Cognitive Science Commons^™

Taxpayers Willingness To Use Ai Conversational Tools, Nessrine Mesto-Assaad

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

With the rapid emergence of Artificial Intelligence Conversational Tools (AICTs), such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini, and their widespread use, the need to understand users’ acceptance of this emerging technology has increased. Prior research has investigated users’ acceptance of AICTs in hospitality, tourism, e-commerce, and retail industries. However, users’ acceptance of the use of AICTs for tax information remains relatively underexplored in the tax context. Therefore, this study investigates taxpayers’ willingness to accept and use AICTs for tax-related questions when e-filing their tax returns. Drawing on the Artificial Intelligence Device Use and Acceptance (AIDUA) model as a research framework, this …

Patterns Of Ovarian And Gonadotropin Hormones In Emerging Adult Oral Contraceptive Users, Summer Mcormond

UROP Posters

Oral contraceptives (OCs) are often initiated during adolescence and emerging adulthood, a period of continued maturation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal (HPG) axis. Because hormonal exposure during this window may shape emotional, biological, and reproductive outcomes, it is important to understand the specific formulations young women take and the hormonal profiles these formulations produce. This study characterizes OC formulation features and measured hormone levels in young adult OC users (n = 30).

Ethinyl estradiol (EE) doses ranged from 0.01–0.035 mg (mean = 0.022 mg), with 70% using ≤0.02 mg. Pill regimens included 21/7 packs (83%), 24/4 packs (10%), and 84/7 regimens (3%). …

Establishing Hierarchical Classification Responding: Directly Trained And Emergent Responses, George H. Noell, Kristin A. Gansle, Hannah M. Sliman, Danielle M. De Lucia

Psychology Faculty Publications

Hierarchical classification responding (HCR) describes a collection of responses that require discrimination of logical relationships between stimuli based on their position in a categorical hierarchy. This study established HCR for a new hierarchy in young children through discrete trial instruction. Participants selected pictures corresponding to different hierarchical levels of categorization. We tested for the emergence of naming that matched the level of hierarchy presented, transformation of function, and class inclusion responding for the trained and novel stimuli. Correct responding to the target hierarchy was established and resulted in the emergence of class naming and transformation of function without direct instruction. …

From Physical Correlation To Emotional Connection: The Role Of Passive Haptics On Empathy In Virtual Reality, Jemely Robles

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Virtual reality is increasingly explored as a tool for cultivating empathy, and haptic feedback as a tool for enhancing immersion. This paper investigates the effects of combining the two.  Fifty-two participants experienced a custom-built VR scene in which a character was shown packing up a room. Participants were assigned to either a haptic condition, receiving passive haptic feedback corresponding to the character's actions, or a non-haptic control condition that did not receive any haptic input. Trait empathy was measured beforehand, and state empathy and engagement were measured after the experience. Thematic analysis was conducted on post-study interviews, and headset recordings …

School-Based Mental And Emotional Support For Urban Students Experiencing Traumatic Loss, Britney Daniel-Harris

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

This study explores the perception of educational staff members on school-based mental and emotional resources for urban students experiencing traumatic loss. With increased levels of research centered on enhancing training protocols to educate teachers on identifying, supporting, and guiding traumatic care through evidence-based resources, there is an opportunity to understand their experiences by hearing their voices through a narrative inquiry qualitative research design. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has six principles of a trauma-informed environment, which were utilized to analyze participant stories. Five teachers, one social worker, and one special education leader participated in one-on-one interviews …

Politics As Usual: Racial Pay Inequity And The Illusion Of Inclusion In The Rise And Fall Of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, And Accessibility Executive Orders, Francois C. Melville

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

This research examines pressing moral policy questions of our time: who determines when the United States of America has fulfilled its broken promise of equality for all, and what constitutes an appropriate measure of reparative justice. It interrogates why the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Executive Orders (EOs) implemented across presidential administrations, intended to advance social equity, were grounded in conflict and symbolic gestures rather than scientifically evidenced issues such as wage inequality directly linked to upward career mobility. Race conscious policy generates cultural clashes centered on the perception that gains made by Black and Brown Americans come at the …

Environmental Load In Technology-Rich Classrooms: A Practitioner Reflection On Student Attention, Cognitive Fatigue, And Instructional Design, Christopher Morales

Essays in Education

This practitioner essay examines student disengagement in technology-rich classrooms through the lens of cognitive load and environmental demand. Rather than interpreting all off-task behavior as laziness, avoidance, or lack of motivation, the essay argues that some students may be responding to cumulative overload created by screens, transitions, digital platforms, visual clutter, noise, lighting, and fragmented instructional routines. Drawing from classroom observation and cognitive load theory, the essay introduces environmental load as a practical concept for educators seeking to preserve student attention without lowering academic expectations. The essay offers reflective questions and instructional adjustments that can help teachers and school leaders …

From Meaning To Memory: Assessing The Capacity And Representational Structure Of Visual Working Memory With Meaningful Stimuli, Yong Hoon Chung

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Visual working memory is thought to be strictly limited. Yet we remember meaningful, real-world objects better than abstract stimuli. Here I show that this advantage arises from the semantic structure of meaningful objects, not their perceptual features alone, and that it extends even to memory for associated features such as color. In the brain, meaningful objects elicit greater and more distributed delay activity, consistent with the recruitment of higher-level neural processes during maintenance. I propose that semantic knowledge adds representational dimensions that make items more distinctive, and that these dimensions are organized hierarchically with lower-level visual features. These findings recast …

Emotional And Social Perception In Hearing And Deaf Individuals, Julie Klenotic

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This study will compare the differences in emotional recognition and social dynamic understanding between hearing and Deaf people. I will investigate the differences in these areas between hearing and Deaf individuals, as well as the role American Sign Language use has in performance. It will utilize point light walkers which will display the emotions happy, angry, sad, and neutral. Participants will be asked which emotion is being displayed based on the presented gait of the point light walker. Second, they will view 15 videos from the Interpersonal Perception Task without audio. The questions from the IPT 15 will then be …

Effects Of Pressure-Based Virtual Reality Training On Mental Toughness In Athletes, Rylee J. Aspinwall

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Athletes often underperform in high-pressure situations due to challenges in emotional regulation rather than deficits in physical skill. Mental toughness, broadly defined as the ability to maintain performance under stress, is a key determinant of athletic success but remains difficult to train using traditional methods. Virtual reality (VR) offers a controlled and immersive environment for simulating competitive pressure; however, its application for training mental toughness remains limited. The present study examined the effects of pressure-based VR training on psychological and physiological responses in collegiate baseball and softball athletes. Participants completed up to eight VR training sessions under either high-pressure or …

How What We Feel Is Associated With What We Hear Early In Development: The Role Of Vision In Audio-Tactile Association, Shibo Cao

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Sound-shape correspondences, also known as bouba-kiki effect, is the preferential mapping of nonsense sound like “baluma” to rounded abstract shapes while mapping nonsense sound like “takete” to spiky abstract shapes. Such association was seen for auditory and visual stimuli (AV), and auditory and tactile stimuli, which are touched but not seen (AT). Literature comparing typically-developing and early-blind adults showed AT association differ as a function of level of visual experience, and similar finding was also found comparing typically-developing adult and children. Specifically, typically-developing younger children benefited from prior AV experience of abstract shapes and nonsense sounds. While these findings suggest …

Face Value: A Computational Approach To Subjective Impressions Of Faces, Kevin Kpankou

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Various computational models of first impressions have been developed to uncover the mechanisms driving these judgments. However, the implicit notion of a singular ``human'' often overlooks meaningful individual differences in beliefs, attitudes, and associations, as well as culturally grounded group-level constructs. In this paper, we extend Cultural Consensus Theory (CCT) to estimate culturally shared beliefs about faces by incorporating latent constructs structured around interpretable facial features extracted via computer vision algorithms. We apply our model to a large-scale dataset of people’s first impressions of faces. Our approach reveals a robust mapping between facial features and culturally constructed impressions, allowing us …

Moving Toward Healthy Ageing: The Role Of Physical Activity In Cognitive Function And Self-Esteem Among Older Adults In Türkiye, Canan Birimoglu Okuyan, Müjde Kerkez

Makara Journal of Health Research

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between religious attitudes and breastfeeding attitudes and the effect of this relationship on breastfeeding practices.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 251 older adults. Data were collected using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire, the Standardized Mini-Mental State Examination, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Spearman’s correlation and chi-square tests were employed for statistical analysis.

Results: Physical activity levels were positively correlated with both cognitive function (r = 0.546, p < 0.001) and self-esteem (r = 0.168, p < 0.05). No significant association was observed between cognitive function and self-esteem. Physical inactivity, cognitive decline, and low self-esteem were more prevalent among women, participants with lower educational attainment, those with chronic diseases, and individuals engaged in polypharmacy.

Conclusions: The findings emphasize the importance of integrating physical activity promotion into national healthy ageing policies, particularly in Mediterranean contexts such …

Becoming A Social Worker: A Journey Through Community, Justice, And Recovery, Willow Coefield

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

This portfolio is the culminating project for the Master of Social Work program at the University of Montana and demonstrates advanced integrated practice through coursework, practicum, and professional experience. It is organized into an introduction, theoretical orientation, and focused sections on trauma‑informed care and rural and Indigenous contexts of practice, followed by a mapping of portfolio artifacts to core elements and competencies, a conclusion, references, and appendices of key graduate assignments. Drawing on artifacts such as positionality work, case studies, diagnostic assessment, group design, program evaluation, policy analysis, and leadership projects, the portfolio illustrates growth in ethical and professional behavior, …

Reading Between The Lines: The Influence Of Financial News On Investor Decision-Making, Kalia Noble

Honors College Theses

This thesis investigates how financial media narratives shape investor sentiment and short-term market behavior. Drawing on behavioral finance and narrative economics, it examines whether the framing and tone of market news correlate with intraday volatility in the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. By pairing quantitative price data with contemporaneous headlines from major outlets such as Bloomberg, Yahoo! Finance, and CNBC, the study shows that emotionally charged or speculative narratives are closely associated with sharp market swings, even when fundamentals remain unchanged. These findings highlight the influence of media framing on investor decision-making and underscore the importance of financial …

Part I: Building Stronger Camp Communities Through Motivation As A Connected Process, Kelley Freridge

CompassPoint

Every summer, millions of children, youth, and young adult staff members gather in camp communities seeking adventures, community, and growth. They arrive carrying stories of who they are and who they might become. While some camp professionals have explored the existing research on motivation, many still struggle with this question: how do we move beyond temporary, programmatic reward-driven compliance or temporary entertainment-centered enthusiasm to spark genuine, sustained engagement that transforms both individuals and the community?

Trauma-Informed Leaders: Shifting The Paradigm Of Professional Suicide Prevention, Janina Cich

Forensic Scholars Today

Trauma-informed Leaders: Shifting the Paradigm of Professional Suicide Prevention highlights how trauma-informed leadership can transform suicide prevention in law enforcement and other high-stress helping professions. Reflecting on current suicide data and first-responder research, the article outlines early warning signs, intervention strategies, and organizational wellness practices that drive agencies from reactive crisis response to proactive, culturally responsive care. Practical recommendations include leader-supported peer teams, sleep and micro-break interventions, and resilience-focused supports that foster psychological safety, reduce stigma, and normalize help‑seeking across the organization.

Forensic Neuroscience: A Brief Introduction, Jerrod Brown

Forensic Scholars Today

Forensic neuroscience is an emerging, multidisciplinary field that applies brain science to forensic mental health, criminal justice, and legal decision-making. This article summarizes how neuroscience can inform assessments, evaluations of criminal responsibility, case planning, treatment, and prevention for justice-involved populations, highlighting complementary disciplines and the need for ethical guidance, replication of findings, and specialized education before broad adoption in legal settings.

Ctrl + Alt + Inner Speech: A Verbal–Cognitive Scaffold (Vcs) Model Of Pathways To Computational Thinking, Daisuke Akiba

Publications and Research

This theoretical paper introduces the Verbal–Cognitive Scaffold (VCS) Model, a cognitively inclusive framework which proposes the cognitive architectures underlying computational thinking (CT). Moving beyond monolithic theories of cognition (e.g., executive-function and metacognitive control models), the VCS Model posits inner speech (InSp) as the predominant cognitive pathway supporting CT operations in neurotypical populations. Synthesizing interdisciplinary scholarship across cognitive science, computational theory, neurodiversity research, and others, this framework articulates distinct mechanisms through which InSp supports CT. The model specifies four primary pathways linking InSp to CT components: verbal working memory supporting decomposition, symbolic representation facilitating pattern recognition and abstraction, sequential processing enabling …

Large Language Models As Machines Of Beauty: Cognitive Averaging, Latent Space Geometry, And The Entropic Foundations Of Aesthetic Preference, Daniel Plate, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

This study advances the position that large language models (LLMs) and human perceptual systems are governed by a shared computational drive toward prototypicality, entropy reduction, and aesthetic coherence. Drawing on developmental evidence that infants exhibit early preferences for facial symmetry and averageness, the analysis situates aesthetic preference within broader research on processing fluency and predictive coding, emphasizing that biological perception rewards stimuli that reduce uncertainty and support efficient information compression. This foundation is used to examine how LLMs, through cross-entropy optimization, perplexity minimization, and latent space clustering, converge on high-density representational regions that operate as statistical prototypes of linguistic and …