Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

Common Sense And Common Nonsense: A Conversation About Mental Attitudes, Science, And Society, Daniel S. Levine

Psychology Faculty Publications - Archive

Daniel S. Levine's Common Sense and Common Nonsense observes human decision making, ethics, and social organization as illuminated by the scientific disciplines of neural network theory, neuroscience, experimental psychology, and dynamical systems theory. It is a book whose aim is advocacy as well as research. Its goal is to use an understanding of our brains and minds to better operationalize Aldous Huxley's admonition to "try to be a little kinder." It wanders over examples from sociology, politics, economics, religion, literature, and many other fields but looks at all as examples of a few common themes. The "common nonsense" of the …

Metaanalysis Of The Relationship Between Violent Video Game Play And Physical Aggression Over Time, Anna T. Prescott, James Sargent, Jay G. Hull

Dartmouth Scholarship

To clarify and quantify the influence of video game violence (VGV) on aggressive behavior, we conducted a metaanalysis of all prospective studies to date that assessed the relation between exposure to VGV and subsequent overt physical aggression. The search strategy identified 24 studies with over 17,000 participants and time lags ranging from 3 months to 4 years. The samples comprised various nationalities and ethnicities with mean ages from 9 to 19 years. For each study we obtained the standardized regression coefficient for the prospective effect of VGV on subsequent aggression, controlling for baseline aggression. VGV was related to aggression using …

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 …

Testing The Efficacy Of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (Tms) In Treating Depression In Patients With Cognitive Impairment, Daniel Robert Schaffer

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to (1) examine the efficacy of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) in treating depression among individuals with cognitive impairment and (2) to examine if TMS is capable of facilitating cognitive improvements independent of mood improvements. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is often seen as a pre-clinical stage to dementia, and depressive disorders are highly prevalent among both MCI and dementia. There is a large body of research that has linked depressive disorders as a prodromal symptom of MCI and the later development of dementia. While some researchers debate whether or not this link between depression and …

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder With Comorbid Anxiety/Depression In Adults: Impacts On Neuropsychological Functioning, Cristina Valdivieso Bain

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

ADHD comorbidity with other disorders is high in the adult population (over 44% of individuals carry a second diagnosis, 25% anxiety, 18.6% in depression). Separately, these disorders can impact scores on neuropsychological assessments. Little research has investigated how comorbidity among ADHD and other disorders impacts test scores collectively. Given high rates of comorbidity between ADHD and anxiety/depressive disorders and the potential impact on neuropsychological functioning, the current study examined how these comorbid disorders collectively impact cognition. Specifically, the present study investigated differences in full scale intelligence, general ability, and cognitive proficiency on the WAIS-IV between those diagnosed with ADHD only …

Electrophysiological Biomarkers Of Chemotherapy-Related Cognitive Impairment In Hematological Malignancy Patients, David E. Anderson

Theses & Dissertations

Multiple cancer populations frequently report cognitive impairment following treatment with chemotherapy agents (“chemo-brain”). Impaired neuropsychological performance is commonly reported in cognitive domains of attention and executive function. Understanding neural mechanisms underlying cognitive impairments is essential to developing prevention and rehabilitation strategies. Brain imaging studies frequently show chemotherapy-related impairments within the attentional control network, which is comprised of a constellation of cortical regions that govern reportedly impaired cognitive functions. In the current dissertation research, I developed a novel electrophysiology battery aimed at recording near-instantaneous neural activity within the attentional control network during cognitive task performance. Cancer patients diagnosed with hematological malignancy …

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 …

Designing Interactive Virtual Environments With Feedback In Health Applications., Yi Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the most important factors to influence user experience in human-computer interaction is the user emotional reaction. Interactive environments including serious games that are responsive to user emotions improve their effectiveness and user satisfactions. Testing and training for user emotional competence is meaningful in healthcare field, which has motivated us to analyze immersive affective games using emotional feedbacks. In this dissertation, a systematic model of designing interactive environment is presented, which consists of three essential modules: affect modeling, affect recognition, and affect control. In order to collect data for analysis and construct these modules, a series of experiments were …

The Ush2a Gene: An Analysis Of Ultrasonic Vocalizations In A Mouse Model Of Usher Syndrome Type 2, Kiana R. Akhundzadeh

Honors Scholar Theses

Usher syndrome type 2 is a complex autosomal recessive genetic disorder that is characterized by moderate to severe congenital sensorineural hearing loss, the onset of retinitis pigmentosa in the second decade of life, and in some cases, vestibular dysfunction. Mutations in the USH2A gene account for 85% of cases of type 2. The USH2A gene is responsible for encoding the protein usherin, which has an important role in the development and function of inner ear hair cells and retinal photoreceptors. Until recently, it has been believed that carriers of the USH2A mutation were phenotype free. However, recent data has suggested …

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 …

Assessment For Mild Cognitive Impairment: Striving For Best Practice, Julie Leigh Dalmasso

Dissertations

This dissertation is a series of three studies aimed at determining the best assessment practices for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) that can employed by speech-language pathologists (SLPs). The first study was non-experimental and descriptive examining whether three commonly used assessment instruments yielded similar categorical results. The data were analyzed to determine whether the Eight-Item Interview to Differentiate Aging and Dementia (AD8), the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and the Cognitive-Linguistic Quick Test (CLQT) identified the same participants from a neurotypical sample as having cognitive deficits. Very little agreement was found amongst the three tools.

Study two was modified to include two …

The Famous Names Discrimination Task As A Biomarker Of Alzheimer's Disease Risk: An Erp Study, Elizabeth Rose Paitel

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Current ERP research emphasizes age- and pathology-related declines in neural processing in the form of attenuated amplitudes and prolonged latencies. Notably, there is a gap in the ERP literature regarding neural processing trajectories in the time between healthy young adulthood and clinical MCI/AD samples. fMRI research, however, has demonstrated periods of increased, compensatory activation in healthy, cognitively intact APOE ɛ4 carriers both during resting state and event-related tasks (Bondi, Houston, Eyler, & Brown, 2005; Evans et al., 2014; Filippini et al., 2009; Rao et al., 2015), consistent with compensatory theories of cognitive aging (Cabeza, 2002; Park & Reuter-Lorenz, 2009; Reuter-Lorenz …

Evaluation Of The Effectiveness Of A Gaze-Based Training Intervention On Latent Hazard Anticipation Skills For Young Drivers: A Driving Simulator Study, Yusuke Yamani, Pinar Biçaksiz, Dakota B. Palmer, Nathan Hatfield, Siby Samuel

Psychology Faculty Publications

A PC-based training program (Road Awareness and Perception Training or RAPT; Pradhan et al., 2009), proven effective for improving young novice drivers' hazard anticipation skills, did not fully maximize the hazard anticipation performance of young drivers despite the use of similar anticipation scenarios in both, the training and the evaluation drives. The current driving simulator experiment examined the additive effects of expert eye movement videos following RAPT training on young drivers' hazard anticipation performance compared to video-only and RAPT-only conditions. The study employed a between-subject design in which 36 young participants (aged 18-21) were equally and randomly assigned to one …

Anticipatory Motivation For Drinking Alcohol: An In-Vivo Study, Bryan Benitez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Numerous studies from various research groups have already shown the usefulness of alcohol expectancies as predictors of long-term future alcohol consumption. The present study extends this line of research by directly testing whether alcohol expectancies measured in the moment using free association are useful as predictors of alcohol consumption in the next few hours. An ecological momentary assessment (EMA) procedure was used to examine how alcohol expectancies might fluctuate during days in which many people expect to drink (e.g. Fridays, Saturdays) and how these fluctuations in alcohol expectancies might predict future drinking and/or co-vary with important contextual variables during that …

Vmpfc Activation During A Stressor Predicts Positive Emotions During Stress Recovery, Xi Yang, Katelyn M. Garcia, Youngkyoo Jung, Christopher T. Whitlow, Kateri Mcrae, Christian E. Waugh

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

Despite accruing evidence showing that positive emotions facilitate stress recovery, the neural basis for this effect remains unclear. To identify the underlying mechanism, we compared stress recovery for people reflecting on a stressor while in a positive emotional context with that for people in a neutral context. While blood–oxygen-level dependent data were being collected, participants (N = 43) performed a stressful anagram task, which was followed by a recovery period during which they reflected on the stressor while watching a positive or neutral video. Participants also reported positive and negative emotions throughout the task as well as retrospective thoughts …

Physiological And Cognitive Factors Related To Human Performance During The Grand Canyon Rim-To-Rim Hike, Kristin Divis, Clifford Anderson-Bergman, Robert Abbott, Victoria Newton, Glory Emmanuel-Aviña

Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments

Exposure to extreme environments is both mentally and physically taxing, leading to suboptimal performance and even life-threatening emergencies. Physiological and cognitive monitoring could provide the earliest indicator of performance decline and inform appropriate therapeutic intervention, yet little research has explored the relationship between these markers in strenuous settings. The Rim-to-Rim Wearables at the Canyon for Health (R2RWATCH) study is a research project at Sandia National Laboratories funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to identify which physiological and cognitive phenomena collected by non-invasive wearable devices are the most related to performance in extreme environments. In a pilot study, data were …

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 …

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.

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 …

Evaluation Of A Cognitive Training Program For Older Adults With Mild To Moderate Cognitive Decline, Kelly Bergstrom

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Older adults often experience varying levels of cognitive decline. Several interventions intended to help slow the effects of cognitive decline have been studied, including cognitive training. Cognitive training involves engaging individuals, typically in a group setting, in exercises that target specific cognitive domains, such as attention, perceptual speed, memory, language, and executive functioning. Literature on cognitive training provides mixed support for its efficacy. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether a manualized, in-person cognitive training program for individuals with mild to moderate cognitive decline would lead to an improvement in cognitive performance. The program targeted six cognitive …

Reframing Sports Psychology: A Phenomenological Perspective On Mental Imagery, Motivation, Emotions And Teamwork, Daniel Mcloughlin, Rachel Sowinski

Psychology Department Student Scholarship

The majority of research in the field of sports psychology focuses on quantifiable, evidence-based, universally applicable theory. Current evidence-based programs of intervention are heavily based on symptomatology and often ignore the lived experiences of athletes; an unspoken assumption seems to exist that events, dialogue, and emotions will elicit identical responses from all athletes. Many clinicians find a large portion of their work focused on the subfields of mental imagery, motivation, emotions, and teamwork. Each topic has a dominating theory, which is typically derived from the concepts of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. While CBT certainly has its benefits, its shortcomings are evident in …

Problem Solving, Decision Making, And Kirton Adaption-Innovation Theory In High-Performance Organizations, Miriam Grace Michael

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research on high-performing nonprofit boards has indicated a positive relationship between a board's strength and an organization's effectiveness; however, how boards achieve success remains relatively unknown. The Kirton adaption-innovation (KAI) theory was used to examine board members' cognitive styles in relationship to facilitating problem solving and decision making. This nonexperimental, quantitative study included archived nonprofit board data from 2 American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) studies that had addressed the high performance of boards and factors associated with organizational success. A total of 102 randomly selected, high-performing nonprofit board members completed the KAI Inventory, which was used to measure cognitive …

Dynamic Balance Control And Segmental Orientation While Listening During Walking: Effects Of Age And Hearing Loss, Sin Tung Lau

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Dynamic control of balance changes with age and changes with declines in sensory and cognitive abilities. For instance, emerging, yet robust associations between hearing loss and poor mobility have been described and yet the mechanism underlying these associations remains unknown. It could be that age-related declines in hearing ability result in different kinematic strategies when having to walk and listen at the same time (e.g. head and body orienting responses toward sounds) and/or that declines in hearing result in increased cognitive load during listening, at the detriment to mobility-related performance. Therefore, this thesis sought to better characterize these associations by …

Interpretation Bias Toward Ambiguous Information In Burnout And Depression, Renzo Bianchi, Eric Laurent, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Jay Verkuilen, Chantal Berna

Publications and Research

Burnout has been defined as a job-related syndrome combining pervasive fatigue and loss of motivation. In recent years, evidence has mounted that burnout may reflect a depressive condition. In this study, we expanded on past investigations of burnout-depression overlap by focusing on interpretation biases toward ambiguous information among the two entities. We conducted a web-based study involving 1056 participants (83% female; mean age: 42.87). Burnout symptoms were assessed with the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure and depressive symptoms with the PHQ-9. The Ambiguous Scenarios Test (AST), a measure of interpretation bias validated among dysphoric individuals, was the outcome of interest. The AST …

Case Study Of The Four-Year Neuropsychological Changes In An Elderly Male With Possible Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, Patrick Martin

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Research demonstrates that the brain's response to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is variable with age and the effects of TBI on the elderly are a critical and global public health concern, from both a medical and a neuropsychological perspective. Currently, there is scant research on the effects of TBI, including Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), on the elderly. Specifically, there is a paucity of literature regarding longitudinal neuropsychological changes in elderly post- TBI individuals. This dissertation will present a Single Case Research Design (SCRD) analysis of an elderly individual with possible Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy and the associated neuropsychological changes over 49-months. …

Effects Of Long-Term Participation In Tennis On Cognitive Function In Elderly Individuals, Scott Culpin

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Many studies have reported the relationship between exercise and cognition with conflicting results. This may be due to differences in intervention durations, session lengths, intensities, and type of exercise. It has been suggested that exercises requiring greater cognitive demand such as football, basketball and racquet sports, are protective against cognitive decline, compared to less cognitively demanding exercises such as swimming, cycling and running, however, research concerning exercise types are currently limited. The present study tested the hypothesis that elderly individuals who had been regularly playing tennis more than 10 years, would have greater cognitive function than those who had been …

Increasing Student Registered Nurse Anesthetists Clinical Self-Efficacy Using Peer Mentoring, Megan Christine Bass

Doctoral Projects

The purpose of this project is to determine if clinical self-efficacy is increased in SRNAs at The University of Southern Mississippi after participation in the peer mentoring program. The project was a one-group pre and posttest design in a sample of SRNAs who received peer mentoring. To evaluate the students’ perceived clinical self-efficacy before and after the peer mentoring educational intervention, the Rowbotham and Schmitz Student Self-Efficacy scale (SSE) (2013) was adapted and administered to second-year SRNAs (N=17). Clinical performance, skill and knowledge development, social interaction with clinical faculty, and coping with clinical stress are the four areas evaluated by …