Cognition and Perception Commons^™

Sitting With Oprah, Dancing With Ellen: Presidents, Daytime Television, And Soft News, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

On July 29, 2010, President Barack Obama took to the air on "The View" to talk politics, policy, and family. Pundits billed the visit as the first time a sitting U.S. president appeared in a daytime television program. The telecast drew about 6.7 million viewers, the highest rating ever for the show, and garnered the largest number of women viewers in 17 months. However, whether and to what extent Obama succeeded in getting his message out and endearing himself to female voters remains an open question that merits further scholarly inquiry. In this chapter, I put Obama’s visit to "The …

A Theoretical Framework For Serious Game Design: Exploring Pedagogy, Play And Fidelity And Their Implications For The Design Process, Pauline Rooney

Journal Articles

It is widely acknowledged that digital games can provide an engaging, motivating and “fun” experience for students. However an entertaining game does not necessarily constitute a meaningful, valuable learning experience. For this reason, experts espouse the importance of underpinning serious games with a sound theoretical framework which integrates and balances theories from two fields of practice: pedagogy and game design (Kiili, 2005; Seeney & Routledge, 2009). Additionally, with the advent of sophisticated, immersive technologies, and increasing interest in the opportunities for constructivist learning offered by these technologies, concepts of fidelity and its impact on student learning and engagement, have emerged …

Asymmetry In Resting Alpha Activity: Effects Of Handedness, Ruth E. Propper, Jenna Pierce, Mark W. Geisler, Stephen D. Christman, Nathan Bellorado

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha band power during rest shows increased right, and/or decreased left, hemisphere activity under conditions of state or trait withdrawal-associated effect. Non-right-handers (NRH) are more likely to have mental illnesses and dispositions that involve such withdrawal-related effect. The aim of the study was to examine whether NRH might be characterized by increased right, relative to left, hemisphere activity during rest. Methods: The present research investigated that hypothesis by examining resting EEG alpha power in consistently-right-handed (CRH) and NRH individuals. Results: In support of the hypothesis, NRH demonstrated decreased right hemisphere alpha power, and therefore increased right hemisphere …

The Reminiscence Effect In Autobiographical Memory And Tests Of Its Prominent Accounts, Justin T. Coleman

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The reminiscence effect, in which people aged 40 and over remember more autobiographical memories from between ages 10 to 30 than from adjacent periods, producing a “bump” in lifespan distributions, is a highly robust effect. When it was discovered to occur for highly positive emotional memories, but not negative ones, the cultural life script account of reminiscence was proposed. The cultural life script account asserts that individuals possess scripts for important events in the normative life that structure autobiographical recall. The reminiscence effect is explained by the fact that in life scripts, positive events have highly prescribed timings and cluster …

The Effects Of Path Crossover On Spatial Orientation, Jayleen A. Meléndez, Naohide Yamamoto

Undergraduate Research Posters 2012

Prior research has discovered that when an individual’s path has a crossover, there seems to be a significant deterioration in the individual’s spatial orientation.

Characteristics Indicative Of The Likelihood Of Leaving Open-Ended Comments On An Organizational Survey, Astrid Jennifer Hernandez, Michael Horvath

Undergraduate Research Posters 2012

It has been suggested that individuals who take surveys solely answer questions to obtain the incentive offered. However, people who answer surveys also tend to do so because they want to give their genuine feedback. Ultimately, the results of Chi-Square and Logistic Regression did not support the hypotheses.

Are Conscious Perception And Action Guidance Dissociable In Whole-Body Movement?, Laura J. Elias, Jessica Lin Willesch

Undergraduate Research Posters 2012

Conscious recognition of an object (“what”) and guidance of action toward it (“how”) have been identified as two dissociable processes of perception in visual, auditory, and somatosensory systems. The current study investigated whether the two dissociable processes of perception can also be observed in whole-body movements that encompass not only somatosensory (proprioceptive) inputs but also vestibular inputs.

The Policy Czar Debate, Justin Vaughn, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

Presidential policy czars have been an important and powerful component of President Barack Obama’s approach to management and leadership in the first part of his time in office. By using czars, the President has been able to demonstrate the importance of policy issues, both to his own agenda and to the broader political system. In this chapter, we find that performance outcomes for these czars have been a mixed bag, with as many stories of success to report as tales of frustration and failure. As such, we posit that the cost of czars, in political and organizational terms, has outweighed …

The Policy Czar Debate, Justin Vaughn, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

Presidential policy czars have been an important and powerful component of President Barack Obama’s approach to management and leadership in the first part of his time in office. By using czars, the President has been able to demonstrate the importance of policy issues, both to his own agenda and to the broader political system. In this chapter, we find that performance outcomes for these czars have been a mixed bag, with as many stories of success to report as tales of frustration and failure. As such, we posit that the cost of czars, in political and organizational terms, has outweighed …

Motivational Inequality: Prevention Goals Induce More Effort Than Promotion Goals, Jennifer Marie Pattershall-Geide

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Regulatory focus theory describes two motivational strategies--promotion and prevention focus--that may be employed during goal directed action. Although a theory of motivation, there is no research examining differences in effort between promotion and prevention focus. Two studies are presented which test the hypothesis that goals pursued with a prevention focus, with its emphasis on duties, responsibilities, and avoidance of negative outcomes, will induce more effort than goals pursued with a promotion focus, which emphasizes hopes, ideals, and achieving positive outcomes. In addition, several potential mediators and moderators of this effect were examined. In Study 1, students who completed an essay …

Affect Identification And Interpersonal Skills: An In-Depth Evaluation Of Social Cognition In Schizophrenia, Griffin Pollock Sutton

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The presence of deficits in various sub-domains of social cognition has been investigated to a degree in individuals with schizophrenia. Some of the most commonly researched and documented deficits have included impairments in the identification of affect portrayed in faces. Research has indicated that the performance of individuals with schizophrenia on such tasks is generally impaired as compared to normal controls. However, some have questioned the generalizability of such findings to real-world situations, as day-to-day interactions generally necessitate a constant, fluid assessment of the thoughts and feelings of others and are rarely, if ever, limited to still images of others. …

Frequency-Specificity And Pattern-Specificity Of The Buildup Of Auditory Stream Segregation, David Michael Weintraub

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

During repeating sequences of low (A) and high (B) tones in an "...ABAB..." pattern, the likelihood of hearing two separate streams ("streaming") increases with more repetitions of the patterns, a phenomenon referred to as "buildup". Previous studies have shown that buildup is frequency specific (Anstis & Saida, 1985) and that its biasing effects decays over several seconds (Beauvois & Meddis, 1997). No study has examined whether the frequency specificity of buildup persists for such a long duration. To address these issues, Experiment 1 tested the decay of frequency-specific and non-frequency specific buildup. The results revealed that (1) frequency-specific buildup effects …

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.

Bayesian Approaches To Assessing Architecture And Stopping Rule, Joseph W. Houpt, Andrew Heathcote, Ami Eidels, J. T. Townsend

Psychology Faculty Publications

Much of scientific psychology and cognitive science can be viewed as a search to understand the mechanisms and dynamics of perception, thought and action. Two processing attributes of particular interest to psychologists are the architecture, or temporal relationships between sub-processes of the system, and the stopping rule, which dictates how many of the sub-processes must be completed for the system to finish. The Survivor Interaction Contrast (SIC) is a powerful tool for assessing the architecture and stopping rule of a mental process model. Thus far, statistical analysis of the SIC has been limited to null-hypothesis- significance tests. In this talk …

Color In Context: Psychological Context Moderates The Influence Of Red On Approach- And Avoidance-Motivated Behavior, Brian P. Meier, Paul R. D'Agostino, Andrew J. Elliott, Markus A. Meier, Benjamin M. Wilkowski

Psychology Faculty Publications

A basic premise of the recently proffered color-in-context model is that the influence of color on psychological functioning varies as a function of the psychological context in which color is perceived. Some research has examined the appetitive and aversive implications of viewing the color red in romance- and achievement-relevant contexts, respectively, but in all existing empirical work approach and avoidance behavior has been studied in separate tasks and separate experiments. Research is needed to directly test whether red influences the same behavior differently depending entirely on psychological context.

The present experiment was designed to put this premise to direct test …

Making Heroes: The Construction Of Courage, Competence, And Virtue, George R. Goethals, Scott T. Allison

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

People use the term hero frequently in our culture, and most people can easily name several heroes. Our research explores how people think about heroes as well as the determinants of heroic behavior. People's heroes may be real-world figures or fictional characters. They are thought to be competent enough to achieve at a high level, moral enough to do the right thing in difficult situations, or both. People's conceptions of heroes reflect both schemas about what heroes are like and narrative structures about how they act. We consider the possibility that images of heroes and common hero narratives reflect evolutionarily …

Effects Of Method And Context Of Note-Taking On Memory: Handwriting Versus Typing In Lecture And Textbook-Reading Contexts, Ian Schoen

Pitzer Senior Theses

Both electronic note-taking (typing) and traditional note-taking (handwriting) are being utilized by college students to retain information. The effects of the method of note-taking and note-taking context were examined to determine if handwriting or typing notes and whether a lecture context or a textbook-reading context influenced retention. Pitzer College and Scripps College students were assigned to either handwrite or type notes on a piece of academic material presented in either a lecture or textbook context and were given a test to assess their retention. The results demonstrated that there was a significant main effect for typing notes such that typing …

If You're Happy And You Know It: Concentrate!, Kristi Michelle Summers

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The phenomenon of mind wandering involves a situation in which a person's executive control switches from the current task to unrelated thoughts (Smallwood & Schooler, 2006). Previous research has indicated that individuals mind wander more often when they are in negative moods than when they are happier (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010; Smallwood, 2009). One theory of mind wandering, the Working Memory Capacity Theory, claims that participants with a lower working memory capacity (WMC) experience more mind wandering during a challenging primary task than participants with a higher WMC because those with higher WMC can better use their executive control to …

Navigating The Diverse Dimensions Of Stereotypes, With Domain Specific Deficits: Processes Of Trait Judgments About Individuals With Disabilities, Christina G. Boardman

Scripps Senior Theses

Stereotype groups are interrelated. For example, in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, racial minorities are referred to special education at a much higher rate than are majority racial groups (Tse, Lloyd, Petchkovsky, and Manaia, 2005; Harry, Arnaiz, Klingner, Sturges, 2008). The Stereotype Content Model describes stereotype relationships in terms of an interaction between competence and warmth. Warmth is the more consistent dimension. The nature of competence remains elusive (Fiske, Cuddy, and Glick, 2007; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, and Xu, 2002). Knowledge of relationships between stereotype groups, which themselves may be effects of bias, could factor into observed competence effects. …

Individualism And Collectivism As Moderators Of Affect And Attributional Style In Predicting Life Satisfaction, Jo M. Holmquest

Graduate Theses

The present study examined the effect of person-level individualism and collectivism on attributional style and frequencies of positive and negative emotions as predictors of life satisfaction. Participants were 224 individuals (age range 18 to 78, M= 39.63, SD = 13.78; 73% women; 56% Filipinos) who answered an online survey. Results from regression analyses showed that attributional style is not a statistically significant predictor of life satisfaction. The analyses also showed that across all participants, and among those who did not score high in individualism and low in collectivism, the frequency of positive emotions, as compared to the frequency of negative …