The three studies that constitute this thesis investigated the influence of cognitive and social factors on reasoning in social environments. The key research issues investigated were: (a) the influence of status on distributed reasoning, (b) the influence of social interactions and status on the type of representational change, and (c) identifying the mechanisms of social interactions that cause representational change. Study one investigated how the status of scientists presenting their research at laboratory meetings influenced distributed reasoning. When the presenter was of high status, the Principal Investigator was an important influence on the distributed reasoning. When the presenter was of low status, other lab members were more likely to contribute to distributed reasoning. Study two examined if social interactions between scientists at laboratory meetings result in minor or major representational change. Also investigated in study two was if the status of the laboratory members influenced the type of representational change that occurred during social interactions. The results showed that a scientist changes her or his representation by generalizing over two or more representations that were discussed during social interactions. The Principal Investigator was a key contributor to representational change involving generalization. Study three examined how dyadic social interactions influenced representational change. It was found that the individual who initiates representational discussion after identifying a problem with her or his representation is the dyad member who is most likely to change her or his representation. Representational change also required that the other dyad member clarify the initiator's representation problem. It was also found that representational change for the initiator involved incorporating a certain representation that was provided by the other dyad member into an incomplete representation. Finally, it was found that the op

Persons with Down syndrome and MA matched typically developing children were tested on two measures each of hot and cool executive function (EF). Tasks were selected to be developmentally appropriate for mental ages between 3 and 6 years. Participants with Down syndrome performed at the same level as verbal mental age (VMA, M = 47.53 months) matched typically developing children on the Children's Gambling Task (Kerr & Zelazo, 2001), a delay of gratification task (Thompson, Barresi, & Moore, 1997) the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS; Frye, Zelazo, & Palfai, 1995), and the Self-Ordered Pointing task (Petrides & Milner, 1982), but showed a disadvantage on the DCCS, a cool EF task, when matched on performance mental age (PMA, M = 58.34 months). These results reflect the complex cognitive profiles of persons with Down syndrome and highlight the need for more precise matching procedures.

This study examined whether children's cognitive perceptions of the amount of skill and luck involved in gambling activities could be modified as a function of reinforcement schedules on a gambling task (Hilo). Children (N = 174) from grades 5 and 7 completed a questionnaire to evaluate cognitions and played a computer simulated card-cutting game. Cognitions were assessed after the game to examine if cognitive perceptions changed and then again one and four weeks later to evaluate if changes were maintained. Results reveal that experiencing repeated losses decreased perceived skill and increased perceptions of luck on gambling tasks in general. Cognitive changes in younger children were larger and were maintained longer than for older children. Analyses of game playing behaviour indicated that children in the losing condition chased losses by betting a larger percentage of bankrolls per hand in the final portion of game time. The results are discussed with emphasis on implications for prevention programs based on cognitive restructuring.

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This is a study of a problem in the logic of belief revision. On the assumption of a number of fairly traditional views concerning the relationship between mind and world, the mechanics of perception, and the nature of belief, an argument is made to the effect that revision of extant beliefs is impossible even in the light of new perceptual experience. The argument turns on the ability of a cognitive system to recognize conflict among its thoughts and perceptions. A number of models of the mechanics of perceptual interpretation are explored, all of which are revealed to share a susceptibility to the problem as posed. Certain objections are taken up, the responses to which modify the scope of the original argument; although the problem may yet be said to arise in a number of crucial contexts where its presence is undesirable, some situations are found in which the problem can be dissolved. The problem is then reexamined in light of the epistemological position called fallibilism, with an eye to demonstrating that it arises notwithstanding the highly cautious perspective embodied in that position. A solution to the problem is then offered in the form of a family of model cognitive systems with certain properties. Because the problem is a feature of belief-based cognitive systems, the family of systems offered in arguing for a resolution of the problem is constructed on the notion that cognition, construed as information processing, normally proceeds without any epistemic evaluations being attached either to perceptions in particular or thoughts in general. The non-evaluative propositional attitude employed in normal cognition should, I argue, be what I call acceptance. The propositional attitude of belief, traditionally conceived of as occupying the role now given to acceptance, is accorded an extremely limited scope of application. Epistemic evaluation in general is itself restricted to contexts of decision only, its application arising only

Domain specific theories of development postulate that mental state reasoning (i.e., theory of mind; ToM) develops independently of general problem solving ability. In contrast, domain general theories suggest that the abilities develop concurrently. To assess the relation between mental state reasoning and problem solving, children with autism, developmental delay, and typical development were administered 2 ToM tasks, and 3 problem solving tasks that did not require mental state reasoning. Typically developing children performed better than both groups on the problem solving tasks, each of which required the use of embedded rules. For all groups, positive within-group correlations emerged between the tasks that required mental state reasoning and the general problem solving tasks, suggesting that a common mechanism underlies both abilities, and challenging the notion of domain specificity. The current findings are discussed in the context of a domain general versus domain specific account of ToM acquisition in typical and atypical populations.

Introduction: Emotion regulation, the process of changing one’s emotion is necessary for efficiency when performing cognitive tasks, and is often measured using a Stroop task that provides conflict between emotional and factual information. Researchers have found that listening to music increases performance on cognitive tasks, and we hypothesize that listening to music samples that evoke different arousal and valence levels will affect participants’ emotion regulation skills. Method: 38 Georgia State University undergraduates listened to three-minute excerpts of film scores known to evoke a particular mood and arousal state while completing an emotional-Stroop task. Results: We performed a repeated measures ANOVA and found a significant difference of music type and an interaction between music type and word context. Discussion: These results provide evidence that music evokes different arousal and valence states, which have a distinct effect on emotion regulation skills.

The experiments presented in this thesis were designed to examine a number of issues raised by previous experiments employing the dual task paradigm to investigate cerebral organization. Whereas experiment one failed to support previous findings, experiments two and three did reveal that concurrent verbal tasks interfered more with right-hand tapping than with left-hand tapping in right-handed subjects. Secondly left-handed subjects did not show the same pattern of interference as right-handed subjects and, thirdly, visuo-spatial tasks did not interfere in the same way with single finger pressing as verbal ones. Close examination of both previous and present results revealed two important issues that warranted further examination. Firstly the role task difficulty plays in determining the amount and kind of interference observed in motor performance and, secondly the extent to which the locus of interference is motor-motor in nature. The results of experiments four, five, six and seven indicated that the level of task demands may play only a minor role in determining the pattern of interference generated. Furthermore, although interference does not appear to arise solely during responding processes, overt speech is more interfering than covert speech. Experiments eight and nine failed to show that this difference stemmed from the necessity to access the phonological properties of the words. A general discussion of the results concluded that proper evaluation of the theoretical explanations of interference and facilitation effects is not possible until the mechanism of such effects is understood. Furthermore, methodological problems and the assumptions underlying the use of the dual-task paradigm were examined, and it was concluded that it is extremely difficult to relate the results of combined motor and cognitive performance to cerebral organization.

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