This study examined the effects of concurrent speech and computer tasks on each other and on measures of physiologic arousal in 30 young adults. Physiologic measures included galvanic skin response, heart rate, and heart rate variability. Participants completed a speech-only task, two computer-based tasks, and combined speech and computer-based tasks. Participants spoke for 60 seconds on a procedural discourse prompt. Acoustic measures included the mean and standard deviation of intensity and fundamental frequency as indices of prosody, speaking time ratio to reflect pausing, and speech rate. The primary computer task (with two levels of difficulty) involved making formatting changes to a paragraph with a word processor. The secondary computer task involved data entry (typing items from a shopping list into categories in a spreadsheet). Errors were tallied for each computer task. Statistical analysis revealed a significant decrease in words per minute in both the data entry and the easier formatting tasks; the proportion of speaking time decreased for all three concurrent computer tasks. Performance on all computer tasks was negatively impacted by speech. There was a significant decrease in the number of words correctly sorted and the number of correct formatting changes. The physiologic changes were limited; it remains unclear whether the heart rate increases during combined computer task and speaking conditions resulted from the addition of cognitive load or the respiratory changes inherent in speaking compared to silent task performance. Findings reflect bidirectional interference between speech and computer-based tasks while multitasking. These findings can help speech-pathologists to create therapy activities that are more like what patients will be experiencing in their everyday lives, such as practicing speech during computer tasks.

Neocortical sensory areas have associated primary and secondary thalamic nuclei. While primary nuclei transmit sensory information to cortex, secondary nuclei remain poorly understood. I recorded juxtasomally from the secondary somatosensory (POm) and visual (LP) nuclei of awake mice. POm activity correlated with whisking, but not precise whisker kinematics. This movement modulation was not a result of sensory reafference, nor was it due to input from motor or somatosensory cortex, nor the superior colliculus. Whisking and pupil dilation were strongly correlated, reflecting arousal. Indeed LP, which is not part of the whisker system, tracked whisking equally well, indicating that POm activity does not encode whisker movement per se. The semblance of movement-related activity is likely instead a global effect of arousal on both nuclei. I then investigated how POm and LP may support feature-based attention. I trained head-fixed mice to attend to one sensory modality while ignoring a second modality. I used multielectrode arrays to record simultaneously from both regions. In mice trained to respond to tactile stimuli and ignore visual stimuli, POm was robustly activated by touch and largely unresponsive to visual stimuli. The reverse pattern was observed when mice were trained to respond to visual stimuli and ignore touch, with POm now more robustly activated during visual trials. This POm activity was not explained by differences in movements (i.e., whisking, licking) resulting from the two tasks. LP exhibited similar phenomena. I conclude that behavioral training reshapes activity in secondary thalamic nuclei. Secondary nuclei may respond to behaviorally relevant, reward-predicting stimuli regardless of stimulus modality.

This study investigates the relationship between environmental game sounds and arousal level, looking to see if/how it affects player action. Previous research has shown that music evoking different levels of arousal affect player lap time performance of a racing game. For this study a computer game was created containing two levels, one with high arousal environmental sounds, and another with low arousal environmental sounds. The two levels were in different environments but had the same task, which was to place specific objects in their corresponding box, with the same color. The amount of time it took for subjects to finish the game under each sonic condition was the data of greatest interest. The results showed no significant difference between subjects elapsed times. However, a significant difference could be seen of how subjects perceived the energy level between the two levels in consideration to the sounding environment. Having this information when designing environmental sounds for a game could be something to think about and use when sound designers make decisions about player perceptibility and where to direct the player mindset to.

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Current neurobiological models of adolescent decision-making suggest that heightened risk taking during adolescence is a result of the asynchronous development of neural regions underlying cognitive control and reward processing, particularly during periods of heightened social and affective arousal (e.g., Casey, Getz, & Galván, 2008; Steinberg, 2008). Despite the emphasis on the interplay of cognitive and emotional processes during adolescence, the developmental literature has largely overlooked the potential importance of maturational changes in the anterior insular cortex (AIC), a region known for its role as a cognitive-emotional hub. In a recent review we proposed a theory of adolescent risk-taking in which development of the AIC, and its connectivity to other regions, biases adolescents towards engagement in risky behaviors (Smith, Steinberg, & Chein, 2014b). The current studies provide a test of the proposed model through an examination of specific aspects of AIC development and functioning, including the trajectory of structural development within the AIC, the role of AIC engagement in adolescents' risky decision-making, and the impacts of affective arousal on AIC recruitment. Results from Study 1 suggest that the AIC exhibits continued developmental changes during adolescence that likely affect its involvement in cognitive processes. Using a risk-taking task, Study 2 demonstrates the flexible role of the AIC during adolescent decision-making and explores how affective arousal biases the AIC towards engagement in risky behaviors. Implications for both the proposed model and the developmental literature are discussed. / Psychology

BACKGROUND: Current research regarding the impact aging has on characteristics of sleep suggest that over the course of one’s lifespan, the quantity and quality of sleep declines. Sleep quality is a measure of the extent to which sleep is consolidated- the less number of brief awakenings one experiences during a period of sleep, the better. The extent to which degradation of sleep quality may impact overall health and increase susceptibility to age-related diseases is currently unknown, nor is the mechanism that mediates sleep fragmentation and consolidation understood. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to ascertain if the increased sleep fragmentation experienced with age is due to a decreased arousal threshold towards external stimuli. A decreased ability to inhibit sensory processes during sleep could potentially trigger a greater number of brief awakenings and negatively impact sleep quality. METHODS: Various age groups of inbred wild-type genotypes of Drosophila melanogaster had arousal threshold tested during the night using mechanical stimuli to see if the older flies were more likely to be woken up. Sleep characteristics at baseline and after the arousal assay were compared to observe any impacts aging has on the ability to recover from a mild sleep deprivation as such. RESULTS: I observed an increase in arousal threshold with age; older flies were less likely to be aroused by the presentation of the mechanical stimulus. Arousal threshold findings were consistent between sexes but not between genotypes. It was noted that the degree to which aging impacted arousal threshold was affected by the expected lifespan of a genotype. In terms of sleep characteristics measured outside of the arousal assay, I noticed an increase in quantity of sleep and decrease in activity as flies aged, including a greater reliance on day sleep. This was further reflected by a decrease in rebound sleep after the arousal assay was performed. More specific sleep architecture characteristics such as bout number and bout length were greatly impacted by both sex and genotype. CONCLUSION: Our results were greatly unexpected in comparison to previous studies, especially in regards to older flies having an increased arousal threshold and an increased quantity of sleep. This is not conclusive, however, as previous studies have shown that the saliency of the stimulus presented may prove important, especially when considering the internal state of the fly. Instead of solely focusing on if older flies are more or less easy to wake up with the application of an external stimulus, it may instead be beneficial to also consider their ability to discriminate between salient stimuli while quiescent.

The evaluation of risk is a fundamental aspect of decision-making and influences important outcomes, such as in the domain of financial and health behavior. In many economic applications, risk attitudes are assumed to be inherently stable. Nonetheless, behavioral tasks that elicit risk preferences have shown temporal inconsistencies. The instability of risk preferences can be attributed to several factors such as the way information is presented (framing effects), personal past experiences, and experienced emotions. We conduct four studies in this dissertation to shed light on the state dependency of risk attitudes and on the decision process of risky choice. Chapter 2 examines, using a laboratory experiment, how high stakes in risky choices influence physiological arousal, as measured via skin conductance, pulse rate and pupil size, and attention, as measured via gaze bias and saccades. We link the changes in arousal and attention accompanying high stakes to changes in risk aversion. Moreover, we develop and test a Sequential Sampling Model (SSM), the arousal-modulated Attentional Drift Diffusion Model (aADDM), linking reaction time and choice while allowing attention and its interaction with arousal to modulate the evaluation process of risky alternatives. High stakes caused changes in attention toward the safe option's attributes, heightened physiological arousal, and increased risk aversion. Results from the aADDM, demonstrate that the values of the high attributes are discounted when participants attend to the low attributes, with arousal amplifying this process further. Chapter 3, using a laboratory experiment, investigates how incentives and emotional experiences influence the adaptation process across high and low volatility contexts in risky choice. Due to the brain's computational capacity limitations, perception is optimized to detect differences within a narrow range of stimuli. We show that this adaptation process is itself context-dependent, with stronger incentives, heightened arousal, or more unpleasant feelings increasing payoff responsivity under high volatility. Chapter 4, using survey data, focuses on fear responses during the COVID-19 pandemic and risk perception of the health- and financial-related consequences of the crisis. We show that women report higher fear of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to men, modulating the gender differences in preventative health behaviors. Women also perceive the health risks of COVID-19, and not financial risks, to be greater than men. Chapter 5, using vignette experiments, demonstrates that betrayal aversion, or hesitancy regarding the risk of being betrayed in an environment involving trust, is an important preference construct in the decision to become vaccinated and is not accounted for by widely used vaccine hesitancy measures. We show that people are significantly less willing to get vaccinated when the associated risk involved the vaccine actively contributing to the cause of death. We also find that betrayal aversion is amplified with an active role of government or scientists. Moreover, we test an exogenous intervention that increases willingness to vaccinate without mitigating betrayal aversion. JEL codes: D81, D83, D87, D91, I12, J16 / Doctor of Philosophy / Many decisions involve varying levels of uncertainty and perceived reward like investing in a risky asset or getting a vaccination during a pandemic. These risky decisions, however, require consuming scarce brain resources. In addition, one's own feelings that are altered by the decision context itself or are naturally occurring during daily activities may influence risky decision-making. The scientific mission of this dissertation is to advance our understanding on how the decision context and experienced emotions influence not only risky decisions but also the way by which the decisions are being made. Our results show that real and high monetary rewards reduce financial risk-taking while altering attention and the perception of information. We also find that stronger incentives activate changes in the autonomous nervous system, such as a racing heart rate, increased sweating, or pupil dilation, and increase self-reports of emotional arousal. Importantly, we demonstrate, via computational modeling and experimental analysis, the role of emotional responses in modulating both attention and value perception of rewards in risky choice. In other words, we find that emotional experiences play an important role in adapting the process by which rewards are evaluated and perceived. Since significant life events, such as experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic, can lead to substantial uncertainty and emotional distress, we collected survey data upon the crisis' onset to investigate the impact on different aspects of behavior including adherence to prevention measures and willingness to get vaccinated. We find that women, compared to men, reported higher fear of the COVID-19 pandemic and perceived greater negative health risks of the crisis. We attribute observed differences in adherence to prevention measures between men and women to gender differences in emotional responsivity to the pandemic. In addition, we demonstrate the importance of contextual factors, which drive feelings associated with the risk of betrayal, in the decision to become vaccinated. Taken together, the findings in this dissertation highlight the integral role of emotional experiences, which vary with incentives or because of previous experiences, in decision-making under risk.

The current study aimed to test sensation seeking as a mediator in the relationship between arousal and aggression. In addition, an experimental design was used to test whether arousal can be manipulated to alter levels of sensation seeking and aggression, both measured behaviorally. A sample of 128 undergraduate students completed state and trait measures of sensation seeking and aggression, and baseline measures of physiology. It was hypothesized that trait sensation seeking would mediate the relationship between baseline physiology and trait aggression. Also, state sensation seeking would mediate the relationship between an arousal manipulation and state aggression. The results failed to support the proposed mediation models. Furthermore, the arousal manipulation was insufficient to result in sustained heart rate differences, and therefore the malleability of state sensation seeking and aggression could not truly be tested. Exploratory analyses supported an interaction between arousal and sensation seeking, such that in individuals low on experience seeking, disinhibition and boredom susceptibility, low heart rate was associated with greater aggression. These findings suggest that arousal and sensation seeking may conjointly predict aggression through moderation rather than mediation, though future studies with improved experimental designs are needed. / Ph. D.