Cognition and Perception Commons^™

Pulling The Trigger: Dehumanization Of African Americans And Police Violence, Themal I. Ellawala

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

Police shootings and killing of African American targets has reached epidemic proportions and has captured the attention of the entire country. Research in social psychology has studied many dimensions of this layered issue, and has generated disparate findings regarding the role of racial bias in police violence. The process of implicit dehumanization of African Americans, especially youth, has been proposed as particularly salient in making shoot/don’t shoot decisions. This paper suggests that the paradigm of dehumanization could complete the understanding of racialized police violence and reconcile contradictory research findings, while highlighting areas for future research.

The Effects Of Picture Prompts On The Acquisition Of Receptive Language In Children With Autism, Hanna Simons

Honors Theses

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of picture prompts in the acquisition of receptive language. Receptive language training is the ability to listen to and understand what is being communicated (Miller, Carp, Petursdottir, 2009). Receptive language training requires the acquisition of auditory-visual conditional discriminations. In receptive language training the child must attend to the auditory and comparison stimuli. This is sometimes an issue for children with autism. Previous research has shown that receptive language training can be facilitated through the use of picture prompts (Fisher, Kodak, & Moore, 2007). The participant for the study was 3 years old. He was …

Put Your Shirt On: An Examination Of Provocative Versus Casual Clothing On First Impressions, Katelyn Geilear

Scholars Week

It is astounding how much information someone can gather about a person from a quick glance. We form first impressions of others based on a number of things, such as their appearance, demeanor, and other characteristics we can gather from a glance or two, and form impressions of a person’s personality, character, intentions, and motivations based on these factors. This can happen in mere tenths of a second. My research looked at how people form first impressions based on a person’s attire and gender.

How Trust Influences Adoption: Creating Human-Centered Autonomous Vehicles, David R. Garcia

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

No abstract provided.

Does The Redundant Signals Effect Occur With Categorical Signals?, Ada D. Mishler, Mark B. Neider

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

The redundant signals effect (RSE) refers to a decrease in response time (RT) when multiple signals are present compared to when one signal is present. The RSE is widespread when responses are made to specific signals; for example, a participant who is asked to respond to the letter “N” will respond more quickly to two “Ns” than to one “N.” The current research was conducted to determine whether or not the RSE generalizes to categorical signals. In Experiment 1, participants pressed a button when they saw any number on a computer screen. Each trial contained two stimuli subtending 1º visual …

Social Facilitation And Its Effects On The Errors Of Commission In A Vigilance Task, Sean P. Bowser, Cristina A. Chirino, James L. Szalma

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

Vigilance is known as sustained attention over a prolonged period of time in which respondents are required to respond to critical signals. Vigilance is crucial in a variety of settings and situations. However, when placed on a simple and repetitive task, such as security detail scanning bags or watching a radar in an airport control tower, performance on these vigilance tends to decline with time spent performing the task continuously. This pattern is referred to as the vigilance decrement. In addition to the decrement, errors of commission, or “false alarms”, occur more frequently as time on task increases. In the …

Event-Related Desynchronization Of The Mu-Rhythm: A Literature Review, Katy Lynn Odette

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

No abstract provided.

The Font Size Effect Does Not Extend To Math Problems, Helen Sowards, Hillary Erwin, Barbara Wright, Wilson Lester, Alana Harrison, Matthew Campbell, Amber Harris, Kenneth Hammett, Halle Jarnagin

Research Horizons Day Posters

No abstract provided.

Examining The Roles Of Fluency, Working Memory, And Pressure In Math Anxiety And Math Performance, Camas Gazzola, Victoria Blakely, Helen Sowards, Alan Harrison, Andy Waldon

Research Horizons Day Posters

No abstract provided.

Examining The Role Of Different Font Styles In The Font Size Effect, Kenneth Hammett, Alan Harrison, Helen Sowards, Michael Waldon, Barbara Wright, Midori Roman, Camas Gazzola, Rebecca Stillwell

Research Horizons Day Posters

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Auditory Affect On Urgent Behaviors On A Car Simulator, Cintya N. Larios, Mustapha Mouloua, Marc D. Gentzler

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

Emotional content abounds the driver in different forms from billboard signs to in-vehicle devices to roadside situations. Such emotional scenes can result in unsafe driving behaviors and lead to collisions due to their ability to attract attentional resources and change driving goals to irrelevant ones (Megías et al. 2011b; Briggs et al, 2011). Recent studies have looked at the way auditory and visual emotional stimuli can impact individual’s decision under Evaluative and Urgent road environment behaviors. Evaluative behaviors are known as a categorization in which people judge a scene as risky or not, whereas Urgent behaviors are time sensitive, requiring …

Redundant Signals In The Triple Conjunction Effect, Ada D. Mishler, Mark B. Neider

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

The triple conjunction effect (TCE) is characterized by faster response times (RT) when a target is defined by three features than when it is defined by three features. Similarly, the redundant signals effect (RSE) is characterized by faster RTs when a display contains multiple features that are each sufficient to define a target. When a single display element contains multiple target features in separate feature dimensions, the RSE may be attributable to feature coactivation, in which information from multiple features combines to reach a response threshold. Because triple conjunctions contain an extra distinguishing feature, they are comparable to the RSE, …

Team Interaction Dynamics During Collaborative Problem Solving, Travis J. Wiltshire, Stephen M. Fiore Ph.D.

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

The need for better understanding collaborative problem solving (CPS) is rising in prominence as many organizations are increasingly addressing complex problems requiring the combination of diverse sets of individual expertise to address novel situations. This research draws from theoretical and empirical work that describes the knowledge coordination arising from team communications during CPS and builds from this by incorporating methods to study interaction dynamics. Interaction between team members in such contexts is inherently dynamic and exhibits nonlinear patterns not accounted for by extant research methods. To redress this gap, the present study draws from methods designed to study social and …

Beauty In Snowflakes: Complexity And Visual Aesthetics, Olivia C. Adkins

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Experimental aesthetics research has been conducted since the nineteenth century. Interestingly, however, few studies have examined the perceived beauty of naturally shaped objects. In the current experiment, 204 participants were presented with a set of ten snowflake silhouettes that varied in complexity (perimeter relative to area); they were similarly presented with ten randomly-shaped, computer-generated, solid objects that also varied in complexity. For each stimulus set, the participants selected the single snowflake or object that was the most beautiful (Fechner’s method of choice). The results for the solid objects replicated the findings of earlier research: the most and least complex objects …

Inferring Task Based On Eye Movements: The Living Classifier, Jordan E. Marshall, Mallory Richert, Mark Mills, Michael D. Dodd

UCARE: Research Products

Several studies, including Yarbus (1967), have found that various task instructions for viewing images influence visual behavior. This holds true for both experimenter driven and participant driven tasks. Research has also shown that classifier technology is capable of determining the task that was being performed based on the individual’s eye movements. Typically classifier technology is designed to perform tasks humans are known to be cable of performing. However, little research has been done on the human ability, or lack thereof, to determine task based on eye movements.

Purpose: To determine to what extent humans are able to classify task performed …

Altering Learners' Memory Beliefs Affects Judgments Of Learning, Alan Harrison, Barbara Wright, Halle Jarnagin, Marie Blunt

Research Horizons Day Posters

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Executive Attention And Spatial Working Memory In Adults, Erica Ness, Emily Franzen, James Thomas, Haily Sain, Lalah Mclaughlin, Lindsey Spohr, Greg Degirolamo, Anne R. Schutte

UCARE: Research Products

The study examined the effects of executive attention on spatial working memory in adults using a location recall task. Attention is suggested to play a crucial role in maintenance of a remembered location in spatial working memory. Awh and Jonides (2001) found that reaction times to a presented stimulus were faster when the stimulus was held in spatial working memory. A subsequent study found that when holding a location in spatial working memory, tasks which shift attention cause memory performance to be worse for the remembered location. An ERP study by Awh and Jonides (2001) found similar response amplitudes between …

Race And Gender And The Perception Of Masculinity And Femininity Of The American Political Parties, Jessica Dulz

Political Science Theses and Capstones

How Americans select and identify with a political party can have many different sources. One important source has been found to be the effects of gender and perceptions of masculinity and femininity on party identification. I look deeper into this phenomenon to analyze the effects of race on the perception of masculine and feminine traits within Democrats and Republicans. In order to study this, I analyze 2012 American National Election Study (ANES) data. I hypothesize that among whites the results will be similar to previous studies which found Republicans to be much more favorable of masculine traits and Democrats to …

Game-Based Selective Attention Intervention: Effect Of Blink On Selective Attention For Street Youth In Zambia, Brittany S. Richard

Senior Honors Theses

The following study was conducted to evaluate the effect of a game-based intervention in the form of a card game, Blink, on selective attention for a sample of street youth in Zambia, Africa. Based on previous research suggesting that selective attention and executive functioning may be modified by game-based interventions in various populations and contexts, this study sought to employ a card game intervention for selective attention. The study was conducted with a repeated measures design, with a paired sample within-groups t-test adapted from the TEA-Ch Sky Search measure of selective attention, and the card game Blink as a …

Self-Efficacy And Goal Orientation And Their Association With Academic Achievement, Ellie S. Karle

Senior Honors Theses

Much research has been conducted in order to determine the most significant variables associated with student academic achievement. This study explored the association among student goal orientation, self-efficacy, and academic achievement measured by GPA in a sample of undergraduate students from a large evangelical university. The trichotomous model for goal orientation was utilized including: mastery goals (motivated by a desire to master a task or subject), performance-approach goals (motivated by a desire to perform well in comparison with to others), and performance-avoidant goals (motivated by a fear of failure). Data were analyzed using two-way analysis of variance for the fixed …