The psychometric properties of the Need for Cognition Scale (NCS; Cacioppo & Petty, 1982) were investigated in two studies with independent samples of undergraduates at Western Kentucky University. In the first study (N = 379), the internal consistency and factor structure of the NCS were examined, and the NCS was compared to the Achievement subscale of the Personality Research Form (Jackson, 1974) and the State-Trait Curiosity subscale of the State-Trait Personality Inventory (Speilberger, 1979). Also, the possibility of differences in “need for cognition” attributable to socio-economic status (i.e. the educational attainment of the subjects’ parents) were examined. The second study (N = 72) compared the NCS to the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R; Dunn & Dunn, 1981) and, in addition, investigated the possibility that the NCS could explain variance in American College Test (ACT) scores other than that explained by the PPVT-R alone. The findings indicated that the NCS is a reliable instrument in terms of internal consistency. In factor analyses, one primary and one lesser factor emerged. The first factor was interpreted as representing the enjoyment of thinking, which is consistent with the first factor described in previous factor analytic investigations (i.e. Cacioppo & Petty, 1982; Cacioppo, Petty, Kao, 1984). The weaker factor appeared to represent the “amount” of cognitive activity sought by the individual high in NCog. This factor corresponded to one described by Tanaka, Panter, and Winbourne (1988). The NCS correlated positively and moderately with the Achievement and Curiosity subscales. The analyses of SES differences in NCS scores indicate that there is a main effect for SES; the participants whose parents had fewer years of formal education had higher scores on the NCS. In the second study, the NCS correlated moderately and positively with the PPVT-R; however, the NCS did not account for variance in ACT scores which was significant and unique to that accounted for by PPVT-R scores.

<p> Parental roles and societal definitions of the concept of &ldquo;parent&rdquo; have changed over the history of U.S. public education. Concomitantly, there has been a marked debate among experts about the importance and effectiveness of parental involvement in education. In addressing this issue, research has concentrated on both the focus (what) and locus (where) of parental involvement but has seldom addressed the conjunction of focus and locus. This expert judgment study on parental involvement in adolescent education expands on the contemporary context of the parental role and offers a framework that demonstrates this multifaceted, contemporary view. This hypothesis-generating, two-phase study relied on Repertory Grid technique to develop a set of social construals shared by 22 individual case study participants, teacher experts who teach adolescent students (Grades 7 through 12) on Long Island. The second phase used an anonymous, online survey asking a larger sample of teacher experts (<i>n</i> = 238) to determine which social construct poles best describe ideal and typical parental behaviors in terms of effective parental involvement. Latent class analysis revealed heterogeneity in teachers&rsquo; experiences with typical parents but a shared, homogenous view of ideal parental behaviors. Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed systematic patterns in degree level and school type to predict class membership in the latent classes describing typical parental involvement behaviors. This detailed analysis of the expert judgments and conceptions of teachers about effective parental involvement in adolescent education concluded with implications for educational theory, research, policy, and future practice.</p><p>

Huntington’s disease (HD) patients have been found to have specific deficits in emotional processing, most consistently demonstrating impairment recognizing the emotion expressed on a static face. The purpose of this study was to examine emotional memory in HD, which has not yet been investigated, and its relationship with executive functioning, emotional facial recognition, and the disease progression in HD. An emotional memory task with pleasant, neural, and unpleasant words was administered to control (n=26), prodromal HD (n=26), and manifest HD (n=29) participants in addition to executive function measures, an apathy scale, and emotional facial recognition task. Free recall was not significantly different between groups. Using recognition sensitivity (d’), prodromal HD participants did not demonstrate emotional memory enhancement, while manifest HD patients evidenced significantly lower emotional recognition relative to controls. Groups were significantly different on neutral word recognition. Emotional recognition sensitivity was related to disease progression, emotional facial recognition, and executive functioning, but not apathy. Regression models suggested that recognition for pleasant and unpleasant words have both shared and unique predictors, with executive dysfunction predicting affective recognition within both valences. Disease progression uniquely predicted unpleasant recognition while age was a negative predictor of pleasant recognition. These results suggest that impaired emotional memory is present in HD, progresses with the disease, and may evidence increased difficulty with negative emotional memory.

How does the focus of attention influence the encoding of information? Research has shown that size and allocation of the attentional window has an influence on what information is attended to or missed. The size-scale of features also effects processing of visual information. Previous research involving hierarchical stimuli suggests precedence for global features. In the present experiment, I investigated the influence of attentional window size on accuracy of encoding hierarchical stimuli at the global and local level. Here I introduce a new method for manipulating the size of the attentional window and for collecting unconstrained responses. At the start of each trial, observers tracked a dashed-line rectangular box, which either broadened or narrowed in size after onset. This sequence was immediately followed by a brief presentation of two hierarchical letters presented simultaneously on the left and right sides of the screen. The box preceding the hierarchical letters either broadened to a size large enough to include both letters at the global level, or narrowed to a size small enough to include a maximum of two letters at the local level at either side of the screen. Observers reported all letters they were able to identify. Results from two experiments indicate an overall precedence of global letters. However, a narrow attentional window reduced global precedence, as would be expected with more focused attention. The narrow windows also produced more same-side identifications of both global and local letters. The second experiment also showed that reducing the processing time decreased the global advantage.

To stem the spread of infectious diseases, epidemiologists use contact tracing interviews to identify individuals who may need treatment or, if indicated, quarantine or isolation. Given the high stakes, the most exhaustive list of potentially infected contacts must be reported. However, standard contact tracing procedures may fail to extract the most complete report possible from sick individuals. One of the most reliable methods for maximizing recall is the Cognitive Interview (CI). The CI uses several techniques grounded in psychological theory and was expected to increase the number of contacts listed during contact tracing interviewing compared to a standard contact tracing interview. In Study One, participants imagined they were infected with meningococcal meningitis, and reported every person with whom they had physical contact, shared saliva, or lived with over the previous three days (i.e., at a high risk for developing meningococcal meningitis). Participants were interviewed with either a CI or a standard interview. Results suggested that the CI generated 35% more total contacts listed, however, when examining only the contacts listed who would be at a high risk of meningococcal meningitis there was no significant difference between the CI and the standard interview. Study Two followed the same procedure as that in Study One, but added a manipulation of cognitive resources intended to model impairment experienced by individuals who are interviewed while suffering from acute illness. Participants completed (or did not complete) a working memory impairment task (pressed a spacebar on a keyboard every time 7 seconds passed) while reporting their physical contacts during either a CI or a standard interview. Results clearly demonstrated a superiority of the CI in generating both more total contacts and more contacts at a risk of meningococcal meningitis than the standard interview. However, when the working memory impairment task was completed, the CI generated no more contacts than the standard interview. Findings have serious implications for contact tracing interviewing for infectious diseases such as Ebola and Zika. In light of the findings, we recommend the CI be considered as an alternative to the typical contact tracing interview, particularly if the interviewee is not cognitively impaired.

This research study investigated whether gains in addition and multiplication fact fluency caused gains in subtraction and division fact fluency, as well as gains in other, more complex, grade level math skills. Participants were 22 fourth grade students. The study employed a between groups, pre-post test design with matched control group. Intervention involved an 8-week, home based program, targeting addition and multiplication fact fluency. Intervention methods involved the use of short, timed drills, with immediate graphed feedback of the student's accuracy and speed, as well the use of strategy instruction, untimed practice, and goal setting. Results suggested the intervention had a large and significant effect on increasing addition and multiplication fact fluency within an 8-week intervention period. Evidence of transfer to non-targeted math-facts was found in a medium but non-significant effect on both subtraction and division fact fluency. There was no evidence of transfer on measures of assorted grade-level complex computation problems and assorted grade level applied math problems. Limitations of the study, implications for practice, as well as future directions are discussed.

Performance in visual tasks improves with attention, and this improvement has been shown to stem, in part, from changes in sensory processing. However, the mechanism by which attention affects perception remains unclear. Considering that neurons within the visual areas are selective for basic image statistics, such as orientation or spatial frequency (SF), it is plausible that attention modulates these sensory preferences by altering their so-called ‘tuning curves’. The goal of this project is to investigate this possibility by measuring and comparing the SF tuning curves across a range of attentional states in humans. In Experiment 1, a model-driven approach to fMRI analysis was introduced that allows for fast and efficient estimation of population spatial frequency tuning (pSFT) for individual voxels within human visual cortices. Using this method, I estimated pSFTs within early visual cortices of 8 healthy, young adults. Consistent with previous studies, the estimated SF optima showed a decline with retinotopic eccentricity. Moreover, my results suggested that the bandwidth of pSFT depends on eccentricity, and that populations with lower SF peaks possess broader bandwidths. In Experiment 2, I proposed a new visual task, coined the Numerosity Judgement Paradigm (NJP), for fine-grained parametric manipulation of attentional load. Eight healthy, young adults performed this task in an MRI scanner, and the analysis of the BOLD signal indicated that the activity within the putative dorsal attention network was precisely modulated as a function of the attentional load of the task. In Experiment 3, I used the NJP to modulate attentional load, and exploited the model-based approach to estimate pSFTs under different attentional states. fMRI results of 9 healthy, young adults did not reveal any changes in either peak or the bandwidth of the pSFTs with attentional load. This study yields a full visuocortical map of spatial frequency sensitivity and introduces a new paradigm for modulating attentional load. Although under this paradigm I did not find any changes in SF preferences within human visual areas with attentional load, I cannot preclude the possibility that changes emerge under different attentional manipulations.

Error-related negativity (ERN) is an event-related potential elicited by the commission of errors. It appears as a negative deflection peaking between 50ms and 100ms after an erroneous response. Previous literature demonstrated that individuals who suffer from either anxiety or depression display a higher ERN amplitude compared to a control group. It has also been shown that people with ADHD display a lower ERN amplitude. Based on these findings, we investigated the relationships between these three disorders and their effects on the amplitude of the ERN. We recruited thirty-one students at East Tennessee State University and gathered data on their level of anxiety, depression, and ADHD through completion of three surveys: the Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, and the ADHD self-report scale. Subsequently, participants were asked to perform a modified Flanker task while their EEG was collected using a 32-channel EEG cap. ERN amplitude for error responses was significantly higher than ERN amplitude for correct responses. In contrast with previous literature, no significant influence on the ERN was observed due to anxiety, depression, or ADHD. Additional research on the topic with larger sample size and different diagnostic procedures may be necessary to further investigate the phenomenon.

abstract: This study examined the effects of different constructed response prompts and text types on students’ revision of misconceptions, comprehension, and causal reasoning. The participants were randomly assigned to prompt (self-explain, think-aloud) and text type (refutational, non-refutational) in a 2x2, between-subjects design. While reading, the students were prompted to write responses at regular intervals in the text. After reading, students were administered the conceptual inventory of natural selection (CINS), for which a higher score indicates fewer misconceptions of natural selection. Finally, students were given text comprehension questions, and reading skill and prior knowledge measures. Linear mixed effects (LME) models showed that students with better reading skill and more prior knowledge had a higher CINS score and better comprehension compared to less skilled students, but there were no effects of text type or prompt. Linguistic analysis of students’ responses demonstrated a relationship of prompt, text, and reading skill on students’ causal reasoning. Less skilled students exhibited greater causal reasoning when self-explaining a non-refutational text compared to less skilled students prompted to think-aloud, and less skilled students who read the refutational text. The results of this study demonstrate a relationship between reading skill and misconceptions in natural selections. Furthermore, the linguistic analyses suggest that less skilled students’ causal reasoning improves when prompted to self-explain. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2020

In recognition memory, participants often fail to change their criterion for making a “studied” response from one trial to the next based on learning strength, even when they are given obvious cues to identify each test item as studied often (“strong”) or studied a single time (“weak”) (e.g., Stretch & Wixted, 1998). In three experiments we tested the hypothesis that participants produce robust item-by-item shifts only when responding did not involve significant response interference (Simon, Acosta, Mewaldt, & Speidel, 1976). In our three experiments, participants studied lists of words studied once (weak) or five times (strong). In Experiment 1, both strong and weak words appeared at test under the questions “Was this studied at all?” or “Was this studied five times?” Participants were randomly assigned to conditions using two keys to respond “yes” or “no”, or using four keys with one set of “yes” and “no” per question. Four-key participants were expected to shift their criteria while 2-key participants could not due to response interference, though results showed that both conditions were capable of criterion-shifting. In Experiment 2 test items appeared on either the left or the right side of the screen; only strong words appeared on the right and only weak words on the left. Participants went through one study-test cycle with four response keys, and one with two. Regardless of the testing conditions, participants did not shift their criteria in the 2-key condition while participants in the 4-key condition did shift their criteria. Finally, Experiment 3 fully crossed 2 or 4 key conditions with blocked or unblocked presentation of test items. Previous experiments have found both number of response keys and blocking of presentations to have an effect on ability to criterion-shift (Hicks & Starns, 2014; Starns & Olchowski, submitted; Verde & Rotello, 2007). Experiment 3 confirmed that number of response keys has a significant effect on criterion-shifting and that it is separate from any effect of blocking. All three experiments suggest that response interference is not the driving force behind criterion-shifting. A new explanation is proposed.