Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

Assessing The Impact Of Parental Depressive Symptoms On Offspring Temperament And Development In Infancy, Nancy Huynh, Jackie Finik, Jenny Ly, Yoko Nomura

Publications and Research

The study prospectively followed 135 women during their pregnancy and their offspring till 6 months of age, to examine the roles of maternal and paternal depression during pregnancy on offspring neurobehavioral development as measured by their early temperament. Maternal and paternal depression statuses were ascertained during the third trimester, and infant temperament was evaluated at 6 months, via mothers self-report. Multivariable general linear model was used to assess 1) the main effects of maternal and paternal depression on infant temperament and 2) the interaction effect between maternal and paternal depression on infant temperament. Results show that maternal depression, but not …

The Politics Of The Face-In-The-Crowd, Mark S. Mills, Kevin B. Smith, John R. Hibbing, Michael Dodd

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Recent work indicates that the more conservative one is, the faster one is to fixate on negative stimuli, whereas the less conservative one is, the faster one is to fixate on positive stimuli. The present series of experiments used the face-in-the-crowd paradigm to examine whether variability in the efficiency with which positive and negative stimuli are detected underlies such speed differences. Participants searched for a discrepant facial expression (happy or angry) amid a varying number of neutral distractors (Experiments 1 and 4). A combination of response time and eye movement analyses indicated that variability in search efficiency explained speed differences …

Which Way Is Which? Examining Global/Local Processing With Symbolic Cues, Mark Mills, Michael Dodd

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

A new method combining spatial-cueing and compound-stimulus paradigms draws on involuntary attentional orienting elicited by a spatially uninformative central arrow cue to investigate global/local processing under incidental processing conditions, wherein global/local levels were uninformative (do not aid performance) and task-irrelevant (need not be processed to perform the task). The task was peripheral target detection. Cues were compound arrows, which were either consistent (global/local arrows oriented in same direction) or inconsistent (global/local arrows oriented in opposite directions). Global/local processing was measured by spatial-cueing effects (response time [RT] difference between target locations validly cued by an arrow and targets at different locations), …

Are Individuals Fickle-Minded?, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Mark Turner

Faculty Scholarship

Game theory has been used to model large-scale social events — such as constitutional law, democratic stability, standard setting, gender roles, social movements, communication, markets, the selection of officials by means of elections, coalition formation, resource allocation, distribution of goods, and war — as the aggregate result of individual choices in interdependent decision-making. Game theory in this way assumes methodological individualism. The widespread observation that game theory predictions do not in general match observation has led to many attempts to repair game theory by creating behavioral game theory, which adds corrective terms to the game theoretic predictions in the hope …

Examining The Intersection Of The Cognitive Advantages And Disadvantages Of The Bilingual Brain, Irina Rabkina

Scripps Senior Theses

Two conflicting findings characterize cognitive processing accompanying bilingualism. The “bilingual advantage” refers to improved cognitive performance for bilingual compared to monolingual participants. Most bilingual advantages fall under the umbrella of cognitive control mechanisms, most frequently demonstrated using the Stroop task and the Simon task (e.g., Bialystok, 2008; Coderre, Van Heuven, & Conklin, 2013). The “bilingual disadvantage,” on the other hand, refers to bilinguals’ diminished performance on tasks that require word retrieval or switching between languages. This study examined the intersection of the bilingual advantage and the bilingual disadvantage to investigate whether they stem from a single cognitive control process. The …

Using Noninvasive Brain Measurement To Explore The Psychological Effects Of Computer Malfunctions On Users During Human-Computer Interactions, Leanne M. Hirshfield, Philip Bobko, Alex Barelka, Stuart H. Hirshfield, Mathew T. Farrington, Spencer Gulbronson, Diane Paverman

Management Faculty Publications

In today’s technologically driven world, there is a need to better understand the ways that common computer malfunctions affect computer users. These malfunctions may have measurable influences on computer user’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses. An experiment was conducted where participants conducted a series of web search tasks while wearing functional nearinfrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and galvanic skin response sensors. Two computer malfunctions were introduced during the sessions which had the potential to influence correlates of user trust and suspicion. Surveys were given after each session to measure user’s perceived emotional state, cognitive load, and perceived trust. Results suggest that fNIRS …

Theory Of Mind And Moral Theme Comprehension In Preschool Children Ages 3-4, Cara A. Shpizner

Scripps Senior Theses

Research suggests that there is a relationship between theory of mind and moral development in young children. However, the nature of this relationship is still unclear, specifically in regards to the relationship between theory of mind and moral theme comprehension, which has yet to be studied. The current study attempted to begin to fill this gap in the research by examining the relationship between 8 preschool children’s false belief understanding, as determined by the Sally-Anne task, and moral theme comprehension. Results were not significant, but suggest a trend that children who pass the false belief task may be more able …

Level P300: An Erp And Working Memory Evaluation Of Gamers And Non-Gamers, Derek Matthew Ellis

All Master's Theses

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) estimates that the average U.S. household owns at least one video game console. The ESRB also notes that 66% of parents believe video games offer mental stimulation or education. Few studies have analyzed the impact of video game play on cognition. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the impact of video games on both behavioral and neurophysiological measures (event-related potentials) of working memory. Stimuli used during the neurophysiological portion of the study were based on the visual odd-ball paradigm in which participants had to respond to standard and rare occurring visual …

Priming The Data: Examining Self-Potentiation In A Word Fragment Completion Task, Michael P. Mcdonald

All Master's Theses

The studies presented assessed the presence and severity of self-potentiation effects in a word fragment completion task commonly used to evaluate priming effects. Priming effects have suffered a plethora of replication issues, and the field is currently under intense scrutiny. By analyzing and refining the methodology used, we will be able to more effectively evaluate the significance and strength of these effects in future research, and increase the reliability of results under replication. In these experiments, outcomes on a word fragment completion task were examined under a variety of conditions. In the first study, responses were collected in a free-response …

Dimensions Of Creative Evaluation: Distinct Design And Reasoning Strategies For Aesthetic, Functional And Originality Judgments, Bo T. Christensen, Linden J. Ball

Design Thinking Research Symposium

The datasets provided as part of DTRS-10 all relate to what may broadly be labeled as ‘design critiques’ in an educational context. As such, we chose to center our theoretical analysis on the evaluative reasoning taking place during expert appraisals of the design concepts that were being produced by industrial design students throughout the design process. This overall framing for our research allowed us to pursue a series of research questions concerning the dimensions of creative evaluation in design and their consequences for reasoning strategies and suggestions for moving further in the creative progress. Our transcript coding and analysis focused …

Robust Design Review Conversations, Andy Dong, Massimo Garbuio, Dan Lovallo

Design Thinking Research Symposium

Design reviews and executive conversations at the point of strategic decision-making share an important outcome: they both result in the (nearly) irrevocable allocation of resources to pursue a design concept or strategic option. Our study aims to contribute to the strategic decision-making scholarship by investigating the robustness of these conversations. We define a robust design review conversation as one in which the participants discuss evidence in favor of and against the option and at the same time propose new hypotheses to explain or resolve the evidence in favor of and against the option, hypotheses that can eventually be tested. We …

The Effect Of Appalachian Regional Dialect On Performance Appraisal And Leadership Perceptions, Amie Sparks Ball

Online Theses and Dissertations

Speakers of Appalachian English face unique difficulties in the workplace. Long-held stereotypes of Appalachian English speakers can lead to unfair presumptions about a person's competence and professionalism. Previous research has shown stereotyping on the basis of non-standard dialect can affect recruitment and hiring decisions made by employers. The present study addresses the possibility that these biases extend beyond the hiring process by investigating the impact of Appalachian regional dialect on performance appraisal, perceptions of leadership potential, promotion potential, status perceptions, and solidarity perceptions.

Contribution Of Reactive And Proactive Control To Children’S Working Memory Performance: Insight From Item Recall Durations In Response Sequence Planning, Nicolas Chevalier, Tiffany D. James, Sandra A. Wiebe, Jennifer Mize Nelson, Kimberly Espy

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The present study addressed whether developmental improvement in working memory span task performance relies upon a growing ability to proactively plan response sequences during childhood. Two hundred thirteen children completed a working memory span task in which they used a touchscreen to reproduce orally presented sequences of animal names. Children were assessed longitudinally at 7 time points between 3 and 10 years of age. Twenty-one young adults also completed the same task. Proactive response sequence planning was assessed by comparing recall durations for the 1st item (preparatory interval) and subsequent items. At preschool age, the preparatory interval was generally shorter …

Examining The Relationships Among Working Memory, Creativity, And Intelligence, Elizabeth M. Southard

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this study we investigated the relationships among working memory, creativity (measured as divergent thinking and creative achievement) and nonverbal intelligence. Furthermore, this study examined the roles of working memory and intelligence in the creative process. In order to examine this, participants were evaluated using a variety of cognitive tasks that included the Alternative Uses Test, the Consequences Task, the Creative Achievement Questionnaire, the Alloway Working Memory Assessment, and the matrix test from the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence. The results of this study indicate that verbal working memory was related to divergent thinking over and beyond intelligence and creative …

Development And Validation Of The Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury-Risk-Estimation Quiz (Acl-Iq), Erich J. Petushek

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Over 2 million Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries occur annually worldwide resulting in considerable economic and health burdens (e.g., suffering, surgery, loss of function, risk for re-injury, and osteoarthritis). Current screening methods are effective but they generally rely on expensive and time-consuming biomechanical movement analysis, and thus are impractical solutions. In this dissertation, I report on a series of studies that begins to investigate one potentially efficient alternative to biomechanical screening, namely skilled observational risk assessment (e.g., having experts estimate risk based on observations of athletes movements). Specifically, in Study 1 I discovered that ACL injury risk can be accurately …

Component Numeracy Skills And Decision Making, Saima Ghazal

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Numeracy—i.e., one’s practical understanding of mathematics in context—is one of the strongest predictors of people’s general decision making skill, independent of other cognitive abilities (e.g., intelligence, working memory, attentional control). Despite notable scientific progress on the nature of numeracy and decision making, the cognitive and decision sciences have yet to investigate individual differences in numeracy components (e.g., algebra versus probability). In this dissertation, I report on my efforts to develop new measurement technology and quantitative models of cognitive and decision skills. Analyses include the first known investigations of the relations between the major adult component numeracy skills and general decision …

Facial And Body Emotion Recognition In Infancy, Leah Oberst

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Adults are experts at assessing emotions, an ability essential for appropriate social interaction. The present study, investigated this ability’s development, examining infants’ matching of facial and body emotional information.

In Experiment 1, 18 6.5-month-olds were familiarized to angry or happy bodies or faces. Those familiarized to bodies were tested with familiar and novel emotional faces. Those habituated to faces were tested with bodies. The 6.5-month-old infants exhibited a preference for the familiar emotion, matching between faces and bodies.

In Experiment 2, 18 6.5-month-olds were tested with faces and bodies displaying anger and sadness. Infants familiarized to faces showed a familiarity …

Feminist Stereotypes: Communal Vs. Agentic, Emily R. Lindburg

Scripps Senior Theses

This study examined relationships between facial appearance, gender-linked traits, and feminist stereotypes. Naïve college students rated traits based on facial appearance of female CEO's whose companies appeared in the Forbes 1000 list. The photos of each female CEO (n=35) were randomly combined with two descriptive identifiers; an occupation (n=9) and an interest area (n=9), including 'feminist'. Participants then rated the head shots of the CEO's on a 7 point Likert scale of communal (expected feminine) traits like attractiveness, warmth, compassion and cooperativeness, and on agentic (expected masculine) traits like ambition, leadership ability and intelligence. If college students hold negative stereotypes …

Is Anchoring On Estimates Of Severity An Adaptive Heuristic?, Joy E. Losee

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Decisions to either to prepare or not prepare for weather threats involve uncertainty. Uncertainty in decision making often involves the potential for making either a false positive (preparing for a storm that never arrives) or a false negative error (not preparing for a real storm). Error Management Theory (EMT; Haselton & Buss, 2000) posits that, depending on the uncertain context, people select a decision-making strategy that favors one error over the other. Related to weather, research has shown that people prefer a false positive, or an overestimation (Joslyn et al., 2011). Particularly, this overestimation appears when people receive severe information …

Match-To-Sample Stroop Task: A Systematic Manipulation Of Sample And Response Option Onset, Marshall Lee Green

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The Stroop task, in which participants identify the font color of a word which names an incongruent color, has long been used to investigate attentional processes; however, there is still debate concerning the source of the effects produced by the task. The semantic competition hypothesis posits that interference results from competing semantic processes associated with the word and color dimensions of the stimulus prior to response selection. The response competition hypothesis posits that interference results from competing responses for articulating the word versus the color dimension at the time of response execution. Sturz, Green, Locker, and Boyer (2013) designed …