Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

Thinking About Episodic Future Events As A Way To Reduce Smoking Behavior: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study, Stephanie Joann Kane

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With nearly 35 million Americans currently estimated to smoke and an approximate seven out of ten adult smokers wanting to quit, it is clear that there is a need for enhanced smoking cessation techniques. Encouraging people to think about a future smoke-free self may help to encourage and motivate changes in smoking behavior. The present study investigated the role of an episodic future thinking manipulation on the motivation to quit smoking using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Participants (N = 103) were randomly assigned to either an episodic future thinking (EFT) condition or an episodic recent thinking (ERT) condition, and were …

Disharmony Of The Soul: A Philosophical Analysis Of Psychological Trauma And Flourishing, Adam Blehm

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I argue that psychological trauma hinders human flourishing by disrupting psychic harmony and hindering virtuous relationships. Given the negative symptomology of posttraumatic stress related disorders (i.e., PTSD) this conclusion may seem a bit obvious to some. However, making the case for trauma as a hindrance to human flourishing is more complicated than it may first appear.

First, in the extant literature, trauma as a concept tends to be unclear. In much of the empirical and philosophical literature, trauma can include a certain kind of event, experience, effect, or a combination of all three. Furthermore, because of practical …

The Effects Of Physical Function And Genetics On Cognition And Blood Biomarkers In Individuals At-Risk For Alzheimer’S Disease And Related Dementias, Joshua Louis Gills

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (ADRD) rates are expected to triple by the year 2050. Early detection and specific mitigation efforts are warranted to blunt the alarming rate. Physical function (PF) declines with age, but higher physical function is associated with better cognitive functioning in middle-to- older age individuals. Moreover, greater physical activity (PA) is associated with better global cognition; however, Apoliporotein e4 carriers may not gain the same benefits with exercise. Additionally, plasma phosphorylated tau 217 (p-tau217) has been identified as a novel diagnostic ADRD biomarker which needs further research to examine associations with risk factors. Therefore, the aims …

An Innocent Bystander Walks Into A Bar: The Influence Of Temporal Proximity And Familiarity On Unconscious Transference, Nia Gipson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

According to The Innocence Project, 69% of DNA exonerations in the United States involved mistaken eyewitness identification as a contributing factor to these errant convictions. Psychologists have contributed towards minimizing mistaken identifications by proposing best practices that law enforcement still follow today. One understudied cause of mistaken eyewitness identification is unconscious transference (UT). UT is a memory error in which a person encountered in an innocent context becomes confused with a person seen in a guilty context (Loftus, 1976). Past research has established some boundary conditions for when UT can occur; however, the limited methodology has resulted in narrow conclusions …

Mentors In Violence Prevention: Differential Impacts On Adolescent Bystander Intentions About Bullying, Dating Violence, And Sexual Harassment, Ayla Mapes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bystander approaches are promising interventions that can engage bystanders as prosocial allies to intervene in interpersonal violence situations among youth within school settings. The Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) bystander intervention program targets interpersonal violence using a peer-to-peer mentoring model to engage students in a discussion about violence prevention. Research on the MVP program is promising but limited. The current study examined the specificity of MVP intervention effects in two high school samples. The first was a pre/post-test design that included a smaller sample of high school students who participated in the MVP program in the 2013-2014 academic year. The …

Diagnostic Featural Detection Or Filler Siphoning: A Red Box Study, Brynn Schuetter

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The current study is a replication and extension of previous research by Colloff and Wixted (2020). In their study, they created a novel identification procedure called the simultaneous showup. They found support for the diagnostic feature detection theory over the filler siphoning theory. The current study was interested in seeing if covert filler siphoning was still occurring in their novel procedure by asking participants how photos of fillers influenced their identification decision. Participants of the study viewed two crime videos and completed an identification task. If they were assigned to the simultaneous showup task, they were asked if and how …

Effects Of Recess On Educational Outcomes In Elementary School Children, Katelyn Whitham

Health, Human Performance and Recreation Undergraduate Honors Theses

Introduction: Because physical activity is beneficial for physical and mental health, the declining opportunities to implement adequate recesses in schools are devastating for children. If educational outcomes are positively affected by increased recess time or quality, schools are more likely to receive funding for programs and resources that support this renovation to recesses, providing research in lacking topics. Purpose: The purpose of this systematic review is to find related, academic articles for cross examination of data collected on the effects that recess has on educational outcomes so that schools may use this as a resource to receive funding to increase …

The Influence Of Facial Exposure On Confidence In Eyewitness Identification, Madelynn Fancher

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

In crimes in which there is an eyewitness identification, confidence is usually a good predictor of accuracy. However, in some cases, estimator variables might affect the relationship between eyewitness confidence and accuracy. This study analyzes the effect of exposure duration on confidence during an eyewitness identification. According to the pristine conditions hypothesis (Wixed & Wells, 2017), if the system variables are optimal, confidence and accuracy will be strongly related, even if the viewing conditions are suboptimal. Participants in this online study viewed a mock crime in one of two conditions: brief exposure or long exposure. Following viewing the crime, participants …

Effectiveness Of Affective Based Intervention Depending On Personal Relevance To A Conspiracy Belief, Mallory Macdonald

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

With the increase in conspiracy theory beliefs, there is a need for intervention techniques. Do some intervention techniques work better when taking into account the personal relevance a person has towards a topic? One hundred and sixty undergraduate students first read an article that introduced the conspiracy theory and established personal relevance. To manipulate personal relevance, participants were told that a new vaccine mandate would be put into place either July 2023 or July 2031. Then, they considered an article that worked to intervene the conspiracy belief. Participants either read an article that was focused on affective or cognitive intervention …

Differential Neural Correlates Underlying Different Cognitive Control Strategies And Their Relationship With The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, Carroll Bentley

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Impulsivity is defined as a rapid unplanned action to a stimulus, where the person does not consider the consequences of their actions (Moeller et al., 2001). Various measurement techniques exist in the study of impulsivity and include self-report, behavioral and physiological measures. This breadth of measurement techniques affords researchers the opportunity to understand what is likely a multifaceted nature of this construct. Previous literature shows mixed results between the relationship of the three measures. The present study seeks to add clarity between the three different modalities of measuring impulsivity. To address this relationship, an undergraduate sample (n = 171) completed …

Examining The Effects Of Different Coping Styles On Dependent Stress Generation, Whitney Skaggs

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this study, I prospectively examined the associations between different coping styles and stress. Stress can be classified as independent, which is stress that an individual has no control over, or dependent stress, which is stress that occurs because of the individuals’ actions. Coping is how individuals deal with that stress. With the role that coping plays in stress, I expected that it would relate to stress generation. I hypothesized that some forms of coping would prospectively predict the occurrence of less dependent stress but not independent stress. To test this hypothesis, I had college students (N=73) complete …

Prospective Person Memory In The Case Of Missing Persons: A Coffee Shop Study, Cara Bascom

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Prospective person memory (PPM) is the process of remembering to perform some action after encountering a target individual, such as identifying and reporting a missing person sighting after viewing a missing person alert (Moore et al., 2021). Research has shown that identification rates generally tend to be low in simulated missing person studies (Lampinen & Moore, 2016b). The purpose of the current research is to determine how to improve missing person recognition rates. This project explores the potential effects of using videos in missing person reports as compared to using static images. We also consider differences between rigid and non-rigid …

Concurrent Load And Construal On Planning, Maximilian Fey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Planning for the future is a necessary activity which spans across all aspects of an individual’s life. Concurrent cognitive load has been shown to hinder future planning, whereas concrete construal of events has been shown to increase planning efficacy. Interestingly, a limited literature speaks towards cognitive load inducing concrete construal. However, the two constructs predict differing outcomes on future planning therefore the interaction of cognitive load inducing a concrete construal is particularly interesting. The research study tested whether differing levels of concurrent cognitive load increase or decrease planning efficacy. The intention of the research was to elucidate whether cognitive load …

Testing A Community Developed Training Protocol For An Evidence-Based Treatment, Lauren B. Quetsch, Amy D. Herschell, David Kolko, Brittany K. Liebsack, Regina A. Carroll

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The implementation of evidence-based treatments (EBTs) in community behavioral health settings is a recommended practice, yet training experienced by community-based clinicians may require novel and creative training methods. The current study focused on creating a training protocol for Alternative for Families: a Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy from both evidence-based foundations and community-based agency feedback to promote better EBT integration into agencies. Twenty-four clinicians from three agencies were trained using a community-informed training protocol. Outcomes for clinician-reports of organizational functioning, self-reports of skill and knowledge, and observational single-subject data of clinician skills were assessed. Minimal improvements were found for clinician skills across self-report …

Does Whispering Improve Children’S Memory? Comparing Auditory Vigilance And Salience Hypotheses, Christina M. Barnes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Oral communication is one of the primary tools children use to learn new information and speech registers can deliver additional meaning to the words someone uses. Cirillo’s (2004) vigilance hypothesis states “Whispering can affect the psychobiological state of recipients, and in particular raise their auditory vigilance” (Cirillo, 2004, p. 76). Building on this theory, the current study investigates the role of whispering and children’s memory by examining a whispering vigilance, whispering salience which focused on the changes between normal and whisper registers, and combined vigilance and salience hypotheses to determine if whispering contributes to the recall of information. Using video …

The Effect Of A Mindfulness-Based Intervention On Attention And Cognitive Control As A Function Of Smartphone Notifications., Joshua D. Upshaw

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Barriers to accessing mobile technology, particularly smartphones, have decreased substantially since the iPhone’s release in 2007, resulting in increased ownership and usage across all ages, genders, and races. Despite their ubiquity in our society, relatively little empirical work has investigated the influence of smartphones on our higher order executive functioning. Prior work has linked smartphone use with impaired cognitive control during cognitively demanding tasks, especially in heavier smartphone users. The goals of the current study were twofold. First, the study aimed to examine the effects of smartphone notifications on cognitive control and attention. And second, to determine the effects of …

Negative Urgency's Influence On State-Level, Emotion-Based Changes In Alcohol-Related Cognitions, Noah Wolkowicz

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project expanded on the Acquired Preparedness Model of Risk (APMR) by examining how Negative Urgency (NU), the tendency to act rashly in negative emotional states, affects emotion-based changes in alcohol cognitions to produce risk for alcohol use. The APMR prioritizes the role of outcome expectancies as the means through which traits such as NU, convey alcohol use risk. However, this model treats these cognitions as static and often fails to assess their valence; further, alcohol-cognitions fluctuate in response to negative emotions and may become more salient during these states. Therefore, this study examined: 1) how NU impacts negative emotion-based, …

Naturalistic Decision Making In First Sales Calls: A Narrative Study Of Experienced Technical Sales Professionals, Douglas Williams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The first conversation between business-to-business sellers and new customers comes with the potential for both opportunity and risk. Sellers spend substantial effort gaining the right to engage in a first call with a potential customer. This study fills a gap in the literature by exploring the role of Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) and how it impacts the way experienced technology sales professionals navigate first conversations with new customers. NDM explores how experienced professionals make decisions in high-stakes, real world situations that are ambiguous, time-pressured, and have poorly defined goals. While NDM studies have been performed in other professional disciplines, none …

The Co-Regulatory Effects Of Emotionally Focused Therapy, Julia Conroy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mental health literature emphasizes the necessity of expanding emotional regulation to improve symptomology of a variety of mental health disorders. Coregulatory experiences have been shown to expand individual emotional regulation and are more likely in relationships with secure attachment. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is focused on developing secure attachment between partners. This study examined the coregulatory effects of EFT with a single couple over the course of couples’ counseling. The participating couple received eight couples’ counseling sessions from a clinician who is a certified EFT trainer, supervisor, and therapist while having their heart rate, electrodermal activity, and skin temperature taken …

Combating Conspiracy Theories: An Attitudes-Based Approach, Marie Altgilbers

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The prevalence of conspiracy theories is a topic of increasing concern among researchers. Much of the research in this area has been focused on why people endorse conspiracy theories, and relatively little attention has been paid to how they may be mitigated. What research has been done focused primarily on interventions with arguments based in cognitive, fact-based appeals, with mixed success. The present research draws on findings from the attitudes and persuasion literature to test the hypothesis that conspiracy theory endorsement is more effectively reduced by affectively-based arguments than by cognitively-based arguments. Two affectively-based interventions were tested against a cognitively-based …

The Effects Of Interactivity On Memory Relating To Presence In Virtual Environments, Jenny Wong

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The overall effectiveness of virtual environments is often linked to and measured by degrees of presence, commonly defined as the psychological sensation of “being there” (Schubert et al., 1999). Psychologists agree that attention and involvement through interactivity play a role in presence (Hartmann et al., 2015; Schubert et al., 1999; Witmer and Singer, 1998). Because attention is critical in encoding information into memory storage, looking at how memory relates to presence is another topic of interest. In this study, participants (N = 30) played through a 3D virtual reconstruction of a Pompeian house under one of two conditions: free-roam …

An Eeg Source-Space Analysis Of The Neural Correlates Underlying Self-Regulation, Stephanie M. Long

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Self-regulation is the cognitive process of controlling our thoughts and behaviors to be aligned with our goals. This process is used in many different contexts and has been associated with contributions from several brain regions. This research aimed to investigate differences in four prefrontal areas of the brain while participants applied four different self-regulation strategies. We recorded EEG while participants (N = 132) performed three tasks which engaged each of the four self-regulation strategies: the AX-CPT task engaged proactive and reactive control, the Go/Nogo task engaged inhibitory control, and the hybrid Flanker Global/Local task engaged the resolution of response conflict. …

Distress Tolerance As A Potential Target For Change: The Relationship Between Distress Tolerance, Craving, And Alcohol Consumption In A Lab-Based Experiment, Isabel F. Augur

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Distress tolerance (DT) has recently been studied as a potential catalyst for the development ofalcohol use disorder (AUD). Research exploring the relationship between DT and craving is limited and has primarily focused on nicotine craving. Furthermore, there are no current studies examining the relationship between DT and alcohol consumption. This study was designed to fill this gap in the literature, which may shed light on a potentially important target for alcohol use treatment. Additionally, the role of mindfulness was explored in the context of the relationship between DT and alcohol craving and consumption, with the intention of expanding on the …

Facts From Fiction: Packaging Misinformation, Angel Ray Houts

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous research established that readers learn both accurate and inaccurate information from fictional stories. The current study explored factors that might moderate the impact of misinformation. Participants read fictional stories that contain three assertions; the first two were labeled as set-up assertions, and the last were labeled as the critical assertion. First, there was a manipulation of plausibility of information within the stories by presenting either assertions with truthful information, assertions with small lies (plausible misinformation), or assertions with big lies (implausible misinformation). Second, there was manipulation of reliability of the fictional stories by presenting big lies or truthful information …

Strategies For Change: Behavior Change Using Self Talk, Kaitlyn Chamberlain

Diet, Food, Exercise, and Nutrition (D-FEND)

Speaker shares how self-talk can help improve our ability to meet our goals.

Cd38 Is Associated With Bonding-Relevant Cognitions And Relationship Satisfaction Over The First 3 Years Of Marriage, Anastasia Makhanova, James K. Mcnulty, Lisa A. Eckel, Larissa Nikonova, Jennifer A. Bartz, Elizabeth A.D. Hammock

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although there are numerous benefits to having a satisfying romantic relationship, maintaining high levels of relationship satisfaction is difficult. Many couples experience declines in relationship satisfaction in the early years of marriage, and such declines predict not only relationship dissolution but also poor mental and physical health. Several recent studies indicate that genetic variation on the CD38 gene (CD38), at the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs3796863, is associated with cognitions and behaviors related to pair bonding; we thus leveraged longitudinal data from a sample of newlywed couples (N = 139 genotyped individuals; 71 couples) to examine whether …

Emotion Regulation And N2 Amplitude During A Go/Nogo Task: An Erp Study, Emily Tolar

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Emotion regulation is how people respond to and manage their reactions to life experiences, including resolving conflict between variable responses. Past research has associated the N2, an event-related potential associated with resolving response conflict, with both emotion regulation and negative emotion. However, to the best of our knowledge, no one has assessed if different emotion-regulation strategies are differentially associated with N2 activation. To assess this question, we conducted an EEG study with 147 participants. Participants completed the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) and then played the go/no-go game as their EEG data was collected. The relationship between N2 amplitude and …

Effects Of Alcohol Intoxication On Hostile Attribution Bias And Relational Aggression In Women, Alita M. Mobley

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol intoxication is consistently linked to physical and sexual aggression in men, but not women. The lack of evidence supporting the relationship between alcohol and aggression for women could be due to a failure to measure relational aggression (i.e., harmful social manipulation), the form of aggression more commonly employed by women. Further, alcohol intoxication may interfere with the interpretation of social cues, resulting in greater perceived provocation in ambiguous social interactions and increased aggression. The current study examined the relationship between alcohol intoxication and relational aggression in women and the extent to which interpretation of social cues (i.e., hostile attribution …

Are Individual Differences In Media Multitasking Habits Associated With Changes In Brain Activation: An Erp Investigation Of Multitasking And Cognitive Control, Morgan Middlebrooks

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the number of mobile phone users grows, understanding the impact of multiple streams of media on media multitasking and related neural correlates is especially pertinent. This research aims to understand the association between media multitasking tendencies on the neural correlates underlying cognitive control using event-related potentials (ERPs). Specifically, we were interested in the N2 and P3, ERPs that measure neural activation underlying aspects of cognitive control. Based on the literature, we predicted that participants who have high media multitasking scores would show more negative N2 activation and more positive P3 activation than their low media multitasking counterparts during an …

Action Real-Time Strategy Gaming Experience Related To Enhanced Capacity Of Visual Working Memory, Yutong Yao, Ruifang Cui, Yi Li, Lu Zeng, Jinliang Jiang, Nan Qiu, Li Dong, Diakun Gong, Guojian Yan, Weiyi Ma, Tiejun Liu

General Human Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Action real-time strategy gaming (ARSG)—a major genre of action video gaming (AVG)—has both action and strategy elements. ARSG requires attention, visual working memory (VWM), sensorimotor skills, team cooperation, and strategy-making abilities, thus offering promising insights into the learning-induced plasticity. However, it is yet unknown whether the ARSG experience is related to the development of VWM capacity. Using both behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measurements, this study tested whether ARSG experts had larger VWM capacity than non-experts in a change detection task. The behavioral results showed that ARSG experts had higher accuracy and larger VWM capacity than non-experts. In addition, the …