Moyamoya disease is a rare entity characterized by progressive narrowing of intracranial blood vessels. In most cases, Moyamoya does not respond well to medical therapy and often leads to surgical revascularization. The physiological benefits of the revascularization surgery for Moyamoya patients have been well documented, yet the effects of surgery on cognitive skills and abilities are far less studied. Participants in the current study were 33 patients, 24 to 85 years of age, who underwent revascularization surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. All patients underwent a physical and cognitive preoperative evaluation, where speech, memory, and intellectual processes were measured. After surgery, patients returned for three follow-up assessments over a period of six months. All patients experienced stabilization or improvement of physiological symptoms. Regarding cognitive functions, speech, memory, and intellectual processes improved significantly after surgery. Results showed not only a reduction of physiological symptoms, but also a significant cognitive improvement postsurgery. This study adds to the research of this disease and to the benefits of treatment. More research can only strengthen these findings and educate healthcare professionals; helping them reaffirm Moyamoya patients have a better quality of life, by reinforcing the benefits of revascularization surgery.

Implicit knowledge influences decision-making in a variety of areas, including conflict resolution and decisions about war. Individuals may unknowingly apply implicit knowledge from past experiences to present experiences, even if that information leads to less accurate decisions in the present experience. The current study is an exploration into how implicit knowledge of past international conflicts and fear of terrorism affects recommendations for military conflict resolution in current international conflicts. Priming is one way to make implicit knowledge salient, and participants in this study were implicitly primed to think of either the Iraq War, World War II, or no war in particular before reading a description of the Syrian Civil War. Participants reported their recommendations for resolving the conflict in Syria, including to what extent they would recommend that the United States intervene using military force. Fear of Terrorism, which is theoretically linked to knowledge and attitudes about Middle Eastern conflicts, was also measured. Results showed that support for U.S. military intervention in Syria was significantly impacted by Fear of Terrorism when participants had been primed to think of the Iraq War. This effect was such that, when primed to think of the Iraq War, higher Fear of Terrorism predicted greater support for military intervention in Syria. This effect did not occur in the other priming conditions. This study extends current research by examining how implicit priming of past conflicts and fear of terrorism interact to influence Americans’ decision-making in support for military intervention in Middle Eastern conflicts.

Adaptive memory demonstrates that memory is enhanced when information is processed because of its relevance to survival (Nairne, Thompson, & Pandeirada, 2007). In the present experiments we examined whether there was a difference in individuals Need for Cognition (NFC) in regards to adaptive memory. Need for Cognition is characterized as the differences in individual’s preference for engaging in thought that requires effort. Specifically, individuals high in NFC could think of numerous ways to survive, thus being more likely to generate more thoughts and ideas, ultimately leading to better memory compared to low-NFC individuals. For both experiments participants read survival and moving scenarios and rated words according to each scenario. Participants received a surprise recall test on the rated words, and completed a NFC questionnaire. Experiment two examined true and false memories across multiple recall tests, giving participants three chances at recall prior to NFC scale. Results for experiment one indicated no effect of high and low NFC but there was an effect of scenario, indicating that the survival scenario led to greater recall than the moving scenario. Results for experiment two for target words, indicated that there was a significant effect for recall test as well as scenario, revealing that the survival scenario led to greater recall than the moving scenario. For false memories, high-NFC individuals gradually increased in recall from subsequent tests, compared to low-NFC individuals. Explanations for the lack of difference in high- and low-NFC individuals may be diminished from prompting a type processing that succeeds in increasing true and false memories for the low-NFC individuals, which is similar to high-NFC individuals.

As both a Working Memory (WM) task and as a more integrated reasoning process, moral decision making appears susceptible to interference by nociceptive stimuli. Differentiation, however, between conflicting occupation of WM resources and the influence of pain-induced autonomic activation as potential pathways of interaction represents a considerably more difficult task than simple measurement of WM performance. To clarify the basis of any noted effects, this study recorded both self-report pain intensity and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) as a separate measure of autonomic activation under a cold pressor task using a sample of 122 undergraduate participants. Recorded pain and physiological data was compared to rates of utilitarian decision making in the provided moral dilemmas. While there were significantly lower rates of utilitarian decision making in the pain condition, a warm-water painless condition showed comparably decreased rates. Comparison with GSR data suggests that the pain condition did not induce a significantly heightened state of autonomic activation. This suggests that while divided attention or occupation of WM resources does effect patterns of moral decision making, this is not reliant on a nociceptive stimulus.

In this current research I sought to answer two questions; 1) Do individuals have the capacity to recognize when they are being justly or unjustly socially excluded or conversely socially included? 2) Do the consequences of just and unjust social exclusion or social inclusion vary? In efforts to address these questions, I used perceptions of burden (i.e., participant’s overall contribution to a group task) to manipulate the perceived fairness of one’s inclusionary status to see how this affects the participants’ emotional and behavioral reactions. In Study 1, participants engaged in an imaginary group interaction in which they were burdensome (performing worse than the group) or non-burdensome (performing equal to the group) on a group-task while either being included or rejected. For Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to be burdensome versus non-burdensome, in a similar fashion as Study 1, and then ostracized or included by confederate players in a computerized group word game (i.e., Atimia). Participants in both studies reported their levels of perceived justice, needs satisfaction, social pain, negative affect, and aggressive behavior temptations. Participants in Study 2 also completed a behavioral aggression measure (i.e., candy allocation task). In Study 1, perceptions of justice had no impact on the consequences of social exclusion; rejected participants felt bad regardless of the fairness of their rejection. For included participants, unjust, compared to just, inclusion induced thwarted needs, increased social pain, negative affect, and aggressive behavior temptations (consequences similar to that of social exclusion). In Study 2 almost no differences emerged within the affective state of included individuals. Based primarily on the results of Study 1, it appears that burden may play a critical role in the ostracism experience. Further research is recommended to better understand this relationship.

A connection between self-monitoring, which is an individual difference in concern about self-presentation, and partner knowledge structures, which is how people organize thoughts about their current romantic partner, is explored in this study. There were two competing hypotheses. If people structure thoughts about their partner in a way similar to how they structure their social worlds, then low self-monitors would have integrated partner knowledge structures and high self-monitors would have compartmentalized partner knowledge structures. If people structure thoughts about their partner in a way that reflects their relationship motivations and needs then we would find the opposite pattern of results. We used a measure of compartmentalization and integration as well as Snyder’s (1974) Self-Monitoring Scale to explore our hypotheses. Although both low self-monitors and high self-monitors had relatively compartmentalized partner knowledge structures, we found support for the relationship motivations and needs hypothesis. Low self-monitors had more compartmentalized partner knowledge structures than did high self-monitors. In fact, low self-monitors were more likely than high self-monitors to have completely compartmentalized views of their partners. Reasons for these findings, limitations of this study, and future directions are discussed.

The current study examined the problem solving behaviors of novices and experts in a complex computer simulation. Dynamic decision-making and complex problem solving abilities were analyzed to investigate if experts are the most successful of all participants when simulating the role of CEO of a chocolate factory, CHOCO FINE. Participants included novices, business undergraduate students and psychology undergraduate students, and experts, small business owners. Results revealed that small business owners engaged in the most successful dynamic decision-making strategies. Experts compared to novices had more total monies at the end of the simulation, spent more time in the first two months of twenty-four months, spent less money on information collection overall, made the most changes in representatives and advertising, and less changes in market research. This study addressed the differences between novices and experts not only in performance, but also in behavior in a complex and uncertain situation. The findings from this research enhance the dearth of research in addressing the relationship between behavior strategy and performance specifically in the area of expertise. The research at hand extends the previous literature within the domain of decision-making and provides insight for the differences in behavior strategies between novice and expert subjects.

This study examines the effects of neurotensin (NT) receptor sites on the sensation of visceral pain. Previous work by researchers has found, through the use of NT analogs, that visceral pain is closely associated with NT receptor 2 (NTSR2). This study tested 70 genetically modified mice. The mice were either missing NTSR1, NTSR2, or were wild-type (WT) mice that were not missing any NT receptors. The mice were injected intraperitoneally with either saline or acetic acid then observed for a 60 minute period and writhing behavior was recorded. Twenty four hours later activity levels were recorded in the open field assay. We found that contrary to previous research, NTSR2 is not solely responsible in the sensation of visceral pain. We also found that NTSR1 plays a more significant role than NTSR2, contrary to previous research. Additionally, we found that the NT receptors may be affected by age related factors. The findings of this study suggest that NTSR2 does in fact play a role in the sensation of visceral pain but that NTSR1 may modulate the degree of activation of NTSR2. It can also be concluded that age may have a role in the effectiveness of NTSR sites in visceral pain. This information allows for further research to analyze possible age-dependent effects of NT receptor sites that could alter the possible usefulness of NT analogues in the future.

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of false memories and Need for Cognition (NFC). The relationship was examined using a typical misinformation paradigm where participants viewed a video clip which depicted a museum burglary and were later presented with an auditory narrative that contained misleading information about the video they previously saw. Half of the participants were exposed to warnings of misinformation. Additionally, the effect of question type (e.g., central, peripheral, and neutral) was taken into account. A main effect for NFC was found indicating that high NFC individuals had fewer false memories for the originally witnessed event than low NFC individuals. It was also found that memory for central details was better than for peripheral details. Furthermore, an interaction between warning and question type showed that when a warning was present, memory for the misleading peripheral details was stronger. Overall, the results demonstrate that there is a difference between high and low NFC individuals and the way memory is processed in the misinformation paradigm. Additionally, the results of this study reaffirm the notion that post-event information can hinder an eyewitness’s memory for an original event.

The present study was conducted to investigate whether returning veterans feel ostracized (excluded and ignored) and if they experience its immediate negative impact (reflexive pain response and thwarted basic needs) on university campuses. Additionally, this study was designed to investigate veteran students’ feelings of perceived burdensomeness, and three caveats of student engagement: student faculty engagement, community-based activities, and transformational learning opportunities. Participants in the study were 118 civilian and veteran students at the University of North Florida. All data were collected through a world wide web surveying program that allowed each participant to respond on computers from any location. Both veteran and civilian participants recorded the interactions and feelings they recalled experiencing in the classroom during the month prior to participating in the study. The surveys administered were the Needs Threat Scale, the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS-11), the Wong Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale, the Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire (INQ), the Student Faculty Engagement (SFE) scale, the Community Based Activities (CBA) scale, and the Transformational Opportunity (TLO) scale along with a demographics questionnaire. Results show that participants in the veteran group reported greater thwarted belongingness than civilian students. Military service was also associated with less engagement in CBAs and TLOs. The association with less engagement in CBAs explained the impact of militarily service on thwarted belongingness.