigm was introduced to investigate distality effects of attentional foci on balance performance. First, the distality of the coordinates of the point of focus was varied between a proximal and distal position on an artificial tool attached to the body. Second, the distance of the displayed effect on the wall was varied between a 2.5 and 5 m condition. Subjects were instructed to focus on controlling …

The Project Talent Twin And Sibling Study: Zygosity And New Data Collection, Carol A. Prescott, Ellen E. Walters, Thalida Em Arpawong, Catalina Zavala, Tara L. Gruenewald, Margaret Gatz

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

The Project Talent Twin and Sibling (PTTS) study includes 4481 multiples and their 522 nontwin siblings from 2233 families. The sample was drawn from Project Talent, a U.S. national longitudinal study of 377,000 individuals born 1942–1946, first assessed in 1960 and representative of U.S. students in secondary school (Grades 9–12). In addition to the twins and triplets, the 1960 dataset includes 84,000 siblings from 40,000 other families. This design is both genetically informative and unique in facilitating separation of the ‘common’ environment into three sources of variation: shared by all siblings within a family, specific to twin-pairs, and associated with …

The Effects Of Virtual Reality In The Treatment Of Stroke Patients, Melissa Schoettle

Capstone Showcase

The Effects of Virtual Reality in the Treatment of Stroke Patients

Stroke patients face many challenges on their road to recovery. Patients may lose motor function, speech abilities, and other important cognitive functions. They go through various forms of therapy to help rehabilitate them and improve their cognition, including physical, occupational, and speech therapy. Physical therapy helps improve motor function and muscle control, occupational therapy improves those skills needed for success in work and life, and speech therapy helps patients recover the ability to speak and the cognitive processes to think and form words and sentences. While these therapies are …

Mood Effects And Individual Differences On Reappraisal And Distraction: An Erp Study Of The Sensitivity Of Emotion Regulation Strategies, Elsa Mastico

All Master's Theses

The present research evaluated the effect of mood and individual differences on the regulatory process of emotions by using a regulation task with negative and neutral images to assess reappraisal and distraction ability. Specifically, this research evaluated the average amplitude of the latent positive potential (latent positivity, LPP) brainwave linked to distraction and reappraisal using an ERP analysis. In addition, the current study compared the modulation of the LPP to the self-reported mood of the participants and their individual differences in regulation ability through scores of a self-report emotion regulation questionnaire. The latent positive potentials from an emotion regulation task …

Retrieval-Induced Forgetting In Autism Spectrum: Combining Narrative Experience With Clinical Research To Explore Stress-Induced, Transitory Retrograde Amnesia, Elizabeth Willsmore-Finkle

Scripps Senior Theses

Currently, psychological research explores autism, a blanket term for a range of neurobiological and developmental differences, through a clinical, as opposed to an experiential, lens. Autism has only existed as formal diagnosis under that name since 1943 (Kanner); however, the advocacy of activists such as Temple Grandin, a slaughterhouse systems designer best known for documenting her life with autism in a series of autobiographic accounts, has begun to legitimize the incorporation of emic experiences of autism within clinical research. Researcher Dermot Bowler and colleagues (2011) have conducted extensive reviews of memory distinctions in autism, finding differences of varying degrees across …

Words Have A Weight: Language As A Source Of Inner Grounding And Flexibility In Abstract Concepts, Guy Dove, Laura Barca, Luca Tummolini, Anna M. Borghi

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The role played by language in our cognitive lives is a topic at the centre of contemporary debates in cognitive (neuro)science. In this paper we illustrate and compare two theories that offer embodied explanations of this role: the WAT (Words As social Tools) and the LENS (Language is an Embodied Neuroenhancement and Scaffold) theories. WAT and LENS differ from other current proposals because they connect the impact of the neurologically realized language system on our cognition to the ways in which language shapes our interaction with the physical and social environment. Examining these theories together, their tenets and supporting evidence, …

The Longitudinal Parallel Process Analysis Of Biomarkers Of Oxidative Stress, Symptom Clusters, And Cognitive Function In Children With Leukemia, Mary C Hooke, Daniel Hatch, Marilyn J Hockenberry, Susan Whitman, Ida Moore, David Montgomery, Kari Marano, Pauline Mitby, Michael E Scheurer, Olga Taylor, Wei Pan

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: During treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), children report co-occurring symptoms of fatigue, sleep disturbance, pain, nausea, and depression as a symptom cluster. Central nervous system–directed ALL therapies also put children at risk for cognitive impairments. Cancer therapies can cause an increase in oxidative stress, which may contribute to treatment-related symptoms. This study examined the longitudinal relationships between biomarkers of oxidative stress in the cerebrospinal fluid, the Childhood Cancer Symptom Cluster–Leukemia (CCSC-L), and cognition, in children over the first year of ALL treatment. Methods: Glutathione (GSH) biomarkers of oxidative stress were measured in cerebrospinal fluid collected during treatment lumbar …

Influences Of Reasoning And Achievement Motivation On Complex Problem Solving In A New Microworld Operationalization, Stephan Bartholdy, Ulrike Kipman

Journal of Global Education and Research

Complex Problem Solving (CPS) can be defined as those psychological processes that enable a person to achieve goals under complex conditions, which are characterized by their complexity, connectivity, dynamics, lack of transparency, and polytely. Although many hypothesized influences have previously been tested concerning their relevance for the process of solving complex problems (e.g., general intelligence), results were often found to be rather heterogeneous. As this was found to be partially caused by fundamental differences between measurements of CPS, a new operationalization was used in the present study: Following the Microworld approach, CPS was assessed in the simulation game Cities: Skylines …

The Role Of Gamma Oscillations And Cortical Inhibition In The Development Of Working Memory In Adolescence, Christopher P. Walker

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Adolescence is a dynamic period of social, cognitive, and biological changes. In particular, working memory, the ability to actively encode and maintain information over a short period of time, develops early in childhood and gradually increases in capacity and stability during adolescence. The precise neurophysiological mechanism by which working memory capacity increases during adolescence is unclear. The objective of this investigation was to evaluate the role of cortical gamma-band (> 30 Hz) oscillations—which are associated with working memory in adults—for the development of working memory capacity in adolescents, and to identify the extent to which the temporal profile of gamma-aminobutyric …

Components Of Mindfulness Training: Impacts On Attention And Affect, Maximilian Fey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The literature on mindfulness supports a distinction between two components of non-judgmental acceptance and directed attention. The present research analyzed whether there are distinct differences in attentional capabilities or affect between mindfulness inductions which differed in either including only directed attention or directed attention and non-judgmental acceptance. I hypothesized that the acceptance component of mindfulness would increase participants sustained attentional capabilities relative to a control condition; furthermore, I hypothesized that the non-judgmental acceptance component of mindfulness would lead to significant increases in positive affect and decreases in negative affect relative to control. Lastly, I hypothesized that an individual difference measure …

Estimating Cognitive Workload In An Interactive Virtual Reality Environment Using Eeg, Christoph Tremmel, Christain Herff, Tetsuya Sato, Krzysztof Rechowicz, Yusuke Yamani, Dean J. Krusienski

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

With the recent surge of affordable, high-performance virtual reality (VR) headsets, there is unlimited potential for applications ranging from education, to training, to entertainment, to fitness and beyond. As these interfaces continue to evolve, passive user-state monitoring can play a key role in expanding the immersive VR experience, and tracking activity for user well-being. By recording physiological signals such as the electroencephalogram (EEG) during use of a VR device, the user's interactions in the virtual environment could be adapted in real-time based on the user's cognitive state. Current VR headsets provide a logical, convenient, and unobtrusive framework for mounting EEG …