Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

Dog And Owner Characteristics Predict Training Success, Jeffrey R. Stevens, London M. Wolff, Megan Bosworth, Jill Morstad

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Teaching owners how to train their dogs is an important part of maintaining the health and safety of dogs and people. Yet we do not know what behavioral characteristics of dogs and their owners are relevant to dog training or if owner cognitive abilities play a role in training success. The aim of this study is to determine which characteristics of both dogs and owners predict success in completing the American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen training program. Before the first session of a dog training course, owners completed surveys evaluating the behavior and cognition of their dog and themselves. …

Attribute-Based Choice, Francine W. Goh, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Alternative-based approaches to decision making generate overall values for each option in a choice set by processing information within options before comparing options to arrive at a decision. By contrast, attribute-based approaches compare attributes (such as monetary cost and time delay to receipt of a reward) across options and use these attribute comparisons to make a decision. Because they compare attributes, they may not use all available information to make a choice, which categorizes many of them as heuristics. Choice data have suggested that attribute-based models can better predict choice compared to alternative-based models in some situations (e.g., when there …

Aviation Human-In-The-Loop Simulation: Best Practices For Subjective Performance Measurement, John Kleber, Beth Blickensderfer

Aviation Weather Training Research

Subjective performance measurements are a useful tool for researchers and instructors to evaluate tasks that are difficult to quantify with objective data pulled from a simulator or the physiological data of pilots. Subjective performance measurements are non-intrusive measures typically conducted by human raters. Some recommendations for utilizing subjective measures include reducing the workload of the human raters, concealing the aim of the experiment from participants, utilizing multiple raters to evaluate each participant, providing raters with proper training, developing error-resistant rater forms and, including both subjective and objective measures when possible.

The Archaeology Of Height – Cultural Meaning In The Relativity Of Irish Megalithic Tomb Siting, Frank Prendergast

Book/Book Chapter

Exploring sacred mountains around the world, the book examines whether bonding and reverence to a mountain is intrinsic to the mountain, constructed by people, or a mutual encounter. This chapter explores mountains in Ireland and embraces the union of sky, landscape and people to examine the religious dynamics between human and non-human entities.

This chapter take as its starting point the fact that mountains physically mediate between land and sky and act as metaphors for bridges from one realm to another, recognising that mountains are relational and that landscapes form personal and group cosmologies. The chapter fuses ideas of space, …

Temperamental Constellations And School Readiness: A Multivariate Approach, Andrew S. White, Kate M. Sirota, Scott R. Frohn, Sarah E. Swenson, Kathleen Moritz Rudasill

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

This study uses canonical correlation analyses to explore the relationship between mul- tiple predictors of school readiness (i.e., academic readiness, social readiness, and teacher-child relationship) and multiple temperamental traits using data from the second wave (age 54 months, n = 1226) of the longitudinal Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD; NICHD ECCRN 1993). This longitudinal study collected data on a large cohort of children and their families from birth through age 15. For academic readiness, only one temperamental constellation emerged, representing the construct of effortful control (i.e., high attentional focusing, high inhibitory con- trol). For peer interactions, …

Occupational Depression, Cognitive Performance, And Task Appreciation: A Study Based On Raven’S Advanced Progressive Matrices, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

The Occupational Depression Inventory (ODI) was recently developed to assess depressive symptoms that individuals specifically attribute to their work. Research on the criterion validity of the instrument is still in its infancy. In this study, we examined whether the ODI predicted performance on, and appreciation of, a cognitively challenging test. In light of the link established between clinical depression and neuropsychological impairment, and considering that individuals with depressive symptoms are more likely to feel helpless under challenging circumstances, we hypothesized that occupational depression would be associated with poorer cognitive performance and a darkened appreciation of the task undertaken. We relied …

Social Comparison Tendencies And The Reward Value Of Same-Sex Beauty Among Heterosexual Women, Melissa M. Martin Ms.

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Previous studies have suggested that heterosexual women, but not heterosexual men, find same sex beauty rewarding. This finding has been attributed to a “greater bisexual interest among heterosexual women”, but no other explanations have been offered or tested. The current study aimed to explore social comparison tendencies as a potential alternate explanation to this previously observed finding. Twenty-three heterosexual women completed a series of questionnaires designed to assess their social comparison tendencies (the social comparison orientation scale, the physical appearance comparison scale, and the intrasexual competition scale). They also completed a “pay-per-view” keypress task to measure the reward value of …

Why Do You Wear A Mask? Children’S Conceptualizations Of Covid-19 And Contagion Avoidance Behaviors, Emily Hillman

Scripps Senior Theses

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a need has emerged for psychological research on children’s understanding of infectious disease transmission. However, little existing research examines the link between children’s cognitive reasoning about illness and their subsequent behaviors regarding its transmissibility. This study will examine children’s conceptualizations of contagious illnesses such as COVID-19 and their subsequent contagion avoidance. A mixed methods approach will be used to establish the content of children’s conceptualizations of contagion and level of causal reasoning related to illness transmission. Dyads will be constructed comprising 4-12-year-old children and their parents. It is expected that parental contagion avoidance …

Effect Of Task-Irrelevant Emotional Faces On Attention To A Letter Search Task At High And Low Perceptual Loads, Nina Plotnikov

Theses and Dissertations

The attentional processing of emotional faces has interested researchers over the past thirty years. However, differing methodology has led to inconsistent findings. It has been suggested that using emotional faces as task-irrelevant distractors and varying perceptual load of the primary task can create an experimental framework that will allow attentional capture by emotional face processing to be better identified and differentiated from other processes. Furthermore, the effects of time on-task on attentional processing of emotional faces are currently not well understood, in part because traditional statistical analyses, such as the ANOVA, are insufficient for finding longitudinal trends in the data. …

The Effect Of Object Similarity And Alignment Of Examples On Children's Learning And Transfer From Picture Books, Gabrielle Strouse, Patricia Ganea

School of Education Faculty Publications

Story picture books with examples can be used to teach young children science concepts. Learners can abstract relational information by comparing the analogical examples in the books, leading to a more abstract, transferrable understanding of the concept. The purpose of this study was to determine whether manipulating the content or arrangement of the examples included in a picture book would support children’s generalization and transfer of a relational concept, color camouflage. Eighty-one 3-year-olds and 80 4-year-olds were read one of 4 books at 2 visits, spaced approximately 1 week apart. Examples were manipulated in a 2 (high/low object similarity) by …

The Time Course And Interaction Of Emoji And Text Processing During Natural Reading : Evidence From Eye Movements, Eliza Barach

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Emojis are nonverbal elements used in text-based communication that may function like gestures in spoken communication (Feldman et al., 2017; McCulloch & Gawne, 2018). Like words, emojis can convey semantic information and support message comprehension (Lo, 2008; Riordan, 2017b). Nevertheless, the cognitive and perceptual processes involved in emoji recognition and integration during reading remain unclear. Specifically, it is unclear how early semantic processing of emojis begins as well as how emojis and text interact during reading. Such empirical questions have implications for contemporary models of eye movement control, such as E-Z Reader (Reichle et al., 1998, 2012) and SWIFT (Engbert …

What's In A Chunk? : Investigating Expertise Effects On Memory For Complex Visual Search Targets, Kinnera Savitri Maturi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Across two experiments, I examined the extent to which three predictions of the chunking and template framework of expertise generalize to the music-reading domain: 1) Experts show perceptual advantages that allow for superior performance in a domain-specific task; 2) Experts’ can identify familiar patterns, which allow them to rapidly detect relevant regions of a stimulus; and 3) Experts’ superior perceptual abilities are domain-specific. In Study 1, the eye movements of expert musicians and non-musicians were recorded while they searched for a complex visual search target (i.e., a bar of piano sheet music) that was located within a search array (i.e., …

Effects Of A Suggestion Based Intervention On Human Cooperation In The Stag Hunt Game, Melvin S. Marsh

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Cooperation has been one of the most foundational aspect of human society and is frequently studied via use of “The Stag Hunt” which has been used to tease out factors which may influence cooperation. The present study is the first study to attempt to influence human cooperation by means of positive imagery. Participants included 33 males and 72 females) who listened to either an a 7-minute audio designed to encourage them to trust others or an audio designed to encourage them to trust themselves. Participants played 40 rounds of the Stag Hunt game. The total number of times the participant …

Communicating Uncertain Information From Deep Learning Models To Users, Harishankar Vasudevanallur Subramanian

Masters Theses

“The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) decision support systems is increasing in high-stakes contexts, such as healthcare, defense, and finance. Uncertainty information may help users better leverage AI predictions, especially when combined with domain knowledge. I conducted two human-subject experiments to examine the effects of uncertainty information with AI recommendations. The experimental stimuli are from an existing image recognition deep learning model, one popular approach to AI. In Paper I, I evaluated the effect of the number of AI recommendations and provision of uncertainty information. For a series of images, participants identified the subject and rated their confidence level. Results …

Stress Perceptions And Verbal Commands For Law Enforcement In High-Stress Situations, John Kenneth Gibson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Acute stress can have a negative effect on the physiology and cognitive performance of peace officers when they are engaged in high-stress situations. This could lead to injury or loss of life if a mistaken perception occurs or incorrect decision is made by the officer or suspect. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions of stress for peace officers who issue verbal commands to an aggressive role-playing suspect in a use-of-force scenario. The theoretical framework was Lazarus and Folkman's transactional theory of stress and coping. Data were collected from observations, field notes, and semi-structured interviews …

Mortality Salience And Moral Dilemmas: The Impact Of Stress On Regret In Trolley Problem Decision-Making, Nicolas Perdomo

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

The present study experimentally investigated the effects of stress, in the form of mortality salience, on decision regret in participants presented with the trolley problem. Participants (N = 166) were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk and randomly assigned to a mortality salience or threatening control topic (dental pain) writing prompt and either the standard trolley problems (i.e., the "switch" and "footbridge" dilemmas) or an experimental reversal where the default was five people on the tracks instead of the usual one. The effects of mortality salience on affective regret, the trolley reversal on cognitive regret, and the relationship between mortality salience …

Mapping Specific Mental Content During Musical Imagery, Mor Regev, Andrea R. Halpern, Adrian Owen, Aniruddh Patel, Robert J. Zatorre

Faculty Journal Articles

Humans can mentally represent auditory information without an external stimulus, but the specificity of these internal representations remains unclear. Here, we asked how similar the temporally unfolding neural representations of imagined music are compared to those during the original perceived experience. We also tested whether rhythmic motion can influence the neural representation of music during imagery as during perception. Participants first memorized six 1-min-long instrumental musical pieces with high accuracy. Functional MRI data were collected during: 1) silent imagery of melodies to the beat of a visual metronome; 2) same but while tapping to the beat; and 3) passive listening. …

Hiring Manager Perceptions Of The Emotional Intelligence Skills Of Urban Community College Graduates, Janice Moore English

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractEmotional intelligence (EI) skills are an important factor in the successful entry in the labor market of the fresh graduates of urban community colleges. Even though previous studies provided substantial evidence to the importance of these skills, these studies also recognized a lack of preparedness for the newly community college graduates and add to the voices of local business communities who manifest concern in this regard. The purpose of this basic qualitative research project was to explore local hiring manager perceptions of the EI skills of community college graduates they have hired for knowledge work roles. Goleman’s theory of EI …

Investigating The Self-Efficacy Awareness Of Black Female Technology Leaders, Marie Roberts De La Parra

Doctoral Dissertations

Black female technology leaders lack leadership opportunities, which affects their self-efficacy and is a crucial concern. Self-efficacy is based on the concept that an individual’s belief in what they can achieve influences their actions and how much effort they invest in the selected action. Self-persuasion can provide high or low self-satisfaction as a determinant for creating incentives for success or failure and converting thoughts and emotions to actions. Limited research has investigated the mindset, the thought patterns, and the self-belief undertaken by Black females in the world of technology. Despite limited amounts of research, data suggest that Black female leaders …

Medical Knowledge As A Recalcitrant Epistemological System: An Application Of Standpoint Epistemology In The Analysis Of Marginalization Within U.S Healthcare, Abby Deshazo

CMC Senior Theses

Research on healthcare disparities outside the field of epistemology tend to miss the true origins of oppressions imposed on marginalized individuals by the U.S healthcare system. This happens because of the false belief that these oppressions are reducible to social or political oppressions. By employing the perspective of a standpoint epistemologist, we can better identify the origins of these oppressions and subsequently consider more appropriate solutions. The standpoint epistemologist’s perspective (1) provides an intuitive case for the role individuals’ schemas play in the evaluation of what healthcare professionals know; (2) situates medical knowledge within epistemology, leading us to …

Pupillary Effects During Retrieval: Influenced By Cognitive Load And Strength Of Memory, Valentina Pinilla

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Memory retrieval is influenced by cognitive processes that occur during encoding, some of which can be measured with pupillary responses. For example, during retrieval, pupils dilate more to previously-seen old items compared to new items, a phenomenon called the pupil old/new effect. Encoding variables that influence the strength of the memory trace for encoded stimuli play a role in successful discrimination of new versus old items. Additionally, the cognitive load during encoding (i.e., the effort needed to encode information), also impacts memory success by taking up mental resources needed to successfully encode information. In this study, I conducted a meta-analysis …

Effect Of Chronic Pain On Prospective Memory Performance, Alexander Joseph Kuka

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Chronic pain is among the most widespread and disabling conditions worldwide. In the United States, approximately 50 million people suffer from chronic pain, and nearly half that number experience daily chronic pain. Diagnostic testing, treatments, and operations related to chronic pain cost Americans over $600 billion annually. Prospective memory, the process by which people remember to perform an action in the future after a delay, appears to be affected by the experience of pain, especially when a prospective memory task is more cognitively demanding. While self-report studies of individuals with chronic pain suggest that pain adversely affects both their retrospective …

The Effects Of Priming On Framing Bias: An Integrative Study Examining Mortality Salience, Self-Affirmation, And Emotional Intelligence, Kyle Klaassen

All Master's Theses

The framing effect is a cognitive bias in which the way a choice is presented influences decision-making. Individuals avoid risk when a scenario or choice is presented in a positive light or as a gain (e.g., lives will be saved, money will be gained). In contrast, because losses are more salient than gains, people will select more risky options in order to avoid potential losses when choices are framed negatively (e.g., lives lost, money lost). Another method of influencing decision-making is priming in which interactions with a specific stimulus predisposes individuals toward certain behaviors or thoughts. The current study examined …

Examining The Relationship Between Confusion And Learning: A Descriptive Meta-Analysis, Dara L. Mcweeney, Aaron Y. Wong, Caitlin Mills

Honors Theses and Capstones

Previous research into confusion and learning neglects to investigate how this relationship varies when faced with impact factors such as multiple types of affect and learning measurements, learning environment, or grade level. Moreover, past research also reports di-verse effect size values for this relationship, making the correlation ambiguous. As such, the current research seeks to reconcile these nuances between confusion and learning through a meta-analytic approach. In this analysis, it was found that there was no relationship between confusion and learning gains, or in the subgroup analysis of grade level. Since only one impact factor, grade level, was analyzed, it …

Frontal Alpha Wave Asymmetry In Regard To Affect, Monica Leigh Sewell

All Master's Theses

This study examines frontal alpha brain wave asymmetry (FAA) in relation to emotion processing. Previous research has shown that differences between left versus right FAA could exhibit a neurological marker for emotional intelligence (EI), mental health, and stress. Behavioral data were collected using Profile of Emotional Competence Questionnaire, Perceived Stress Questionnaire, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7. This was followed by a series of resting EEG recordings. This study hypothesizes that participants who are mentally healthy, have higher EI scores and lower stress will display greater left FAA. The hypothesis is partially supported; participants with depression had greater …

Data Modeling Of Cognitive Structure In Physiotherapy Students Learning Gross Anatomy, William Allan Besselink

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cognitive structures that promote deep learning of gross anatomy are integral to musculoskeletal physiotherapy practice yet poorly understood. This quantitative, criterion-related validation study addressed two data modeling strategies (multidimensional scaling and Pathfinder networks) as a potential visual and quantitative representation of the cognitive structures of physiotherapy students learning gross anatomy. The study was grounded in the Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational theory of cognition. The research questions addressed the agreement (reliability, accuracy, and association) between student and expert cognitive structures and included the derived quantitative parameters as predictor variables in multiple regression to examine potential relationships with unit grades. An online …

Veracious Verdicts: An Expansion Of Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory In Jury Decision-Making Using Attribution Theory, Jade E. Larson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As a pillar in our judicial system, the courts utilize almost ten million citizens each year for jury service. As a result, the courts are faced with issues of inconsistency and unpredictability. This study aims to examine some factors that significantly influence jury decision-making by investigating cognitive experiential self-theory (CEST) as a jury decision-making model, unified with attribution theory to better predict verdict outcomes. An online survey was distributed to 121 participants. The respondents were asked to read a civil trial case presentation; they were then randomly divided into two conditions (high and low unrelated detail eyewitness testimony). The testimonies …

Risk Factors For Bullying Victimization In Children With Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (Nf1), Peter L. Stavinoha, Cody Solesbee, Susan M. Swearer Napolitano, Steven Svoboda, Laura J. Kless, Alice Ann Holland

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an autosomal disorder associated with numerous physical stigmata. Children with NF1 are at known risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), academic struggles, and significant social difficulties and adverse social outcomes, including bullying victimization. The primary aim of this study was to identify risk factors associated with bullying victimization in children with NF1 to better inform clinicians regarding targets for prevention and clinical intervention. Children and a parent completed questionnaires assessing the bully victim status, and parents completed a measure of ADHD symptoms. Analyses were completed separately for parent-reported victimization of the child and the child’s self-report …

(Non)Religious Coping With A Natural Disaster In A Rural U.S. Community, Dena Abbott, Andrew Franks, Corey Cook, Caitlin Mercier

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Religious/spiritual (R/S) coping following natural disasters is associated with positive outcomes, leading to perceptions that the absence of R/S coping leads to negative outcomes among nonreligious individuals. However, little research explicitly explores the coping strategies of nonreligious individuals in response to natural disasters and traumatic events. The present study collected data from a sample of survivors of a natural disaster event (i.e., a tornado) to test the relationship between (non)religiosity/(non)spirituality, coping, psychological distress, and posttraumatic growth. Statistical models suggested that problem-focused coping facilitated posttraumatic growth and lower levels of psychological distress among people with lower levels of institutional religiousness and/or …

The Interactive Effects Of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (Bdnf) Polymorphisms And Posttraumatic Stress Disorder On Neurocognitive Functioning In U.S. Military Veterans, Colton Shafer Rippey

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is associated with mild-to-moderate deficits in neurocognitive functioning. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene, namely, the Met allele, may also be associated with mild deficits in neurocognitive functioning. However, findings are inconsistent and may be sensitive to environmental epigenetic moderators such as psychopathology.

The current study analyzed data from European-American U.S. military veterans (n = 1,244) who participated in the 2011 National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study (NHRVS). Multivariate analyses of covariances were conducted to evaluate the unique and interactive effects of the Met allele and probable PTSD on …