Doctor of Philosophy / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Maurice M. MacDonald / This dissertation consists of three studies exploring the relationship between cognitive abilities, health, and wealth related variables among the elderly. For all three studies, the life cycle hypotheses provided the basis of the theoretical framework and utilized data from the 2000 through 2010 panels of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The first study compared the cognitive abilities of non-married households with the cognitive abilities of married households in order to examine the effect of marital status on household wealth. The second study examines the relationship of two aspects of cognitive ability (fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence) and wealth for couples married to the same spouse for all HRS panels for 2000 to 2010. The third study examines the relationship of cognitive ability, emotional health, physical health, and wealth for couples married to the same spouse for all HRS panels for 2000 to 2010. Results identified significant associations among marital status, cognitive abilities, and health with wealth. These findings contribute to the field of financial planning by providing useful information about how marital status, cognitive functioning, and health affect the household wealth of the elderly. Financial service practitioners, regulators, researchers, and caregivers can apply these findings to develop approaches to assist the elderly manage their household wealth.

In the Dead Season is a manuscript of poetry that explores, through family narrative, the tensions between ignorance and truth, between honor and mendacity, between violation and veneration, between love and loss, between grief and transcendence. Set in rural Texas, the poems in this collection describe a harsh and unforgiving landscape seen largely, though not exclusively, through the eyes of a central child narrator. Rattlesnakes, tarantulas, drought, flood, birth, death, the poems present everyday occurrences and suggest that we often experience events before we have the context, knowledge, or emotional maturity to make sense of them in any reasonable manner. This discontinuity leaves gaps in understanding that we fill with mythologies of our own making, mythologies that both masquerade as innocence and lead us too early to toxic truths. In a world where death is commonplace, true wonder is found in surprising places.

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This study considers how examining the Popular Front movement against fascism in Britain sheds new light on thirties leftist fiction. It brings into view a range of critically neglected texts, focusing on the work of John Sommerfield, Arthur Calder-Marshall, Jack Lindsay, Lewis Jones and James Barke. The thesis shows how their fiction relates to and participates in a mobilisation of cultural forces against fascism both at home and abroad. The thesis is divided into three parts. Part One, ‘Realism and Modernism’ begins by examining how British writers negotiated the respective claims of the developing Soviet aesthetic of socialist realism, the mobilisation of European intellectuals against fascism and the heritage of literary modernism (chapter one). These currents of thought are then explored through readings of John Sommerfield’s May Day (chapter two) and Arthur Calder-Marshall’s Pie in the Sky (chapter three). Part Two, ‘On English History’, discusses leftist writings of the history of England under the rubric of anti-fascism; at its heart is a reading of Jack Lindsay’s trilogy of English historical novels (chapter four). Part Three, ‘Class, Nation, People’, first examines the ‘national’ turn in Communist politics as it was negotiated in the work of the Scottish novelist James Barke (chapter five), before turning to the fiction of the Welsh proletarian novelist Lewis Jones (chapter six). In both We Live and The Land of the Leal, the Spanish Civil War plays a key role in mediating the relationship between working-class historical experience and the demands of internationalist anti-fascism. The chief contributions are firstly a recovery and critical reconsideration of a range of marginalised works, and secondly a demonstration of how these novels can be read in terms of a radicalised and populist realist aesthetic, consonant with and interpretable in terms of the work of Georg Lukács in the 1930s.

In this paper I intend to argue for a position on the justification of memory beliefs. I call that position Mnemonic Phenomenal Conservatism (M-PC). My position is most similar to that set out by Huemer in The Problem of Memory Beliefs. M-PC is a dualist theory insofar as it endorses both a preservationist condition (PRES) and a conservative condition (PC). Mnemonic Phenomenal Conservatism can be stated as follows: M-PC: a) PC: If it seems to S that p, then, in the absence of defeaters, S thereby has at least some degree of justification for believing that p; and b) PRES: For any subject, S, his memory belief p is justified all-things-considered at T2 iff p is justifiedly formed by S at an earlier time, T1. I motivate M-PC in three ways. The broad contours of my argument are as follows: i) Firstly, I argue for the dualistic nature of any satisfactory account. I do this in Section 2 by showing that our intuitions regarding the justification of memory beliefs are likely to be influenced by the perspective that we take. These are the 'historical' and the 'time-slice' perspectives. Since we consider memory beliefs from two distinct perspectives, a satisfactory theory of memory beliefs must account for the intuitions generated by looking at problem cases from each of these perspectives. ii) Secondly, I argue that PRES is a necessary part of a satisfactory account. I do this in Section 2 by a reductio on the denial of PRES. There, I also show that a similar preservationist condition is unable to account for our time-slice intuitions: our puzzle is missing a piece. Throughout the paper, the way that PRES operates in dealing with problematic examples should convince us the PRES does most of the heavy lifting in accounting for our historical intuitions. iii) Finally, I argue that PC is the missing piece of the puzzle. My argument to this effect is abductive. While evidentialism (two-types), coherentism and reliabilism fail to account for our time-slice intuitions, PC does so with very little fuss. Thus, PC provides the most plausible condition to add to PRES. Section 3 and 4 show that together these conditions handle mnemonic problem cases of every standard variety.

Many learners in South Africa first encounter English when it is used as a medium of instruction at the start of formal schooling. This has ramifications for literacy acquisition and academic performance. Working memory is responsible for distributing cognitive resources among the various processing and storage tasks. It has been pivotal in many cognitive theories linking working memory to academic skills like reading comprehension and mathematics ability. In addition, research indicates that both Short Term Memory (STM) and Working Memory (WM) are instrumental in cognitive processing but that in bilinguals their roles are more complex than they are in monolinguals. This research explored the capacity of WM and the role of WM in reading comprehension and mathematical ability in two South African populations: a monolingual English group (L1) and a bilingual Afrikaans/English group (L2). No significant differences were found in the WM capacity of the two groups. In the second part of the study it was found that both reading comprehension and bilingualism depend on the same verbal domain resources of WM, which act as constraining factors for the L2 group. However, in the L1 group, there appeared to be less competition for verbal domain resources and more for visuospatial resources probably due to the phase of literacy acquisition these learners were in. In terms of WM and mathematical ability it was found that bilinguals exceed their storage capacity (STM) before they run out of processing capacity (WM). STM therefore is a constraining factor for this group. However, for the L1 group, visuospatial processing is the constraining factor. The research concludes that bilinguals use WM both for semantic processing of their nondominant language and for complex cognitive processing. While the WM capacity for monolingual and bilingual learners appears to be equivalent, the way the resources are allocated during cognitive tasks differ.

Thesis advisor: Elizabeth A. Kensinger / Though people tend to remember emotional information with extreme vividness, this vividness often comes at the cost of memory for surrounding information. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate this memory trade-off and how it is influenced by focused attention, trait anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In each study, participants were shown composite pictures that included an emotional or neutral item placed on a neutral background. Later, they were shown the same items and backgrounds separately. A memory trade-off occurred when participants were more likely to remember emotional items and forget the associated backgrounds as compared to equivalent memory for neutral items and backgrounds. The results from the first chapter revealed that the amount of overt visual attention on an emotional item did not predict the presence of the memory trade-off. However, when it was task relevant to disengage one's attention from the emotional item, the memory trade-off was dampened. Further, dividing attention had no effect on the memory trade-off. The results of the second chapter demonstrated that the memory trade-off was enhanced for emotional items with high levels of arousal as compared to low arousal items. This enhancement was especially strong for individuals with high trait anxiety, when this information was negative and arousing, and when the scene was remembered with a sense of familiarity. Further, for items and backgrounds that were vividly recollected, individuals with higher levels of anxiety were less likely to be able to modulate the memory trade-off, even when it was task relevant to attend to background information. The third chapter revealed that people with PTSD have a larger memory trade-off for both positive and negative information, despite the lack of overall item memory differences. These studies reveal that attention may not be the only factor that influences the memory trade-off and that the memory trade-off may be influenced by trait anxiety and PTSD. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology.

Rationale : Investigating the relationship between working memory and reading comprehension will lead to an improved understanding of the nature of working memory and will reveal how working memory contributes to reading comprehension failure. A pattern of working memory deficits will determine if ‘signature’ working memory profiles exist which will assist in the diagnosis and treatment of children with reading comprehension difficulties. Aims : (1) To explore the relationship between working memory and reading comprehension to determine if there are ‘signature’ working memory profiles that distinguish subgroups of Grade 5 English language learners with different comprehension capabilities. (2) To determine if a domain-specific or general working memory system is implicated in reading comprehension. (3) To explore the particular role played by the episodic buffer zone in reading comprehension. Method : Eighty Grade 5 English learners were tested on the GORT-4, AWMA and CELF- 4 Recalling Sentences Subtest. Based on their accuracy/decoding and comprehension scores on the GORT-4, participants were assigned to one of four reading ability groups: Skilled Reader Group; Reading Disabled Group; Poor Comprehender Group; or Poor Fluency Group. Comparison of mean standard scores determined how the four reading ability groups fared on the five memory components. Correlation and regression methods investigated the relationships between the five working memory variables and reading comprehension across the four reading ability groups. Results : Working memory plays a role in reading comprehension. The Skilled Reader group displayed intact working memory profiles, whilst the Reading Disabled group performed in the low average range on four working memory variables and below average on the fifth viz. sentence recall. The Poor Comprehender group’s working memory performance resembled that of the Skilled Reader group on two working memory variables. The Poor Fluency group performed below average on visuo-spatial short-term memory. These findings gave evidence of the inter-play between domain-specific and domain-general components of working memory during the complex task of reading comprehension. In addition, the findings highlighted the predictive role of sentence recall, as well as that of verbal working memory in reading comprehension. The episodic buffer was shown to play an important binding function between fluid and crystallised knowledge. The results suggested that reading comprehension was affected by a learner’s working memory capacity, however, working memory alone did not account for variations in performance. Lower-order and higher-order cognitive processes, as well as the interaction between fluid and crystallised knowledge appear essential to authentic reading. This has ramifications for prevention and remediation of reading comprehension deficits and underscores the important role of the speech therapist in literacy promotion.

PHD Thesis - Arts / Intertextuality is used to engage with the ‘already said’, which according to Umberto Eco is the hallmark of postmodernism. African popular culture in 2005 is frequently created through a dialogue between multiple partners. It is heteroglossic in expression, is capable of withstanding multifocal scrutiny and is fluent in the conventions of the form it chooses. It expresses itself by allusion to the ‘already said’ and through inclusion of increasingly sophisticated popular audiences. Intertextuality is generally used as a smart tool to express and comment upon hidden narratives relating to, for example, African identities, class relations, corruption and the taboo: abuse, incest, Aids, archaic traditional law practices as well as the not-so-hidden topics of necropower, global capitalism and so on. This study looks at the various uses of intertextuality, including the way it is used as a mechanism to access political memory, in the South African youth TV drama Yizo Yizo. It is argued that a text must be read in relation to the dynamic and interaction between the producer of the text, the text and the audiences of the text. To understand what producers bring to the text, one must understand the universe of the producers. In trying to understand why Yizo Yizo appears to depict “violence”, one needs to understand the experiences and ideologies of the producers in the physical space known as South Africa and reproduced as memory in the chronotope occupied by Yizo Yizo. In analysing the term “violence”, it becomes clear the word is inadequate if it is used in the singular only. What is explored here is rather, a hierarchy of violences. Violence is embedded in the very construct of the rainbow nation and returned as the political memory of violence in representation. The pecking order of these violences is identified as political violence, the relations of abuse, sexual violence, violence silence, dialogic violence, violence towards the self, traumatic violence revisited, lifestyle violence, criminal violence and retributive and restorative violence. Yizo Yizo works with the consequences of the apartheid iii past in the present and forces one male character after another to take a stand against the continuing violences of their present. Two characters (Papa Action and Chester) become the archetypes of criminal violence. Another two (Thulani and Gunman) answer reactionary and victimising and criminal violence with violence intended to free those it oppresses. But the proof of the pudding is in the audience tasting. We know from Henry Jenkins that fans rewrite texts in ten different ways—by recontextualisation, expanding the series timeline, refocalisation, moral realignment, genre shifting, cross overs, character dislocation, personalisation, emotional intensification and eroticisation. Using comments by fans, focus group results and media reports, the research looks at the way these rewrites take place in relation to Yizo Yizo. Ultimately it is suggested that the producers of this particular text are able to reach their audiences because they are also fans of movie and TV and of African popular culture. Moreover, they share a country in which a multitude of violences are experienced but invisible, hence the need for the development of a language and aesthetic of violence.

Phonological awareness, and working memory, as a component of phonological awareness, have been found to be highly correlated, not only with the acquisition of reading skills, but also with each other. Existing data does not address this aspect of emergent literacy in South African children, for whom bilingualism may impact on their levels of phonological awareness, and possibly working memory. This research study was designed and conducted in an attempt to identify the relationship between these two skills in a sample of seventy-nine South African Grade 1 children (mean age 86 months). The sample consisted of two language groups, namely first-language English (EL1), an opaque orthography (n=42) and second-language English with first-language one of the nine official African languages of South Africa (EL2), a transparent orthography (n=37). The primary aim was to examine the relationship between phonological awareness (comprising a sound categorisation task, a phoneme deletion task, and a syllable splitting task) and working memory (comprising a verbal short-term memory task, a visuo-spatial short-term memory task, a verbal working memory task and a visuo-spatial working memory task). A measure of non-verbal intelligence was included as a control. Separate analyses were run for the two language groups in order to draw a comparison between their performance on the tasks. Results generally supported existing literature that showed that the relationship between working memory and phonological awareness appears to be dependent on the depth of analysis of phonological awareness, which determines the level of demand made on working memory, yet the relationship differed between the language groups, indicating that the EL2 children draw more on general or apparently unrelated skills to conduct working memory and phonological awareness tasks. A secondary aim of this study was to explore the predictive power of firstly, the four memory skills on phonological awareness; secondly, the sound categorisation skills on phoneme deletion and finally, non-verbal intelligence on working memory. Results again differed between the language groups, suggesting that a broader range of working memory skills predict performance on phonological awareness tasks in the EL2 group than in the EL1 group. The implications of these results are discussed in detail.