No description available.

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) refers to a group of diverse medical and healthcare systems, practices, and products not treated as conventional medicine. The body of literature on stress and stress management among young adults has not addressed the use of CAM modalities for stress management among this population. The theoretical foundation of the study was based upon the transactional model of stress and coping, which describes stress as an interaction between an external stressor and the resources available to eliminate the stressor. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine whether variables such as exposure to CAM, stress level, dispositional coping style, sociodemographic variables, and social support influence young adults' use of CAM modalities for stress management. This study sought to determine to what extent dispositional coping, exposure to and knowledge of CAM, and sociodemographic variables affect young adults' use of CAM modalities for stress management. This study also sought to answer whether there is a difference in the perceived stress of participants who use CAM modalities and those who do not. A quantitative cross-sectional correlational study was employed, using a survey methodology, to identify whether the factors identified in the study influence young adults' use of CAM modalities. Results showed that knowledge of CAM and dispositional coping style significantly influence the use of CAM modalities; sociodemographic variables do not influence the use of these modalities. Furthermore, the use of CAM modalities was found to have a significant relationship to stress level. The findings of the current study suggest the CAM techniques can be adapted and introduced into college settings so that students can better manage their stress levels

There are many psychological aspects that enter the process of recognition. The theoretical part summarizes the current knowledge of the process of recognitions and explains some phenomena that may be involved in this process, among others the age of a witness and his subsequent ability to pass the process of reconciliation fruitfully. As far as foreign sources demonstrate a lot of research has been focused on this topic, however, when it comes to the domestic literature, this topic has not yet been given sufficient attention despite the fact that the percentage of the age representation in the population is changing significantly and the number of seniors, and thus potential senior witnesses, is constantly growing. Based on previous foreign research, this work presupposes that seniors have more difficulty with recognizing and identifying the offenders than younger adults do because their decision making is influenced by various factors, such as memory deterioration, higher suggestibility, or attempt to comply with authority. Subsequently, the thesis follows the connection between successful recognition and the certainty with which it was assumed. The research was conceived as an experiment and was attended by 120 participants. At first the video was presented and then participants were asked to...

Younger adults who are walking and doing additional tasks at the same time may not realize if their performance suffers, putting some at greater risk for injury and impairment during certain tasks. This thesis has addressed this confound by developing a divided attention paradigm focusing on discrete and continuous demand manipulations. The work assessed in motorcognitive processing changes with cerebral and behavioral monitoring of over-ground walking with or without cognitive tasks. Participants (n = 19, 18-35 years, 13 females) were asked to walk at their usual pace [usual walking condition (SM)], walk at their usual pace while performing a cognitive task [dual-task condition (DT)] as well as conduct a cognitive task while standing [single cognitive condition (SC)]. All participants conducted two discrete [simple response time (SRT) & go-no-go (GNG)] and two continuous cognitive tasks [N-back (NBK) & double number sequence (DNS)] of increasing demand. The study revealed significant brain and behavior interactions during the most demanding continuous cognitive task, the DNS. The findings demonstrated lower accuracy rates, slower walk speeds as well as greater cerebral oxygenation in DNS DT in comparison to single task conditions. With increasing cognitive demands and tasks, there were longer response times, as well as lower accuracy rates. The behavioral findings were qualified by marginally significant interactions in a 2 x 4 RM ANOVA between SC-DT task and demand for accuracy rate [F (3, 54) = 2.66, p = 0.06, η2 =.13], significant interactions in response time [F (2, 36) = 4.1, p = 0.026, η2 =.18] as well as significant SM-DT task and demand findings for walk speed [F (3, 54) =5.3, p = 0.003, η2 =.23]. The 2 x 2 x 4 RM ANOVA revealed significant HbO2 interactions between walking tasks (single and dual), hemisphere and demand [F (3, 54) = 5.730, p = 0.002, η2 =.24] in the DNS only. The data suggests that greater demand manipulations with continuous cognitive tasks may be sensitive to both prefrontal cortex (PFC) and behavioral assessments in younger adults (YA). Further validation of the discrete-continuous demand paradigm in motor studies may provide a basis for cognitive assessment with applications in motor learning, cognitive training, aging and more.

University evaluations often reflect an individual’s ability to memorize and recall lecture material during exams. Consequently, the ability to effectively encode, store, and later retrieve information is an integral part of learning and academic success. Notably, students who are more physically active tend to have better academic performance. The neurobiology of stress is a strong candidate for the mechanism underlying this exercise-cognition interaction. Given that exercise is a physical stressor, it is hypothesized that exercise-induced adrenocortical activations increase cortisol levels. Critically, cortisol increases memory consolidation for newly learned information. One hundred twenty-eight young adults (36 males; age: M±SD =19.47±1.55 years) viewed a video lecture before exercise (n = 41), after exercise (n = 42), or after rest (n = 45). The exercise was high intensity interval training on a cycle ergometer and memory for the lecture material was assessed using a multiple-choice quiz conducted 14 minutes and 48 hours after the lecture. There was a significant positive correlation between aerobic fitness and grade point average [r(95) = 0.22, p < .05], immediate recall [r(100) = 0.39, p < .001], and delayed recall [r(98) = 0.28, p < .01]. A mixed model ANOVA found a significant main effect of group on comprehension of the lecture material, F(2, 96) = 3.34, p < .05, revealing greater memory benefits at both 14 minutes and 48 hour delays for those who exercised compared to those who did not exercise; however, pairwise comparisons found this effect specific to the exercise post group. There was also a main effect of group on cortisol levels, F(2, 107) = 3.97, p < .05; however, only the exercise prior group exhibited significantly greater levels than the control group. Thus cortisol levels collected during the experimental session did not clearly differentiate the exercise conditions or reflect the observed memory benefits for the exercise post group. This may have resulted from the gradual increase in cortisol following exercise that had time to increase when exercise was completed at the beginning of the exercise session (exercise prior) rather than at the end (exercise post). Overall, this study suggests that both physical fitness and an acute bout of aerobic exercise are associated with academic and memory performance. More research is needed to understand the mechanism. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of participants' abused or nonabused status as it interacted with their age and gender in producing different patterns of Hand Test responses as a function of the age or gender of the card. Participants, 61 young adults (M age = 23) and 60 older adults (M age = 73), were presented with the original Hand Test cards, as well as four alternate versions (e.g., young male, young female, older male, and older female). Expected effects varying by age, gender, and abuse status were not found. Results indicated main effects for participant abuse status, which were largely consistent with previous Hand Test research. Significant interaction effects were also found for participant age by participant abuse status (p < .05), as well as participant age by participant gender by participant abuse status (p < .05). An interaction effect was also found for Hand Test version by participant abuse status (p < .05), Hand Test version by participant age by participant abuse status (p < .05), as well as Hand Test version by participant gender by participant abuse status (p < .05). These results suggest that the alternate forms of the cards may pull for certain responses among abused participants that would not have been identified otherwise via the standard version of the Hand Test, clinical interviews, or other projective and self-report measures of personality. Overall, the variations in Hand Test stimuli interact with participants' abuse status, and warrant the use of alternate versions of the Hand Test as a viable projective measure.

No description available.

Using Hebb’s (1961) paradigm, it has been shown that older adults (OAs) fail to learn recurrent visuospatial supra-span sequence information (Turcotte, Gagnon, & Poirier, 2005); a deficit which has not been demonstrated on verbal versions of the same task or in younger adults (YAs). Since the Hebb paradigm is thought to rely on working memory and thus attention (Conway & Engle, 1996), one interpretation concerns an OA’s capacity to allocate the necessary attentional resources to carry out the various components of the task. Five studies investigated this proposal. The first three (Article 1) examined attention in a general manner by reducing the amount of attentional resources that a YA could devote to carrying out the visuospatial Hebb supra-span sequence learning task through the implementation of a verbal dual task (DT) procedure. The fourth (Article 2) further investigated the role of attention by using a DT induced at retrieval that overlapped extensively with the requirements (spatial and response features) of the visuospatial Hebb task. The final study (Article 3) aimed to use our previous findings to demonstrate learning among OAs in a visuospatial Hebb learning paradigm in which the motor response was replaced by a verbal response. Our findings confirm that attentional resources employed at the retrieval phase of the task appear to be particularly important for the demonstration of visuospatial sequence learning. The inclusion of a spatial and motor based DT at recall eliminated learning of the repeated sequence in YAs. Interestingly, the learning deficit of OAs was partially eliminated when the motor and spatial requirements at retrieval were reduced. Our findings offer strong support to the contention that supra-span learning of the Hebb type is not altered by the effect of age. However, learning deficits can be observed among OAs when the retrieval component of the task overly taxes attention-related processes. In the case of the visuospatial sequences, the basis of the deficit likely concerns an individual’s capacity to discriminate between responses made to previously presented sequences versus those that need to be made in reaction to the just seen sequence.

Using Hebb’s (1961) paradigm, it has been shown that older adults (OAs) fail to learn recurrent visuospatial supra-span sequence information (Turcotte, Gagnon, & Poirier, 2005); a deficit which has not been demonstrated on verbal versions of the same task or in younger adults (YAs). Since the Hebb paradigm is thought to rely on working memory and thus attention (Conway & Engle, 1996), one interpretation concerns an OA’s capacity to allocate the necessary attentional resources to carry out the various components of the task. Five studies investigated this proposal. The first three (Article 1) examined attention in a general manner by reducing the amount of attentional resources that a YA could devote to carrying out the visuospatial Hebb supra-span sequence learning task through the implementation of a verbal dual task (DT) procedure. The fourth (Article 2) further investigated the role of attention by using a DT induced at retrieval that overlapped extensively with the requirements (spatial and response features) of the visuospatial Hebb task. The final study (Article 3) aimed to use our previous findings to demonstrate learning among OAs in a visuospatial Hebb learning paradigm in which the motor response was replaced by a verbal response. Our findings confirm that attentional resources employed at the retrieval phase of the task appear to be particularly important for the demonstration of visuospatial sequence learning. The inclusion of a spatial and motor based DT at recall eliminated learning of the repeated sequence in YAs. Interestingly, the learning deficit of OAs was partially eliminated when the motor and spatial requirements at retrieval were reduced. Our findings offer strong support to the contention that supra-span learning of the Hebb type is not altered by the effect of age. However, learning deficits can be observed among OAs when the retrieval component of the task overly taxes attention-related processes. In the case of the visuospatial sequences, the basis of the deficit likely concerns an individual’s capacity to discriminate between responses made to previously presented sequences versus those that need to be made in reaction to the just seen sequence.

Using Hebb’s (1961) paradigm, it has been shown that older adults (OAs) fail to learn recurrent visuospatial supra-span sequence information (Turcotte, Gagnon, & Poirier, 2005); a deficit which has not been demonstrated on verbal versions of the same task or in younger adults (YAs). Since the Hebb paradigm is thought to rely on working memory and thus attention (Conway & Engle, 1996), one interpretation concerns an OA’s capacity to allocate the necessary attentional resources to carry out the various components of the task. Five studies investigated this proposal. The first three (Article 1) examined attention in a general manner by reducing the amount of attentional resources that a YA could devote to carrying out the visuospatial Hebb supra-span sequence learning task through the implementation of a verbal dual task (DT) procedure. The fourth (Article 2) further investigated the role of attention by using a DT induced at retrieval that overlapped extensively with the requirements (spatial and response features) of the visuospatial Hebb task. The final study (Article 3) aimed to use our previous findings to demonstrate learning among OAs in a visuospatial Hebb learning paradigm in which the motor response was replaced by a verbal response. Our findings confirm that attentional resources employed at the retrieval phase of the task appear to be particularly important for the demonstration of visuospatial sequence learning. The inclusion of a spatial and motor based DT at recall eliminated learning of the repeated sequence in YAs. Interestingly, the learning deficit of OAs was partially eliminated when the motor and spatial requirements at retrieval were reduced. Our findings offer strong support to the contention that supra-span learning of the Hebb type is not altered by the effect of age. However, learning deficits can be observed among OAs when the retrieval component of the task overly taxes attention-related processes. In the case of the visuospatial sequences, the basis of the deficit likely concerns an individual’s capacity to discriminate between responses made to previously presented sequences versus those that need to be made in reaction to the just seen sequence.