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This study examined individual differences in spatial memory performance in 12-month-old infants using brain electrical activity and walking experience. Greenough's experience-expectant and experience-dependent model of development was used to examine EEG power values among infants with different levels of walking experience (non-walkers, novice, experienced). In accordance with this model, a trend was shown for novice walkers to have higher EEG power values than both non-walkers and experienced walkers only in the central region. Walkers were also found to score higher on an object retrieval (OR) spatial memory task than non-walkers, with amount of walking experience being inconsequential. In addition, infants who scored higher on the OR spatial memory task showed a trend for higher EEG power values in medial frontal, central and parietal areas than infants scoring lower on the OR task. This was not the case for the manual search spatial memory task (AB). There was no interaction among spatial memory performance, walking experience and brain electrical activity. The utility of OR as a spatial memory task that requires the integration of relevant perceptual-motor integration is discussed. / Master of Science

The purpose of this study is to make an analysis of the practices and procedures for meeting individual differences by a group of secondary schools to determine the extent to which they meet accepted criteria in this field.

The over-all purpose of this study is to determine the ways in which children differ from one another as related to the instructional program in the school, to point out ways of taking care of individual differences in the learning situations in the classroom, and to apply these principles to the teaching and learning of arithmetic in the higher grades at the elementary level.

Master of Science / Department of Psychological Sciences / Mary Cain / Novelty-seeking and sensation-seeking are traits implicated in initial drug experimentation and relapse in human populations. To research the neurobiological substrates that are implicated in novelty/sensation-seeking that predispose an individual to drug use, a rodent model was used. Recently, 50 kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (USV) have been identified as indices of affective state and are evoked by several drugs of abuse, specifically when these drugs of abuse have their pharmacological effects in the mesolimbic dopamine path. Secondly, genetic breeding of high and low vocalizers suggests not only are they different in the calling frequency, but also to drug sensitivity, suggesting ultrasonic vocalizations may be a behavioral marker for individual differences in the mesolimbic dopamine circuit. Two sensation/novelty seeking screens and an ultrasonic vocalization screen were used in rats to predict the locomotor and 50 kHz USV response to a low (.3 mg/kg) and high dose (1.0 mg/kg) of amphetamine. Correlation analysis revealed none of the novelty screens were correlated. Simultaneous regression analyses indicated amphetamine dose-dependently increased locomotor activity acutely and chronically but did not increase 50 kHz USV. The USV assessment predicted USV response to amphetamine acutely and chronically but was not dose dependent. No interactions among any predictors were observed. Previous research has dichotomized the novelty/sensation-seeking trait and found significant differences between high and low novelty responders. The current research provides evidence for maintaining continuous individual difference variables, and suggests each screen measures a different trait implicated in addiction.

For many, listening to music is an enjoyable experience pursued throughout one’s lifetime. Nearly 200 years of music psychology research has revealed the various ways music listening can impact human emotional states, as well as cognitive and motor performance. Music in video games has come a long way from the first chiptunes of 1978 to the full scores written specifically for games today. However, very little is understood of how background game music impacts game performance, behavior and experience. Even less is known for how music variables might affect performance, behavior and experience by individual differences, such as personality type. In this study, 78 participants scoring in the top 30% for their age range of either extraversion or introversion played a cognitive-training game in four music conditions (silence, low tempo, medium tempo, and high tempo). Performance, game play behavior, and flow experience scores were analyzed for each music condition by level of extraversion. While no statistically significant differences were found in game performance scores by level of extraversion, there were statistically significant differences found for play behavior (physical mouse motions) and flow experience for the music conditions. These results suggest that music can both alter the nature of physical game inputs and also provide a more engaging game experience, while not necessarily impacting one’s ability to perform in a game.

The majority of memory research, and research on its cognitive underpinnings has thus far focused on retrospective memory, or memory for things learned or rehearsed in the past. More recently, however, prospective memory, or the memory for future intentions, has become a major area of research. It is theorized that prospective and retrospective memory may both rely on similar constituent parts such as working memory and selective attention; the relationship between these constructs and prospective memory is, however, significantly less clear than for retrospective memory. In this study we sought to further clarify the role that cognitive process play in prospective memory performance using an SEM approach that included monitoring as a mediating variable in addition to focal, non-focal, and time-based prospective memory task condition. Results suggest a monitoring component is important in both focal and non-focal conditions, and that the type of monitoring observed in this study is related primarily to proactive interference, and reflects participants’ ability to disengage from no longer relevant stimuli¬¬¬.

In the past four decades considerable efforts have been taken by higher education to understand learner’s differences and learning. Learners have different levels of learning ability associated with their different learning motivations, attitudes and thoughts which are built through years of studying at university. The more the researchers understand the learner's differences the better results they will achieve in covering all levels of learning abilities providing the effective learning for learners. The focus of this study is about studying learning thoughts of academic learners which are scientifically called as the epistemological beliefs. Studying the epistemological beliefs from different angles is important to explore its vital role in learning development. The main aim of this study is to investigate the general and specific epistemological beliefs of undergraduates who study information literacy modules as part of information science. The study focuses on the influence of the independent variables (gender, major and academic level) and the interactions between the independent variables and information literacy on undergraduates’ epistemological beliefs. Two questionnaires are used to measure the general and specific epistemological beliefs of the undergraduates; the Schommer Epistemological-Beliefs Questionnaire (SEQ) and the Discipline-Focused Epistemological Belief Questionnaire (DFEBQ). The participants in the study are undergraduates from the College of Education at Kuwait University. SPSS is used to test the internal consistency of the data against the questionnaires. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used in order to analyse the data. The study confirms that undergraduates hold both general and specific-domain beliefs while they hold more general beliefs in their first year in the college they develop toward more specific domain beliefs in the fourth year. A final result shows that the undergraduates specific domain beliefs – rather than their general beliefs – are more affected by the variable of previous knowledge of information literacy, as well as a clear impact of the interaction between the independent variables but is not so clear on the general beliefs.

The focus of this validation study is to develop and use Global Positioning System (GPS) technology as a tool for psychological research. GPS technology was used to estimate the number of places participants visited over a four day period. To test the convergent validity of this method, this estimate was compared to two self-report methods of measuring the same behavior over the same time frame. All three of these methods were significantly correlated with each other. Results of the split-plot GLM further validated the convergent validity of the GPS method. The test of construct validity was successful when it comes to covitality, however, negative affect did not predict NPV.