Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

Response To Intervention And Specific Learning Disability Identification Practices In Kentucky, Sean Reeder

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) have historically been difficult to define and measure which has led to uncertainty and controversy. The current study explored the practices of identifying specific learning disabilities in Kentucky by surveying school psychologist practitioners in the state. Information was obtained about current practices with regard to RTI implementation and methods and data used for SLD identification as well as the roles that school psychologists take in the response to intervention (RTI) process. The sample consisted of 97 current or recently (within the past year) practicing school psychologists from 45 districts across the state. It was predicted that …

Recording The Learning Curve During The Mastery Of Glassblowing, Katie L. Corticelli

Senior Honors Projects

Fire and inspiration melted glass art’s enchanting ways into the center of my passions. Lampworking is a small-scale method of glass blowing, which is the term to refer to an art form where one shapes molten glass into a variety of items. To create glass art, propane and oxygen supply a flame torch which melts the glass. Gravity and rhythmic hands work symbiotically to shape glass rods and tubes. The result is unique three-dimensional visual art.

After years of aspiring to work with borosilicate glass, the opportunity to incorporate the endeavor with academia presented itself. Through months of time and …

The Use Of Recollection Rejection In The Misinformation Paradigm, Kara Moore

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Across three experiments, I investigated the role of recollection rejection in rejecting false suggestions using the misinformation paradigm. The use of model-based measurement of recollection rejection was extended to the misinformation paradigm. I manipulated two factors, delay and feedback, that are known to influence the use of recollection rejection. Recollection rejection was used to reject false suggestions in the misinformation paradigm. Manipulating delay time did not affect the acceptance of misinformation or the use of recollection rejection. Warning participants about false information reduced misinformation acceptance but did not lead to increased rates of recollection rejection. Collectively, these findings suggest an …

Effects Of Licensed And Unlicensed Negation On The Activation Of Negated Concepts, Kevin Autry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research on the activation of negated concepts has demonstrated situations in which negated concepts are less active than non-negated concepts (e.g., MacDonald & Just, 1989) as well as situations where negated and non-negated concepts are equally active (e.g., Autry & Levine, 2012, in press). Based on the pragmatic inference hypothesis (Levine & Hagaman, 2008), the present experiments tested the hypothesis that the activation level of negated concepts is a function of the context in which they occur. In two experiments, the activation level of target concepts was measured following licensing or non-licensing contexts using lexical decision and reading times. Although …

Examining The Effects Of Saccade Execution And Handedness On Proactive Interference., Montgomery A. Kroger

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Proactive interference is the phenomenon by which previously-learned information impairs recall of more recently-learned information. The present experiment was conducted to investigate two factors that may affect the occurrence of proactive interference. The first of these factors is saccade execution. Saccade execution has been shown in numerous studies to improve performance on a wide range of memory tasks. The second factor was people’s consistency of handedness, a term referring to the strength of people’s tendency to use one hand (right or left) over the other. Although the results of the primary analyses were inconclusive, further exploration of the data led …

A Mindfulness-Based Intervention To Reduce Stress In Undergraduates., Dirk Anthony Dorsel

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

This study piloted a mindfulness-based intervention to reduce stress in university undergraduates, and explore effects on psychological and biological indicators of stress. Mindfulness is “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment-by-moment” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994). The one week mindfulness intervention used audiobased mindfulness tracks recorded by Clinical Psychologist Paul Salmon. These tracks taught the basics of mindfulness. Participants were asked to listen to the tracks for 30 minutes a day for five days of the intervention. Perceived stress, self-reported anxiety, self-reported depression, heart rate and skin conductance were …

Cognitive Differences Between High And Low Responders Of A Tier Ii Reading Intervention, Jillian Cohen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study evaluated a population of young students with potential reading disabilities who participated in a large western school district's Reading Skills Development project from October 2012 to May 2013. The following questions were addressed: Are there cognitive differences between students who respond well to an intense Tier II reading intervention and those who make little progress? If so, which cognitive skills best discriminate between high and low responders? De-identified data was collected from 171 struggling readers in 1st through 3rd grade who participated in the Reading Skills project. After controlling for English proficiency level, high and low responders were …

Attributions And Coping Behaviors Communicated Among Bullied Students: An Analysis Of Bullying Blogs, Carly Marie Danielson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Student bullying is a growing and damaging problem in society today. This study investigates the role of bullied students' attributions and coping strategies through Heider's (1958) attribution theory (AT) and Crick and Dodge's (1994) social information processing model (SIP). Rich data are obtained from bullying blogs that showcase how bullied individuals make sense of their experiences online. The important findings that emerge from this investigation relate to similarities in men's and women's attributions and differences in their coping strategies and resources to manage victimization. Additionally, both men and women experienced similar negative outcomes with particular coping strategies and resources, suggesting …

The Formation Of Situation Models In Multimedia, Kris Gunawan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

When people read traditional text-based stories, they construct mental representations of the described state of affairs, called situation models, to connect various details of events (e.g., time, space, entity) in memory (Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998). According to the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 2005; 2011), stories presented as pictures and text generate independent channels of mental representations that can work hand-in-hand or separately to acquire and remember the materials presented. This dissertation consisted of two experiments that were used to further explore how the two modalities affect what is being mentally represented in memory. In Experiment 1, participants were …

Chronic, Lethal Versus Acute, Non-Lethal Threats: A Look Inside The Memories Of Cancer Patients At The Time Of Their Diagnosis, Angeline M. Modesti

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Consequentiality, affect, and rehearsal are also important components that help contribute to the recall of autobiographical memories. Traditionally, these features have been assessed in public dramatic events in the past such as the Challenger explosion and the 9/11 terrorist attack. In opposition to these traditionally studied events, the present study examined the effects of these features on five different private events. An analysis of these different experiences was assessed to determine the role of consequentiality, affect, and rehearsal play on memory recall. These three components were assessed in five different events during different points of the lifetime. Adults diagnosed with …

The Effects Of Maternal Information Transmission On Daughters' Responding To A Voluntary Hyperventilation Challenge, Ashley Arehart Knapp

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary models of panic etiology would benefit from additional tests of how fear of internal cues is acquired. Drawing from literature suggesting parent-to-child verbal information transmission is one pathway by which fear of external stimuli is learned, the current study is designed to address the effects of this pathway on fearful responding to internal cues (i.e., somatic perturbation produced by a voluntary hyperventilation challenge). Specifically, 53 mothers of adolescent females between the ages of 10 and 14 years were randomly assigned to either share negative or positive information regarding their experience with a voluntary hyperventilation challenge prior to their daughters …

Striving For Success In An Uncertain Environment, Sandra Stershic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using one's success and failure experiences can be an indicator of how well risk is being managed in uncertain situations, particularly because exact probability information about outcomes is often missing. Experience-based paradigms include this more real-world aspect of a lack of information when studying risk taking behavior. This thesis builds upon experience-based paradigms to include the element of skill.

A puzzle task was developed. A goal was given to participants to try to discern a pattern in each puzzle that would yield consistently positive outcomes. Participants were randomly assigned to a high or low success rate, but told that skill …

Connecting The Dots: An Economic Study Of Parental Factors Shaping Early Childhood Cognitive Development, Bryn Alexandra O'Neill

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This study investigates how maternal and paternal employment status and educational attainment, coupled with parental time and educational inputs such as toys, books, etc. devoted to children, have impacted young children's cognitive development in the U.S. Cognitive development comprises the intellectual and conscious thinking growth that begins in infancy. It involves problem solving, reasoning and memory aptitudes and is tested for throughout each year of childhood in various ways. The impact of the use of external childcare in lieu of parental time on development is also evaluated. This paper will outline reviewed literature, a theoretical model, data discussion, model construction …

The Influence Of Moral Concerns On Memory For Individuals And Their Actions, Amy Pekkala, Brittney Aresta, Emmanuel Te, Sarah Levinson, Alec Starzinski, Marisa Knight

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

We explore how learning about individual behaviors that violate or uphold moral norms impacts our ability to recognize individuals who engage in them. We also explore how behaviors representing five moral foundations influence facial recognition differently according to whether the behavior relates to moral foundations that are typically emphasized by liberals (harm/fairness) or by conservatives (loyalty/authority/purity). We observed higher associative memory for individuals linked with behaviors that violated liberal principles than for individuals linked with behaviors that violated conservative principles. In addition, we examined the contribution of implicit processes in shaping early impressions and judgments of individuals.

The Benefits Of Exposure To Animals For Persons With Dementia: A Literature Review, Stephanie Bennett

Undergraduate Research Symposium

This literature review was performed to assess the current standing of the use of animals as a therapeutic agent for individuals suffering from dementia. This area of study is currently broad; therefore the intent of reviewing the current literature was to establish what has been studied at this point in time and to recommend future research directions in the field. The literature search was performed on three academic search sites (PsycINFO, PubMed, and AgeLine) using four search terms (“Pet therapy Alzheimer’s,” “Pet therapy dementia,” “Animal therapy Alzheimer’s,” “Animal therapy dementia”); search results were verified by having a second researcher independently …

A Study Of Stress Levels Of Students, Rebekah Currie

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Working Memory Load On Cognitive Control In Trait Anxiety: An Erp Study, Senqing Qi, Qinghong Zeng, Yangmei Luo, Haijun Duan, Cody Ding, Weiping Hu, Hong Li

Education Sciences and Professional Programs Faculty Works

Whether trait anxiety is associated with a general impairment of cognitive control is a matter of debate. This study investigated whether and how experimentally manipulated working memory (WM) load modulates the relation between trait anxiety and cognitive control. This question was investigated using a dual-task design in combination with eventrelated potentials. Participants were required to remember either one (low WM load) or six letters (high WM load) while performing a flanker task. Our results showed that a high WM load disrupted participants’ ability to overcome distractor interference and this effect was exacerbated for the high trait-anxious (HTA) group. This exacerbation …

Effects Of Perceptual Fluency On Reasoning And Pupil Dilation, Juan Diego Guevara Pinto

Honors College Theses

Research on perceptual disfluency has examined the effects of perceptually demanding stimuli on information processing and reasoning, suggesting that disfluent stimuli elicit slower and more effortful processing. Recent criticism of perceptual disfluency, however, suggests that the effects disfluent stimuli have on processing are marginal, and that they are mediated by individual differences. Participants completed a computerized reasoning task presented in either a fluent (i.e., easy-to-read font) or disfluent format (i.e., hard-to-read font) while pupil diameter was measured by an eye-tracker system. Pupillometry is an established reliable measure of mental activity that reflects differences in cognitive load. Results showed no performance …

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 …

No Two Can Be Alike, Harry Whitaker, Leah Piggott, Nicoletta Fraire, Emily Depetro, Casey Pernaski

Poster Sessions

No abstract provided.

[Sabbatical Report], Steven Haggbloom

Sabbatical Reports

The purpose of my sabbatical leave was to develop an independent research program I could implement upon returning to full-time faculty status beginning in the fall 2014 semester after a nearly 12-year term as department head. My intent was to develop a research program that would utilize the University's recently acquired EEG/ERP equipment to explore neural correlates of reward based and error driven learning.

Modality Switching Within Conditional Reasoning, Nathaniel A. Young

Student Honors Theses

The format in which humans represent knowledge is still not known. Two perspectives that explain the way in which humans represent knowledge are the amodal and modal perspectives. Recently. a modality switching effect was found during a property verification task. The modality switching effect is a delay in response time in verifying the property of an object in a modality that is different from the previously verified property of a different object. This effect is often presented as evidence to support the modal perspective, but it has not been found in a task more complex than property verification. The goal …

A Rat Model Of Mild Blast-Induced Head Trauma With Structural And Biochemical Abnormalities In The Absence Of Motor Deficits, Michael Kelso Walls

Open Access Theses

Blast injury has been coined the "signature injury of the Iraq war" resulting in a surge of interest in understanding and addressing the corresponding pathological sequelae. As modern warfare develops into a distinctly guerrilla style combat by smaller terrorist groups against larger, regimented forces, tactics like suicide bombing and roadside bombing with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) become more prevalent. 1,2 This increased use of IEDs countered with improved body armor and protective technologies has significantly increased the survival rate of such attacks. 1.2 However, as survival rates have improved with body armor and other protective technologies, the incidence of reported …

Course Syllabus (Sp14) Coli 211 Literature & Psychology: "The Sublime, The Uncanny, And The Imagination", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Course Description:

In a world in which what counts as knowledge is predominantly restricted to the measurable and the calculable, those elements of human experience which elude and exceed these parameters are often ignored and discounted. In this course, we will examine questions of the sublime, the uncanny, and the speculative as treated in literature, psychoanalysis, and philosophy in order to think and write critically about them. Here, we will consider the possible extent to which an openness to such experiences can enrich our lives.

The Effects Of Serial Position, Evaluation Format, And Behavioral Isolate On Verbal And Nonverbal Clinical Cue Recognition And Performance Ratings, Timothy Robert Turner Jr.

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Standardized patients are individuals trained to realistically portray specific physical and psychological symptoms and evaluate healthcare trainees on their patient interaction skills. Prior research suggests that individual differences among standardized patients often result in assessment variance. This study examined the effects of cue serial position and evaluation format on individuals' perceptual awareness and recognition accuracy of verbal and nonverbal clinical cues. It was predicted that implementing periodic evaluations would reduce participant working memory load and permit better awareness and recognition of relevant clinical cues than the traditional post-scenario evaluation format. The concurrent evaluation benefit was also expected to mitigate the …

Pathology And Motivation In Players Of Grand Theft Auto Iv, Christopher Michael Via

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Intrinsically motivated behavior is defined as a behavior that is performed for pure enjoyment (Ryan, Rigby & Przybylski, 2006). Video game playing is a form of intrinsically motivated behavior (Frederick & Ryan, 1995). Popular media commonly claims the act of playing video games leads individuals to behave in deviant and antisocial ways outside the confines of the gaming environment (Grossman & Christensen, 2008). Psychopathy is a primary feature of Antisocial Personality Disorder, according to the American Psychiatric Association (2013), and psychopathic criminals commit the greatest variety of crimes and more crimes of any type than the average criminal (Lynam, Whiteside …

The Relationship Between Phonological Awareness And Executive Attention Among Chinese-English Bilingual Children, Hwajin Yang, Sujin Yang, Carissa Kang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We examined the relationship between phonological awareness (PA) and executive attention among Chinese-English bilingual children in the process of learning to read. Seventy-four bilingual children (mean age 67.5 months) completed phonological tasks assessing onset and rime awareness and the Attention Network Test (ANT), a nonverbal measure of executive attention (Rueda et al., 2004). Hierarchical analyses revealed bidirectional relations between PA and executive attention, with PA predicting executive attention and vice versa. The predictive relation of PA to executive attention was more pronounced for English onset and Chinese rime awareness. Evidence of cross-linguistic transfer of PA skills suggests concurrent contributions of …

Attachment And Adolescent Offending: An Examination Of The Links Between Sexually Abusive Behavior And The Level Of Attachment To Parents And Peers, Lee Anna Knox

Dissertations and Theses

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is recognized as a public health problem with consequences affecting all levels of the ecological model. In recent years it has been recognized that up to 40% of reported sexual offenses occur at the hands of adolescent offenders (Burton, 2000), who are defined as children aged 12-18 years. In recent years, research has suggested that attachment deficits contribute to sexual offending behavior in adolescence. The current study augments the sparse research with adolescent offenders and by exploring of the participant's perceived attachment to important others (mother/mother figures, father/father figures, and peers/friends). Participants included 101 Juvenile sex …

Comparing Two Perspectives For Understanding Decisions From Description And Experience, Sandra S. Kauffman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When trying to make sense of uncertain situations, we might rely on summary information from a description, or information gathered from our personal experience. There are two approaches that both attempt to explain how we make risky decisions using descriptive or experiential information—the cognitive-based explanation from the description-experience gap, and the emotion-based explanation from the somatic marker hypothesis (SMH). This dissertation brings together these two approaches to better understand how we make risky decisions.

Four options were presented, with options differing in terms of advantageousness and riskiness. How easy or difficult it was to consciously comprehend the reward structure, or …

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 …