Experimental Analysis of Behavior Commons^™

Effects Of A Psychological Stressor On Methamphetamine Seeking In Rats., Kayla B. Cox

Psychology ETDs

Although methamphetamine abuse and fatality rates are on the rise in the United States, there are currently no FDA approved drugs to treat methamphetamine use disorder (MUD). To better understand factors contributing to addiction, researchers have designed various rodent models of stress including the use of footshock, social defeat and maternal separation, however, these models involve physical or early life stress exposure and thus are less translatable to human psychological stress. The present study implemented predatory odors as a model of psychological stress and examined whether chronic exposure to these stressors enhanced subsequent vulnerability to a subthreshold dose of methamphetamine. …

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, …

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 …

Evaluation Of Hippocampal Allostatic Load-Associated Factors In Animal Models Of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Relevance To Human Ptsd, Dennis Parker Kelley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with elevated allostatic load, nearly double the risk for metabolic syndrome, reduced hippocampal volume, and contextual memory processing deficits. Emerging evidence suggests that these stress effects may predispose individuals to the development of PTSD, and there is a known relationship between chronic stress and metabolic dysfunction. In this work, we utilized two rat models of PTSD to explore these connections. We used an acute predator odor stressor to investigate the relationship between PTSD-like behaviors and mitochondrial dysfunction in the hippocampus of rats, and we observed that conditioned place avoidance was associated with reduced mitochondrial …

Pushing It To The Limit: Determining Asian Elephant (Elephas Maximus) Olfactory Sensitivity And Discrimination Through A Behavioral Choice Task, Matthew S. Rudolph

Theses and Dissertations

Elephants have shown remarkable olfactory capabilities. Their sense of smell impacts their foraging choices, behavior, and ultimately, survival. Being able to detect a target odor can allow elephants to locate specific resources, identify threats, and find receptive conspecifics. Previous studies have shown that elephants can consistently detect target odors, but have not identified the limits of this detection. Thus, to investigate the extent of elephants’ odor detection capabilities, we tested Asian elephants in a two-step odor discrimination task. First, we investigated whether elephants could detect odors at varying levels of dilution after a training procedure, and then whether they could …

The Combined Influences Of Race, Sexuality, And Gender On Perceptions Of Sexual Harassment, Courtney House

Honors Theses

The current research examines the perceptions of sexual harassment based on the influence of the victim’s gender, and the race of both the victim and the perpetrator, and perceiver’s feminist beliefs. By using vignettes (a brief description of an event), we manipulated a) the gender of the victim (man or woman), b) the race of the victim (POC or white), and c) the race of the perpetrator (POC or white). Our hypotheses were as follows: a) vignettes depicting same-sex harassment will be less in line with the definition of sexual harassment; b) vignettes portraying the victim as a woman of …

Analysis Of A Rough-Toothed Dolphin (Steno Bredanensis) Introduction In A Human Care Setting, Lindsey Johnson

Dissertations

Rough-toothed dolphins are a rarely studied species of cetaceans found in temperate and tropical waters throughout the world. These dolphins live in fission-fusion societies and are highly social, swimming in tightly-packed and highly synchronized subgroups consisting of 2-10 individuals. The current study documents the introduction of a stranded calf into an existing population of six rough-toothed dolphins living in a human care setting. Specifically, recordings of vocal and non-vocal behaviors were analyzed across the four phases of the study: baseline, day of introduction, post-introduction, and follow-up. Whistles, a vocal signal associated with social contexts, increased from baseline to post-introduction phases …

Influence Of Increased Options On Performance Generalization Across Two Variations Of The Monty Hall Dilemma, Robert A. Southern

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Monty Hall dilemma (MHD) is a probability puzzle at which humans consistently fail to adopt the optimal winning strategy. The participant chooses between three identical doors, behind one of which is a valuable prize. After the participant makes their initial decision, the host reveals that there is nothing behind one of the two remaining doors, then asks the participant if they would like to stay with their originally selected door or switch to the remaining unopened door. The optimal choice is to switch to the previously unchosen door, which increases the probability of winning from 33% to 67%. Despite …

Variation In Personality Among Semi-Wild Myanmar Timber Elephants, Sateesh Venkatesh

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines two personality traits: exploration and neophobia, which could influence human-elephant conflicts. Thirty-one semi-wild elephants were tested over two trials using a custom novel puzzle tube containing three tasks and three rewards. Our studies show that elephants do vary significantly between individuals in both exploration and neophobia.

Using Object-Choice Tasks To Investigate Sensory Perception In Sunda Pangolins (Manis Javanica), Joshua Dipaola

Theses and Dissertations

Pangolins are one of the most heavily poached, yet least understood mammals in the world. In this study, we used an object-choice task to assess the ecological relevance and use of sensory information in Sunda pangolin foraging behavior. This is the first controlled experiment on pangolin behavior to our knowledge.

The Midsession Reversal Task With Pigeons: Effects Of A Brief Delay Between Choice And Reinforcement, Megan Ashley Halloran

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

During a midsession reversal task, the session begins with a simple simultaneous discrimination in which one stimulus (S1) is correct and the alternate stimulus (S2) is incorrect (S1+/S2-). At the halfway point, the discrimination reverses and S2 becomes the correct choice (S2+/S1-). When choosing optimally, a pigeon should choose S1 until the first trial in which it is not reinforced and then shift to S2 (win-stay/lose-shift). With this task pigeons have been shown to respond suboptimally by anticipating the reversal (anticipatory errors) and continuing to choose S1 after the reversal (perseverative errors). This suboptimal behavior may result from a pigeon’s …

Contextually Modulated Avoidance Behavior In Rats Post-Pavlovian Extinction, Lauren Branigan

Theses and Dissertations

The following study sought to examine the psychological substrates of renewal (e.g.., context dependent extinction processes) for conditioned avoidance behaviors in rats. Using signaled active avoidance conditioning, rats acquired two-way shuttle responding, to two different auditory stimuli. These behaviors were then extinguished through exposure to the auditory stimuli where shuttling behavior was now without consequence. Subjects were then tested for renewal of avoidance in three distinct renewal sequences (e.g., ABA vs ABB, AAB vs AAA, and ABC vs ABB) in three separate groups of rats. It was found that subjects showed more responding to a stimulus presented outside of its …

Development Of Semantic Reference For Location Symbols By Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus) Using A Two-Way Communication Keyboard, Alyssa Taylor

Master's Theses

The ability for humans to communicate with another species has been an aspiration and well documented. One example is through training animals to make associations between a designated cue and conditioned response (Pryor, 1986). Two-way communication, however, in which both species can express wants/needs has been predominantly pursued with apes and dolphins. Studies conducted by Louis Herman demonstrated the capabilities of dolphins to comprehend complex semantic and syntactic commands in an artificial language system (Herman, Richards, & Wolz, 1984). Researchers working with primates have used American Sign Language, a computer keyboard system with discrete lexigrams, and a portable lexigram keyboard …

Identifying The Social Contexts Present For Mouthing Behaviors In Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus), Erin E. Frick

Dissertations

Much of the research on dolphin communication has focused on the acoustic signals produced in a variety of social contexts. Although acoustic signals are undoubtedly an important aspect of dolphin communication systems, dolphin communication is multifaceted and multimodal (e.g., postural, visual and tactile signals, acoustic cues). The present study examined behaviors that involve the mouth (i.e., mouthing behaviors) in a group of captive dolphins using 2,696 minutes of underwater acoustic and video recordings collected from 2010 – 2014. Target behaviors are described as primarily visual (e.g., open-mouth display), both visual and acoustic (e.g., jaw claps), and tactile (e.g., mouthing, biting). …

Is Pecking Aversive To A Pigeon Or Is It Only The Delay To Reinforcement?, Danielle M. Andrews

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

The principle of least effort suggests that animals should minimize effort to reinforcement. Thus, not pecking should be preferred over pecking. However, pigeons often peck when it is allowed but not required (e.g., fixed time schedules) but pecking may be adventitiously reinforced. In the present experiment, to better compare a schedule of reinforcement that requires pecking with one that requires the absence of pecking, we compared a fixed-interval (FI) schedule in which reinforcement follows the first peck after the interval has elapsed and a differential-reinforcement-of-other behavior (DRO) schedule which requires pigeons abstain from pecking for a similar interval. The delay …

Mechanisms Of Navigation In Fiddler Crabs: An Analysis Of Allocentric And Egocentric Contributions, Stephen G. Volz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Navigation in biological systems is a complex task-set that involves learning processes and may include constructing representations of features of their environment. Across the animal kingdom, different learning mechanisms have evolved to similar spatial problems. The extent to which mechanisms are conserved across taxa are an important research area that can guide our understanding of the cognitive dimensions of navigation. Recent studies of mammals, birds, and arthropods has found that these animals often attend to multiple forms of sensory cues, and to either integrate the solutions generated by these cues, or at times prefer one form of cue over another. …

The Effects Of Pre-Trial Event Stimulus Properties On Timing In The Peak Interval Procedure, Daniel A. Garces

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the peak interval procedure, intruded conditioned stimuli produce shifts in peak/middle time towards later values, regardless of whether these stimuli are presented prior to or during the timing signal. Although the effects of during-trial stimulus properties—temporal location, duration, and salience—have been previously reported, no research exists on how before-trial stimulus properties influence the extent of shifts in middle time. In the present study, we manipulated within subjects both the temporal location and type (i.e., cue alone, response-independent reinforcer alone, or cue and response-contingent reinforcer together) of the pre-trial event. An individual-trial analysis suggested that the type of stimulus event …

Using Conditioned Place Preference To Investigate Changes In The Rewarding Effects Of Running And Eating Following Activity-Based Anorexia, Daniella Plaksiy

Theses and Dissertations

We used conditioned place preference to investigate whether activity-based anorexia would enhance the rewarding effects of running, causing running to be more rewarding than eating. We found that food restricted mice showed a clear preference for the food-associated chamber, and a subset of activity-based anorexia mice preferred the wheel-associated chamber.

Towards A Better Understanding Of Zebrafish Sleep Behavior, Kanza Musarrat Khan

Master's Theses

Sleep serves many vital functions in humans, ranging from energy restoration to memory consolidation and information integration. Sleep deprivation is linked to worsened physiological states and psychological conditions. Zebrafish are an emerging model in neurobehavioral research and have recently demonstrated great utility in the study of sleep. This teleost species possesses several of the same neurotransmitter and neuropeptide systems that are involved in the regulation of sleep and waking rhythms in higher order mammals. Previous study of these animals has revealed a differential gene and proteomic expression following sleep deprivation through changes in environmental stimuli. The present study sought to …

Grooming As An Agonistic Behavior In Garnett’S Small-Eared Bushbaby (Otolemur Garnettii), Jennie L. Christopher

Master's Theses

Social behaviors are a necessary component of group living and interactions between organisms. To correctly assess social interactions, researchers must be able to observe behaviors and interpret their function based on the behavior or the behavioral context. In primate species, grooming is often used to assess affiliations between group members and the consensus has been to always interpret grooming as an affiliative behavior. However, a number of avian, rodent and feline species have been shown to groom conspecifics aggressively. These instances of aggressive grooming appear most often when individuals are required to maintain close proximity to one another, such as …

Culture Of Gentleness: A Behavioral Approach, Stevie Parcell

Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to explain the fundamentals of an ideological framework for caregivers providing services to people with disabilities called a Culture of Gentleness. The material is traditionally taught within the two-day Working with People training, and the efforts to spread this theory is headed by the Center for Positive Living Supports located in Clinton Township, Michigan. The material is then analyzed through a behavior analytic perspective. Each segment of the initial training will be discussed through both a Culture of Gentleness and behavioral perspective, rooted in Applied Behavior Analysis. Although established in the practice of Positive …

Processing Angry And Happy Faces: The Effect Of Perceptual Load And Familiarity, Peter D. Petronio

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science & Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Peter D. Petronio in July of 2012.

Perceived Desirability Of Given Names: Identifying A Relationship Between Given Names And Associated Personality Traits, Ellen D. Parks

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

This study was designed to determine whether participants would have better recall for names with phonetic properties that matched a paired personality trait. In other words, phonetically attractive names paired with positive traits and phonetically unattractive names paired with negative traits should have higher rates of recall than names whose phonetic properties did not match a paired personality trait, such as phonetically attractive names paired with negative traits or phonetically unattractive names paired with positive traits. Given names were deemed to be phonetically attractive or unattractive based on the number of sonorants (soft consonant sounds such as l, m, n, …

Individual Differences And The Effects Of Time Of Day And Interference On Memory, Keelon L. Hinton

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Using the Wickens, Born, Allen (1963) release from proactive interference paradigm, subjects were tested at both a morning and afternoon period in hopes of observing the effects time of day, age, and interference have on working memory. 42 college students and 21 participants over the age of 65 first completed the Horne-Ostberg (1976) questionnaire for morningness-eveningness. While most younger adults were evening and neutral types, the vast majority of older individuals showed a stronger preference for earlier hours of the day. Recall results indicated that recall performance of older participants decreased from morning to afternoon, while recall performance of younger …

The Relationship Between Age, Years Of Service, Gender, Education, And Job Satisfaction Among Mental Health Professionals, Veria L. Hicks

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The study explored the relationship between age, years of service, gender, education, and job satisfaction among mental health professionals. Thirty subjects (15 males and 15 females) were involved in the study. The results of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated no significant relationship between age, years of service, gender, education and job satisfaction among mental health professionals. Recommendations for future research are discussed.

Attitudes Of College Students Toward People With Disabilities, Doris M. King

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this study is to explore the attitudes of college students toward individuals with disabilities. The instrument used was the Attitude Toward Disabled Persons Scale (ATDP), which was adapted to yield two additional scales. The words “mental illness” and “alcoholic” were substituted for “physically disabled”. The test was administered to undergraduate and graduate students in counseling and psychology.

Analysis of Variance was performed. The results showed a significant gender effect with females having more positive attitudes toward individuals with physical disabilities and mental illnesses. Both groups, males and females, had more positive attitudes toward individuals with physical disabilities …

A Holistic Approach To Managing Behavioral Issues With Persons With Mental Retardation In Extended Care Facilities, Darrell Lilly

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Providing long term care for individuals with mental retardation is one of the most difficult issues confronting mental health and extended care facilities. Inappropriate behaviors related to long term institutionalization present an exceptional challenge for those caring for persons with mental retardation. Applied Humanism emphasizes a holistic view of the person. It recognizes that encouragement, responsibility, the right of choice, and an understanding of human potential are important elements for helping mentally retarded persons develop socially appropriate behaviors. This study examined the principles of applied humanism in the management of inappropriate behaviors among mentally retarded persons in an extended care …

The Effects Of Anxiety Management And Study Skills Training On Test Anxiety In College Students, Karen Carter-Harvey

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study measured the effects of anxiety management and study skills training on test anxiety in college students. Twenty-one college students from two sections of Introductory Sociology were involved in the study. The Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) and exam scores were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training. Pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test measures were obtained. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated no significant difference on TAI scores or exam scores between the control and experimental groups. Recommendations for further research are given.

The Effects Of Color Contrast On Performance Of The Wais-R Digit Symbol Subtest, Wendell S. Francke

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Color contrast has been shown to aid in visual search tasks using electronic displays, while the research regarding the usefulness of color contrast in aiding visual search using a paper medium is mixed. The present study questions whether subjects’ performance will improve on a paper task where the search target is in high color contrast when compared with a task where the target color does not differ from the rest of the search field.

Thirty-nine adults with normal vision were administered two forms of the WAIS-R digit symbol subtest, one with low chromatic contrast and one with high chromatic contrast, …

Comparing Aggression Between Young-Adult And General Admission Patients In A State-Inpatient Psychiatric Hospital, Jill Kridle

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Because of the inherent danger surrounding violence, aggression studies are particularly important for those working in a health care setting. A constant variable in aggression studies that poses many risk factors is age. This study examined characteristics of aggressors contained on state psychiatric hospital, located in West Virginia. Included on the unit was the neo-adult program and some general admission patients. The study evaluated all aggressors on the unit between September 1997 and August 1998. Comparisons were made to distinguish any possible differences or similarities between the two groups. The results indicated some differences relating to age of aggressor. Young-adult …