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Interior Music: An Examination of the Sociocognitive Abilities of Fiction WritersBischoff, Theanna 07 January 2014 (has links)
A two-part study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between fiction writing and social cognition: the ability to make inferences about the mental states of others. First, an online survey was administered that assessed beliefs held by the general public about the social cognition of fiction writers compared to a variety of other professions. The findings revealed that the general public believes fiction writers demonstrate above average sociocognitive abilities. Next, the possibility of an empirical relationship between social cognition and fiction writing was explored by comparing two groups of fiction writers (established/published and intermediate writers) and a control group on measures directly assessing different facets of social cognition (e.g., social perception, interpreting body language, and making inferences about interpersonal interactions on video and in written vignettes). Participants were also asked to self-report their own sociocognitive abilities via a questionnaire assessing perspective taking. Related variables to social cognition were also tested, including self-reported interpersonal/social reactivity and cognitive complexity/differentiation. Potential confounding variables, including age, level of depression, verbal IQ, and tendency to read fiction were also measured and accounted for. All participants provided a short story writing sample which was scored by three experts for quality, as well as potential textual determinants of social cognition: character transparency and point of view. The results of the study consistently revealed a lack of between-group differences on measures of social cognition as well as the related measure of cognitive complexity/differentiation. Fiction writing quality and character transparency correlated only with cognitive complexity/differentiation, but not with any variables directly assessing social cognition. Taken together, the results of the study suggest that, contrary to public perceptions, and contrary to the hypotheses of many theorists in the literature, fiction writers do not demonstrate superior sociocognitive abilities.
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Interior Music: An Examination of the Sociocognitive Abilities of Fiction WritersBischoff, Theanna 07 January 2014 (has links)
A two-part study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between fiction writing and social cognition: the ability to make inferences about the mental states of others. First, an online survey was administered that assessed beliefs held by the general public about the social cognition of fiction writers compared to a variety of other professions. The findings revealed that the general public believes fiction writers demonstrate above average sociocognitive abilities. Next, the possibility of an empirical relationship between social cognition and fiction writing was explored by comparing two groups of fiction writers (established/published and intermediate writers) and a control group on measures directly assessing different facets of social cognition (e.g., social perception, interpreting body language, and making inferences about interpersonal interactions on video and in written vignettes). Participants were also asked to self-report their own sociocognitive abilities via a questionnaire assessing perspective taking. Related variables to social cognition were also tested, including self-reported interpersonal/social reactivity and cognitive complexity/differentiation. Potential confounding variables, including age, level of depression, verbal IQ, and tendency to read fiction were also measured and accounted for. All participants provided a short story writing sample which was scored by three experts for quality, as well as potential textual determinants of social cognition: character transparency and point of view. The results of the study consistently revealed a lack of between-group differences on measures of social cognition as well as the related measure of cognitive complexity/differentiation. Fiction writing quality and character transparency correlated only with cognitive complexity/differentiation, but not with any variables directly assessing social cognition. Taken together, the results of the study suggest that, contrary to public perceptions, and contrary to the hypotheses of many theorists in the literature, fiction writers do not demonstrate superior sociocognitive abilities.
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Emotion in Speech: Recognition by Younger and Older Adults and Effects on IntelligibilityDupuis, Katherine Lise 06 January 2012 (has links)
Spoken language conveys two forms of information: transactional (content, what is said) and interactional (how it is said). The transactional message shared during spoken communication has been studied extensively in different listening conditions and in people of all ages using standardized tests of speech intelligibility. However, research into interactional aspects of speech has been more limited. One specific aspect of interactional communication that warrants further investigation is the communication of emotion in speech, also called affective prosody.
A series of experiments examined how younger and older adults produce affective prosody, recognize emotion in speech, and understand emotional speech in noise. The emotional valence and arousal properties of target words from an existing speech intelligibility test were rated by younger and older adults. New stimuli based on those words were recorded by a younger female and an older female using affective prosody to portray seven emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, pleasant surprise, sadness, neutral). Similar to previous studies, the acoustical parameter that best differentiated the emotions was fundamental frequency (F0). Specifically, discriminant analysis indicated that emotional category membership was best predicted by the mean and range of F0.
Overall, recognition of emotion and intelligibility were high. While older listeners made more recognition errors and had poorer intelligibility overall, their patterns of responding did not differ significantly from those of the younger listeners on either measure. Of note, angry and sad emotions were recognized with the highest degree of accuracy, but intelligibility was highest for items spoken to portray fear or pleasant surprise. These results may suggest that there is a complementarity between the acoustic cues used to recognize emotions (how words are said) and those used to understand words (what is said). Alternatively, the effect of emotion on intelligibility may be modulated primarily by attentional rather than acoustical factors, with higher performance associated with alerting emotions.
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Investigating Memory for Spatial and Temporal Relations with Eye Movement MonitoringRondina II, Renante 26 November 2012 (has links)
By using eye movement monitoring (EMM) techniques, investigators have been able to examine the processes that support relational memory as they occur online. However, EMM studies have only focused on memory for spatial relations, producing a lack of EMM evidence for temporal relations. Thus, in the present study, participants performed a recognition memory task with stimuli that varied in their spatial and temporal relations. They were presented with a sequence of objects in a unique spatial configuration, and were instructed to either detect changes in the spatial or temporal relations between study and test presentations. The results provide novel EMM evidence for an interaction between spatial and temporal memory, and the obligatory effects of relational memory processes on eye movement behaviours. Moreover, the current study was also able to test predictions from the temporal context model (Howard & Kahana, 2002), and found evidence for a temporal contiguity effect.
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Eye Movements as a Reflection of Binding in Older AdultsBloom, Rachel 05 January 2010 (has links)
Theories of age-related memory decline debate whether the problem lies at the level of encoding or consciously accessing information at the level of retrieval. Deficits at encoding may be due to the inability to bind relations among objects. The present research implements eye movement monitoring into an associative memory task to explore age-related memory at encoding and retrieval. Eye movements of older and younger adults are compared. Three solitary items were presented during the study phase, and test responses were whether the spatial relation of these objects to one another was intact or manipulated when subsequently presented all together. Observed differences at the level of encoding in addition to the level of retrieval clarifies that there is not a deficit in consciously accessing encoded representations. Further, differences in relational binding at the level of encoding were observed, which supports the association deficit theory of memory and aging.
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The Effects of Bilingualism on Attention and Memory: Do Bilingual Advantages in Attention Lead to Disadvantages in Memory?Braverman, Anna 15 December 2010 (has links)
Recent evidence suggests that the task of managing a bilingual individual’s two languages is carried out by general attentional mechanisms. Researchers have found evidence for bilingual advantages in attention, specifically on tasks that involve inhibiting irrelevant information, which are believed to stem from lifelong practice at inhibiting the language system not currently in use. In the present study we hypothesized that, since bilinguals are better at inhibiting irrelevant information, they should show memory disadvantages if previously irrelevant information becomes relevant. 12 bilingual and 12 monolingual participants (age range:19-27) were tested in an eye tracking paradigm where the relational manipulation effect (the tendency to direct more viewing to manipulated regions of previously viewed scenes) was used to access memory for scenes that had been presented as distractors during a study block. No differences in memory were observed. However, we observed a significant difference in general viewing patterns between the two language groups, such that bilinguals made significantly shorter fixations.
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Investigating Memory for Spatial and Temporal Relations with Eye Movement MonitoringRondina II, Renante 26 November 2012 (has links)
By using eye movement monitoring (EMM) techniques, investigators have been able to examine the processes that support relational memory as they occur online. However, EMM studies have only focused on memory for spatial relations, producing a lack of EMM evidence for temporal relations. Thus, in the present study, participants performed a recognition memory task with stimuli that varied in their spatial and temporal relations. They were presented with a sequence of objects in a unique spatial configuration, and were instructed to either detect changes in the spatial or temporal relations between study and test presentations. The results provide novel EMM evidence for an interaction between spatial and temporal memory, and the obligatory effects of relational memory processes on eye movement behaviours. Moreover, the current study was also able to test predictions from the temporal context model (Howard & Kahana, 2002), and found evidence for a temporal contiguity effect.
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Electrophysiological Investigation of Feature-based Attention during Object PerceptionStojanoski, Boge Bobby 31 August 2012 (has links)
We live in a visually rich environment yet our brains are only equipped to process a
small fraction of all available information at any point in time. For successful and
efficient perception, the brain relies on attention to differentiate and select specific
stimuli for further analysis. Attention can be directed to features – feature based
attention – which enhances the processing of other similar features independent of
spatial location. I have recently shown that the benefits of feature-based attention not
only apply to lower-level features, but also to processes of object perception. The aim of
the thesis was to examine the behavioural and electrophysiological correlates
underlying the influence of feature-based attention on object perception. Chapter 1
measured the electric field activity associated with attending to higher-level features
(object contours) and comparing it with the neural activity while attending to motion
stimuli. We found temporally later effects for contours relative to motion, suggesting that
feature-based attention to objects might be mediated by higher-tier visual areas, such
as the lateral occipital cortex. In Chapter 2, I describe a study designed to investigate
the time course of neural activity while cueing attention within the feature dimension of
shape that more directly targets higher-tier visual areas. Consistent with Chapter 1, I
iii
found temporally late modulation, but behavioural effects that were weaker than
expected. To account for these findings, I proposed a “wrong-turn” model which
explains the perceptual benefits and costs coupled to expecting the correct or incorrect
feature by taking into consideration the hierarchical structure of the visual system.
Moreover, the model also makes specific predictions about the pattern of behavioural
and electrophysiological activity while attending to features of varying complexity during
object perception. The aim of Chapter 3 was to test the predictions of the model; I cued
attention to colour, a lower-level feature essential to perceiving the object. I found much
stronger behavioural cueing effects, and a biphasic pattern (early and late) electric brain
activity that confirmed the predictions of the model. Together the results indicate that
feature-based attention plays an important role in object perception that is mediated by
a flexible perceptual system.
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Electrophysiological Investigation of Feature-based Attention during Object PerceptionStojanoski, Boge Bobby 31 August 2012 (has links)
We live in a visually rich environment yet our brains are only equipped to process a
small fraction of all available information at any point in time. For successful and
efficient perception, the brain relies on attention to differentiate and select specific
stimuli for further analysis. Attention can be directed to features – feature based
attention – which enhances the processing of other similar features independent of
spatial location. I have recently shown that the benefits of feature-based attention not
only apply to lower-level features, but also to processes of object perception. The aim of
the thesis was to examine the behavioural and electrophysiological correlates
underlying the influence of feature-based attention on object perception. Chapter 1
measured the electric field activity associated with attending to higher-level features
(object contours) and comparing it with the neural activity while attending to motion
stimuli. We found temporally later effects for contours relative to motion, suggesting that
feature-based attention to objects might be mediated by higher-tier visual areas, such
as the lateral occipital cortex. In Chapter 2, I describe a study designed to investigate
the time course of neural activity while cueing attention within the feature dimension of
shape that more directly targets higher-tier visual areas. Consistent with Chapter 1, I
iii
found temporally late modulation, but behavioural effects that were weaker than
expected. To account for these findings, I proposed a “wrong-turn” model which
explains the perceptual benefits and costs coupled to expecting the correct or incorrect
feature by taking into consideration the hierarchical structure of the visual system.
Moreover, the model also makes specific predictions about the pattern of behavioural
and electrophysiological activity while attending to features of varying complexity during
object perception. The aim of Chapter 3 was to test the predictions of the model; I cued
attention to colour, a lower-level feature essential to perceiving the object. I found much
stronger behavioural cueing effects, and a biphasic pattern (early and late) electric brain
activity that confirmed the predictions of the model. Together the results indicate that
feature-based attention plays an important role in object perception that is mediated by
a flexible perceptual system.
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Content Specificity of the Contralateral Delay ActivityShaw, Mark 27 November 2013 (has links)
The neural signature and cognitive architecture of how a visual stimulus reaches conscious awareness have not been conclusively determined. Recently, we have reported an ERP activity corresponding with a period of perceptual persistence which has been typically reported in working memory research, known as the contralateral delay activity (CDA). Specifically, we reported how the CDA can be used to track how on object fades in out of consciousness. Here, we report on the behaviour of the CDA when the type of item in this paradigm is manipulated between face, animal and object stimuli. We recorded EEG activity while participants viewed a bilateral Shape-from-Motion display and analyzed where and how large a CDA is observed. Our findings show that the CDA is generalizable to different item types fading from awareness, with no differences between item conditions. This work supports the content-invariant involvement of working memory processes in sustaining conscious awareness.
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