Subjective contours provide an opportunity to explore the limits of correspondence matching in motion. A new class of subjective contour which is a by-product of motion processing is examined within the context of the dual process models of retinal motion processing proposed by Braddick (1980) and Anstis (1980), as well as the more recent first-order/second-order formulation proposed by Cavanagh and Mather (1989). These kinetically induced figures are created by displacing a surface defined by dots which change randomly from frame to frame over a static random dot background. Despite the fact that local form information is uncorrelated throughout the motion sequence, the resulting phenomenal percept is that of a "sparkling" surface which translates across the background. The results of five experiments were not, however, fully consistent with predictions based on either model. An extension of the criteria necessary for the long-range system to be operative would accommodate the data within the context of the short-range/long-range model, whereas a more detailed definition of the properties and relationships between second-order attributes would accommodate the data within the framework of the first-order/second-order model.

<p> <b>Background:</b> Perception of changes in physiological arousal is theorized to form the basis for which the brain labels emotional states. Interoception is a process by which individuals become aware of physiological sensations. Lowered emotional awareness has been found to be associated with lower interoceptive awareness. Alexithymia is a personality trait associated with lowered emotion recognition ability which affects 10-20% of the university student population in Western countries. Research suggests that being made aware of one&rsquo;s heartbeat may enhance emotional awareness. <b>Objective(s): </b> The present study attempted to enhance emotion recognition abilities directly via an experimental interoceptive manipulation in order to decrease levels of alexithymia. It had three aims: 1) To examine whether exposing individuals to the interoceptive sound of their own heart beat could illicit changes in their emotion recognition abilities,2) To examine whether higher emotion recognition abilities as a result of listening to one&rsquo;s own heartbeat differed by alexithymia group, and 3) if higher interoceptive awareness was associated with higher RME scores during the own heartbeat sound condition. <b>Methods: </b> 36 participants were recruited from an introductory psychology class at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. Participants completed lab-based tests of emotion recognition followed by questionnaires assessing alexithymia and interoceptive abilities. During the lab-based test of emotion recognition, participants were subjected to an interoceptive manipulation by listening to three sounds (in random order): own heartbeat, another person&rsquo;s heartbeat, and footsteps. To test aim 1, a repeated-measures ANOVA examined differences in emotion recognition scores during the various sound conditions (i.e., no sound, own heartbeat, other heartbeat, footsteps). For evaluating aim 2, a two way 3 x 4 RM ANOVA tested for differences in RME scores by sound condition when individuals were alexithymic, possibly alexithymic and not alexithymic. Aim 3 was examined using correlations between the attention to body and emotion awareness subscale scores separately with RME score for own heartbeat. <b>Results:</b> Contrary to predictions, RME performance did not vary according to body sound condition, <i>F</i> (3, 105) =.53, p = .67, <i>&eta;</i>&sup2; = .02. A significant interaction was seen between alexithymia category and RME scores during the interoceptive sound conditions, <i>F</i> (6, 99) = 2.27, p = .04, <i>&eta; </i>&sup2; = .12. However, post-hoc analyses did not reveal significant differences between specific alexithymia categories and RME scores. A significant positive relationship was seen between RME during own heartbeat and being able to pay attention to the body (<i>r</i> (36) = .34, p = .05, <i> R</i>&sup2; = .11). <b>Discussion:</b> Our results suggest that more attention was directed toward facial emotions when subjects listened to their own heartbeat but this increase did not result in measurable changes in RME performance. <b>Limitations:</b> Although using a within-subjects design potentially increased statistical power, a between-subjects design with random assignment could have eliminated the effects of repeated measurement and condition order. <b>Implications:</b> The most novel of these findings was that individuals paid more attention to the emotional stimuli when hearing their own heartbeat. More research is needed to understand if the interoceptive sound manipulation may aide in improving other cognitive functions or earlier steps in the emotion process. Future research using other measures of interoception and attention are necessary to confirm the result.</p>

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of visual/aural conditions on the emotional response to music of musicians and nonmusicians. Subjects, musicians (n = 90) and nonmusicians (n = 90), were randomly assigned to three experimental groups: visual only, aural only, and visual/aural. The stimulus used for the experimental conditions was a taped excerpt (the final 8 minutes, 22 seconds) of a commercially recorded "live" concert of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2, "The Resurrection." Subjects were asked to indicate degrees of their felt emotional response by manipulating a Continuous Response Digital Interface (CRDI) dial during experimental conditions. Subject demographic data were collected by means of an exit questionnaire. / Results indicated no significant difference between musicians and nonmusicians for the aural only and visual/aural conditions. A significant difference was found among musicians and nonmusicians for the visual only condition. / A qualitative analysis of individual and collective response graphs revealed that all subjects differentiated across the music stimulus excerpt. Additionally, there were subtle differences among musicians and nonmusicians in response to listening to music and to listening/watching the video recording. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-08, Section: A, page: 2312. / Major Professor: Clifford K. Madsen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

This dissertation addressed the schema concept as it is used in cognitive psychology. Fifteen experimental studies which focused on the effects of schema activation with adult learners were summarized and analyzed. These studies showed that schema activation conducted prior to learning, whether accomplished through context cues, thematic titles, or more active methods such as knowledge mobilization, appears to enhance both learning and recall. / This dissertation study was designed to investigate the effects of two methods of schema activation, knowledge mobilization and thematic statements, on memory for two different types of stimulus materials. Two consecutive experiments were conducted; one employed stimulus materials consisting of ambiguous sentences, while the second utilized connected prose. Both immediate and delayed recognition testing were used to assess short-term and long-term memory for both the content and technical accuracy of the stimulus materials. / While it was anticipated that, in both experiments, the combination of knowledge mobilization and a thematic statement would produce the highest level of performance, the results did not support this expectation. The results of the first experiment, in which an ambiguous passage was used, revealed no significant differences on immediate or delayed recognition test scores among the four groups. / The results of the second experiment, which used connected prose as the stimulus material, revealed that subjects in the groups with both mobilization and theme, theme statement alone, and controls all performed significantly better on the overall test than subjects using mobilization only. Subjects using the thematic statement alone and the controls performed significantly better than subjects using mobilization only on the delayed content items, which demanded long-term memory for meaning. The results of the two experiments provided only weak support for the favorable effects of these schema activation methods upon a recognition task. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-04, Section: A, page: 0913. / Major Professor: Harold J. Fletcher. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

A study was conducted on individual differences in informational coping styles and coronary-prone behavior patterns regarding their mediating roles in the experience of subjective and physiological arousal prior to and during stressful cognitive task performance. Two-hundred and forty-six college-aged subjects were categorized according to coping style, information-monitors and information-blunters, and according to coronary-prone behavior pattern, Type A and Type B. Ninety-six of these participants were given either brief or detailed information about a difficult anagram task, during which noise was administered to one half of the subjects. Repeated measures of state anxiety, body sensations, and heart rate were collected at pre-information (baseline), post-information, and post-task phases. A post-experimental questionnaire concerning self-report of arousal created by the information and noise manipulations, and by the anagram task; and concerning attribution of quality of cognitive task performance was completed by each subject at the end of the experiment A significant positive correlation was found between Type A behavior pattern and information-seeking coping strategy. There were significant main effects of phases for all dependent variables: state anxiety, negative body sensations, and heart rate. Most notably, a significant information x coping style interaction showed that information-monitors experienced less anxiety when given detailed information, their preferred amount, than when exposed to brief information. The converse was true for the information-blunters, substantiating the conclusion that they prefer a brief amount of information concerning an aversive event. This interaction supports the primary hypothesis of the study and documents the effects of these individual differences in information preference with a cognitive task / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

The purpose of this research was to develop and test computerized methods of detecting cheating on multiple-choice examinations. Two computer programs which compare the response vector of every examinee in a class to that of every other examinee were utilized to calculate two indices, both of which are based on identical incorrect responses of two or more examinees. The Wrong-in-common (WIC) index is the proportion of two times the number of identical incorrects to the Total Wrong for Both (TWB). The Run index (RUN) is the proportion of two times the length of the longest 'run' two examinees share to TWB. A run is defined as the number of items answered incorrectly and identically by both examinees within a succession of items which are marked or unmarked identically. The computer programs are written in Microsoft BASIC and run on the IBM-PC and compatible microcomputers as stand-alone executable files Achievement test item responses were obtained from a large public school system. From these data, 10 'honest' groups were created, and distributions of the RUN and WIC indices were plotted for four intervals of TWB. Average .1% probability levels were computed from the distributions for each of two subtests. These analyses indicated that cutoff points, index levels above which a pair might be considered suspicious, must vary contingent on TWB. Results suggested that it may be possible to detect certain types of 'test irregularities', and that irregularities occurred in 5 to 8% of the 170 fifth-grade classrooms studied. Directions for future research are discussed / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu