Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

Stress And Retrieval-Enhanced Suggestibility, Amanda Capriglione

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Research has demonstrated that when witnesses are immediately questioned following an event, they can become even more susceptible to later presented misinformation and false memory production. This test-enhanced memory impairment is known as retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES; Chan, Thomas, & Bulevich, 2009). Research has also demonstrated that the experience of stress produces a reduced misinformation effect and better ability to discriminate accurate from inaccurate information (Nitschke et al., 2019). The primary goal of the current study was to explore the effects of stress and repeated testing on misinformation susceptibility in the RES paradigm. Participants engaged in an eyewitness memory paradigm in …

More Evidence That Magnitude Interference In Temporal Reproduction Results From Memory, Not Clock, Interference, Steven A. Masi

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Past research has found that errors made when acting on magnitude information is influenced by irrelevant magnitude information that is simultaneously present in the environment. This study investigated the processing stage during which the interference occurs. Each participant completed 80 test trials in stimulus (encoding stimulus) appeared on the computer screen for one of four lengths of time and then disappeared. After which, participants held down the computer spacebar for either the full or half the time that the encoding stimulus was on the screen. In both conditions, a second stimulus (reproduction stimulus) was displayed as the participants held down …

Memory For A Familiar And Unfamiliar University Logo, Alicia M. Fels

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Prior research found that memory is fallible and that memory for common objects is poorly encoded (Brady et al., 2008; Nickerson & Adams, 1979). Participants studied one of the logos and recalled both the familiar and unfamiliar logos. Confidence judgments were collected at pre- and post-recall for both logos. Results suggest that recall changed by study condition and logo type, studying before recall, for both the familiar and the unfamiliar logo, improved recall scores. The results also suggest that confidence judgments changed depending on the logo familiarity and time. Confidence decreased from pre- to post-recall for the familiar logo in …

The Effect Of Peer Collaboration On Kinematic Problem Solving, Alyssa Deronda

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Kinematic problems, a type of physics problem that involves object motion, pose a challenge for adults (Caramazza, McCloskey, & Green, 1981; Kozhevnikov, Motes, & Hegarty, 2007; McCloskey, 1983b; McCloskey, Washburn, & Felch, 1983). Adults often incorrectly predict the path of a moving object despite having prior experience with moving objects or formal physics education (Caramazza et al., 1981; Kaiser, Jonides, & Alexander, 1986). One way to improve kinematic problem solving may be through peer collaboration. Working together with a partner to solve a problem allows both people to help each other remember important parts of a complex problem and discuss …

Fluency & Over The Counter Drug Warning Labels, Jonathan M. Cecire

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Fluency is defined as the ease with which something is processed (Jacoby & Dallas, 1981; Okuhara, 2017). Recent research has shown that the fluency of a drug’s name can have an effect on people’s perceptions and evaluation judgments (Dohle & Siegrist, 2013, Dohle & Montoya, 2017). Research has also shown that the fluency of information can have an effect on people’s memory and performance (Diemand-Yauman, Oppenheimer, & Vaughan, 2011). The purpose of this study was to see how manipulating the fluency of warning labels could affect people’s perceptions, adherence, memory, and behaviors. Results showed that labels with fluent formats improved …

The Revelation Effect In Autobiographical Memory, Vincent A. Medina

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The revelation effect is a memory illusion in recognition memory where items are more likely to be considered old if they are immediately preceded by a cognitive task (for a review, see Abfalg, Bernstein, & Hockley, 2017). Recent research has shown that the revelation effect appears in past and future episodic judgments so long as the tasks are autobiographical in nature (Westerman, Miller, & Lloyd, 2017). Aging is a factor that has not yet been studied in the revelation effect literature in terms of autobiographical memory. It has implications because of aging’s significant impact on mental time travel. During this …

Imagining A Memory Palace: Method Of Loci And The Effect Of Object And Spatial Imagery Skill, Louis Varilias

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The method of loci is an ancient mnemonic technique. It involves imagining information to be remembered in a visual form, mentally placing those items into an imagined environment, and then mentally traveling within this environment to recall the information. Numerous studies have found that this method is robust and powerful, especially when compared to other mnemonic techniques like verbal rehearsal. Neuroimaging studies have found that using the method of loci recruits regions of the brain that involve spatial processing and episodic memory. However, little research has been done to examine the effects of individual imagery skill when using the method …

The Effects Of Counterfactual Priming On Belief In Fake News, Sean Bogart

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Fake news overwhelmed social media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. This new, digital brand of fake news that can be spread much more rapidly than older forms, is coupled with a lack of academic research into its effects, the reasons that certain individuals trust its veracity, and methods of decreasing overall belief in fake news. Confirmation bias is one of several reasons why individuals fall victim to fake news; although there are a few strategies that can be used to combat the negative effects of confirmation bias; counterfactual reasoning is one that has demonstrated …

Circumventing Spatio-Numeric Biases Through Non-Numeric Assessments Of Perceived Causal Strength, Daniel William Czarnowski

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Knowledge of cause and effect allows individuals to meaningfully interpret the events they perceive in the world, and the understanding of causality is thought to be grounded in the understanding of forces (Wolf, Ritter, & Holmes, 2014). Previous research has linked handedness with both the ability to exert force (e.g., Linkenauger et al., 2005) and causal learning (e.g., Goedert & Czarnowski, 2017). Historically, number lines have been used to assess causality, but because handedness has a strong spatial element, SNARC effects may influence judgments (Fias, 1996). The current experiment replicates previous work by Goedert and Czarnowski (2017) but changes the …

The Immediate And Long-Lasting Cognitive Consequences Of Adolescent Chronic Sleep Restriction, Kerry Howard

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Adolescence is a critical developmental period. An important change that occurs in adolescence is the neurological maturation for adult-type cognitive abilities. Research has linked adequate sleep quantity to successful learning and memory capabilities. However, due to a shift in sleep timing drive in adolescence, in combination with early awakening for school, the adolescent population is experiencing chronic sleep restriction (CSR). What repercussions to long-term memory capabilities could CSR in adolescence have immediately and are the consequences long-lasting? The present study modeled human adolescent CSR in rats through four hours of sleep deprivation for five days, followed by two days of …

Assessing The Effects Of Dual Tasking On Spatiotemporal Parameters Of Gait In Older Adults: Exploring Age And Task Demands, Mohammed Issa Alsaeed

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The percentage of the senior citizens is expected to be 20% of the US population by 2030. Falls are considered a global problem due to the increased rate of falls and the costs associated with treating impairments resulting from falls. To date, the effects of performing different types of dual tasks among different age groups of the elderly has received less attention. Therefore, this study sought to assess the impact on spatiotemporal parameters of gait when differing age groups of older adults performer dual tasks that require differing motor and cognitive demands.

Three standard measurements were used in this study: …

Cognitive Demand And The Outcome Density Effect, Ciara Louise Willett

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Judgments regarding the strength of a cause to produce an outcome do not always follow predictions of normative causal reasoning models (Kao & Wasserman, 1993). In the case of the outcome density effect, individuals’ ratings of the strength of a putative cause tend to be greater when the number of observed outcomes is high than when it is low (e.g. Jenkins & Ward, 1965). In the current experiment, I investigated the outcome density effect as a possible heuristic. Participants made causal judgments based on information about the prevalence of headaches in a sample of individuals who did or did not …

Age-Related Changes In Visual Spatial Performance, Samantha Farrell

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Visual spatial skills allow individuals to understand the relationship between objects, people, and the environment for their everyday activities. Visual spatial abilities incorporate visual, motor, and cognitive components, each of which changes across the lifespan. The current study examined the effects of age-related changes and practice type on visual spatial performance. Participants between 40 and 79 years of age were asked to complete the Block Design Task (BDT) by using nine blocks to recreate various designs. Both accuracy and latency were measured to examine these changes. Task difficulty and practice type were varied and cognitive abilities were measured via MMSE …

The New Theory Of Disuse Predicts Retrieval Enhanced Suggestibility (Res), Victoria Bartek

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Retrieval enhanced suggestibility (RES) refers to an effect where initial testing of an event leads to better learning of and higher production of misinformation regarding that event. This paper proposes the New Theory of Disuse (Bjork & Bjork, 1992) as a supplement to the retrieval fluency account for RES (Thomas et al., 2010). The amount of interference presented between the misinforming narrative and final test was manipulated in order to investigate how decays in retrieval strength (how easily a memory is recalled) affect misinformation reporting. Results suggested that the learning of interfering information may decrease RES, but that this effect …

The Embodied Causal Learner, Vanja Vlajnic

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Traditionally, cognitive psychology has assumed a disembodied learner and thinker. However, an emerging approach known as embodiment posits that seemingly irrelevant motor or perceptual aspects of a task can affect higher-level cognition. The findings from such embodiment studies have also been shown to extend into real-world settings. For example, children who were taught mathematical concepts while required to make gestures consistent with the problem’s solution were more likely, on average, to apply the mathematical concepts correctly in the future (Cook, Mitchell, & Goldin-Meadow, 2008). For this specific study, the area of causal learning was examined.

The primary goal of this …

Examining The Effect Of Education Type On Common Misconceptions Of Traumatic Brain Injury, Monica De Iorio

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

It has been widely shown that misconceptions related to traumatic brain injury (TBI) are held among both family members of people with TBI and the general public. These misconceptions have the potential to increase the distress of people with TBI and negatively impact rehabilitation processes. Although increased education has often been suggested to reduce misconceptions, few studies have examined which methods are most effective in providing information to the public. In the current study, I investigated the effects of existing education materials – either a TBI factsheet or personal stories of people with TBI. These materials are currently easily accessible …

Selective Effects Of Selective Attention, Katherine Camille Moen

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Selective Attention is the process by which an individual attends to one stimulus while ignoring other distracting stimuli. Selective attention at encoding has been found to consistently impair memory performance. However, little research has found conclusive evidence as to the impact of selective attention during initial retrieval, and how that impacts retrieval on later tests, or the influence of the types of stimuli that participants are ignoring. The following series of experiments outline how selective attention impairs memory immediately and after a delay, during encoding and retrieval. Experiments 1-3 manipulated attention during retrieval. Experiment 1 found that selective attention during …

The Student Augustinian Values Institute: Assessing Its Impact Of Enhancing The Understanding And Experience Of The Augustinian Core Values Of Veritas, Unitas, And Caritas Upon Students In Augustinian Secondary Schools, Stephen M. Curry

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Educational leadership understands the importance of teaching values in its schools and incorporates this philosophy into the school’s symbolic and structural systems. Roman Catholic Church leaders have always endorsed the teaching of values in its schools and this position was sanctioned at its Second Vatican Council (Vatican Council II, 1962-65). One aspect of the Council emphasized the importance of Catholic education as an essential vehicle for proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. Catholic schools founded and sponsored by religious communities were challenged to reappropriate their founders’ charisms in their educational ministries. The Order of St. Augustine is an example …

The Role Of Verbal Working Memory In New Word Learning In Toddlers 24 To 30 Months Old, France Weill

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Evaluating Focus-2'S Effectiveness In Enhancing First-Year College Students' Social Cognitive Career Development, David M. Tirpak

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Spatial Learning Deficit In The Hiv-1 Transgenic Rat: Discerning Place From Strategy Learning, Abigail Lashomb

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

HIV -1 infection is associated with a constellation of cognitive and motor deficits collectively termed HIV associated dementia. With the onset of HAART treatment, these cognitive effects have become more mild, but also more prevalent. The lack of a proper animal model to study these cognitive effects of HIV has lead to the development of a new transgenic rat. This rat expresses the HIV -1 genome with functional tat and gp 120 viral proteins. These proteins are linked with direct neural toxicity as well as the induction of cytokines and other indirect means of neuronal damage. As part of the …

An Investigation Of The Cliinical Utility Of The Sensory Profile, Laura Leigh Pizzano Smith

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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The Relationship Of Intrinsic Motivation, Cognitive Style And Tolerance Of Ambiguity And Creativity In Scientists, Helene Katz

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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