Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

Influences Of Sentence Context And Individual Differences In Lexical Quality On Early Phonological Processing During Silent Reading, Sara Milligan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current thesis investigates the role of sentence context and individual differences in the quality of sub-lexical representations of words in activation of phonological forms during silent reading. More specifically, this study aims to determine how these situational and participant-level factors influence the use of phonology to aid word recognition during parafoveal processing, before a reader directly fixates the word. Therefore, I manipulated sentence constraint in two eye tracking during reading experiments (one using real-word and one using pseudoword parafoveal previews) that utilized the gaze-contingent boundary paradigm (Rayner 1975) and measured individual’s scores on assessments of spelling ability, phonological decoding …

Misinformation And Disinformation: Detecting Fakes With The Eye And Ai, Victoria Rubin

Data and Test Instruments

How do we detect, deter, and prevent the spread of mis- and disinformationwith the human eye and AI? How does theory inform the practice, and how do theevidence-based research and best practices in lie-catching and truth-seekingprofessions—inform AI? The book looks into well-established human practicessuch as the routines and processes used in detective work, journalism, and scientificinquiry, and how they contribute toward innovative AI solutions. The book explainsthe principles, inner workings, and recent evolution of five types of state-of-the-artAI technologies suitable for curtailing the spread of mis- and disinformation:automated deception detectors, clickbait detectors, satirical fake detectors, rumordebunkers, and computational fact-checking tools.

Evaluating The Effects Of Mindfulness Practice On Attentional Control And Episodic Memory, Jacob M. M. Namias

Master's Theses

Mindfulness refers to a mental state of being that involves nonjudgmental acceptance of current cognitions and emotions with awareness of the present moment. Researchers and clinicians have shown the efficacy of mindfulness as a treatment for psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression and have found reductions in reported stress. Building on clinical benefits, mindfulness practice may also facilitate attentional processes as practitioners are required to inhibit distracting thoughts and re-direct their focus to the present moment. My thesis examined the relationship between mindfulness practice and attentional control and potential spillovers to episodic memory. Experiment 1 gauged the relationship between …

How Do We Represent Possibilities In The Visual World? — An Analysis Of Amodal Completion Under Cognitive And Perceptual Load., Camden Parker

Dartmouth College Undergraduate Theses

How do cognitive and perceptual load affect the way we experience the world when the visual scene is incomplete or partially occluded? The present study seeks to answer this question with a series of experiments based on primed matching, amodal completion, and load theory. In Experiment 1, we replicated results that amodal completion is automatic and supports multiple possible completions. In Experiment 2, we found that working memory load decreases the priming effects of both partially occluded and fully visible shapes. In Experiment 3, we found that perceptual load decreases the priming effect of partially occluded shapes more so than …

Individual Differences In Coping With Large Multimodal Conflicts In A Spatial Orientation Paradigm, Cassandra J. Engstrom

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined how humans respond to large 180º disparities between internally generated self-motion cues and external landmarks in a navigation task. Subjects learned the locations of 4 objects in a virtual environment, navigating back to these sites in a testing phase that probed their sense of direction at dead-ends. In select (incongruent) trials, subjects’ virtual rotations were mirrored relative to their physical turns, forcing them to navigate along separate virtual and physical trajectories. On these trials, subjects were either instructed to navigate using their memory of the required turn sequence (proprioceptive instructions) or the external environment (visual …

Evaluating The Effects Of Initial Testing On Misinformation Suggestibility For Eyewitnessed Videos, Wryleigh Shearin-Anderson

Honors Theses

Exposure to misleading details following an eyewitnessed event often leads to memory errors for these misleading details—a pattern termed the misinformation effect. A recent debate is whether completing a memory test after a witnessed event, but before exposure to misleading details, can reduce subsequent misinformation (a protective effect of testing; PET) or increase subsequent misinformation (retrieval-enhanced suggestibility; RES). We further evaluated the initial testing effects using witnessed videos (vs. static images) which often yield a RES pattern and using household scenes which often yield a PET pattern. Following study of four household videos (e.g., bathroom, bedroom, etc.) that depicted an …

Examining The Effectiveness Of Misinformation Warnings To Alter Stereotypes For Public Figures And Memories For Public Events, Madalyn P. Prince

Student Theses

Social media allows individuals to share, receive and engage with information and content on an international scale, often with other likeminded individuals and relatively few restrictions (Carr & Hayes, 2015). However, with this access comes the likelihood of engaging with and disseminating misinformation (Allcott et al., 2019), a form of information that may seem true initially but is later revealed as false (Cook et al., 2015). Misinformation is often disseminated by those whose political ideology matches that of the misinformation (Kahan, 2017; Kahan, 2013). The current study aims to expand on the extant literature to examine how misinformation warnings impact …

Testing An Overtraining Protocol For Fear Learning In Humans, Gordon M. Haskell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Successful regulation of fear memories is a fundamental tenet to the exposure-based therapies often employed by mental health professionals for individuals with PTSD, phobias, and other anxiety disorders. Consequently, the efficacy of these treatment methodologies is largely dependent on the strength of the fear memory, as stronger memories are often characterized by an increased resistance to extinction and heightened fear recovery. However, there is little consensus within the scientific community regarding how to effectively maximize fear memory strength in human studies, and the literature exploring the impact of variability in acquisition parameters on memory strength is sparse. Here, we tested …

Withdrawal From Voluntary Oral Methamphetamine Reveals Female Specific Susceptibilities To Behavioral Deficits And Neurochemical Perpetuators Of Neurotoxicity And Drug Seeking Behavior, Nicoletta K. Memos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

MA is a potent, highly addictive psychomotor stimulant known to produce neurotoxic effects on the brain leading to neurological impairments^1-6 characterized by neurodegeneration of dopaminergic fibers, cell bodies and pathways, as well as brain regions such as the hippocampus, frontal cortex, and midbrain^1,5.

In MA addiction, women are more vulnerable to the behavioral and cognitive effects of MA compared to men. Adult human literature reveals gender differences in usage patterns and women demonstrate increased vulnerability to the neurotoxic effects and health effects of MA use. Women begin drug use at an earlier age, escalate drug use quicker, …

A Framework For Understanding How People Can Draw Different Conclusions Based On The Same Information, Evan Schapiro

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

At least partially fueled by misinformation, political polarization is growing in the United States, leading to a breakdown of confidence in our traditional academic and political institutions. A popular belief is that a solution is to train people to think more rationally by eliminating the cognitive biases embedded in their subconscious thought patterns. This paper identifies the influences on my thinking and the framework used to look at these issues from a different perspective through methodological believing and the application of models of learning and conversation. The paper also points out that the methods of scientific inquiry often assume that …

In Memoriam, Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Foundations: Eating. Loving. Praying., George Conesa

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

Kurt Goldstein imagined that at every stage of their development, organisms are, to characterize, wrestling with the imminent and inescapable realities (bio-socio-psychological) of energy (e.g., food and sleep), safety (e.g., hygiene; home and a family), and possibility (e.g., learning; opportunities and luck), and importantly, simultaneously. To oversimplify, Maslow would like us to eat before loving or praying, whereas Goldstein intuits that human motivations are dynamically complex and multifactorial -- in others words, integrally transactional and ongoing. It is Goldstein’s more complex idea that this essay supports.

Lotus Eating: A Summer Book. New York: Harper And Brothers, Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

American Letters: Archives George William Curtis (1824-1892)

Ontological Awareness In Food Systems Education, Colin C. Dring

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

We review efforts in Sustainable Food Systems Education and Critical Food Systems Education literature to employ education in ways that seek social and environmental transformation of food systems. Here, we argue that forms of food systems education that are disconnected from awareness of their ontological roots are destined to reproduce the same food systems with the same consequences for life on Earth. This theoretical paper invites discussions that unpack “habits of being” underpinning modern/colonial conceptualizations of food system issues, transformation efforts, and pedagogies. We note the risk of reinscribing, within food systems education, specific onto-epistemological norms and values that are …

Editorial And Clarification, Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Poem: "Foundations" By William Wilfred Campbell (1860 - 1918), Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Why We Experience Musical Emotions: William Gardiner’S “The Music Of Nature” Revisited, Daniela L. Boero Dr.

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

This paper focuses and expands on the ideas of William Gardiner, an amateur musician who was the first to propose that human emotions experienced in music listening might be inspired by “the sounds of nature.” His book has been ignored for almost two centuries. We revisit his hypothesis from an evolutionary psychology approach. This contribution reviews environmental psychology and musical studies which focus on emotional reactions to basic musical cues such as pitch, timbre, and loudness, and also, on animal communication studies. Reported literature confirms the hypothesis that our ancestral soundscape might have shaped, at least in part, the basic …

Table Of Contents 4(1) May 2022, Editorial Board

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Cognitive Task Enhancement Through Alpha Neurofeedback, Hannah L. Meyer, Douglas Peterson

Honors Thesis

Neurofeedback training has been a recent field of study in neuroscience, as a potential way to increase focus, and possibly boost cognitive performance. Most studies utilize a course of neurofeedback training sessions to find positive results in decreasing ADHD symptoms, depression symptoms, as well as further cognitive changes. In this study, we aim to determine the efficacy of a single session of neurofeedback training in increasing cognitive performance. To do so, we randomly separated 42 volunteers into either a control or experimental group. The experimental group participated in an n-back task both before and after an alpha neurofeedback training session, …

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 …

A Relational Study Of Self-Taught And Formally Trained Musicians: Trends Within Memory And Socioeconomic Factors, Matthew N. Jimenez, Emily M. Elliott

LSU Master's Theses

It has been well documented that musicians perform better in memory tasks than non-musicians. The current study utilized self-taught musicians, formally trained musicians, and non-musicians, and focused on short-term memory (STM), musicianship, and SES factors to explore this finding. Do the memory benefits of musical training extend to self-taught musicians? First, we addressed musicianship amongst all groups using the Goldsmith’s Musical Sophistication Index (GMSI), which contained subjective and objective measures. The subjective measure was a survey regarding the role of music in daily life. In the objective measures, participants completed tests of beat and melody perception. To measure STM, participants …

The Significance Of Sonic Branding To Strategically Stimulate Consumer Behavior: Content Analysis Of Four Interviews From Jeanna Isham’S “Sound In Marketing” Podcast, Ina Beilina

Student Theses and Dissertations

Purpose:
Sonic branding is not just about composing jingles like McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It.” Sonic branding is an industry that strategically designs a cohesive auditory component of a brand’s corporate identity. This paper examines the psychological impact of music and sound on consumer behavior reviewing studies from the past 40 years and investigates the significance of stimulating auditory perception by infusing sound in consumer experience in the modern 2020s.

Design/methodology/approach:
Qualitative content analysis of audio media was used to test two hypotheses. Four archival oral interview recordings from Jeanna Isham’s podcast “Sound in Marketing” featuring the sonic branding experts …

Cross-Modal Perception Of Identity By Sound And Taste In Bottlenose Dolphins, Jason N. Bruck, Sam F. Walmsley, Vincent M. Janik

Faculty Publications

While studies have demonstrated concept formation in animals, only humans are known to label concepts to use them in mental simulations or predictions. To investigate whether other animals use labels comparably, we studied cross-modal, individual recognition in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) that use signature whistles as labels for conspecifics in their own communication. First, we tested whether dolphins could use gustatory stimuli and found that they could distinguish between water and urine samples, as well as between urine from familiar and unfamiliar individuals. Then, we paired playbacks of signature whistles of known animals with urine samples from either the same …

Understanding The Influence Of Perceptual Noise On Visual Flanker Effects Through Bayesian Model Fitting, Jordan Deakin, Dietmar Heinke

MODVIS Workshop

No abstract provided.

Individual Differences In Structure Learning, Philip Newlin

Theses and Dissertations

Humans have a tendency to impute structure spontaneously even in simple learning tasks, however the way they approach structure learning can vary drastically. The present study sought to determine why individuals learn structure differently. One hypothesized explanation for differences in structure learning is individual differences in cognitive control. Cognitive control allows individuals to maintain representations of a task and may interact with reinforcement learning systems. It was expected that individual differences in propensity to apply cognitive control, which shares component processes with hierarchical reinforcement learning, may explain how individuals learn structure differently in a simple structure learning task. Results showed …

Contextual Creativity: The Role Of Ambiguity In Creative Cognition, Sarah K. C. Dygert

Theses and Dissertations

This body of work is composed of three individual papers that each seek to explain individual differences in creative cognition. Paper 1 used structural equation modeling to examine the ways in which creative problem solving and creative idea generation relate or differ. Results from Paper 1 demonstrate that divergent thinking and creative problem solving are best represented as a bifactor model, bearing distinct domain-specific factors, as well as a shared domain-general factor. Though working memory and fluency of memory retrieval explained significant portions of the domain-specific constructs, they only explained ~2% of variance in the domain-general factor. Paper 2 explores …

The Role Of Knowledge Representations In Rule Transfer On A Novel Problem-Solving Task, Megan J. Raden

Theses and Dissertations

Although the independent roles of working memory capacity (WMC) and knowledge in problem solving have been thoroughly researched, there is significantly less work that has explored how WMC and knowledge interact during problem solving. The present study investigated how the quality of knowledge representations contribute to rule transfer in a problem-solving context and how WMC might contribute to the subsequent failure or success in transferring the relevant information. Participants were trained on individual figural analogies rules and then asked to rate how similar they thought the rules were to determine how stimulispecific or abstract their rule representations were. Their rule …

Identifying And Localizing Multiple Objects Using Artificial Ventral And Dorsal Visual Cortical Pathways, Zhixian Han, Anne Sereno

MODVIS Workshop

We concluded in our previous study that model cortical visual pathways actively retained information differently according to the different goals of the training tasks. One limitation of our study was that there was only one object in each input image whereas in reality there may be multiple objects in a scene. In our current study, we try to find a brain-like algorithm that can recognize and localize multiple objects.

The Influence Of Word Pair Associative Direction On Judgment Of Learning Reactivity, Nicholas Maxwell

Dissertations

Judgments of learning (JOLs) are commonly used by researchers to assess whether individuals can accurately predict later memory performance. While the JOL literature has generally operated under the assumption that providing judgments at study does not affect the learning process, recent studies have shown a reactivity effect in which memory differs between participants who do and do not make JOLs at study. The effects of providing JOLs on memory have been mixed: Some studies report memory improvements (i.e., positive reactivity), while others report memory costs (i.e., negative reactivity). Additionally, little work has evaluated the effects of associative direction (i.e., credit-card …

Analyzing The Validity Of Self-Reports Of Emotional Responding Using An Electronic Device, Tiffany E. Shiflet

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The assessment of internal behaviors such as thoughts, feelings, or physiological symptoms not seen by the naked eye are often assessed with indirect measures such as self-reports and questionnaires given the lack of accessibility and observations by outside observers. The self-management of human behaviors, including internal events, carries socially valid implications for an individual’s quality of life, including children and individuals with neurological, developmental, and intellectual disabilities. This study aimed to address the following question: are there valid measurement procedures (e.g., collecting data on physiological responses) to analyze the correspondence between self-reports of emotional states and observable and measurable overt …