Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

Investigating The Effects Of Mindfulness On Children’S Executive Function, Emotional Regulation, Stress, And Academic Performance Compared To A Control Condition, Lerna Hanceroglu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Mindfulness is a growing field in the study of psychological well-being, with reports of individuals experiencing increases in resilience and reduced stress. The current research on mindfulness lacks information on a comprehensive analysis on the relationship between mindfulness and executive function, emotional regulation, stress, and subsequent academic performance for children. Additionally, studies contain methodological issues, such as the absence of active control groups. Hence, the current study assessed the effects of mindfulness training on children’s executive function, emotional regulation, stress, and academic outcomes compared to an active control group. There were 51 younger children from grades 2 to 4 (Mean …

The Effect Of Social Influence On Perception Of Tornado Warnings, Jason A. Parker

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Tornado activity annually results in many deaths throughout the U.S. As a result, the emergency alert system (including tornado warnings) has made considerable advancements throughout the past few decades. However, continued improvements could be made to warning content that aid to facilitate adaptive decision-making by increasing individuals’ motivation to respond. One method that could increase adaptive responses to warnings is by including the modality of descriptive social information within the warning. Research suggests that normative social influence acts as a powerful motivator for individuals to conform toward the witnessed or perceived behaviors of others. The current study examined the impact …

Cognitive Biases In Alcohol And Marijuana Users, Wyatt G. Frahm

All Master's Theses

The current study investigated the influence of marijuana and alcohol consumption and craving on a primed word stem completion (WSC) task. One hundred participants were randomly assigned to one of three prime conditions: Substance-prime, neutral-prime, and no-prime. In the substance- and neutral-prime conditions, participants were presented with a series of prime words. After a distracter task those participants who were presented with a series of prime words, all participants were given a multi-solution WSC task, which consisted of the initial two to four letters of a word for which the participants were instructed to complete with the first word that …

Musical Mnemonic Devices Or Method Of Loci: Which Promotes Higher Recall Of Concrete And Abstract Words?, Sky M. Corby

All Master's Theses

Mnemonic devices are excellent learning tools to aid in the recall of information. Literature has shown that musical mnemonic devices and the method of loci are two particularly useful mnemonic devices. The literature has also shown that there seems to be some discrepancy as to which one aids in the higher recall of information. This study investigated which learning device— musical mnemonic devices, the method of loci, or rote memorization— promotes a higher recollection of concrete or abstract words after immediate and 5 min recall tasks. The study consisted of 86 participants who were Central Washington University students, ages 18 …

Ask A Busy Person? A Reexamination Of Cognitive Performance Under Load, Graham Watson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A longstanding folk belief suggests that 'busy' people possess the ability to get more done than others. Busyness, defined as the demands of everyday life, has been shown to generate cognitive load, which has been called 'cognitive busyness.' Although most cognitive theory would deny the possibility that cognitive load may enhance performance, some recent research may support the possibility. Cowan's 1988 information-processing model was used to study how measures of everyday busyness correlated with performance on cognitive tasks. The research question addressed whether any combination of such measures, in combination with working memory, could predict performance on such tasks. 92 …

Serum Kynurenic Acid Is Reduced In Affective Psychosis, B. E. Wurfel, W. C. Drevets, S. A. Bliss, J. R. Mcmillin, H. Suzuki, B. N. Ford, H. M. Morris, T. K. Teague, R. Dantzer, J. B. Savitz

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

A subgroup of individuals with mood and psychotic disorders shows evidence of inflammation that leads to activation of the kynurenine pathway and the increased production of neuroactive kynurenine metabolites. Depression is hypothesized to be causally associated with an imbalance in the kynurenine pathway, with an increased metabolism down the 3-hydroxykynurenine (3HK) branch of the pathway leading to increased levels of the neurotoxic metabolite, quinolinic acid (QA), which is a putative Nmethyl- D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor agonist. In contrast, schizophrenia and psychosis are hypothesized to arise from increased metabolism of the NMDA receptor antagonist, kynurenic acid (KynA), leading to hypofunction of GABAergic …

Going To The Movies: Immersion, Visual Awareness, And Memory, Matthew Whalen Moran

Online Theses and Dissertations

Immersion describes the extent of which one feels involved in a virtual experience. In immersive environments, observers report high levels of sensory interaction, story engagement, and an impression of reality. According to the concept of Inattentional Blindness (IB), many people can miss an unexpected stimulus or object even if it is in their field of vision while attending to a task. Can immersion affect susceptibility to IB, and can it affect memory performance? To answer this question, two model theaters were used in order to manipulate a person's assessment of being immersed in two experiments. A realistic condition used a …

Ecological Invalidity Of Existing Gaydar Research: In-Lab Accuracy Translates To Real-World Inaccuracy: Response To Rule, Johnson, & Freeman (2016), William T.L. Cox, Patricia G. Devine, Alyssa A. Bischmann, Janet S. Hyde

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

In recent years, several empirical studies have claimed to provide evidence in support of the popular folk notion that people possess “gaydar” that enables them to accurately identify who is gay or lesbian (Rule, Johnson, & Freeman, 2016). This conclusion is limited to artificial lab settings, however, and when translated to real-world settings this work itself provides evidence that people’s judgments about who is gay/lesbian are not pragmatically accurate. We also briefly review evidence related to the consequences of perpetuating the idea of gaydar (i.e., “the gaydar myth”). Although past claims about accurate orientation perception are misleading, the work that …

Young Children With Down Syndrome Show Normal Development Of Circadian Rhythms, But Poor Sleep Efficiency: A Cross-Sectional Study Across The First 60 Months Of Life, Fabian Fernandez, Casandra C. Nyhuis, Payal Anand, Bianca I. Demara, Norman F. Ruby, Goffredina Spano, Caron Clark, Jamie O. Edgin

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Objectives: To evaluate sleep consolidation and circadian activity rhythms in infants and toddlers with Down syndrome (DS) under light and socially entrained conditions within a familiar setting. Given previous human and animal data suggesting intact circadian regulation of melatonin across the day and night, it was hypothesized that behavioral indices of circadian rhythmicity would likewise be intact in the sample with DS.

Methods: A cross-sectional study of 66 infants and young children with DS, aged 5e67 months, and 43 typically developing age-matched controls. Sleep and measures of circadian robustness or timing were quantified using continuous in-home actigraphy recordings performed over …

Comparison Of Patterns Of Use Of Unrecorded And Recorded Spirits: Survey Of Adult Drinkers In Rural Central China, Shiqing Wei, Ping Yin, Ian M. Newman, Ling Qian, Duane F. Shell, Lok-Wa Yuen

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

About 70% of the beverage alcohol consumed in China annually is spirits. Recorded spirits make up most spirit consumption, but about 25% of total alcohol consumption (1.7 L pure alcohol per capita annually) is unrecorded spirits (bai jiu), either homemade or made in unregulated distilleries. In some parts of China, the consumption of unrecorded spirits is higher than average. This paper compares the patterns of use of unrecorded distilled spirits and recorded distilled spirits among rural residents in Central China. Interviews were conducted with 3298 individuals in 21 towns/villages in 10 counties in the Hubei, Anhui, and Hebei provinces in …

Composition Of Unrecorded Distilled Alcohol (Bai Jiu) Produced In Small Rural Factories In Central China, Ian Newman, Ling Qian, Niran Tamrakar, Yonghua Feng, Ganrong Xu

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Background: Unrecorded traditional distilled spirits (bai jiu, 白酒) are made and used throughout rural China for everyday use and special occasions. Nearly every town or village has a distiller to supply the demand. In rural China, distilling bai jiu is legal and regulated lightly or not at all. The World Health Organization estimates that as much as 25% of all alcohol consumed in China is unrecorded alcohol, of which an unknown portion is unrecorded bai jiu. Little is known about the composition of unrecorded Chinese spirits from rural parts of the country. This study focused on white spirits because the …

Calling In Retirement: A Mixed Methods Study, Ryan D. Duffy, Carrie L. Torrey, Jessica England, Elliot A. Tebbe

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

This mixed methods study aimed to examine the experiences of a calling in retirement with a sample of 196 retired adults. First, a qualitative analysis explored the types of activities participants experienced as a calling as well as the types of barriers that participants perceived as keeping them from living their calling. ‘Helping Others’ emerged as the largest category of calling that participants endorsed and ‘No Resources to Live Calling’ emerged as the most frequently endorsed barrier. Building on our qualitative findings, we conducted a quantitative analysis to examine the relation of perceiving a calling with well-being. Consistent with prior …

Differences In Frn And P300 Amplitudes Among Hockey Fans Versus Non-Hockey Fans In Response To Relevant And Irrelevant Information., Omar Rafiq

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Sports bettors tend to rely on statistical information about an athlete or team’s past performance even though this type of information often has no predictive value. The belief that this statistical information can help predict future performance is typically held by experts and novices alike. A recent study conducted by Cheng and colleagues (in preparation) suggests that sports bettors do not process decision outcomes that are based on relevant information in the same way that they process decision outcomes based on irrelevant information. Specifically, they found differences in the event-related potential component known as Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN), such that FRNs …

Auditory Erp Differences Across A Continuum Of Psychotic Symptoms In Non-Clinical Population, Anaya Rehman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Psychosis is a term given to a mental state described as a loss of contact with the real world. The aim of this thesis was to examine early non-specific psychotic experiences in a healthy population by means of two self-report screening tools: Prime Screen and Youth Psychosis At-Risk Questionnaire-Brief, and place individuals on a psychosis continuum. Across this psychosis continuum, three event related potential (ERP) components were assessed: P300, Mismatch Negativity and N100. There is evidence that P300 and mismatch negativity amplitudes diminish in individuals with psychosis. Similarly, impaired N100 amplitude suppression (increased N100 amplitudes) during vocalization has been observed …

An Examination Of Imagined Contexts: The Unreliability Of Context-Dependent Memory Effects In Recall, Caitlin J. I. Tozios

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

It is generally accepted that the environmental context present during memory encoding serves as an effective cue for recall if reinstated during retrieval. Participants who perform a free recall test in the same context as that during which they learned a set of words, often remember more words than participants who experience a context mismatch from encoding to retrieval. This is referred to as the context-dependent memory effect and forgetting due to a change in context is referred to as context-dependent forgetting. Recent evidence suggests that contexts need not always be physical but can be mentally generated or imagined and …

Recidivism Rates Among Juveniles With Mental Illness, Kia Chevon Russell

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Treating mental illness is imperative to help reduce criminal justice involvement within the juvenile population. Receiving mental health care will help decrease the likelihood for youth to reoffend, ultimately reducing recidivism rates. Past studies showed there are risk factors associated with juveniles and recidivism; however, very few studies have examined what factors are prevalent after services have been received. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that increase the risk of recidivism among juveniles who have received psychiatric stabilization in Harris County, Texas. Risk factors that were assessed included age, gender, ethnicity, and criminal offense. The psychodynamic perspective …

Executive Control Mechanisms In Bilingualism: Beyond Speed Of Processing, Klara Marton, Mira Goral, Luca Campanelli, Jungmee Yoon, Loraine K. Obler

Publications and Research

The question of interest in this study was whether bilingual individuals show superior executive control compared to monolingual participants. Findings are mixed, with studies showing advantage, disadvantage, or no difference between bilingual and monolingual speakers. In this study, we used different experimental conditions to examine implicit learning, resistance to interference, monitoring, and switching, independently. In addition, we matched our monolingual and bilingual participants on baseline response time. Bilingual participants demonstrated faster implicit learning, greater resistance to interference, more efficient switching compared to monolingual participants. The groups did not differ in monitoring. In conclusion, depending on task complexity and on the …

Sentence Recall In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Brett Wallace

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is an age-shift in neurotypical children: younger children tend to remember information in a verbatim manner so they store item-specific surface characteristics; between nine and ten children engage in gist recall where they store meanings of presented information. The aim of the present study was to explore false memory in children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), as some research suggests that they develop gist recall at a later age than neurotypical children. We are also interested in the role of working memory.

One approach to understanding false memory creation is activation-monitoring (AM) theory. Working memory can play a role …

Positive Emotions And Quality Of Life In Dogs, Patrizia Piotti

Animal Sentience

Positive affect is fundamental to ensuring good animal welfare. Discrete and dimensional theories of emotion have recently been used to explore the relation between cognition and affect and to develop cognitive measures of positive affect. Human quality-of-life assessment focuses on positive affect, which is difficult to measure objectively in dogs. Expanding on Kujala’s (2017) discussion of positive emotions and cognitive measures of affect, I suggest how these are relevant to assessing canine quality of life.

Prosociality And Risk: How Risky Decision-Making In Young Adults Relates To Altruistic Tendencies, Empathic Concern, And Prosocial Peer Affiliation, Sarah J. Beard

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Adolescence involves an increase in risky decisions, such as reckless driving and illicit substance use, but prosocial characteristics and peer affiliation have yet to be investigated as protective factors. The present study assessed altruistic tendencies, prosocial peer affiliation (PPA), and empathic concern as predictors and moderators of risk-taking, including both self-reported health risks and riskiness in a behavioral task. Young adults from ages 20 to 25 (M = 22.55, SD = 1.38) completed a battery of behavioral tasks (including the Balloon Analogue Risk Task and the Dictator Game) and questionnaires on Amazon MTurk, measuring risk-taking (drunk driving, texting while …