A tomada de decisão quase sempre envolve a dimensão temporal e no ser humano, como nos outros animais, há um viés em favorecer o presente, fenômeno chamado de desconto do futuro. Entender em que condições e contextos os vieses cognitivos como o desconto do futuro ocorrem nos ajuda a compreender o funcionamento da cognição humana, e pode fornecer caminhos para prevenir a sua ocorrência quando são prejudiciais. Há pouco consenso sobre os antecedentes psicológicos do desconto do futuro, e o nível em que ele ocorre varia conforme a espécie, o sexo, a idade, os indivíduos, e os diferentes contextos para o mesmo indivíduo. Há poucos estudos que investigam a relação entre escolhas intertemporais e a percepção subjetiva do tempo. Para compreender o fenômeno do desconto do futuro e os mecanismos psicológicos relacionados a ele, nesse estudo investigamos a influência da percepção subjetiva de tempo. Participaram 208 pessoas, 117 mulheres e 91 homens com idades entre 18 e 71 anos, que responderam a um questionário online, anônima e voluntariamente. Foram perguntados o gênero, a idade, escolaridade, estado civil, se o participante possuía ou não filhos e em seguida o participante respondia a quatro instrumentos: (1) Cenário do Cupom, para verificar a taxa de desconto do futuro, com quatro condições experimentais que corresponderam a diferentes modos de apresentação do intervalo de tempo de três meses, (2) Aversão ao Risco, para verificar a aversão ao risco e (3) Distância da data e (4) Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory ZTPI, para verificar a percepção subjetiva de tempo. Não foi encontrada diferença significativa na taxa de desconto do futuro entre as quatro condições experimentais, contudo foi encontrada uma correlação positiva entre taxa de desconto do futuro e distância subjetiva da data em geral, juntando-se os quatro grupos e independente da apresentação. As análises indicaram que as mulheres dessa amostra apresentam maior taxa de desconto do futuro, são mais avessas ao risco, e mais propensas à orientação temporal do futuro. Os jovens, apresentaram, com relação aos mais velhos, maior taxa de desconto do futuro e maior propensão ao tempo presente. Além da distância subjetiva temporal, as variáveis gênero e idade foram as únicas que correlacionaram com diferenças na taxa de desconto do futuro. O instrumento Cenário do cupom pode não 7 ter sido adequado para acessar a taxa de desconto do futuro dos participantes quando se considera o gênero, já que outros fatores podem ter causado o maior valor pedido, e não uma maior propensão ao presente / Every moment we have to decide, and during this process cognitive biases can occur. Decision making almost always includes the temporal dimension. Human beings and other animals prefer the present, phenomenon known as future discounting. There is almost no consensus about the psychological antecedents of future discounting. Its occurrence varies with the species, the individual, the gender, the age, and different contexts for the same individual. We can understand the functioning of human mind studying the cognitive biases and the context of their occurrence, moreover we can prevent their occurrence when they are prejudicial. There are not many studies on intertemporal choice and time perception, therefore we want to contribute to the literature, adding data and reflections in this area. We explored the time perception, trough four experimental conditions, and controlling gender, age, marital status and if the participant had children or not. We had 208 participants, 117 women and 91 men, ages varying from 18 and 71, which answered to an anonymous online questionnaire, voluntarily. There were four instruments, one to verify the discounting future rate (Gift certificate Scenario ) with four experimental conditions corresponding to four different ways of presenting the three months interval , one to verify risk aversion (Risk aversion), and two to verify time perception (Distance to the date, Zimbardo time perspective inventory). There was no difference in the four experimental conditions; women had a higher future discounting rate than men, and younger participants had a higher discounting rate than older participants. Women were more risk averse than men. Younger participants had more propensity to the present than older participants. Women had more propensity to the future than men. The higher the discounting rate, higher the subjective distance of the date. There were no influence of the way the date is present, neither the participant´s marital status or if the participant had children or not. Age and gender showed an influence in time perception and future discounting

As new introductory block-based coding applications for young students to learn basic computer science concepts, such as, loops and conditionals, continue to increase in popularity, it is necessary to consider the best method of teaching students these skills. Many of these products continue to exhibit programmatic misconceptions of these concepts and many students struggle with how to apply what they learn to a text-based format due to the difficulties with learning the syntactic structure not present in block-based programming languages. If the goal of teaching young students how to program is meant to develop a set of skills they may apply when learning more complex programming languages, then discerning how they are introduced to those practices is imperative. However, few studies have examined how the specific modality in which students are taught to program effects how they learn and what skills they develop. More specifically, research has yet to effectively investigate modality in the context of an educational coding game where the modality feature is controlled, and content is consistent throughout game-play. This is mainly due to the lack of available games with this feature designed into the application. This dissertation explores whether programming modality effects how well students can learn and transfer computer science concepts and practices from an educational programming game. I proposed that by being guided from a blocks-based to text-based programming language would instill a deeper understanding of basic computer science concepts and would support learning and improve transfer and performance on new challenging tasks. Two experimental studies facilitated game-play sessions on the developed application for this project. The first study was a 2x2 between subjects design comparing educational module (game versus basic) and programming modality (guided versus free choice). The findings from Study 1 informed the final version design for the module used in the second study where only the game module was used in order to focus the comparison between programming modality. Findings showed that students who coded using the game module performed better on a learning test. Study 2 results showed that students who are transitioned from blocks-based to text-based programming language learn basic computer science concepts with greater success than those with the free choice modality. A comparative study was conducted using quantitative data from learning measures and qualitative video data from the interviews during the challenge task of the second study. This study examined how students at the extreme levels of performance utilized the toggle switch feature during game-play and how the absence of the feature impacted how they completed the challenge task. This analysis showed two different methods of toggle switch usage being implemented by a high and low performing student. The high performing student utilized the resources more often during the challenge tasks in lieu of leveraging the toggle switch and were still able to submit high level code. Results suggest that a free choice student who uses the feature as a tool to check their prewritten code rather than a as short cut for piecing code together as blocks and submitting the text upon the final attempt. This practice leads to a shallower understanding of the basic concepts and make it extremely difficult to expand and apply that knowledge to a more difficult task. This dissertation includes five chapters: an introduction and theoretical framework, a game design framework and implementation description, two experimental investigations, and a quantitative and qualitative comparative analysis. Chapter one provides the conceptual and theoretical framework for the two experimental investigations. Chapter two describes the theory and design structure for the game developed for this dissertation work. Chapter three and four will discuss the effects of programming modality on learning outcomes. Specifically, chapter 3 focuses on implications of programming modality when determining how to implement changes for the design of the game for Study 2. Chapter five discusses a comparative analysis that investigated differing work flow patterns within the free choice condition between high and low performing students. Results from these three chapters illustrate the importance of examining this component of the computer science education process in supplemental games for middle and high school students. Additionally, this work contributes in furthering the investigation of these educational games and discusses implications for design of similar applications.

This dissertation research focuses on investigating the incidence of student self-regulated learning behavior, and examines patterns in student affective states that accompany such self-regulated behavior. This dissertation leverages prediction models of student affective states in the Physics Playground educational game platform to identify common patterns in student affective states during use of self-regulated learning behavior. In Study 1, prediction models of student affective states are developed in the context of the educational game environment Physics Playground, using affective state observations and computer log data that had already been collected as part of a larger project. The performances of student affective state prediction models generated using a combination of the computer log and observational data are then compared against those of similar prediction models generated using video data collected at the same time. In Study 2, I apply these affective state prediction models to generate predictions of student affective states on a broader set of data collected from students participants playing Physics Playground. In parallel, I define aggregated behavioral features that represent the self-observation and strategic planning components of self-regulated learning. Affective state predictions are then mapped to playground level attempts that contain these self-regulated learning behavioral features, and sequential pattern mining is applied to the affective state predictions to identify the most common patterns in student emotions. Findings from Study 1 demonstrate that both video data and interaction log data can be used to predict student affective states with significant accuracy. Since the video data is a direct measure of student emotions, it shows better performance across most affective states. However, the interaction log data can be collected natively by Physics Playground and is able to be generalized more easily to other learning environments. Findings from Study 2 suggest that self-regulatory behavior is closely associated with sustained periods of engaged concentration and .self-regulated learning behaviors are associated with transitions from negative affective states (confusion, frustration, and boredom) to the positive engaged concentration state. The results of this dissertation project demonstrate the power of measuring student affective states in real time and examining the temporal relationship to self-regulated learning behavior within an unstructured educational game platform. These results thus provide a building block for future research on the real-time assessment of student emotions and its relationship with self-regulated learning behaviors, particularly within online student-centered and self-directed learning contexts.

Les troubles de la temporalité dans la schizophrénie ont fait l’objet de nombreuses descriptions cliniques, notamment de la part de la phénoménologie psychiatrique. Cette dernière considère le temps comme un contenant plus qu’un contenu de la perception c'est-à-dire un processus constitutif essentiel de l’expérience subjective : la conscience est en effet structurée dans le temps. Dans le modèle de Husserl, le temps, assure au travers de processus automatiques de rétention, de présentation et de protention une mise en forme stable et continue de l’expérience. En témoigne l’image de la perception d’une mélodie où chaque note perçue est, au moment même de sa perception, reliée et perçue avec la note précédente qui n’existe plus (rétention) et fait l’objet d’une anticipation vers la note à venir qui n’existe pas encore (protention). Ces processus automatiques déterminent dans ce modèle la capacité du sujet à nouer un sentiment de familiarité avec sa propre expérience, qu’il perçoit comme stable et continue.L’un des modèles phénoménologiques des troubles schizophréniques postule un vacillement des processus assurant la structuration temporelle de la conscience, qui induit par conséquent le vacillement de l’expérience subjective à son niveau le plus basique et détermine un vécu d’étrangeté du sujet à l’égard de sa propre expérience. Ces approches descriptives trouvent cependant leurs limites dans la mesure où la description des processus de temporalisation d’autrui s’avère difficile d’accès par une méthode introspective. Approcher les processus de temporalisation par les sciences cognitives pourrait permettre de dépasser ces limites. Les travaux récents sur l’altération des jugements de simultanéité (qui ne semble cependant pas signer une fusion des évènements à un niveau implicite et automatique) et des processus élémentaires d’anticipation temporelle (évalués cependant à l’échelle de la milliseconde) dans les troubles schizophréniques ainsi que les liens qu’il est possible d’entrevoir avec la théorie du codage prédictif de l’information fournissent un premier ensemble de données très encourageant sur le chemin d’une compréhension cognitiviste du temps schizophrénique. L’objectif de notre travail a consisté à valider d’une part l’hypothèse d’une dissociation des capacités conscientes et automatiques de discrimination des événements dans le temps, en utilisant les paradigmes qui explorent les contraintes temporelles de l’intégration multisensorielle... / Time disorders in schizophrenia have been the subject of numerous clinical descriptions, particularly from the psychiatric phenomenology. The latter considers time more as a container than a content of perception that is to say an essential component of subjective experience: consciousness is indeed structured in time. Husserl describes a tripartite structure of time consciousness, which is seen as an automatic integration of the past, the present, and the future. He gives the example of music. When we listen to a melody, we are conscious of the present note but still have the previous note in mind (“retention”) and usually anticipate the note to come. These automatic processes determine in this model the subject's ability to forge a sense of familiarity with his own experience, lived as stable and continuous.One of phenomenological models of schizophrenic disorders postulated a breakdown of the temporal structure of consciousness, which consequently induces disturbances of subjective experience at its most basic level (the level of minimal self) and determines a subject lived strangeness to respect of his own experience. These descriptive approaches, however, are limited by the extent that it is difficult to describe temporality of others by introspective method. Thus, exploring process of temporality by cognitive sciences could help to overcome these limitations. Recent work focusing on the alteration of simultaneity judgments (which does not seem to sign a merger events to an implicit and automatic level) and basic temporal predictive processes (however measured at the scale of a millisecond) in schizophrenic disorders and the links it is possible to foresee with predictive coding theory provides a very encouraging first set of data on the way to a cognitive understanding of schizophrenic time. The objective of our work was to validate the one hand the hypothesis of dissociation between conscious and automatic discrimination of events in time, using paradigms assessing the temporal constraints of multisensory integration (Study 1). On the other hand, we studied directly implicit time prediction with a dedicated paradigm (in this case, the temporal orientation task, Study 2). We also analyzed the automatic responses of subjects in an event discrimination task in time to check what patients can and can not predict (Study 3). We also explore the hypothesis of a link between temporal and minimal self by looking for correlations between performance...

Two skills necessary for the execution of proficient calculation, retrieving arithmetic facts from memory and accessing number magnitude information, were studied in a group of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and healthy controls to try to elucidate the locus of impairment in AD-related calculation deficits. This was achieved through the use of an arithmetic production task and a number-matching task as measures of explicit and implicit retrieval of arithmetic facts, and a numerical Stroop task that assesses automatic access to number magnitude representation. AD patients, but not MCI patients, showed high response latencies and a high number of errors when performing multiplications in the production task, and reduced automatic retrieval of arithmetic task in the number-matching task. All participants showed the classic problem-size effect often reported in the mathematical cognition literature. Performance on the numerical Stroop task suggests that access to number magnitude information is relatively resistant to cognitive impairment. ... Results for the AD group are consistent with a pattern of preserved and impaired cognitive processes that might mediate the reported calculation deficits in AD. / by Marâia Beatriz Jurado Noboa. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

Satellite-framed languages and verb-framed languages differ in how they encode motion events. English encodes or lexicalizes Path in verb particles, prepositional phrases, or satellites associated with the main verb. In contrast, Turkish tends to encode Path in the main verb of a clause. When describing motion events, English speakers typically use verbs that convey information about manner rather than path, whereas Turkish speakers do the opposite. In this study, we investigated whether this crosslinguistic difference between English and Turkish influences how the speakers of these languages perform in a non-linguistic recognition memory task. In a video description task, English speakers used more manner verbs in the main verb of sentences than Turkish speakers did. In the recognition memory task, English speakers attended more strongly than Turkish speakers did to path of motion. English and Turkish speakers attended equally to manner of motion, however, providing no support for the linguistic relativity hypothesis. / by Ferhat Karaman. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

SK channels are small conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels expressed throughout the CNS. SK channels modulate the excitability of hippocampal CA1 neurons by affecting afterhyperpolarization and shaping excitatory postsynaptic responses. Such SK-mediated effects on activity-dependent neuronal excitability and synaptic strength are thought to underlie the modulatory influence of SK channels on memory encoding. Here,the effect of a new SK1 selective activator, GW542573X, on hippocampal-dependent object memory, contextual and cued conditioning, and trace fear conditioning was examined. The results demonstrated that pre- but not post-training systemic administration of GW542573X impaired object memory and trace fear memory in mice 24 h after training. Contextual and cued fear memory were not disrupted. These current data suggest that activation of SK1 subtype-containing SK channels impairs long-term memory. These results are consistent with converging evidence that SK channel activation suppressed behaviorally triggered synaptic plasticity necessary for encoding hippocampal-dependent memory. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This qualitative case study investigated the impact of sand tray on individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Four participants successfully completed the creation of sand trays while the researcher observed, interviewed, and documented the individual sand trays. The intervention established that sand tray allows the dementia patient to kinesthetically connect to their inner cognitions through the intentional symbolic expression offered by this unique therapeutic medium. Using a series of eight sand trays of varying thematic concepts, the participants were offered a modality to facilitate a synthesization of their continued individuation, presenting a possible neural pathway to connect and express thoughts, feelings, emotions, concerns, challenges, and fears. The findings of this study include the fact that all trays were classified as “empty” and that the majority of the participants placed objects almost exclusively on the right side of the tray, which is commonly associated with the concreteor conscious side. The use of sand tray allowed each individual the opportunity to create autobiographies in the sand and literally navigate through time – past, present, and future, confronting fears, expressing hope and possibilities. The results of the research study offer insight into the psychotherapeutic effects of using sand tray with dementia patients, as well as a better understanding of the cognitive and expressive abilities and limitations of an individual with impaired memory. The results also offer insight into the difficulties with short-term memory in this population and possibly indicate a potential means for monitoring cognitive decline. Keywords: Neurocognitive disorder, Alzheimer’s, dementia, sand tray, play therapy / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013.

Activation in the hippocampus (HC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) is critical to accurately retrieve overlapping sequences. Experiments 1 and 2 tested the hypotheses that activation in and interaction between HC and PFC increases as overlap between sequences increases in a non-spatial task. Experiment 3 tested the hypothesis that theta oscillations are involved in orchestrating interactions between HC and PFC in a spatial task with overlapping elements. In the first two studies, 17 participants (aged 18-34; 11 female) learned sequences consisting of a picture frame, face, and scene. Conditions varied by degree of overlap. Using fMRI, Experiment 1 tested how degree of overlap affected HC and PFC activation. In overlapping sequences, middle and posterior HC were active when predictability of the correct response increased, dorsolateral PFC was active when participants were able to ascertain the correct set of sequences, and ventrolateral PFC was active when inhibition of interfering associations was required. Experiment 2 examined functional connectivity of HC and PFC during disambiguation. Low- and high-overlap conditions were associated with increased connectivity in separate regions at different times indicating that retrieval under the two conditions used different neural networks and strategies. Low-overlap trials were associated with increased connectivity between HC and prefrontal and parietal regions. High-overlap trials showed increased connectivity between lateral PFC and visual areas, indicating that imagery may be necessary for accurate performance. Using EEG recording, Experiment 3 examined theta activity during retrieval of well-learned, overlapping and non-overlapping mazes in 17 participants (aged 18-34, 11 female). Theta activity increased in overlapping mazes during the first of four hallways, suggesting participants were looking ahead to upcoming turns in the maze. Theta activity increased at the beginning and choice point of the third overlapping hallway, possibly in response to interference from the paired, overlapping maze. These studies provide evidence that (1) overlapping associations in non-spatial sequences elicit interactions between hippocampus and lateral prefrontal cortex, (2) increasing the degree of overlap changes the neural processes required to perform the task, and (3) theta power increases in response to increased cognitive demand and maintenance of sequence information needed to differentiate between overlapping spatial routes.

Det blir allt vanligare idag att de stora modehusen skapar barnkollektioner. Internationellt sätt har nästan varje stor designer redan gett sig in på barnklädesmarknaden. Jag valde dock att inte fokusera på den internationella marknaden utan undersöka hur den såg ut i Sverige med svenska modeföretag som hade olika positioner. Jag plockade ut ett antal märken som skiljde sig markant i målgrupp. Företagen jag har valt att ha med till studien är Acne, KappAhl och Polarn O. Pyret.KappAhl är ett stort modeföretag som riktar sig till herr, dam och barn. Företaget är inte mer nischade än att deras kläder ska hålla låga priser. KappAhl har en populär barnkollektion som de driver likt deras andra kollektioner starkt framåt. Polarn O. Pyret däremot har en helt annan bakgrund där de endast är fokuserade på barnmode. Det startade som ett barnklädesmärke och har inte kommit med några andra kollektioner än att de tillverkar en del mammatröjor i randigt som är deras signum för kläderna. Acne är intressant då företaget ligger i en helt annan prisklass och skiljer sig i målgrupp till skillnad från de föregående två företagen.Att jämföra de olika företagens inriktningar var intressant och lärorikt, att kunna analysera deras egna tankar och idéer kring en bransch om mode för barn. Det kändes som att rapporten inte riktigt fick sitt syfte förrän den psykologiska debatten sammanvävdes i studien. Hur man klär sina barn är en personlig smaksak och har troligtvis inga direkt negativa effekter i små åldrar. Däremot kan man ifrågasätta dagens medier inom barnmode då allt mer reklam riktas mot barn. Artiklar i modemagasin som lyder ”såhär ska barnen se ut i vår” låter egentligen mer som direktiv riktat mot föräldrarna. Allt fler framförallt unga tjejer har också tagit efter de stora modebloggerskorna och man kan se att i redan väldigt unga åldrar bloggar 12 åriga tjejer om hur man ska se ut i vår och vad som gäller. Kopplingen blir mellan hur modeföretagen själva ser på industrin och vad de själva anser att de har för ansvar gentemot de väldigt unga tjejerna.Debatten kring att barn ska få vara barn blir aktuell och detta försöker jag påvisa och genom att väva samman en rapport om vem som egentligen anser sig bära ansvaret. Föräldrar och modeindustrin absolut, men finns det då egentligen något rätt och fel om dessa unga tjejer brinner för mode. Det är meningen att studien skall göras så objektiv som möjligt, då slutsatsen av studien inte ska påvisa vad som är rätt eller fel utan diskutera de olika respondenternas svar kopplat till hur vi människor utvecklas under barnsåren. Analysen av modeföretagens arbetssätt, psykologi och samhällets påtryckningar vidareutvecklade även det egna externa uppdraget.These days almost every great designer makes clothing for kids. On the international market it’s much more common that every large design house has entered the kids wear market. They create mini collections for the youngest with a sense of fashion. But I chose to not focus on the international market and to look deeper into the Swedish market and the differences between Swedish brands. I chose three brands that points at different target groups. Acne, KappAhl and Polarn O.Pyret.KappAhl is a big fashion company that is addressed to men, women and children. The company is not more niche than that their clothes should maintain low prices. KappAhl makes popular kids wear as they run, like their other collections strongly.Polarn O. Pyret has a completely different context in which they are only focused on children's fashion. It started as a company only focused on kids wear and has not suggested any other collections.Acne is interesting because it is located in a completely different price range and differ in the audience, unlike the previous two companies. To compare the different companies' approaches were interesting and instructive to analyze their own thoughts and ideas on an industry of fashion for children. It felt that the report had not quite got its order until the psychological debate interweaved in the study.How to dress their children is a personal matter of taste and has probably no direct adverse effects in small ages.Articles in fashion magazines that says "this is what your kids should wear this spring" sounds much more like directives targeted at parents. Particularly young girls have also entered the great fashion blogger market. Twelve year old girls talking about what to wear. The link is between how fashion companies themselves looking at the industry and what responsibility they have against these very young girls.The much more current debate surrounding that kids should be kids becomes an issue. What I try to show in the report is how the different companys consider themselves to be responsible. Parents and fashion industry certainly, but is there really no right or wrong about these young girls are passionate about fashion. It is intended that the study should be as objective as possible, then the conclusion of the study will not prove what is right or wrong without discussing the variousIVrespondents' answers to the way we humans develop during childhood. The analysis of the fashion business processes, psychology and social pressures further developed also its own external mission. / Program: Textil produktutveckling med entreprenörs- och affärsinriktning