Human perception and cognition processing are not universal. Culture and experience markedly modulate visual information sampling in humans. Cross-cultural studies comparing between Western Caucasians (WCs) and East Asians (EAs) have shown cultural differences in behaviour and neural activities in regarding to perception and cognition. Particularly, a number of studies suggest a local perceptual bias for Westerners (WCs) and a global bias for Easterners (EAs): WCs perceive most efficiently the salient information in the focal object; as a contrast EAs are biased toward the information in the background. Such visual processing bias has been observed in a wide range of tasks and stimuli. However, the underlying neural mechanisms of such perceptual tunings, especially the temporal dynamic of different information coding, have yet to be clarified. Here, in the first two experiments I focus on the perceptual function of the diverse eye movement strategies between WCs and EAs. Human observers engage in different eye movement strategies to gather facial information: WCs preferentially fixate on the eyes and mouth, whereas EAs allocate their gaze relatively more on the center of the face. By employing a fixational eye movement paradigm in Study 1 and electroencephalographic (EEG) recording in study 2, the results confirm the cultural differences in spatial-frequency information tuning and suggest the different perceptual functions of preferred eye movement pattern as a function of culture. The third study makes use of EEG adaptation and hierarchical visual stimulus to access the cultural tuning in global/local processing. Culture diversity driven by selective attention is revealed in the early sensory stage. The results here together showed the temporal dynamic of cultural perceptual diversity. Cultural distinctions in the early time course are driven by selective attention to global information in EAs, whereas late effects are modulated by detail processing of local information in WC observers.

The traditional view of language comprehension is that the meaning of a sentence is composed of the meaning of each word combined into a fully specified syntactic structure. These processes are assumed to be generally completed fully and automatically. However, there is increasing evidence that these processes may, in some circumstances, not be completed fully, and the resultant representation, underspecified. This is taken as evidence for shallow processing and is best typified, we argue, when readers fail to detect semantically anomalous words in a sentence. For example, when asked, “how many animals did Moses take on the Ark?” readers often incorrectly answer “two” failing to notice that it was Noah and not Moses who built the Ark. There has been surprisingly little work carried out on the on-line processing of these types of anomalies, and the differences in processing when anomalies are detected or missed. This thesis presents a series of studies, including four eye-tracking and one ERP study that investigates the nature of shallow processing as evidenced when participants report, or fail to report, hard-to-detect semantic anomalies. The main findings are that semantic anomaly detection is not immediate, but slightly delayed. Anomaly detection results in severe disruption in the eye movement data, and a late positivity in ERPs. There was some evidence that non-detected anomalies were processed unconsciously in both the eye movement record or in ERPs, however effects were weak and require replication. The rate of anomaly detection is also shown to be modulated by processing load and experimental task instructions. The discussion considers what these results reveal about the nature of shallow processing.

Introduction: Non-engagement with treatment is a familiar problem for health services and has been identified as a particularly important issue for those who experience psychosis. The therapeutic relationship between service-users and clinicians is considered to be crucial to good engagement. The extent to which requirements of engagement with treatments and mental health services represent a threat to the individual’s autonomy is a potential factor in non-engagement. Reactance theory has attempted to explain this phenomenon. However, relationships are complex and reactance theory does not reflect this. The exploration of narratives is an opportunity to develop an understanding of the intricacies of these therapeutic relationships. Methods : Interviews were conducted with 11 participants who were recovering from an episode of psychosis. Narrative Analysis of the transcripts was undertaken. During the process interpretation of the transcripts required the introduction of Dialogical Self Theory. Results: Three self-positions were identified through which participant’s narrated their experiences. Defiant, Subordinate and Reflective-Conciliatory positions were described. Discussion: Narratives surrounding recovery and engagement with services can appear complex, contradictory and fragmented. They are narrated by different self-positions. This understanding of the complexity of narratives may be helpful in guiding clinicians in maintaining a wider awareness of the multidimensional nature of individuals’ understandings of their experiences of recovery and relationships with services.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the range of prospective memory and executive function deficits in ecstasy/polydrug users and the role of these processes in accounting for the observed prospective memory performance deficits. Using a variety of laboratory and self-report measures of prospective memory and a self-report measure of executive function, ecstasy/polydrug users were tested in laboratory settings on measures of event and time-based, short and long term prospective memory as well as on a wide range of executive function components. It was found that ecstasy/polydrug users in relation to non-users experience more general prospective memory problems as ecstasy/polydrug-related deficits were evident on both time and event-based and short and long-term prospective memory. Ecstasy/polydrug users also demonstrated deficits on executive processes suggesting that recreational drug users are impaired in a broader range of executive function and ecstasy/polydrug-related deficits are not restricted to the three-model component of executive function. It was also found that executive dysfunction is associated with poorer time-based prospective memory and perhaps some of the drug related prospective memory deficits are mediated by drug related executive function impairment. Finally, although few prospective memory or executive function performance deficits were evident among cannabis-only users a trend was evident in all investigations; ecstasy/polydrug users perform the worst, cannabis-only users at intermediate levels and drug-naïve perform the best. The most striking finding of the present thesis was that the recreational use of cocaine was associated with PM deficits; an association that consistently emerged in all studies of PM performance. The outcomes of the present thesis provide a fruitful direction for future research.

Thesis ( Ph.D. ) -- University of Texas at Arlington, 2008.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-94). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Syracuse University, 2008. / "Publication number: AAT 3347262."

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4239. Adviser: Fred Davidson. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 256-269) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1989. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-235).