The older adult population and the number of older adults who rely primarily on driving as their means of transportation in later life are increasing. Older adults experience changes due to aging and age-related diseases that may put them at increased risk of crashes and other unsafe driving behaviours. Considerable evidence has demonstrated that some older adults compensate for their declining abilities by voluntarily restricting their own driving to limit exposure to risky driving situations or by stopping driving altogether. Since mobility is critical for maintaining the independence and quality of life of the older adult, it is important to examine factors that influence driving behaviours of older adults and to promote their safe driving for as long as possible. It has been suggested that driving cessation might occur in discrete stages of driving restriction culminating in driving cessation. Yet, the application of TM to older driver behaviour has not been explored in detail. Thus, the purpose of this research was to explore older adults’ perceptions and experiences of the process of older driver behaviour change within the TM framework. Drivers and former drivers (both men and women) aged 71-94 years of age completed a health and demographic questionnaire and participated in either a digitally recorded semi-structured individual interview or a group discussion. Participants were asked a series of pre-determined questions and probes tailored for either current or former drivers to examine this process. The recordings were transcribed and reviewed for themes related to driving behaviour change. The participants exhibited a wide variety of perceptions and experiences related to the process of driving behaviour change in aging. Their driving behaviour in aging could be divided into 2 general classes: those who changed their driving with age and those who did not. The spectrum of experiences ranged from those who gradually imposed restrictions on their driving with age (“the gradual restrictors”) or made plans for stopping (“the preparers”) to those who always employed driving restrictions throughout their driving history (“the consistent”) or those who made no or only minor changes to their driving behaviour with age (“the non-changers”). Some preliminary support for TM within the driving context was found and recommendations for extensions to the TM model were suggested. Further exploration of driving behaviour change within the TM framework is warranted. The findings from this study may be appropriate for use in designing educational strategies and interventions aimed at helping older adults remain on the road safely longer or stop driving, if needed.

The older adult population and the number of older adults who rely primarily on driving as their means of transportation in later life are increasing. Older adults experience changes due to aging and age-related diseases that may put them at increased risk of crashes and other unsafe driving behaviours. Considerable evidence has demonstrated that some older adults compensate for their declining abilities by voluntarily restricting their own driving to limit exposure to risky driving situations or by stopping driving altogether. Since mobility is critical for maintaining the independence and quality of life of the older adult, it is important to examine factors that influence driving behaviours of older adults and to promote their safe driving for as long as possible. It has been suggested that driving cessation might occur in discrete stages of driving restriction culminating in driving cessation. Yet, the application of TM to older driver behaviour has not been explored in detail. Thus, the purpose of this research was to explore older adults’ perceptions and experiences of the process of older driver behaviour change within the TM framework. Drivers and former drivers (both men and women) aged 71-94 years of age completed a health and demographic questionnaire and participated in either a digitally recorded semi-structured individual interview or a group discussion. Participants were asked a series of pre-determined questions and probes tailored for either current or former drivers to examine this process. The recordings were transcribed and reviewed for themes related to driving behaviour change. The participants exhibited a wide variety of perceptions and experiences related to the process of driving behaviour change in aging. Their driving behaviour in aging could be divided into 2 general classes: those who changed their driving with age and those who did not. The spectrum of experiences ranged from those who gradually imposed restrictions on their driving with age (“the gradual restrictors”) or made plans for stopping (“the preparers”) to those who always employed driving restrictions throughout their driving history (“the consistent”) or those who made no or only minor changes to their driving behaviour with age (“the non-changers”). Some preliminary support for TM within the driving context was found and recommendations for extensions to the TM model were suggested. Further exploration of driving behaviour change within the TM framework is warranted. The findings from this study may be appropriate for use in designing educational strategies and interventions aimed at helping older adults remain on the road safely longer or stop driving, if needed.

Traditional models of conversation treat the participants as autonomous; ideally, speakers convey information to listeners in alternating turns. In contrast, the more recent collaborative model emphasizes moment-by-moment collaboration between participants in dialogue (Clark, 1996). Two computer-mediated communication (CMC) experiments tested these models by questioning the utility of strict turn exchanges (a central feature of autonomous models) versus more flexible moment-by-moment collaboration (a central feature of Clark’s model). A novel feature of these experiments was the development of three new process measures that are relevant to the autonomous versus collaborative comparison. Conversational coherence was a quantitative measure of the adjacency of all semantically related utterances, that is, how well the conversation maintained an orderly sequence of topics. Collaborative topic development was a quantitative measure of how much participants built on one another’s ideas (versus contributing independently on separate topics). That is, to what degree did the conversations take the form of loosely related alternating monologues versus an integrated dialogue? The third measure assessed the contributions of listeners. Each process measure required detailed analysis of all messages in each conversation. Experiment 1 compared three CMC formats, ranging from highly autonomous to highly collaborative: IRC (Internet Relay Chat), in which participants compose and send messages independently; ICQ (I-Seek-You) with an imposed turn marker; and ICQ-free with no turn rules. Sixty University of Victoria students in 30 unacquainted dyads completed a brainstorming and a joint recall task in one randomly assigned condition. As predicted by the collaborative model, all dependent measures confirmed that the ICQ-free format was significantly superior to the IRC and ICQ-turn maker conditions. That is, the format without an imposed turn structure produced more coherent, more collaborative conversations, with higher performance scores and better task efficiency. Qualitative analysis revealed that, in the absence of familiar turn cues, the ICQ-free dyads used timing and text space to manage their interaction, which often did not involve strict turn taking. Experiment 2 was a replication and extension with two new communication conditions, a new measure of listener responses, and the use of three-person groups. In a within-subjects design, participants completed two tasks in a face-to-face (FTF) condition, the previous IRC condition, and an electronic bulletin board (BB) condition, which also imposed turn taking. These three conditions varied in the degree of reciprocity possible, with FTF permitting the maximum and fastest reciprocal interaction and BB the least and slowest. Twenty-seven University of Victoria students formed nine randomly assigned, unacquainted triads. Together, each triad completed a brainstorming task and a debating task with different topics in each condition. The results again showed that flexible moment-by-moment interaction was superior to the two formats that enforced turn taking. The FTF conversations were more coherent, with more collaborative topic development. Also, the rate of listener responses was significantly higher, indicating a higher rate of feedback to speakers, and the number of words used per turn was lower, suggesting more rapid turn-around (i.e., finer granularity). In sum, the FTF participants tightly intertwined their contributions to ensure understanding, maintain coherence, and develop their joint topics. Taken together, the results clearly support a collaborative model of conversation and raise new questions about the functional utility of strict turn taking. In both process and performance measures, the conditions that maximized collaboration were superior to those that favoured autonomous individual action. At the practical level, these results should inform the design of mediated communication systems by identifying the affordances that may help or hinder online interaction.

This paper provides evidence to support the hypothesis that the locus coeruleus – norephinephrine (LC-NE) system is the neurophysiological basis of both the attentional blink (AB) and the event related potential (ERP) component known as the P300. The LC-NE system is thought to provide a brief burst of processing facilitation in response to motivationally salient events. The AB refers to decreased accuracy for reporting the second of two targets (T1 and T2) inserted into a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). The LC-NE account of the AB holds that the AB is the result of a refractory-like period in LC-NE activity. The LC-NE account of the P300 suggests the P300 is the electrophysiological manifestation of the activity of the LC-NE system. I support the three-way link between these different aspects of brain activity by predicting differences in the AB dependent on characteristics of the P300 in response to T1 (T1-P300).

There is research which demonstrates that traumatic head injury (TBI) is associated with increased incidence of dementia as well as with greater cognitive impairment than is expected in normal aging. However, this literature remains equivocal; studies exploring head injury as a risk factor for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease have yielded conflicting results. The present study examines morbidity, mortality, cognitive impairment and psychosocial issues in seniors with a history of head injury of sufficient severity to cause loss of consciousness. These results suggest that over time, a history of TBI is associated with some increased morbidity with age. Associations between TBI and changes in personality that may lead to impaired psychosocial functioning were also suggested by the findings of this study. Specifically, the results indicated traumatic brain injury may be associated with marital breakdown and social isolation. Additional results suggest that people who have sustained a TBI have an increased likelihood of living in a nursing home or chronic-care facility.

This thesis examines the specific stigma and discrimination associated with being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. The research asked how people with this diagnosis see the diagnosis itself influencing their relationships with care providers, and more specifically, how they perceived a change in their relationship with formal mental heath support systems after the diagnosis was made. Open-ended interviews were conducted with six women who had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. The methodological framework used incorporated elements of critical and feminist theory and microanalysis techniques were used in the data analysis. The participants described examples of discrimination they faced in attempting to access mental health services that they identified as being connected with the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. The misuses of the diagnosis and participants’ acts of resistance against discrimination were also major themes that emerged in the data.

No description available.

This thesis project examined the generalizabilty of the simplified scoring system for the Clock Drawing Test developed by Lessig and her colleagues in 2008 using a population-based sample. Clock-drawings from 356 participants (80 with dementia, 276 healthy controls) from the Canadian Study on Health and Aging were analyzed using logistic regression and Receiver Operating Characteristic curves. The new scoring system reduced the Lessig system down even further to include five critical errors: missing numbers, repeated numbers, number orientation, extra marks, and number distance, and produced a sensitivity of 81% and a specificity of 68%. The results from this study improve our current state of knowledge concerning the Clock Drawing Task by validating the simplified scoring system proposed by Lessig and her colleagues among a more representative sample and provides further evidence in support of a simple and reliable dementia-screening tool.

This study evaluated anticipated changes to quality of life (QoL) from a reduction in private vehicle use, and the impact of social normative information on willingness to change transportation behaviour. Staff and students at the University of Victoria completed transport journals for a month, and participants in the low or high social norm condition received divergent information about the percentage of others who had switched to sustainable commuting. Unexpectedly, message content did not predict behavioural change, but mere receipt of a message, versus the control condition, did predict change. The results suggest that sustainable transport campaigns should highlight others‟ cooperation, regardless of their rate of cooperation, and target commuting behavior. Also, participants expected decreases to individually relevant QoL items and improvements to collectively relevant QoL items under a hypothetical reduction in private vehicle use. The findings may be employed by policy-makers to increase acceptance of transportation policies.

Composting of biodegradable waste is an effective means of reducing landfill garbage and improving the state of our environment. The widespread adoption of this behaviour by community members is subject to various social psychological processes. Table top signs outlining a pro-composting injunctive norm, and models demonstrating the behaviour (descriptive norm) were employed in two shopping centre food courts and a fast food restaurant to attempt to increase the use of public compost bins. When diners viewed models composting ahead of them, they were more likely to compost as well. However, the signs had no effect on composting rates, either alone or in combination with the models. Results support the idea that behaving in a pro-environmental manner around others can have an influence on them to behave pro-environmentally as well.