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<p> Numerous studies have shown retrieval practice to be an effective strategy for improving memory. One account proposed to explain this benefit is the episodic context account (Karpicke et al., 2014). This account proposes that contextual information is reinstated and updated when an item is retrieved. This updated context is then used to aid in retrieval. Examining memory for contextual information, in addition to item memory, may provide additional insight into retrieval practice and what contextual cues are relevant in retrieval. The current study examined memory for temporal-contextual information at 2 different grain sizes: (a) memory for which list a word occurred in, and (b) memory for when an item occurred within a list. Previous research has shown that retrieval practice enhances memory for list temporal contextual information, as assessed by a list discrimination task (Brewer et al., 2010; Chan & McDermott, 2007). In contrast, Karpicke and Zaromb (2010) found worse memory following retrieval practice (relative to restudy) for within-list temporal-contextual information, as assessed by an order reconstruction task. In both experiments of the current study, participants studied multiple lists of words and either engaged in a word stem completion cued recall task, or restudied the words. Our results were partially consistent with previous research. We found no difference in performance between the retrieval practice and restudy groups when assessed on a list discrimination test. However, performance was worse for the retrieval practice group relative to restudy when assessed on an order reconstruction task. Finally, in both experiments, there was no difference in recognition accuracy. Overall, our results suggest that certain retrieval practice tasks may differentially affect memory for various grain sizes of temporal-contextual information. </p>

No description available.

No description available.

Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is a critical public health issue and affects a significant number of people physically, emotionally, and financially. There is evidence that pain may affect one’s perception of time, but more work is needed to understand how different types of pain (acute, chronic) impact temporal perception. This study aimed to examine how acute experimental pain and CLBP, together and separately, impact the perception of time. A sample of 77 participants, 10 with CLBP and 67 healthy pain-free controls, completed two temporal perception tasks (Bisection and Threshold) twice, once with induced acute pressure pain and once without pain. The effects of acute pain and CLBP on temporal perception were examined using repeated measures ANOVAs. Results showed that the presence of either acute or chronic pain was related to overestimating time during shorter stimuli presentations and underestimating time during longer stimuli presentations. Further, subjects with chronic pain generally required a longer time difference to accurately distinguish between stimuli of differing lengths. This study demonstrates that both acute and chronic pain affect temporal perception, though the combination of acute and chronic pain does not confer additive adverse effects. The results of this study broaden our understanding of the impact of different types of pain on a person’s perception of time. / 2025-02-03T00:00:00Z

Ecosystems and their components (e.g., organisms, physicochemical variables) are dynamic in space and time. This dynamism makes ecological change notoriously difficult to study and manage. This thesis therefore aims to develop new ways of using spatiotemporal information for inference and prediction. Applying theoretical and statistical concepts to patterns of spatiotemporal variation in aquatic ecosystems led to three discoveries that show promise as ecological applications. First, I show that temporal variability of an ecosystem process can be inferred from its spatial variability. This application may be the first quantitative form of the widely-used method, space-for-time substitution. Its use is supported by an analytical framework giving the conditions under which space is a good surrogate for time. Second, I demonstrate the use of spatiotemporal patterns to predict responses of variables when ecosystem fragments are connected. Connection leads to large shifts in spatiotemporal pattern and other response metrics (e.g., temporal variability) for variables showing asynchrony and concentration gradients among sites (e.g., populations). Meanwhile, these changes are minimal if variables exhibit synchrony and homogeneity across space (e.g., energetic variables). A final discovery is that temporal attributes like stability are strong predictors of persistent spatial variation – a pattern that reflects how reliably resource concentrations occur in the same locations. This finding suggests the potential of time-for-space substitution, where one or few well-resolved time series could be used to infer landscape patterns. All but one of the tested approaches were data efficient and broadly-applicable across ecosystems and ecological processes. They thus contribute new possibilities for prediction when data are scarce, as well as new perspectives on dynamics in multi-variable landscapes. Research here shows that work at the intersection of spatial and temporal pattern can strengthen the interpretation of ecosystem dynamics and, more generally, foster synthesis from populations to landscapes. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The physical and biological components of ecosystems are constantly in flux, varying in value among locations (spatially) and over time (temporally). This dynamism makes it difficult to predict current or future behaviours of ecological variables (e.g., population size). This thesis tests the potential of using spatial and temporal patterns to make inferences and predictions about changes in ecological systems. I tested three new theory-based tools in aquatic ecosystems, finding that: The size of temporal fluctuations in an ecosystem variable can be predicted from the size of value-differences among locations; spatial and temporal patterns can predict how a variable responds when isolated fragments of ecosystems are connected; and attributes of ecosystem variables (e.g., their stability) can indicate the likelihood of resources recurring in the same location. Findings show that new insight into spatial and temporal patterns can help prediction and management in complex landscapes.

Under the very general topic of an historical or temporal central place study, one particular approach to analyzing the centrality of urban places is outlined. Centrality is taken in a very limited context - the influence of an urban place over its umland. The relationship between population of an urban place and number of "labour units", or central labour units, is used to measure the relative centrality for a sample of places. "Labour units" themselves are introduced to denote all persons working in central activities in an urban place. The study is carried out in Kent and Lambton counties in Southwestern Ontario using data obtained from the available national, provincial and county directories. Rather than limit the study to one point in time, as most earlier works have, an analysis is carried out through time, from 1851 to 1857. Small urban places are the focus of attention in this study because of data availability and accuracy. Results show a noticeable decline in centrality over time, which is more marked in the later years. General trends are also drawn for changes in centrality in individual towns of differing and similar sizes. Some of the problems and shortcomings of the study are outlined as a guide to further research. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

An observer’s inference that multimodal signals come from a common underlying source can facilitate cross-modal binding in the temporal domain. This ‘unity assumption’ can cause asynchronous audiovisual speech streams to seem simultaneous (Vatakis & Spence, 2007), but follow-up work has been unable to replicate this effect for non-speech, musical events (Vatakis & Spence, 2008). Given that amplitude envelope (the changes in energy of a sound over time) has been shown to affect audiovisual integration, the current study investigates whether previous null findings with musical stimuli can be explained by the similarity in amplitude envelope between audiovisual conditions. To test whether amplitude envelope affects temporal cross-modal binding, Experiment 1 contrasted events with clearly differentiated envelopes: cello and marimba audiovisual stimuli. Participants performed an un-speeded temporal order judgments task; they viewed audio-visually matched (e.g. marimba auditory with marimba video) and mismatched (e.g. cello auditory with marimba video) versions of stimuli at various stimulus onset asynchronies and indicated which modality was presented first. As predicted, participants were less sensitive to temporal order (greater JNDs) in matched conditions, suggesting that the unity assumption facilitates synchrony perception outside of non-speech stimuli. Results from Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that when spectral information was removed, amplitude envelope alone could not facilitate the influence of audiovisual unity on temporal binding. We propose that both amplitude and spectral cues affect the percept of audiovisual ‘unity’, likely working in concert to help an observer determine the causal source of an auditory event. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

The simultaneity judgment (SJ) and temporal order judgment (TOJ) tasks are the two widely used methods for measuring the window of multisensory integration; however, there are some indications that these two tasks involve different cognitive processes and therefore produce unrelated results. The present study measured observers’ visuotactile window of integration using these two tasks in order to examine whether or not SJs and TOJs produce consistent results for this particular pairing of modalities. Experiment 1 revealed no significant correlations between the SJ and TOJ tasks, indicating that they appear to measure distinct processes in visuotactile integration, and in addition showed that both sensory and decisional factors contribute to this difference. These findings were replicated in Experiment 2, which, along with Experiment 3, also showed that the reliability of the SJ and TOJ tasks may in part be responsible for the lack of agreement between these two tasks. A secondary result concerned the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS), which were tactile-leading across all three experiments. This contradicts some of the previous literature in visuotactile integration. Manipulating the spatial distance between the visual and tactile stimulus (Experiment 2) and the certainty of stimulus location (Experiment 3) did not lead to significant changes of the location of the PSS. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Perception often involves the use of more than one sensory modality at the same time; for example, touching an object usually produces sensory signals in the visual and tactile modalities. Since the amount of time needed to transmit and process sensory signals is different among the modalities, the brain allows for a certain time difference between signals of various pairs of modalities that it will consider as coming from one event. Two tasks commonly used to measure these allowable time differences are the simultaneity judgment (SJ) and temporal order judgment (TOJ) tasks. Although they are usually used interchangeably, the present data show that the results from these tasks in the visuotactile pairing of modalities are unrelated, and a major contributing reason appears to be that these tasks are not the most reliable.