<p>Involuntary episodic memories are memories that come into consciousness without preceding retrieval effort. These memories are commonplace and are relevant to multiple mental disorders. However, they are vastly understudied. We use a novel paradigm to elicit involuntary memories in the laboratory so that we can study their neural basis. In session one, an encoding session, sounds are presented with picture pairs or alone. In session two, in the scanner, sounds-picture pairs and unpaired sounds are reencoded. Immediately following, participants are split into two groups: a voluntary and an involuntary group. Both groups perform a sound localization task in which they hear the sounds and indicate the side from which they are coming. The voluntary group additionally tries to remember the pictures that were paired with the sounds. Looking at neural activity, we find a main effect of condition (paired vs. unpaired sounds) showing similar activity in both groups for voluntary and involuntary memories in regions typically associated with retrieval. There is also a main effect of group (voluntary vs. involuntary) in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region typically associated with cognitive control. Turning to connectivity similarities and differences between groups again, there is a main effect of condition showing paired > unpaired sounds are associated with a recollection network. In addition, three group differences were found: (1) increased connectivity between the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus and the recollection network for the voluntary group, (2) a higher association between the voluntary group and a network that includes regions typically found in frontoparietal and cingulo-opercular networks, and (3) shorter path length for about half of the nodes in these networks for the voluntary group. Finally, we use the same paradigm to compare involuntary memories in people with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to trauma-controls. This study also included the addition of emotional pictures. There were two main findings. (1) A similar pattern of activity was found for paired > unpaired sounds for both groups but this activity was delayed in the PTSD group. (2) A similar pattern of activity was found for high > low emotion stimuli but it occurred early in the PTSD group compared to the control group. Our results suggest that involuntary and voluntary memories share the same neural representation but that voluntary memories are associated with additional cognitive control processes. They also suggest that disorders associated with cognitive deficits, like PTSD, can affect the processing of involuntary memories.</p> / Dissertation

Collective memory is a socially shared representation of the past. History, contrastingly, strives to be an unbiased, objective, and critical account of the past. Many researchers have argued that the so-called “history” found in school textbooks and curriculums align more with collective memory; however, many individuals do not know of the pervasiveness of collective memory in supposed “history” texts. To examine perceptions of accuracy and preference of American “history” textbook passages, individuals from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (n= 404) participated in an online study where they were randomly assigned to read one passage that was either negatively biased, neutral, or positively biased regarding the U.S. dropping the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Participants rated their emotional valence of the event and their perceptions of accuracy and preference for the passage. The results suggest that individuals perceive negatively biased passages as less accurate and less preferable, even if their emotional valence matches the bias within the text. Individuals also showed the hypothesized interaction for preference; those who perceived the event as not negative preferred the positive text to the neutral and negative texts. The findings support evidence that individuals are motivated to prefer history passages consistent with their attitudes and rate higher accuracy among positive and neutral texts. The results have broader implications on reporting or dismissing human rights violations within collective memory.

Much of the research on metacognition in human factors has focused on prescriptive, normative strategy training. That is, many researchers have concentrated their efforts on finding ways to improve system users’ prediction, planning, monitoring and evaluation strategies for tasks. However little research has focused on the strategies and heuristics users employ on their own to make usability predictions. Understanding usability prediction methods is critical because users’ predictions inform their expectations about whether they will make errors using a product, how much effort they will need to expend to be successful in using the product, whether they can perform two tasks successfully at the same time, whether the costs of learning to use a device are worth the benefits of using it, which tools will assist in accomplishing goals and which tools will make performing the same task more difficult. The following study aims to identify the specific strategies people use to make usability predictions about product designs. From these strategies a set of guidelines, for designers who wish to ensure users’ expectations meet post hoc usability assessments, were proposed. The study was completed in two phases. During the first phase of this study, prediction strategies were elicited by 1) asking participants to make routine product usability judgments, from which implicit strategies can be inferred, and by 2) using explicit free-response methods. Judgments were analyzed using multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) methods to establish the number of dimensions that are implicitly used to predict usability. Subject matter experts (SMEs) coded free-response strategies using coding schemes developed in a pilot study. SMEs will also matched user strategies to formal, professional usability standards. The outcome of Phase 1 was usability taxonomy for classifying usability strategies that includes both expert and user language. The procedure was repeated with three different product design classes to determine how strategies differ as a function of the to-be-judged product. During the second phase of the study, a new group of participants rated specific usability attributes of designs to validate the strategies collected from users’ free-responses in Phase 1. Attributes were selected based on the strategies discovered in Phase 1. These usability attribute ratings helped to inform interpretations of the dimensions of the MDS model generated in Phase 1 and provided input into defining the usability attributes that influenced usability predictions. Results of this study reveal that the type design class participants evaluated had a significant effect on the type of strategy participants used to make their a priori usability assessments (UAs). Participants reported using “complexity” or “organization” most often to predict the usability of cookbooks. Participants reported using “mental simulation” or “typicality/familiarity” most often for predicting the usability of drinking glasses. Participants reported using “complexity,” “organization,” and to a lesser extent “typicality/familiarity,” and “mental simulation” as strategies for predicting the usability of cooktops. MDS methods were used to uncover the underlying dimension of the UA space. For drinking glasses, the “fanciness” and “holdability” were associated with UAs. For cooktops, “the number of controls” and whether participants believed “it was easy to understand how each burner was controlled” were associated with making UAs. And for cookbooks, “the length of the instructions” and “poor contrast of the text with the background” were associated with UAs. Overall, there is evidence that at least some participants in Phase 2 used terminology that was consistent with the terminology people used to describe the designs during Phase 1 and that these were congruent with the uncovered strategies.

<p> Background: A significant number of children in the US are placed in the child welfare system every year. Among the multiple negative outcomes associated with being in the foster care system is a wide academic achievement gap between foster students and the general population, as well as other disadvantaged groups (e.g. low income). Low academic achievement is particularly pronounced in college. The government and higher education institutions are recognizing these educational gaps and developing specialized programs to address the unique needs of foster students; however, the effectiveness of these programs remains unclear. This study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of one program, the Transition to Independence Program (TIP), in improving academic outcomes for foster students at Wayne State University (WSU) during the first 2 years of the program initiation (2012-2014). Methods: patterns of TIP service utilization (mentoring; financial aid; contact with campus coach and community partners) among 120 individuals who had been wards of the court, and its association with academic outcomes were examined on the following variables: GPA, academic probation status, first year retention, remedial classes, being on track for graduation, and graduation status. Further, TIP students&rsquo; performance on those same academic variables was compared to two groups: (1) 120 low income, non-foster care youth, and (2) 26 former foster care youth who did not receive TIP services. Results: 73% of TIP students used at least one service and students who used any program services were 5.7 times more likely to be retained than those who had not. Additionally, TIP students performed better than foster, non-TIP students on the academic variables, and the academic gap with low-income students was reduced. Discussion: TIP is effective in improving academic outcomes for students from the child welfare system. Implications and future directions are discussed.</p>

Extensive research on the development of self-regulation has demonstrated that better executive functioning and effortful control during the preschool years are associated with greater kindergarten and early school achievement. Recent findings suggest that self-regulation tasks differ in their assessment of “hot” and “cool” regulation, how these processes map onto effortful control and executive functioning, and may predict school readiness. However, only a few studies have examined the validity of hot and cool regulation tasks (Allan & Lonigan, 2014; Di Norcia, Pecora, Bombi, Baumgartner, & Laghi, 2015; Willoughby, Kupersmidt, Voegler-Lee, & Bryant, 2011), and how they predict socio-emotional competence (Di Norcia et al., 2015) and academic performance (Kim, Nordling, Yoon, Boldt, & Kochanska, 2013). The current study examined the validity of hot and cool tasks as measures of self-regulation and predictive measures of school readiness within a low-income sample. The sample consisted of 64 preschoolers between the ages of three (n= 38) and four (n= 26) who were enrolled in a blended Head Start program. The Preschooler Self-Regulation Assessment, Woodcock Johnson subtests (Letter Word, Applied Problem, and Picture Vocabulary), and teacher ratings of social competence (Social Competence and Behavioral Evaluation) and emotional competence (Emotion Regulation Checklist) were collected in the fall and spring of the school year. Results indicated that performance on the Cool and Hot tasks was moderate to highly correlated with academic performance and teacher ratings of socio-emotional competence respectively. Developmental differences in selfregulation performance suggested that cool regulation begins to develop later in the preschool period and may depend on earlier development of hot regulatory processes. There were also gains in academic achievement and socio-emotional competence from fall to spring. Regression analyses indicated that Hot and Cool tasks did not predict socio-emotional competence and academic achievement as distinctively as expected. Hot and cool regulation seemed to predict socio-emotional competence and academic achievement in parallel, with the exception of math performance, which was strongly predicted by Cool task performance above and beyond Hot tasks. Results suggest that hot and cool regulation overlap in predicting school readiness.

The attentional blink occurs when detection of a second target (T2) is impaired when it occurs between 180 to 450 ms after the first target (T1) in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). The attentional blink can be affected by relevant emotional stimuli, like emotional faces, such that an emotional T1 enhances the attentional blink, and an emotional T2 attenuates it. However, not all studies use the same type of face stimuli, and there is debate over whether schematic and photo-realistic faces are processed in the same way. Furthermore, the effect of emotion on the attentional blink should differ with age, given the tendency for younger adults to display a negativity bias and for older adults to display a positivity effect. Very little research has been conducted on the attentional blink with emotional stimuli in older adults. In fact, the effect of emotional faces, which are arguably more salient stimuli than other stimuli such as emotional words, on the attentional blink has not been investigated in older adults. Therefore, this study sought to examine the impact of emotional faces on the attentional blink in younger and older adults using photo-realistic faces with angry, happy, and neutral expressions as targets in a RSVP. Although older adults did perform worse overall, there were no age differences in the effect of emotion on the attentional blink. Angry faces, as well as happy faces to a limited extent, increased the attentional blink when they served as T1. Neither the angry or happy faces as T2 were able to attenuate the blink. Given that emotional faces affected the attentional blink at T1 but not at T2, it may be the case that the emotional expressions served to maintain attention, rather than to capture it. Future studies are necessary to test this idea, as well as to more directly test the differential effect of emotional photorealistic and schematic faces on the attentional blink.

A number of studies have indicated that violent video gameplay is associated with higher levels of aggression, and desensitization to violent content contributes to this association. Utilizing a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task, the current study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate selective attention (N1 activation), cognitive control (N2 activation), and desensitization (P3 activation) as neurocognitive mechanisms potentially underlying the association between gameplay and subtypes of aggression. Results showed video game players and non-players differed significantly in brain activation when engaged with violent imagery. N1 and P3 amplitude moderated the association between gameplay and pleasure-oriented aggression. Follow-up analyses further revealed that individuals who play games for many hours and show large N1 activation (high selective attention) in the face of violence have small P3 activation (heightened desensitization). Thus, our results suggest that selective attention to violent content and subsequent desensitization effects moderate the association between video gameplay and aggression.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide an analysis of the principal factors that affect first-generation students while traversing through the higher education pipeline. Specifically, this thesis will discuss the factors that affect the chances of first-generation students gaining admission to postsecondary institutions and later persisting to graduation in those institutions. In addition, this thesis will discuss the possibility of prescriptive policies in ameliorating the very real deficits that these students face in succeeding in college.

Saccadic eye movements, produced by the oculomotor system, are used to bring salient information in line with the high resolution fovea. It has been suggested that visual working memory, the cognitive system that temporarily stores and manipulates visual information (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974), is utilised by the oculomotor system in order to maintain saccade programmes across temporal delays (Belopolsky & Theeuwes, 2011). Saccadic eye movements have been found to deviate away from information stored in visual working memory (Theeuwes and colleagues, 2005, 2006). Saccadic deviation away from presented visual stimuli has been associated with top-down suppression (McSorley, Haggard, & Walker, 2006). This thesis examines the extent to which saccade trajectories are influenced by information held in visual working memory. Through a series of experiments behavioural memory data and saccade trajectory data were explored and evidence for visual working memory-oculomotor interaction was found. Other findings included specific interactions with the oculomotor system for the dorsal and ventral pathways as well as evidence for both bottom-up and top-down processing. Evidence of further oculomotor interaction with manual cognitive mechanisms was also illustrated, suggesting that visual working memory does not uniquely interact with the oculomotor system to preserve saccade programmes. The clinical and theoretical implications of this thesis are explored. It is proposed that the oculomotor system may interact with a variety of sensory systems to inform accurate and efficient visual processing.

<p>People give each other advice on a variety of topics throughout their lifetimes. In this dissertation, I ask: Do advisors accurately perceive the impact of their advice? Or, do they possess blind spots that prevent them from doing so? I focus on whether advisors recognize the information they need in order to form judgments of the impact of their advice, which I call "impact judgments". Four studies demonstrate that advisors have blind spots in their perceptions of their influence and that these blind spots have consequences for advisors' accuracy and subsequent behavioral intentions. First, a free-recall task (Study 1) and a manipulated scenario task (Study 2) showed that advisors failed to recognize when they were missing information needed to form accurate impact judgments, namely, information on the advisee's initial, pre-advice opinion, unless they were prompted to think about why they need that information. Second, an experiment where participants were assigned the role of advisor or advisee (Study 3) demonstrated that advisors' impact judgments were less accurate when advisors did not know the advisee's initial, pre-advice opinion. Third, participants' recollections of a time they gave advice (Study 4) showed that advisors relied on their impact judgments for forming downstream behavioral intentions such as willingness to give advice again, even when they recognized that they were lacking needed information. I conclude with a discussion of the implications for advice giving by individuals and members of organizations, a general framework for impact judgments, and areas for future research.</p> / Dissertation