The performance of many important everyday tasks requires the proper allocation of attention to task-relevant information, yet often attention can be captured by distracting irrelevant information. Several search paradigms have been developed to better understand the visual features that capture attention, and the relationship between attention capture effects and an observer’s current goals and intentions defined by the task. However, a complete understanding of attention capture, required to predict cases of harmful distraction, must also include an understanding of how individual differences impact distraction and attentional control. While this is an active area of research, this understanding has been hampered by measures of attention capture, based on the calculation of difference scores, which tend to be unreliable. This dissertation aimed to 1) better characterize the reliability of common attention capture paradigms, 2) explore how task parameters (distractor and set size blocking) influence reliability, 3) compare different indicators of capture (response times vs. eye movements) with respect to reliability, and 4) investigate whether alternative methods of defining capture, derived from linear mixed modeling, may be more reliable than difference scores. Overall, blocking trial organization greatly improved paradigm reliability across all experiments, except for the oculomotor capture paradigm, where it is speculated, randomness may lead to greater capture rates. Interestingly, capture by color singletons and capture by onsets, showed similar levels of reliability. Moving forward, the approach to influencing reliability as outlined in this set of experiments, may lead to a better understanding of factors that influence capture within other, commonly used attention capture paradigms, in addition to contributing to the advancement of theories of attentional control. Further, the development of more robust, reliable capture measures has the potential to greatly advance our understanding of factors that shape individual differences in susceptibility to distraction. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / April 10, 2018. / attention, attention capture, distraction, reliability / Includes bibliographical references. / Walter Boot, Professor Directing Dissertation; Laura Arpan, University Representative; Michael Kaschak, Committee Member; Jonathan Folstein, Committee Member; Frank Johnson, Committee Member.

abstract: The ability to inhibit a planned but inappropriate response, and switch to executing a goal-relevant motor response, is critically important for the regulation of motor behaviors. Inhibition and switching could be mediated by various control mechanisms. Proactive control uses contextual information (cues) to plan the response for the target stimulus (probe) based on the expectation of a response inhibition or switching stimulus combination. Previous work has reported the involvement of several brain areas associated with proactive inhibition and switching, e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, inferior frontal junction, and pre-supplementary motor area. However, how these areas interact and their functional role in different types of cognitive control is still debated. An AX-version of the continuous performance task (AX-CPT) was used to examine proactive inhibition and switching of motor actions. In a typical AX-CPT trial, a contextual cue stimulus is presented, followed by a probe stimulus after a specific inter-stimulus interval. As part of a trial sequence, if a target cue and target probe are presented, a target response is to be provided when the probe is observed. Otherwise, a non-target response is to be provided for all other stimuli. A behavioral switching AX-CPT experiment (48 subjects) was conducted to explore the parameters that induce a proactive shift in the motor response. Participants who performed the AX-CPT task with relatively shorter interstimulus interval predominantly and consistently exhibited proactive control behavior. A follow-up pilot study (3 subjects) of response inhibition versus response switching AX-CPT was performed using 256-channel high-density electroencephalography (HD-EEG). HD-EEG was used to identify the time course of cortical activation in brain areas associated with response inhibition. It was observed that one out of three participants used a proactive strategy for response switching based on probe response error and probe response reaction time. Instantaneous amplitude spatial maps obtained from HD-EEG revealed cortical activity corresponding to conflict between proactively-prepared incorrect responses and reactively-corrected goal-relevant responses after the probe was presented. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Biomedical Engineering 2020

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The question of "what is better understanding during complex learning" has intrigued researchers in different fields of psychology and education for decades. However, it has been difficult to study and monitor the development of understanding during complex learning. The current study was designed to demonstrate how the expert-performance approach as a technique for studying superior performance can be applied to the study of the development of understanding during complex learning. Particularly, the current study attempted to study the development of understanding in the 8-puzzle by the design of representative 8-puzzle tasks in conjunction with the collection of various cognitive process including process-tracing data (i.e. think-aloud reports). The results supports that asking participants to generate best 5-move sequences for the representative 8-puzzle situations allowed us to capture changes in understanding of the 8-puzzle and whether it conforms to a particular type of method specifically instructed during learning. It also allowed us to trace and capture changes in mediating cognitive processes and to directly associate them with the essence of changes in understanding of the 8-puzzle. The current study successfully demonstrates the expert-performance approach can provide a useful framework for studying the development of understanding during complex learning, specially, regarding concern for the reactivity of methodology. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / April 3, 2015. / Complex learning, Expert-performance approach, Problem-solving, Understanding / Includes bibliographical references. / K. Anders Ericsson, Professor Directing Dissertation; Gregory J. Gerard, University Representative; Colleen Kelley, Committee Member; Walter R. Boot, Committee Member; E. Ashby Plant, Committee Member.

Trash talk, a behavior mostly seen during athletic competitions, is defined as disparaging, taunting, or boastful comments especially between opponents to intimidate each other. To look at what determinants cause a behavior to be performed, the theory of planned behavior, was used. The aim of this study was to examine the predictive functionality of the theory of planned behavior for explaining trash talk intention among collegiate athletes. A sample of athletes (N = 102) was surveyed with a newly created questionnaire regarding attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, intentions and past behavior towards using trash talk with opponents. Results showed that all three TPB components significantly correlated with an athlete's intention to use trash talk. Additionally, all of the TPB components, as well as past behavior, were significant predictors of trash talk intentions. Though there was a reliability issue with one of the scales (Perceived Behavioral Control), this study provided insight on sources for the use of trash talk. Finally, implications for the future direction of research on this topic are discussed. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the Master of Science. / Spring Semester, 2015. / March 27, 2015. / Sports, Theory of Planned Behavior, Trash Talk / Includes bibliographical references. / Gershon Tenenbaum, Professor Directing Thesis; Alysia Roehrig, Committee Member; Russell Almond, Committee Member.

In a dynamically changing world with unprecedented uncertainty, complexity and turbulence, continual learning and adapting is vital for one’s living and well-being. According to dual-systems accounts of cognition, learning has two major forms, implicit learning (System 1) that is fast and frugal but sometimes error-prone, and explicit learning (System 2) that is reliable but slow and effortful. These two systems are separate but must interact with each other. We gain implicit knowledge from experiencing trials and making errors (e. g., making financial investments repeatedly), receive vicarious knowledge transmitted to us in summarized forms (e.g. a quarterly report of investment options and past returns), and derive our own explicit knowledge (e.g. investment strategies) from experience to inform our future practices or to use in advising others. The present project explores the interaction between these forms of learning in the context of repeated decisions. Is it merely implicit behavioral tendencies that are learned from experience? If so, would articulating or summarizing what is implicitly learned change subsequent choice behaviors? To address these questions, three experimental studies are conducted with online participants to investigate whether asking individuals to explicitly summarize what they have learned in a Decision from Experience (DfE) paradigm will create an explicit-implicit learning interaction that will affect their subsequent choice patterns. Decisions from explicit descriptions (DfD) refers to situations where quantitative information regarding the outcome values and probabilities of decision options is provided to the decision maker. Behavior in such situations has been found to exhibit irrational choice patterns characterized by cumulative prospect theory (CPT), overweighting the rare events while underweighting the more likely events (Tversky & Kahneman, 1992). In comparison, DfE is characterized by a different pattern of initial irrationality (underweighting the rare events while overweighting the more likely events) but moving gradually over time towards rationality as defined by Expected Value (EV)-maximization (Chen & Corter, 2014; Hertwig et al., 2004). The different choice biases between DfE and DfD is known as the Description-Experience Gap (“D-E gap”, Hertwig & Erev, 2009). The present project investigates if explicit summarization of knowledge gained from experience can affect subsequent choice patterns in DfE. Two main hypotheses are examined. Firstly, explicit summarization might accelerate a shift to EV-maximization because summarization might promote the externalization of the implicitly learned behavior tendency in the pure DfE paradigm. A second possibility is that explicit summarization might lead to a choice pattern consistent with that in DfD characterized by a CPT-like pattern, because the summarized information of option payoffs resembles that in the DfD paradigm. In the described studies, three summarization conditions are compared including: summarizing knowledge and estimating payoff probabilities for themselves (Self condition), summarizing for another hypothetical player (Other condition), and not summarizing such information (Control condition). The results across the three studies found a consistent summarization effect, particularly for low probability gain (Gain-Low) and high probability loss (Loss-High) problems. Those who summarized to another person (Other condition) made decisions more consistent with CPT predictions, choosing significantly more choices associated with higher CPT values. In contrast, participants in the pure DfE (Control) condition exhibited a similar DfE choice pattern, which is in the opposite direction compared to those in the Other condition. Participants in the Other condition gave more accurate probability estimates (closer to the true objective probabilities) for the risky outcomes for low-probability gains and high-probability losses. In contrast, participants in the Self condition tend to show underestimation for both high- and low-probability gains but overestimation for both high- and low-probability losses. Also, a majority of participants in the Other condition recommended to choose the EV-maximization choices in their summarizations, yet showed CPT-approximating choices in their own subsequent choices. In general, the overall findings suggest that “a probabilistic mindset” induced by the social messages in the Other condition seems to attenuate the D-E gap. Implications for learning and decision making are also discussed in the end.

The current studies focus on individual difference predictors of the phenomenon inattentional blindness (IB; when observers fail to notice a salient but unexpected event when attention is occupied by another task). Study 1 (conducted on Mechanical Turk) explicitly examined unexpected object salience as the moderator between the potential relationship between working memory capacity and IB. Salience was varied in two ways: 1) the color of the unexpected item (gray vs. red) and also the distance of the unexpected item from fovea (near vs. far). A second lab-based study explored the degree to which attentional control is an important individual difference predictor of IB, with the idea that individuals more susceptible to attention capture will be more likely to notice the unexpected event, and individuals who are better able to filter irrelevant information will miss it more. Study 2 tested this hypothesis by examining the relationship between four classic measures of attentional control (measuring implicit capture of attention using reaction time) and IB (measuring explicit detection of an unexpected object using participant report). Contrary to hypotheses, working memory capacity was not a significant predictor of IB, even in instances in which the unexpected object was highly salient (Study 1). Moreover, Study 2 found no relationship between classic measures of implicit capture (based on RT) and explicit capture (participant report of noticing an unexpected event). Instead, age, processing speed, and conscientiousness demonstrated predictive ability in distinguishing noticers and non-noticers. Results suggest that attentional control (measured via working memory capacity or classic measures of attention capture) is unrelated to explicit detection of an unexpected stimulus. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2015. / July 17, 2015. / Attentional Control, Attention Capture, Distraction, Inattentional Blindness, Selective Attention, Working Memory / Includes bibliographical references. / Walter Boot, Professor Directing Dissertation; Betsy Becker, University Representative; Neil Charness, Committee Member; Jonathan Folstein, Committee Member; Arielle Borovsky, Committee Member.

In this study, I examined group differences in performance between video game players (VGPs) and non-video game players (NVGPs) on the complex learning task "Space Fortress". The primary goal of this investigation was to identify transfer from previous video game experiences and training on differing versions of the target task as well as the significant predictors of increased Space Fortress performance that may explain VGP/NVGP differences. Forty VGPs who reported playing video games for over 10 hours per week and 40 NVGPs who reported fewer than 1 hour of video game play were recruited from a community in the southeastern United States. Twenty of each group were assigned to play the 10 three-minute games of the traditional joystick version of Space Fortress first, and 20 were assigned to play 10 three-minute games of the keyboard version first; followed by 10 three-minute games of the alternate controller type. After receiving game instructions, all players were evaluated on their rule-knowledge before playing Space Fortress. After completing the two 30-minute blocks of Space Fortress, players were given a questionnaire about their video game experiences. Large differences in attained videogame scores between VGPs and NVGPs were discovered (Cohen’s d = 0.87). There was a reliable 3-way interaction between controller type and task order F (1, 836.55) = 5.13, p < 0.05. The VGP advantage was largest on the keyboard version of the task when they received the keyboard task first, suggesting that gamers could be scaffolding their skills when presented with a familiar controller first. While the VGP advantage was not large at the initial presentation of the task, VGPs improved significantly faster than NVGPs, especially on the keyboard version of the task. Once these skill differences were identified, I conducted post-hoc analyses to specify the areas of greatest advantages. In addition to an analysis of the game-produced subscores which suggested differences in priorities throughout training, I examined differences in performance on a Space Fortress rules quiz. There were significant differences in performance between VGPs and NVGPs on quiz performance, t (78) = -2.85; p < .01. Regression analyses revealed robust effects of quiz performance on Space Fortress scores, t (73) = 4.39, p < .001, effects that were similar in magnitude of the VGP effects but did not appear to mediate the VGP/NVGP differences on Space Fortress performance. There were also large differences between VGPs and NVGPs (Cohen’s ds between 0.86 to 1.91) on the types of video game activities they had engaged in, these differences were found to be unrelated to Space Fortress performance when controlling for other critical factors. I also discuss the potential effects of gender and other variables on Space Fortress performance. In conclusion, I found that there are robust differences between VGPs and NVGPs on Space Fortress performance. However, these differences are highly related to the controller used, which controller is trained first, and by shifts in how VGPs prioritized aspects of the game. The transfer differences between conditions, especially for gamers, suggests that there are significant effects of prior experience and knowledge in the acquisition of a new cognitive skill, but these differences are difficult to describe given the large qualitative differences in the types of experiences that VGPs have cultivated. Future studies should analyze verbal reports and other process tracing data to better understand the specific nature of the mediating mechanisms and carefully design experimental manipulations to interfere with the acquired cognitive mechanisms, thus completing the last step in the expert-performance approach, and paving the way for a better understanding of how the approach can be used to better describe early skill acquisition. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Psychology. / Fall Semester 2016. / November 22, 2016. / Expert-Performance, Gamer, Space Fortress, Training, Transfer, Video Games / Includes bibliographical references. / K. Anders Ericsson, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jon E. Ahlquist, University Representative; Walter Boot, Committee Member; Jonathan Folstein, Committee Member; Frank Johnson, Committee Member.

Problem solving skills have been widely used to achieve desired outcomes in everyday life and professional contexts. To solve a complex problem in a real situation, people need to improve causal reasoning and systems thinking. Causal mapping can be used as an instructional method to develop and support students’ causal reasoning and systems thinking by establishing their own mental models. Also, causal maps can be used to assess students’ understanding of complex problems. However, it is required to determine which mapping processes produce more accurate maps dependent upon individual differences in prior knowledge, because students’ causal maps can vary depending on the level of prior knowledge and which mapping processes are used to construct causal maps. Given this issue, the purpose of this study was to identify a) the mapping processes that are dependent on students’ prior knowledge; and b) the mapping processes that can help students produce more accurate causal maps and achieve deeper understanding. In this study, 43 students constructed three different causal maps for three topics, and a total of 127 mapping recordings and causal maps were collected and analyzed using post hoc analysis. The findings revealed that students with high and medium levels of prior knowledge showed a slight tendency to use the backward approach over the forward approach, whereas students with low levels of prior knowledge showed an equal tendency to use both approaches. Students across all three levels of prior knowledge were more likely to use the breadth-first approach over the depth-first and unidentified approaches. Students that produced higher and lower quality causal maps both showed a slight tendency to use the backward approach over the forward approach and a higher tendency to use the breadth-first approach over the depth-first approach. The ratio of forward vs. backward approaches was negatively and significantly correlated with the quality of causal maps. Therefore, when students mostly used the forward approach, they constructed lower quality causal maps. In addition, the ratio of breadth-first vs. depth-first approaches was positively and significantly correlated with the quality of causal maps. This indicates that when students mostly used the breadth-first approach, the quality of their causal maps increased. Prior knowledge had a direct negative effect on the ratio of forward/backward approach and the ratio of breadth-first/depth-first approach, however prior knowledge had a direct positive effect on map quality. The ratio of forward/backward approach had a direct negative effect on map quality, and the ratio of breadth-first/depth-first approach had a direct positive effect on map quality. In conclusion, the main implication of this study is that instructors need to encourage students to jointly use the backward and the breadth-first approaches when working to solve diagnosis-solution problems. And, educational researchers need to design causal mapping software/tools to facilitate the backward and the depth-first approaches so that causal mapping can help students achieve higher levels of understanding controlling for individual differences in prior knowledge and causal reasoning skills, and be used to measure their causal understanding. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2016. / November 16, 2016. / causal mapping, causal mapping process, causal map quality, prior knowledge, problem solving / Includes bibliographical references. / Allan Jeong, Professor Directing Dissertation; Paul Marty, University Representative; James Klein, Committee Member; Vanessa Dennen, Committee Member.

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