The current paper describes the concepts of emotional intelligence (EI) and physical attractiveness in relation to their impact on applicant evaluations. As EI has been shown to be linked to work outcomes including job performance, job satisfaction and interpersonal relationships, and as physical attractiveness has been found to influence rater decisions and perceptions of intellectual competence, an examination of these constructs in concert was the focus of the current study. Results found that, on average, attractive employees, older employees, and male employees were rated higher on several dimensions than their counterparts. There was no support for rater EI being linked to attractiveness- or age-related evaluation bias or for rater gender being related to attractiveness- or gender-related rating bias. However, results found that individuals with low EI were less consistent in their ratings, when job irrelevant information was disclosed versus undisclosed, than those with high EI. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of bilingualism in short-term memory (STM) compared to monolingualism with individuals who have Down syndrome. Five tasks were used for STM skills comparison between monolingual and bilingual participants. Sixteen participants between the ages of 13 to 37 were included in this study. Participants were divided based on their language groups. The experimental tasks consisted of non-verbal activities to examine visual (RVDLT) and spatial (Corsi) STM; as well as three verbal STM tasks (RAVLT, WMS, and Digits). The results showed that bilinguals acquired higher overall correct responses, with a significant difference found in visual STM performance and a trend towards significance in verbal logical STM. Thus, the findings of this study support the bilingual advantage theory. This study will enhance understanding in memory capacity of bilingual individuals with Down syndrome for potential implications to put into practice in clinical intervention strategies.

The proposed study aims to investigate the effects of culture and mass media images of female bodies in an active or static pose on mood, body idealization, and body dissatisfaction. Participants included female students with Chinese heritage culture (age M =21.26, SD =2.5) and 130 female students who identified with American heritage culture (age M =20.82, SD =1.2). Participants filled out an online survey distributed through Qualtrics, which includes a pre-and-post negative affect and body satisfaction measure. They were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, viewing posing models, models in active poses, or scenery images. Consistent with previous findings, the current study results showed a main effect of body conceptualization on participants’ body dissatisfaction and choice of ideal body image. Viewing pictures of models either in static or active poses led to significant increase in body dissatisfaction and increased the likelihood of choosing skinnier ideal body image as compared to the control condition. However, there was no main effect of culture and interaction between culture and body conceptualization. Future research is needed to explore other variables that might moderate the association between body conceptualization and participants’ psychological outcomes after exposing to body ideals in mass media presentations.

Preterm infants are exposed to high levels of modified early sensory experience in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Reports that preterm infants show deficits in contingency detection and learning when compared to full-term infants (Gekoski, Fagen, & Pearlman, 1984; Haley, Weinberg, & Grunau, 2006) suggest that their exposure to atypical amounts or types of sensory stimulation might contribute to deficits in these critical skills. Experimental modifications of sensory experience are severely limited with human fetuses and preterm infants, and previous studies with precocial bird embryos that develop in ovo have proven useful to assess the effects of modified perinatal sensory experience on subsequent perceptual and cognitive development. In the current study, I assessed whether increasing amounts of prenatal auditory or visual stimulation can interfere with quail neonates’ contingency detection and contingency learning in the days following hatching. Results revealed that augmented prenatal visual stimulation prior to hatching does not disrupt the ability of bobwhite chicks to recognize and prefer information learned in a contingent fashion, whereas augmented prenatal auditory stimulation disrupted the ability of chicks to benefit from contingently presented information. These results suggest that specific types of augmented prenatal stimulation that embryos receive during late prenatal period can impair the ability to learn and remember contingently presented information. These results provide testable developmental hypotheses, with the goal of improving the developmental care and management of preterm neonates in the NICU setting.

The negative effects of cognitive decline and impairment can be devastating for older adults and their families, and extremely costly for the healthcare system and the society. Cognitive training aims to maintain or improve cognition by utilizing repetitive tasks that target specific cognitive skills. The majority of cognitive training studies in healthy older adults involved home-based, individual, computerized approach or onsite, group, paper-and-pencil format. These approaches may not be suitable for individuals with serious health or mobility issues, caregiving responsibilities, limited transportation, or limited computer or internet access. A novel, home-based, self-administered cognitive training intervention was developed to address these barriers. It involves two older adults taking turns to administer paper-and-pencil tasks to one another. The purpose of the study was to evaluate feasibility and participant acceptability of this novel approach to cognitive training. Eighteen participants (9 dyads) 65-91 years (M = 75.94, SD = 7.66) underwent assessment and began intervention. Assessment included measures of cognitive skills and self-reported quality of life, health status, and daily functioning. Four dyads were married couples who had sessions at home. Other dyads met at various public locations and included friends, neighbors, or unfamiliar older adults connected by the researcher. Fourteen participants (7 dyads) completed cognitive training intervention that included 9-24 sessions (M = 15.14, SD = 5.30) over 4-21 weeks (M = 12.21, SD = 5.44), post-intervention assessment, and detailed interviews. Quantitative data demonstrated that the sample did not decline on any cognitive measures and exhibited improvement on visuospatial skills and delayed visual memory (Cohen’s d = .67 & -1.10). Additional analyses revealed that the results were mainly attributable to improvement in females (Cohen’s d = -1.84 & -1.35), who demonstrated weaknesses in these cognitive skills at baseline. The participants reported that the dyadic approach was flexible, convenient, and enjoyable. They also provided valuable feedback and suggestions for modifying the content and other aspects of the intervention. The findings suggest that dyadic cognitive training is feasible and well-received by older adults. Those with weaknesses in cognitive domains may show larger gains in respective domains and benefit most from cognitive training.

Personality refers to multiple traits that are thought to be stable over time and across situations. It is recognized that personality has a neural basis and is associated with health outcomes. Whether personality is also associated with cognitive ability, however, is still a matter of intense debate. One way to examine these potential relationships is to use a nonhuman primate model for which complexities present in humans can be minimized. Recent research into the varying personality types of marmoset monkeys suggests that there are predominantly three to five core primary domains that most marmosets and other primates can be categorized into, such as dominance, sociability, and neuroticism. The aim of the proposed study was to categorize a small colony of marmosets into respective personality domains, and to examine correlations between the monkeys’ personalities and their cognitive ability. This study was be conducted on 27 marmoset monkeys (14 male, 13 female) housed in the Lacreuse lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A personality survey based on Koski (2015) containing 55 personality traits was utilized by 8 human judges, all of whom have been working with these monkeys daily for at least one year. Each judge rated each individual monkey on each individual trait on a 1 to 7-point scale; 1 indicating total absence of a trait and 7 indicating extreme presence of a trait. Once the survey data was compiled, a principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted to condense the myriad of ratings into smaller distinguishable personality domains. Three personality types were identified in this population, consistent with other non-human primate species. An ICC(2) was performed to ensure the interrater reliabilities of the 8 judges were consistent enough to be considered. Lastly, a linear regression was conducted to reveal possible correlations between the observed personality domains and cognitive performance achieved in a reversal learning task. The results of this experiment showed no statistically significant relationships between any of the three personality domains: Assertiveness, Neuroticism, and Inquisitiveness with the reversal learning cognitive scores. Although these findings suggest that personality and cognitive flexibility are independent in marmosets, we cannot rule out that personality may influence other cognitive domains. Additional studies are needed to examine this possibility.

The study of human face-processing has granted insight into key adaptions across various social and biological functions. However, there is an overall lack of consistency regarding digital alteration styles of human-face stimuli. In order to investigate this, two independent studies were conducted examining unique effects of image construction and presentation. In the first study, three primary forms of stimuli presentation styles (color, black and white, cutout) were used across iterations of non-thatcherized/thatcherized and non-inverted/inverted presentations. Outcome measures included subjective reactions measured via ratings of perceived “grotesqueness,” and objective outcomes of N170 event-related potentials (ERPs) measured via encephalography. Results of subjective measures indicated that thatcherized images were associated with an increased level of grotesque perception, regardless of overall condition variant and inversion status. A significantly larger N170 component was found in response to cutout-style images of human faces, thatcherized images, and inverted images. Results suggest that cutout image morphology may be considered a well-suited image presentation style when examining ERPs and facial processing of otherwise unaltered human faces. Moreover, less emphasis can be placed on decision making regarding main condition morphology of human face stimuli as it relates to negatively valent reactions. The second study explored commonalities between thatcherized and uncanny images. The purpose of the study was to explore commonalities between these two styles of digital manipulation and establish a link between previously disparate areas of human-face processing research. Subjective reactions to stimuli were measured via participant ratings of “off-putting.” ERP data were gathered in order to explore if any unique effects emerged via N170 and N400 presentations. Two main “morph continuums” of stimuli, provided by Eduard Zell (see Zell et al., 2015), with uncanny features were utilized. A novel approach of thatcherizing images along these continuums was used. thatcherized images across both continuums were regarded as more off-putting than non-thatcherized images, indicating a robust subjective effect of thatcherization that was relatively unimpacted by additional manipulation of key featural components. Conversely, results from brain activity indicated no significant differences of N170 between level of shape stylization and their thatcherized counterparts. Unique effects between continuums and exploratory N400 results are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a 500 Hz and 3150 Hz one-third octave band augmentation on the speech discrimination ability of normal hearing listeners and whether such effects vary with signal presentation level. The augmented portion of monosyllabic words was systematically varied from 5-55dB above the intensity level of the unfiltered version of the words and presented simultaneously to one ear.

This study addresses a problem of speech disruption as an individual abruptly and without explanation stops speaking to those around her. The matter for investigation involves the meaning this event has for those who are closely involved with this individual either in a practical day to day way or in a continuing relationship.

Auditory short-term memory (STM) is important for speech and language development and for learning new information presented auditorily. Research has shown that auditory STM ability is of a developmental nature in the 5 through 8 year age range for a variety of auditory stimuli. Many tests and subtests are available to measure auditory STM ability, however one test, the Auditory Memory Test Battery (AMTB) measures auditory memory span and memory for sequence for 5 types of stimuli. The purpose of this study was to collect normative data on the AMTB scores of normal 9 through 13 year old students and young adults ages 20 through 30 years. The main experimental question was: What are the means and standard deviations of the AMTB scores from samples of normal children 9 through 13 years of age and normal young adults 20 through 30 years of age. A secondary question was: Are the differences between the performance scores statistically significant?