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Full-Text Articles in Cognitive Psychology

For The Love Of Teaching: Pre-Service Teachers’ Experience Of Moral Education, Anne Marie Foley Ruiz Aug 2023

For The Love Of Teaching: Pre-Service Teachers’ Experience Of Moral Education, Anne Marie Foley Ruiz

Doctoral Dissertations

Moral aspects of teaching arise each and every day, yet we lack information about how prepared teachers feel about this critical aspect of teaching. This multi-case study explores perceptions of five pre-service teachers in an elementary teacher education program in Western Massachusetts. A series of interviews explore their histories prior to the program and their experiences in the program as related to the pre-service teachers’ orientations to the moral work of teaching. Research questions address the awareness and self-efficacy of student teachers in implementing the moral aspects of teaching. Using Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006), this study explores beliefs …


Assessing Potential Cognitive Precursors To Math Anxiety: Non-Symbolic Operations And Symbolic Ordinality In Adults, Eli Zaleznik Apr 2023

Assessing Potential Cognitive Precursors To Math Anxiety: Non-Symbolic Operations And Symbolic Ordinality In Adults, Eli Zaleznik

Doctoral Dissertations

Math anxiety, or a sense of dread related to performing mathematics, affects a wide population of students and adults, but we do not fully understand how math anxiety comes into being. One possibility is the Reduced Capacities Theory, which suggests that natural variations in numeric/spatial capacities are a causal factor in math anxiety. To understand how these numeric capacities relate to math anxiety in adults, this work focuses on three areas that remain underexplored. Chapter 2 focuses on performing operations on nonsymbolic quantities, which has not yet been tested in relation to math anxiety. We tested the hypothesis that performing …


What Did You Expect? An Investigation Of Lexical Preactivation In Sentence Processing, Jon Burnsky Oct 2022

What Did You Expect? An Investigation Of Lexical Preactivation In Sentence Processing, Jon Burnsky

Doctoral Dissertations

Language users predictively preactivate lexical units that appear to the comprehen- der to be likely to surface. Despite ample language experience and grammatical competence, it appears that language users tend to preactivate verbs in some contexts, called role-reversal contexts, that would create plausibility violations if they were to actually appear; these verbs assign thematic roles to their arguments in such a way that it leads to implausibility. These anomalous predictions provide a window into the mechanisms underlying lexical preactivation and are the case study that this dissertation focuses in on. This dissertation is an exploration of what linguistic information is …


Representation Of Reward And Risk In The Brain’S Motor System: Studies In Adolescents And Adults, Xingjie Chen Jun 2021

Representation Of Reward And Risk In The Brain’S Motor System: Studies In Adolescents And Adults, Xingjie Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

In the neuroscience of economic decision making, the brain’s motor system has been ascribed a role in implementing choice actions. However, recent work has revealed canonical motor signals much in advance of choice action, possibly indicating their role in evaluation of decision options. In the current dissertation, we applied multimodal neuroimaging combining EEG and fMRI and used a novel paradigm that temporally separated the evaluation phase from the action phase of a decision-making process to investigate the mechanisms through which the motor control system contributes to decision making. Additionally, we further examined the developmental changes during the two phases of …


Mental Fatigue: Examining Cognitive Performance And Driving Behavior In Young Adults, Abigail F. Helm Apr 2021

Mental Fatigue: Examining Cognitive Performance And Driving Behavior In Young Adults, Abigail F. Helm

Doctoral Dissertations

Mental fatigue causes an increase in task-based EEG theta and alpha power and a decrease in performance (for a review, see Tran et al., 2020). However, little is known about the emergence of mental fatigue in resting state EEG recordings and whether the progression of mental fatigue over time is influenced by individual differences. The current dissertation examined the utility of resting state EEG as a measure of mental fatigue by testing whether EEG power changed in young adults over the course of a cognitively demanding battery of tasks. The current dissertation also tested how this measure of mental fatigue …


Experience With Difficult Target Discrimination Makes Search Less Efficient: An Analysis Using Eye Movements, Junha Chang Apr 2021

Experience With Difficult Target Discrimination Makes Search Less Efficient: An Analysis Using Eye Movements, Junha Chang

Doctoral Dissertations

Recent studies demonstrate that experience influences observers’ strategic attentional guidance in visual searches. The current study explored how experience with difficult target color discrimination influences search strategy. Two participant groups were compared through seven dual-target search experiments: A hard search experience group and an easy search experience group. The easy search experience group performed only the easy color discrimination trials in which the two targets were easily distinguishable from distractors in the color dimension. The hard search experience group performed the same easy discrimination trials in half of the trials. The other half were difficult color discrimination trials in which …


Person-Based Prominence In Ojibwe, Christopher Hammerly Dec 2020

Person-Based Prominence In Ojibwe, Christopher Hammerly

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation develops a formal and psycholinguistic theory of person-based prominence effects, the finding that certain categories of person such as "first" and "second" (the "local" persons) are privileged by the grammar. The thesis takes on three questions: (i) What are the possible categories related to person? (ii) What are the possible prominence relationships between these categories? And (iii) how is prominence information used to parse and interpret linguistic input in real time? The empirical through-line is understanding obviation — a “spotlighting” system, found most prominently in the Algonquian family of languages, that splits the (ani- mate) third persons into …


Uncovering The Neural And Behavioral Factors That Underlie Changes In Processing Visual Orientation, Patrick Sadil Dec 2020

Uncovering The Neural And Behavioral Factors That Underlie Changes In Processing Visual Orientation, Patrick Sadil

Doctoral Dissertations

From moment to moment, the visual environment appears stable; despite prolonged scrutiny, the edge of a desk is not perceived to change. But this apparent stability emerges from perceptual and decisional systems that undergo continuous modulation. In two chapters, I focus on two different kinds of modulation to the processing of visual orientation (i.e., the tilt of an edge). In both chapters, the form of modulation is latent, obscured by standard analyses. To detect those latent changes in perceptual decisions, I develop in this dissertation new statistical tools, at both behavioral and neural levels. In the first chapter, I consider …


Shared Neural Substrates Of Perception And Memory: Testing The Assumptions And Predictions Of The Representational-Hierarchical Account, D. Merika W. Sanders Sep 2020

Shared Neural Substrates Of Perception And Memory: Testing The Assumptions And Predictions Of The Representational-Hierarchical Account, D. Merika W. Sanders

Doctoral Dissertations

Proponents of the representational-hierarchical (R-H) account claim that memory and perception rely on shared neural representations. In the ventral visual stream, posterior brain areas are assumed to represent simple information (e.g. low-level image properties), but the complexity of representations increases toward more anterior areas, such as inferior temporal cortex (e.g., object-parts, objects), extending into the medial temporal lobe (MTL; e.g. scenes). This view predicts that brain structures along this continuum serve both memory and perception; a structure’s engagement is determined by the representational demands of a task, rather than the cognitive process putatively involved. In a neuroimaging study, I searched …


Testing The Convergent Retrieval Learning Theory Of Testing Effects, William J. Hopper Mar 2020

Testing The Convergent Retrieval Learning Theory Of Testing Effects, William J. Hopper

Doctoral Dissertations

What is learned from retrieving a memory that is not learned by studying the same information? In response to this question, I have proposed a new theory of retrieval-based learning in which I argue that retrieval strengthens the ability to completely activate all portions of a memory trace from an initial state of partial activation. In effect, retrieval serves to unitize the features of a memory, making the entire memory remain retrievable in the future when cue-related activation may be weaker. This theory, called the Primary and Convergent Retrieval (PCR) model, explains why practice tests produce both better long-term retention …


A Flexible Comparison Process As A Critical Mechanism For Context Effects, Andrea M. Cataldo Oct 2019

A Flexible Comparison Process As A Critical Mechanism For Context Effects, Andrea M. Cataldo

Doctoral Dissertations

Context effects such as the attraction, compromise, and similarity effects demonstrate that a comparison process, i.e., a method of comparing dimension values, plays an important role in choice behavior. Recent research suggests that this same comparison process, made more flexible by allowing for a variety of comparisons, may provide an elegant account of observed correlations between context effects by differentially highlighting dimension-level and alternative-level stimulus characteristics. Thus, the present experiments test the comparison process as a critical mechanism underlying context-dependent choice behavior. Experiment 1 provides evidence that increasing a dimension-level property, spread, promotes the attraction and compromise effects and reduces …


Computing Agreement In A Mixed System, Sakshi Bhatia Oct 2019

Computing Agreement In A Mixed System, Sakshi Bhatia

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation develops a comprehensive response to the question of how agreement is computed in Hindi-Urdu – a language with a mixed agreement system where the verb can agree with a subject or an object depending on the structural context. This dissertation covers new empirical and theoretical ground in two domains. First, I identify three kinds of atypical agreement patterns which are not accounted for under traditional approaches Hindi-Urdu agreement -- verb agreement with the nominal component of Noun-Verb complex predicates, long distance agreement of embedding Adjective-Verb predicates with embedded infinitive clause objects, and copular agreement in identity copula structures. …


Hearing And Seeing A Speaker: How Perceptual And Cognitive Factors Modulate The Dynamics Of Audiovisual Speech Perception, Elina Kaplan Oct 2018

Hearing And Seeing A Speaker: How Perceptual And Cognitive Factors Modulate The Dynamics Of Audiovisual Speech Perception, Elina Kaplan

Doctoral Dissertations

In face-to-face conversations, listeners process and combine speech information obtained from hearing and seeing the speaker talk. Audiovisual speech typically leads to more robust recognition of speech, as it provides more information for recognition but also as it helps listeners adjust to speaker idiosyncrasies. The goal of the current thesis was to examine how certain perceptual and cognitive factors modulate how listeners use visual speech to facilitate momentary speech perception and to adjust to a speaker’s idiosyncrasies. Results showed that (older) listeners’ sensitivity to cross-modal synchrony is related to the size of the audiovisual interactions during early perceptual processing. Furthermore, …


The Role Of Social Class And Construal Level In Social Justice And Fairness Beliefs, Prerana Bharadwaj Jul 2017

The Role Of Social Class And Construal Level In Social Justice And Fairness Beliefs, Prerana Bharadwaj

Doctoral Dissertations

What predicts support for the redistribution of resources to improve socioeconomic inequality? Social class, or the subjective perception of one’s resources and position in relation to others in a larger society, was examined as one relevant characteristic. Across four experiments, social class as subjective social status was manipulated (two) and measured (all four), and found to have a significant negative effect on support for the moral values of group-based equality (social justice) but not on individual deservingness (fairness) separate from political identity and other demographic characteristics. This effect was seen on stated principles but particularly relevant in approval ratings of …


Not Just Noise: Individual Differences In Cognitive Ability And Response Bias, Tina Chen Mar 2017

Not Just Noise: Individual Differences In Cognitive Ability And Response Bias, Tina Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

Response bias is a component of decision making that can be defined as the general willingness to respond a certain way. For example, in recognition memory, one can have a response bias towards responding that a test item has been previously studied, or in reasoning, one can have a response bias towards responding that a conclusion is logically valid. However, not all individuals have the same response bias. Indeed, there is some evidence that response bias is a stable cognitive trait in memory that differs across individuals (Kantner & Lindsay, 2012, 2014). One predictor of this trait may be cognitive …


The Effect Of Interruptions On Primary Task Performance In Safety-Critical Environments, Cheryl Ann Nicholas Nov 2016

The Effect Of Interruptions On Primary Task Performance In Safety-Critical Environments, Cheryl Ann Nicholas

Doctoral Dissertations

Safety critical systems in medicine utilize alarms to signal potentially life threatening situations to professionals and patients. In particular, in the medical field multiple alarms from equipment are activated daily and often simultaneously. There are a number of alarms which require caregivers to take breaks in complex, primary tasks to attend to the interruption task which is signaled by the alarm. The motivation for this research is the knowledge that, in general, interrupting tasks can have a potentially negative impact on performance and outcomes of the primary task. The focus of this research is on the effect of an interrupting …


Audible Voice In Context, Airlie S. Rose Nov 2015

Audible Voice In Context, Airlie S. Rose

Doctoral Dissertations

The term audible voice refers to the sound of the text experienced by the reader during silent reading. It was coined by Elbow in his Landmark Essays to help the field of composition wrestle more productively with the concept of voice in writing. In this dissertation, voice is not a metaphor. Drawing on contemporary work in psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, and consciousness studies, it examines the phenomenon of audible voice as a form of inner speech[1]. The premise of this study is that the experience of audible voice by the reader is a unique intersection of the individual's inner landscape …


Estrogen-Sensitive Learning Is Not Affected By Combination Ethinyl Estradiol And Levonorgestrel Oral Contraceptive Use, Darlene F. Ficco Aug 2015

Estrogen-Sensitive Learning Is Not Affected By Combination Ethinyl Estradiol And Levonorgestrel Oral Contraceptive Use, Darlene F. Ficco

Doctoral Dissertations

Two studies were conducted to explore the cognitive effects of combination ethinyl estradiol and levonorgestrel contraceptive use during late adolescence and young adulthood. Three groups of females, naturally cycling, active pill phase, and hormone-free interval phase, were tested on a battery of estrogen-sensitive, i.e., place learning and word generation, and estrogen-insensitive, i.e., map drawing, mental rotation, digit span, story recall, and object recall, tasks. Study 2 was conducted as a means to replicate the findings observed in Study 1 and to manipulate task difficulty and sensitivity. Two measures of mood were administered, and salivary estradiol levels at time of testing …


Linguistic Cognition And Bimodalism: A Study Of Motion And Location In The Confluence Of Spanish And Spain’S Sign Language, Francisco Meizoso Mar 2015

Linguistic Cognition And Bimodalism: A Study Of Motion And Location In The Confluence Of Spanish And Spain’S Sign Language, Francisco Meizoso

Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to study the intrapersonal and symbolic function of gesture by a very specific type of population: hearing speakers of Spanish who, having been born to deaf parents, grew up developing a bimodal (Spanish and Spain’s Sign Language) linguistic interface, which borrows elements from the manual and spoken modalities. In the ordering of gestures devised by Kendon (1988) and cited by McNeill (1992), gesticulation and sign languages are placed at opposite ends of a continuum. At one end, gesticulation is formed by idiosyncratic spontaneous gestures lacking any conventional linguistic proprieties, which are produced in combination …


Developing Spatial Reasoning Skills In General Chemistry Students, Deborah L. Carlisle Aug 2014

Developing Spatial Reasoning Skills In General Chemistry Students, Deborah L. Carlisle

Doctoral Dissertations

The study of organic chemistry requires the understanding and use of spatial relationships, which can be challenging for many students. Prior research has shown that there is a need to develop students’ spatial reasoning skills. To that end, this study implemented guided activities designed to strengthen students’ spatial skills, with the aim of preparing students for organic chemistry and other future STEM courses. Students, taking the second semester of a two-semester general chemistry course, engaged in these activities. This study followed a quasi experimental design, in which the experimental (n = 209) and the control group (n = 212) were …


The Application Of Information Integration Theory To Standard Setting: Setting Cut Scores Using Cognitive Theory, Christopher C. Foster Apr 2014

The Application Of Information Integration Theory To Standard Setting: Setting Cut Scores Using Cognitive Theory, Christopher C. Foster

Doctoral Dissertations

Information integration theory (IIT) is a cognitive psychology theory that is primarily concerned with understanding rater judgments and deriving quantitative values from rater expertise. Since standard setting is a process by which subject matter experts are asked to make expert judgment about test content, it is an ideal context for the application of information integration theory. Information integration theory (IIT) was proposed by Norman H. Anderson, a cognitive psychologist. It is a cognitive theory that is primarily concerned with how an individual integrates information from two or more stimuli to derive a quantitative value. The theory focuses on evaluating the …