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Schizophrenia patients typically exhibit cognitive impairments that directly affect their daily functioning, but are not effectively treated by current antipsychotics. Maternal immune activation (MIA) during pregnancy, which can be triggered by a variety of infectious agents, has been associated with the development of schizophrenia in adult offspring. Epidemiological evidence indicates that elevated maternal levels of the chemokine interleukin- 8 (IL-8) during MIA contribute to the neurodevelopmental alterations underlying the disorder. The present experiments used an animal model of neurodevelopmental disorders to study the effects of MIA and chemokine receptor antagonism on the behavior of rat offspring, with behavioral tests chosen to examine cognitive functions that are typically impaired in human schizophrenia patients. The viral mimetic polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (polyI:C) (4.0 mg/kg, i.v.) was injected into pregnant Long-Evans (LE) dams on gestational day (GD) 15. Dams were also treated with the three injections of CXCL8(3–72)K11R/G31P (G31P) (500 µg/kg, i.p.), a chemokine receptor antagonist that binds CXCR1 and CXCR2 with high affinity. PolyI:C treatment significantly increased maternal levels of the chemokine CXCL1, the rodent analogue of IL-8 that binds CXCR1 and CXCR2. The offspring of polyI:C-treated dams showed impaired associative recognition memory and multisensory integration, as well as subtle impairments in prepulse inhibition (PPI). G31P administration did not reverse any of the behavioral deficits caused by polyI:C, although G31P did alter PPI during adolescence. Although the present experiments included replications and novel findings for the polyI:C model, the effects of polyI:C were smaller than in other published research. Utilizing animal models that include both genetic and environmental components, as well as more widely targeted anti-inflammatory therapies will likely result in more promising findings in future research.

This thesis was designed to examine two issues concerning negative cognition in depression: whether a negative schema is a characteristic of depressed people, and if so, whether it is a temporary state or an enduring trait. Previous research has reported mixed findings on both issues. A negative schema was defined as the negativity of an individual's chronically accessible constructs. A positive relationship between negative construct accessibility and depression , and between negative construct accessibility and vulnerability to depression was predicted. The relationship between negative construct accessibility and vulnerability to depression controlling for depression was also examined. Subjects completed a construct accessibility measure, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The results indicated that the relationship between negative construct accessibility and depression was modified either by anxiety alone or by gender and vulnerability to depression. The relationship between negative construct accessibility and vulnerability to depression was modified by gender and depression. These results suggest that under certain conditions a negative schema is a temporary state in depressed individuals. Implications for future research are discussed. / Department of Psychological Science

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between the cognitive levels of play and the child selected play activities of younger and older preschool children. Hypotheses were formulated to examine this relationship, and the age and sex differences in the cognitive levels of play and the child-selected play activities.The Play Activity Observation Instrument (PAOI) was developed by the researcher. From Smilansky's cognitive levels of play, the PAOI assessed functional, constructive, and dramatic play. Modifying Rubin' s list of the most frequently observed preschool play activities, the PAOI assessed family-work, art, block, wheel toy, table, sand-water, and climbing play.The subjects, twenty-two males and twenty-two females, were enrolled in two preschool programs at a midwestern university. The younger group had a mean age of 41.8 months and the older group had a mean age of 54.0 months.Agreement among the seven trained observers, using was .7564. Data were collected three days a week for six weeks during thirty-minute observation periods.A multivariate analysis of variance used the sex and age of the subjects as the classification variables, and the cognitive levels of play exhibited in the child-selected play activities as the dependent variables. Post hoc analysis, using univariate techniques, was conducted to further interpret the results.Statistical analysis of the mean frequencies of cognitive levels of play exhibited in the child-selected play activities revealed the following results:Significant age differences were found for the cognitive levels of play (p<.0450): older children engaged in more dramatic play. No significant age differences were found for functional or constructive play.No significant age differences were found for the child-selected play activities (p .1214).No significant sex differences were found for the cognitive levels of play (p<.0889).Significant sex differences were found for the child selected play activities (p .0001), and for the child selected play activities by cognitive levels of play interaction (p<.0001).Sex differences could be interpreted only when examining specific child-selected play activities: (A) no sex differences were observed for family-work play; however, both sexes exhibited higher levels of dramatic family-work play and lower levels of functional and constructive family-work play; (B) females exhibited higher levels of constructive art play; (C) males exhibited higher levels of constructive and dramatic block play; (D) males exhibited higher levels of dramatic wheel toy play; (E) no sex differences wore found for table play or sand-water play; (F) males engaged in more dramatic climbing play.Significant differences were found for the overall child-selected play activities by cognitive levels of play interaction (p<.0001). Post hoc analysis indicated that there was more dramatic family-work play than functional or constructive family-work play, more constructive table play than functional or dramatic table play, and more constructive sand-water play than functional or dramatic sand-water play.Several educational implications were presented, including the following:Dramatic play has been linked to later symbolic functioning in creativity, problem solving and reading. This study indicated that the greatest potential for dramatic play occurred in family-work play.Since art, block, wheel toy, and climbing play evoked sex differences in the cognitive levels of play, teachers should encourage cross-sex play behaviors in these activities.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a cognitive structure, or organizational aid, on the performance of field-independent (FI) and field-dependent (FD) women on an affective sensitivity task.Research has suggested FI individuals generally perform affective sensitivity tasks with greater accuracy than do FD individuals. However, previous research relating FI-FD with affective sensitivity may have failed to account for the influence of cognitive restructuring skills assumed to be required for the performance of an affective sensitivity task. Therefore, this investigation was undertaken to determine if the introduction of a cognitive structure would significantly influence the performance of either FI or FD women on an affective sensitivity task.The research sample included 86 volunteer female subjects recruited from undergraduate classes offered at Ball State University during Spring Quarter, 1979, in the departments of Nursing, Educational Psychology, Counseling Psychology and Psychological Science. Subjects, identified as FI or FD respectively, by their score of + ½ SD or – ½ SDfrom the mean of the norming group for the Group Embedded Figures Test; were assigned to one of two experimental condition groups, treatment or control.A cognitive structure, a commercially prepared audiovisual presentation relating nonverbal communication to specific emotional states, was presented to the treatment group. Two dependent variables were administered to both treatment and control groups. The primary dependent variable, the Affective Sensitivity Scale, Form E-A-2, a 16 millimeter color and sound film of encounters between two or more people, required the identification of the filmed participants' feelings in a multiple choice format. The secondary dependent variable was the Hogan Empathy Scale.The data from these instruments were analyzed using a Multivariate Stepdown Analysis of Variance. Results of this statistical analysis indicated one significant finding. FI subjects scored significantly higher than FD subjects on the Affective Sensitivity Scale, Form E-A-2, when controlling differences due to the Hogan Empathy Scale. INTO support was found for a differential effect of a cognitive structure on the performance of FI and FD subjects on an affective sensitivity task.

The purpose of this study was to construct and gather data on an "Observation of Group Self-Concept Schedule" and a parallel "How I Am A t School Self-Report," in an attempt to produce valid and reliable scales of measurement of group self-concept. The significance of the study was founded in the lack of instruments assessing group self-concept.Group self-concept was defined as: A social structure exhibited by interactions which indicate values, attitudes and beliefs that determine the self-perception of a group, wherein individuals mirror the composite group perceptions demonstrated through group behavior. It is an attribute that is capable of change.The related literature supported the term group self-concept through references to the organization and structure of the self, as well as in the recommendations for analyzing the data in terms of group assessments. The conclusions of several studies on self-concept indicated a need for parallel instruments to gather data on the complex structure of the self.The construction of both the observation and self-report instruments was based on criteria that promoted descriptive rather than judgmental items. The process of instrument development included close examination of students in an operational setting and review of literature relevant to self-concept, instrument design in the affective domain and analytical procedures for reliability and validity estimates. The instruments were exposed to field-testing and constructive criticism for in-depth clarification and refinement. Observers and instrument administrators were trained until the researcher was comfortable with their skills in the data collection procedure.The sample included fourth, fifth and sixth grade pupils who were involved in the Westinghouse *PLAN which included computer assisted instruction, open-education and team-teaching.The data collection process included five pairs of trained observers rating each pupil group in each grade level, wherein pairs of observers rated a group simultaneously for twenty minutes. Twenty-five per cent of the ratings of pairs of raters obtained a correlation coefficient of .80 or greater and seventy-four per cent of the ratings of the pairs of raters obtained a correlation coefficient of .50 or greater.Statistical analysis of the data produced a reliability coefficient of .84 (L.05) for test-retest procedures using a three week interim. A stability coefficient of .72 (<.05) was obtained overa ten month period.A panel of Educational Psychology Faculty assessed the content validity of both instruments and agreed that both contained a pool of items which related to individual indicators of public self-concept.The analysis of the data attempting to interpret the construct validity was an intellectual and analytical number of students to factor analyze the data. Oblique and orthogonal simple structure rotations produced factors that could be interpreted.A correlation coefficient of .55 was obtained between the observation schedule and the self-report.The problems of negligible variation and weak items as revealed through statistical analysis were pursued. The revised instruments contain expanded response systems and syntactically refined items in an attempt to resolve the aforementioned problems.It is recommended that if similar studies are carried out that there be a balance maintained between intellectual and statistical approaches in constructing the instruments and analyzing the data.The primary stage of this study has produced guidelines and has supplied implications for further research.

Infant word recognition is sometimes hindered by variability in the speech input. Previous research has shown that, at 9 months, monolinguals do not generalize wordforms across native- and accented-speakers (Schmale & Seidl, 2009). In the current study however, it was predicted that bilingual infants would be advantaged in accommodating for accented speech due to experience with phonetic variability across their two phonological systems. It was also predicted that this hypothesized ability would be restricted to accommodating for an accent derived from a familiar language (e.g., French-English bilinguals would accommodate for French-accented English but not Mandarin-accented English), since this type of variability would be consistent with the language sounds to which infants were regularly exposed. Study 1 set the experimental stage by identifying native and non-native speakers with similar voices, as perceived by a group of adults. This was done in order to restrict variability across speakers to differences in accent, rather than biological differences in voice (e.g., a higher or lower pitched voice). Following speaker selection, acoustic measurements of vowels and word stress placement were taken to compare native and non-native speakers and confirmed several expected deviations between native and accented speech. Study 2 tested the hypothesis that bilingual infants would be advantaged in accommodating for these deviations when the accent is derived from a familiar phonology. Using a headturn preference procedure (HPP), 9- and 13-month-old English-learning monolinguals and French-English learning bilingual infants were tested on their ability to recognize familiarized English wordforms across a native- and French-accented speaker. Bilinguals in both age groups succeeded in generalizing wordforms across speakers, however monolingual infants failed regardless of age. Study 3 tested whether bilinguals’ success would persist when the accented speaker’s first language was unfamiliar. Infants in this study failed as a group to generalize across native- and Mandarin-accented productions of English wordforms. However, bilinguals who received balanced exposure to their two languages performed better in accommodating for Mandarin accented speech than unbalanced bilinguals. This hints at a general ability to ignore irrelevant phonetic information, perhaps due to an advantage in cognitive control.

In this thesis, the author explores the connections between developments in the fields of neuroscience and neuropsychology and the theoretical study of embodiment in political and literary theory. Through examination of the development of neuroscience and its interactions with theoretical approaches to embodiment, the author argues that the current approach to interdisciplinary work in the area is limited by entrenched disciplinary boundaries. Examining how these disciplinary boundaries limit the scope of the study of cognition and embodiment presents the necessity of a new approach. Based in the work of Elizabeth A. Wilson and David Wills, the author presents a new approach, the embodied cognitive approach, as an alternative interdisciplinary approach. / Graduate / 0615

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