Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

Cognitive Flexibility: Using Mental Simulation To Improve Script Adaptation, Javier Rivera

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human behavior and decision-making depend largely on past experiences that generate specific action patterns (i.e., scripts, Gioia & Manz, 1985) for specific situations. In an ideal world, in which changes in the environment do not conflict with these action patterns, humans would be able to operate consistently, efficiently, and automatically. However, real-world environments are dynamic and fluid, thus altering behavior and forcing changes in scripts. Research suggests that to implement alternate solutions to changing situations, humans select from a "library" of learned scripts. Since humans tend to implement scripts to the degree that these are successful over a period of …

Investigating The Influence Of The Built Environment On Energy-Saving Behaviors, Brittany Sellers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses a gap in the existing sustainability behavior research, by integrating research from the social sciences about environmental attitudes and knowledge with approaches from engineering regarding the characteristics of the built environment. Specifically, this dissertation explores the role of both environmental knowledge and design features within the built environment on building occupants' energy behaviors throughout the course of an environmental conservation campaign. Data were collected from 240 dormitory residents using a multi-phase questionnaire approach to study these factors and their combined impact within the context of environmental sustainability practices on UCF's campus. The results from a series of …

Individual Differences In Trust Toward Robotic Assistants, Tracy Sanders

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work on trust in human-robot interaction describes a series of three experiments from which a series of predictive models are developed. Previous work in trust and robotics has examined HRI components related to robots extensively, but there has been little research to quantify the influence of individual differences in trust on HRI. The present work seeks to fill that void by measuring individual differences across a variety of conditions, including differences in robot characteristics and environments. The models produced indicate that the main individual factors predicting trust in robotics include pre-existing attitudes towards robots, interpersonal trust, and personality traits.

Evaluating Competition Between Verbal And Implicit Systems With Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy, Troy A. Schiebel

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In category learning, explicit processes function through the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and implicit processes function through the basal ganglia. Research suggested that these two systems compete with each other. The goal of this study was to shed light on this theory. 15 undergraduate subjects took part in an event-related experiment that required them to categorize computer-generated line-stimuli, which varied in length and/or angle depending on condition. Subjects participated in an explicit "rule-based" (RB) condition and an implicit "information-integration" (II) condition while connected to a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) apparatus, which measured the hemodynamic response (HR) in their PFC. Each condition …

The Effect Of Neighborhood Size And Morphology In The Chinese Language, Long Nguyen

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The Neighborhood Size Effect (NSE), characterized as the effect in word determination based on changing one orthographic aspect of that word. The amount of words that can be created through such manipulation is called a neighborhood size (NS). Number of other factors such as frequency, how often a word appears and morphology, the combination of meaningful word units, have been suggested to have an overriding effect on NSE. In addition, there is a lack of research on NSE with non-alphabetical languages such as Chinese, which uses characters comprising of a multitude of semantic or phonetic markers. In this experiment, participants …

The Study Of The Adverse Effects Of Childhood Maltreatment, Katie A. Kennie

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study explores the link between the presence of childhood trauma and adult criminal behavior. In this study, four distinct categories of childhood trauma (physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, and neglect) were examined. In addition, this study conducts a comparative analysis of the United States crime rate with that of Switzerland and Japan. This study examines and compares the policies utilized in ensuring the protection of child welfare. The ultimate goal is to provide research which may build a foundation that will assist in creating and improving policies which will ensure a child's psychological health.

Individual Differences In Eyewitness Testimony, Noel A. Cal

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Eyewitness testimony plays a crucial role in the justice system. Misidentification from eyewitnesses was reported in 70% of 300 DNA exonerations of wrongfully convicted individuals (Wixted et al., 2015). Similarly, many convicts can also be set free because of juror’s faulty eyewitness recall during examination. Previous research indicated that females are more reliable in recall than men. However, these findings were not extensively examined with regards to time delay prior to the trial. Thus, it is important to systematically examine the various factors that influence eyewitness testimony.

The present study was designed to empirically examine the effects of gender, interview …

Sexual Content In Music Lyrics And Their Effects On Sexual Cognition, Nicole Nowotny

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the sexual content found in music lyrics of different genres and their relationship to specific sexual cognitions. The study included 902 participants, both male and female, belonging to various ethnic backgrounds, ages 18 and up. It was hypothesized that listening to music containing frequent sexual lyrics will have an affect on men and women’s sexual cognitive beliefs. Results indicated that there was a relationship between frequency of sexually explicit lyrics and views on sexual cognitions. The breakdown by genre shows a more detailed relationship between the lyrics and sexual cognitions. Overall, the …

Individual Differences Of Directed Forgetting, Griselda Alavez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The present study set out to evaluate the relationship between list-method directed forgetting and one’s individual differences. Previous research has found personality and emotion as having an influence in how well participants were able to intentionally forget stimuli. Participants were split into a remember group and a forget group of 22 each and tasked to memorize a list of 10 words. They were then given a free recall test and the results for individual differences such as Need for Cognition, Mini-IPIP personality test, and Beck’s Depression Inventory were analyzed. Our first hypothesis presumes that participants in the forget group will …

The Effects Of Cerebrovascular Aging On Sleep Quality In A Sample Of Aging Adults, Chelsea Tia Mapp

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Cerebrovascular burden (CVB) is a significant factor among the aging population. Age-related cognitive decline is an important social and economic issue, and understanding the mechanisms has clinical implications, both in selecting potential therapies and in choosing specific modifiers for their evaluation. In summary, past work suggests that high CVB is one source of variance in neurovascular functioning among older adults. High CVB and associated brain-changes have been identified as causes of age-related changes and it may be that high CVB is a correlate of age-related changes in sleep quality. The primary hypothesis to be tested is that cerebrovascular burden measured …

Correlations Between Sexual Imagery And Sexual Cognitions, Jennifer L. Mcdonnell

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Analyzing the relationship between the visual imagery used in music videos, and the sexual cognition of viewers. Sexual cognition is the awareness of one's own sexual behavior, and its implications. The visual content of music videos was analyzed focusing only on the imagery used. The Heterosexual Script (Jhally, 2007) in particular is observed in most music videos, highlighting the sexual objectification of women and the dominant role of males. The direction of causality between the visual imagery and sexual cognitions can only be speculated using a number of theories, namely cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957), cultivation theory (Gerbner et al., 1994), …

Free To Be Accountable: Extended Self As A Moderator Of Cheating Among Those Primed With Determinism, Vincent M. Iula

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The idea that free will may be an illusion has been a source of great concern. It has led to suggestions that it may be wise to avoid public discussion of this topic lest it lead to a general moral decay. This concern has seemingly been supported by research demonstrating that individuals, when primed with the notion they lack free will, tend to cheat more and prefer less retributive punishment. The current research suggests that these effects can be moderated by the introduction of a second prime. In experiment one, participants believed they were being tested on note-taking and the …