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This thesis examines how we store probabilities, how remembered probabilities affect decisions, and how memory for probability judgments determined by a single event interacts with implicit probability judgments formed by exposure to repeated events. The first experiment deployed a novel paradigm in the form of a card game to examine how memory for stochastic events influences choice following intervening decision tasks. The second experiment investigated memory for the context of game trials. The third experiment modified an existing memory research paradigm in order to examine the ability to remember probabilistic information following a single presentation of an event with a visible sample space. Increasing retention interval has a significant, systematic, and degrading effect on optimal choices based on judgments of relative probability, but reinforcement is somewhat more robust. However, memory for simple probabilities derived from events with clearly presented sample spaces is more accurate. Implications and future research are discussed.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: B, page: 3805. Adviser: Michel Regenwetter. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 160-177) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (M.S.)--Lehigh University, 2009. / Adviser: Catherine M. Arrington.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: B, page: 3803. Adviser: Kara Federmeier. Includes bibliographical references. Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> The present study investigates whether internet technology is used by young (YA) and older adults (OA) to change bad moods. This study also investigates whether the number of strategies used to try to change a bad mood are significantly higher among YA as compared to OA. Continuity theory, described by Atchley (1989), is used to support the hypothesis that YA will indicate internet use as a mood self-regulation tool, whereas, OA will not. Undergraduate students and adults from local senior clubs and a church choir were surveyed regarding the strategies they use to change a bad mood. Results are analyzed by applying a chi-square test of independence, a <i>t</i>-test, and a factor analysis. Results indicate the difference between YA and OA who use the internet to change a bad mood is approaching significance. Results also indicate YA use more strategies to change a bad mood than do OA.</p>

Emotional experiences seem to be easier to remember than neutral ones, but whether memory for all aspects of an experience is improved by emotion remains unclear. Some researchers have argued that the influence of emotion is different on memory for item versus source information, whereas others have argued that emotion affects both similarly. Also, whether item and source memory are affected by emotion in older people in the same way as young people is currently unknown. This dissertation examined the relations among item and source memory, emotion, and aging. In Experiment 1, young people and older adults were asked to report memory for source information surrounding a real life event (i.e., how they heard about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001). No age differences were found in source memory, suggesting that emotion improves memory for contextual information, especially in older adults. This hypothesis was subsequently tested in a series of laboratory studies, in which item and source memory for emotional and neutral materials was examined in young people and older adults. Memory for emotional items was superior to memory for neutral items in both young and older adults, whereas the emotional content of the stimulus, for the most part, had no effect on source memory. However, source memory was improved when the source itself (tone of voice) was made emotional (in Experiments 3 and 4), although item memory was generally unaffected by this manipulation. Overall, item and source memory were poorer in older people compared to young, but emotion seemed to have a similar effect on both age groups. The dissociable influences of emotion on item and source memory suggest that by and large these two kinds of memory processing occur independently of one another.