<p> The tendency for humans to give preferential attention to animate agents in their immediate surroundings has been well-documented and likely reflects an evolved specialization to a persistent adaptive problem. In uncertain or ambiguous cases, this tendency can result in an over-detection of animacy, as the potential costs of failing to detect an animate agent far outweigh those of mistaken identification. In line with this, it seems likely that humans have evolved a sensitivity to specific cues which are indicative of animacy such that the mere presence of these cues will lead to detection, regardless of the objective category membership of the entity in question. There exists a wealth of research speaking to this effect with regards to motion cues, specifically in terms of the capacity for self-propulsion and goal-directed action. Morphological cues have also been implicated - most especially the presence of facial features &ndash; as they specify a capacity for perceptual feedback from the environment, which is essential for goal-directed motion. However, it remains an open question as to whether the capacity for animacy detection is similarly sensitive to facial information in the absence of motion cues. </p><p> The experiments reported here attempted to address this question by implementing a novel task in which participants were asked to judge the animacy or inanimacy (or membership in animal or object categories) of different images: animals with and without visible facial features, and objects with and without visible facial features. Beyond replicating a general advantage for detecting animate agents over inanimate objects, the primary predictions for these experiments were that facial features would have a differential effect on performance, such that they would improve performance when visible in animals, and would hinder performance when visible in objects. Experiments 1a and 1b provided a preliminary confirmation of this pattern of responses using images of familiar and unfamiliar animals (e.g., dogs versus jellyfish), and unaltered images of objects with and without faces. Experiment 2 improved on the design of this task by more closely matching the sets of images (the same animals facing toward or away from the camera, and objects with faces which had been digitally altered to disrupt the facial features), and by changing the prompt of the task from yes/no judgments of animacy to categorization into animal or object groups. Experiment 3 examined the face inversion effect, or the failure to recognize familiar faces when their orientation is inverted, on animal-object categorization. Lastly, experiments 4 and 5 attempted to extend the findings from experiment 2 to preschool-aged children, by implementing a card sorting task (experiment 4) and a computerized animal detection task (experiment 5). The results of this series of experiments highlight the prominent role of facial features in detecting animate agents in one&rsquo;s surroundings.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to examine whether isolated musical chords and chord progressions are capable of communicating basic emotions (happiness, sadness, and fear) and sensory perceptions of tension and dissonance to eighty-two university students differing in musical expertise. Participants were recruited from ULL&rsquo;s psychology and music department, and were divided into three different groups based on their formal training in music. Participants listened to forty-six music excerpts and were asked to identify and rate the emotions they felt each stimulus was attempting to convey. Participants were also asked to rate how much tension and dissonance they experienced after each excerpt. </p><p> The results demonstrated that major chord progressions played in fast tempo more readily expressed happiness than minor and chromatic chord progressions. Minor chord progressions played in slow tempo were associated with sadness and were rated higher in tension and dissonance than major chord progressions. Chromatic chord progressions, regardless of tempo, expressed fear most reliable, and received higher tension and dissonance ratings than major and minor chord progressions. Furthermore, results showed that isolated major chords were perceived as the least tense, the least dissonant, and the happiest sounding. Isolated minor chords readily conveyed sadness, and were perceived as more tense and dissonant than majors. Additionally, isolated augmented and diminished chords were the most likely to express fear and were rated highest in tension and dissonance. Contrary to previous research findings, participants&rsquo; level of musical expertise influenced sensory and emotion perception ratings. Participants with three to four years of formal training outperformed experts and novices. Future research directions and possible applied implications of these finding are also discussed.</p><p>

<p> As adolescents transition to middle school, math confidence and performance declines (Eccles et al., 1993; Lee, Statuto, &amp; Kadar-Voivodas, 1983). These declines are typically attributed to social and maturational changes (Eccles, Lord, &amp; Midgley, 1991; Simmons &amp; Blyth, 1987). In this dissertation, I explore the hypothesis that low parent support for schoolwork is also responsible.</p><p> Latino-American adolescents are especially at risk for math difficulties. Maintaining adolescents&rsquo; engagement and performance in math are important goals for mothers because high levels of both are requisites for many professional careers. This dissertation will focus on Latino-American families to determine if mothers&rsquo; homework involvement is associated with changes in children&rsquo;s math-related outcomes across the transition to secondary school.</p><p> Parental involvement in math homework is assumed to mitigate declines in math performance during this transition. Cognitive models suggest that involved parents utilize scaffolding (Rogoff &amp; Gardner, 1984) and instruction to ensure math achievement (Pomerantz &amp; Moorman, 2010). Motivational models suggest that involved parents foster math engagement by bolstering child confidence, modeling management strategies, and promoting values that encourage children to work hard (Grolnick &amp; Slowiaczek, 1994; Simpkins, Fredricks, &amp; Eccles, 2015). However, empirical evidence in support of the importance of parents in math achievement is limited. While positive forms of involvement co-occur with better math outcomes (Bhanot &amp; Jovanovic, 2005; Rice et al., 2013), no studies have examined such associations longitudinally. Children who are uninterested in math may be more susceptible to the effects of parental homework involvement because they lack internal motivation for mastery that underlies performance in other children.</p><p> The present study examines the extent to which Latina-American mothers&rsquo; involvement in math homework is effective in preventing declines in child math-related outcomes (i.e., perceptions of math ability, etc) during the transition to middle school. Child math interest was postulated to moderate this association. Results indicated that low maternal homework involvement predicts worsening child math-related outcomes, but only for children who were intrinsically uninterested in math.</p><p> The findings hold important implications for parents, who must work to ensure that they remain engaged in their children&rsquo;s activities, especially if children appear uninterested in math.</p><p>

The visual processing of a stimulus is facilitated by attention when it is at an attended location compared to an unattended location. However, whether attentional selection operates on the basis of visual features (e.g., color) independently of spatial locations is less clear. Six experiments were designed to examine how color information as well as location information affected attentional selection. In Experiment 1, the color of the targets and the spatial distance between them were both manipulated. Stimuli were found to be grouped based on color similarity. Additionally, the evidence suggested direct selection on the basis of color groups, rather than selection that was mediated by location. By varying the probabilities of target location and color, Experiments 2, 3 and 4 demonstrated that the use of color in perceptual grouping and in biasing the priority of selection is not automatic, but is modulated by task demands. Experiments 5 and 6 further investigated the relationship between using color and using location as the selection basis under exogenous and endogenous orienting. The results suggest that the precise nature of the interaction between color and location varies according to the mode of attentional control. Collectively, these experiments contribute to an understanding of how different types of information are used in selection and suggest a greater degree of flexibility of attentional control than previously expected. The flexibility is likely to be determined by a number of factors, including task demands and the nature of attentional control.

No description available.

The present studies addressed the issue of whether the phonological mediation of visual word recognition proceeds through an assembled or an addressed representation. In Experiment 1, subjects judged whether pairs of words were semantically related. Both homophone and "false homophone" stimuli were used. The set of "false homophones" consisted of words with the following characteristics: (1) They have neighbors that share its orthographic body but not its pronunciation (B$\underline{\rm EARD}$ - H$\underline{\rm EARD}$ and (2) when an alternate pronunciation of the body is attached to the pronunciation of the onset, another word is produced (e.g., if BEARD were pronounced like HEARD, then the word "bird" would result). Experiment 1 demonstrated that reaction times in a semantic relatedness judgment task were longer to homophones (e.g., SAND - BEECH) and "false homophones" (e.g., ROBIN - BEARD) of a semantic associate than to visually similar controls. Subjects also made more errors to homophone pairs than to visually similar controls. Since the false homophone pairs were related through a phonological representation not specified in the word's lexical entry, it was concluded that the phonological representation responsible for the effect was an assembled representation. In a second experiment, a parafoveal preview paradigm was used in order to determine whether the phonological representation integrated across fixations in reading is an assembled or an addressed representation. As in Experiment 1, subjects made semantic relatedness decisions to the stimulus pairs. In the most interesting condition, it was expected that a "biasing" preview (one that specified the spelling-to-sound correspondence that, when applied to the false homophone, would produce the phonological representation of a word related to the other member of the to-be-judged pair) would increase reaction times to the false homophone targets. The failure to observe the expected "biasing" effect is discussed in terms of the characteristics of a neighborhood based on the onset and following vowel cluster of the preview. While the expected preview effect was not observed, the effect of the target words essentially replicated those of Experiment 1. These results argue that phonological mediation proceeds through an assembled phonological representation.

Two experiments investigated how textual context is used to disambiguate lexically ambiguous words. Previous research had suggested that context did not guide access toward the contextually appropriate meaning but instead selected this meaning from multiple activated meanings at a later stage of processing. The experiments reported here developed and used a new technique to explore the very early stages of word recognition. Eye movements were measured during reading. In both experiments a "prime" word was briefly displayed during the initial part of the fixation on the "target" word. Priming was measured by comparing fixation times on targets preceded by semantically Related versus Unrelated primes. Experiment 1 showed significant priming effects at a 35 ms prime duration but not at 30 or 25 ms prime durations. In Experiment 2, lexically ambiguous words were used as primes to targets in short passages and were presented for 35 ms. The type of preceding context (Consistent vs. Inconsistent), type of ambiguous prime (Biased vs. Balanced), and strength of instantiated meaning (Dominant vs. Subordinate) were varied. Only when the preceding context was Consistent with the Dominant meaning of a Biased ambiguous word were significant priming effects obtained. These results supported a model of lexical access in which context does guide access toward the contextually appropriate meaning of an ambiguous word.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of scene backgrounds on object identification. Previous research with brief presentation of scenes indicated that scene context facilitated object identification. Experiment 1 replicated this finding with longer display durations. Experiments 2 and 3 were designed to investigate the time course of background information acquisition using an eye movement paradigm. Although the results from Experiment 2 were inconclusive, Experiment 3 demonstrated that scene background information was acquired on both the first and second fixations on a scene. It was concluded that background information acquired from the first and second fixations facilitates object identification.

In three experiments, rats received a single simultaneous pairing of a 4-s conditioned stimulus (CS) and a 4-s grid shock unconditioned stimulus (US) in which the CS and US began together. The CS was either an element (tone, light, or noise) or a compound composed of two elements (tone + light or tone + noise). In a fourth experiment, rats received a single backward pairing of a 4-s CS and a 4-s grid shock US in which the CS began at US offset. The CS was either a tone or a tone + light compound. Freezing and the suppression of licking elicited by the CS provided evidence for excitatory 1-trial simultaneous and 1-trial backward conditioning to the element and to the compound CSs. There was no evidence of greater conditioning to the compound CSs as compared to either of their constituent elements. An analysis of a videotaped record of the behavior of the rats in Experiment 2 revealed somewhat less freezing to the light than to the tone, but no evidence of a defensive behavior unique to light. Thus the defensive behavior to CSs associated with aversive USs is freezing, regardless of CS modality.

Two experiments investigated the effect of a congruent sentence context on processing time for a target word. Subjects eye movements were monitored as they read sentences presented on a Cathode Ray Tube. Processing time on the target word, as measured by first fixation duration and gaze duration was shorter when the target was preceded by a congruent sentence context containing a noun and verb that were only weakly related to the target word than when it was preceded by a context in which either the noun or verb had been replaced by a more neutral word. In addition, the fully congruent contexts were modified to either preserve or disrupt the original syntactic relation between the noun and verb. No difference in processing time on the target was observed when these two conditions were compared to one another. These results replicate findings obtained by Duffy et al. (1989) using the Rapid Serial Visual Presentation method to present the sentence contexts and naming time as the dependent measure and demonstrate that these effects generalize to normal silent reading. The observed facilitation for the full congruent contexts exceeded what could be accounted for by summation of activation from the individual lexical items contained in that context. However, there was no evidence that the syntactic relations among the items was critical to this effect. In a second eye movement experiment, lexical and message-level information in the sentence context were manipulated independently to explore potential sources of the facilitation. Evidence of facilitation from the message-level representation of the sentence context was obtained. These results, in conjunction with the previous results from the naming task are interpreted as support for an interactive view of lexical access.