The goal of this research was to assess the ability of readers to determine the emotion of a passage of text, be it fictional or non-fictional. The research includes examining how genre (fiction and non-fiction) and emotion (positive emotion, such as happiness, and negative emotion, such as anger) interact to form a reading experience. Reading is an activity that many, if not most, humans undertake in either a professional or leisure capacity. Researchers are thus interested in the effect reading has on the individual, particularly with regards to empathy. Some researchers believe reading fosters empathy; others think empathy might already be present in those who enjoy reading. A greater understanding of this dispute could be provided by general recognition theory (GRT). GRT allows researchers to investigate how stimulus dimensions interact in an observer's mind: on a perceptual or decisional level. In the context of reading, this allows researchers to look at how emotion is tied in with (or inseparable from) genre, or if the ability to determine the emotion of a passage is independent from the genre of the passage. In the reported studies, participants read passages and responded to questions on the passages and their content. Empathy scores significantly predicted discriminability of passage categories, as did reported hours spent reading per week. Non-fiction passages were easier to identify than fiction, and positive emotion classification was affiliated with non-fiction classification.

Whether humans form cognitive maps is controversial. One view is that the ability to generate detours and shortcuts demonstrates retention of direction and distance information integrated within a common frame of reference. Another view is that spatial representations are not Euclidean, given findings of biases, distortions, and lack of recognition of impossible spaces in VR. A compromise comes from an individual-differences perspective, suggesting that some people in some environments may integrate across routes. We created Virtual Copetown to examine within-route knowledge, integration between routes with experienced connections, and integration between routes requiring inference. We also examined cognitive correlates of the ability to make these judgments. Our results indicated that some people were more accurate across all kinds of pointing judgments including inferred relations, along with ability to construct an overall map of Copetown. A second group of people were less accurate overall, and less accurate for between-route relations than within-route relations; they also had worse mapping scores. Variability was related to self-reports of navigation strategy use. / Psychology

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The literature contains a distinction between iconic causal relations as because he studied hard, he got a good grade and evidential causal relations as in because he got a good grade, he studied hard. The current research presents a theoretical analysis of the of these two categories and introduces a third category, the deductive causal relations as in because grading a paper is a subjective process, the teacher made some mistakes. It is argued that iconic causal relation is a relation between two actual, specific events and requires gap-filling inferences. Evidential and deductive relations are inferential and they represent a relation between evidence (in evidential) or a premise (in deductive) and a conclusion, hypothesis, or belief that the reader reaches depending on the evidence or premise. A series of 4 experiments were conducted to verify the predictions derived from the characteristics of each type of causal relations. Experiment 1 showed that deductive relation is a distinguished category that is more difficult than the iconic relation but easier than evidential ones. It was also found that adding an epistemic marker (e.g., I think) facilitated the interpretation of deductive and evidential relations but harmed the iconic relations. Experiments 2 and 3 tested the hypothesis that inferential, non-directly observable events such as those expressed in future tense or in psychological state verbs are more consistent with inferential relations (because they have to be inferred) than the events expressed in past tense or action verbs. The results of Experiments 2 and 3 showed that state verbs and future tense reduced the difficulty associated with inferential relations. Experiment 4 investigated the effect of the presupposition-assertion distinction on iconic and evidential relations. It was found that while the distinction is context-dependent in iconic relations, the main clause is preferred to be the presupposed in evidentials. The results were discussed in terms of the conditional nature of deductive relations and its being based on general, enabling conditions rather than upon real causes. Finally, a processing mechanism was suggested on the basis of the current results.

Previous research using violation-of-expectation paradigms suggests that very young infants have a good understanding of unobserved physical events. Yet toddlers appear to lack this knowledge when confronted with the door task, a visuospatial reasoning task which parallels ones used in the habituation/looking time studies. Many studies have been conducted in an effort to determine why toddlers perform poorly on the door task yet the answer remains unclear. The current study used a correlational approach to investigate door task performance from both psychological (executive function), and neuroscience (prefrontal cortex) perspectives. Children between the ages of 2½–3 years were tested on the standard door task as well as four other tasks. Three of the tasks were believed to activate prefrontal cortex: the three boxes-stationary, a spatial working memory task; the three boxes-scrambled, a non-spatial working memory task; and the three pegs task, an inhibitory control task. The fourth task was a recognition memory task which had been previously linked to the medial temporal lobe. Only a single task, the three pegs task, was found to correlate with door task performance (r = .510, p<.01). Even with age, sex, and performance on the other tasks controlled for, this correlation remained significant (r = .459, p<.05). Furthermore, in a logistic regression the three pegs task was found to be the only significant predictor of door task performance (z = 2.87, p<.01). An examination of the errors children made on the door task revealed that over half (58%) could be classified as inhibitory control errors (children returned to the previously rewarded location or repeatedly searched a favorite door). Taken together these data suggest a possible relationship between inhibitory control ability and successful completion of the door task.

<p> This action research exploratory study sought to learn how to better develop my practice by using grounded theory. It explored the apparent cognitive transformational experience of nine participants over a period of four weeks after the implementation of an intervention called Mindfulness into Action. The informal intervention was used with the Kichwa community in the Amazon rainforest and three additional formal interventions were conducted in the United States, Ecuador, and Norway over six years, in each case supported by higher education institutions. Using grounded theory methodology, the researcher found that participants were in the initial &ldquo;reactive&rdquo; state in Phase 1, experiencing conflict, resistance, stress, and victim identity. These characteristics were unknown to participants who were just reacting to everyday life experiences. In Phase 2, participants became aware of their behaviors, but could not stop non-beneficial behaviors. In Phase 3, they could observe their unknown behaviors and then change their sabotaging behaviors. Other salient characteristics from Phase 3 were happiness, being at peace with themselves, tolerance, and effectiveness. </p><p> There is a tendency to believe that change does not come easily, especially for adults, because our mental models rule our lives (subconsciously). However, participants were all adults from distinct walks of life who observed their unknown assumptions and reported change in their lives and in perceptions of their world. Furthermore, this intervention helped participants manage <i> dissonance</i> in their lives and produce changes specific and relevant to each individual, i.e., adults in the Kichwa community changed their assumptions and got rid of the mining company without violence. Moreover, the students who conducted research in the Amazon rainforest changed their research approach from top-down (doing research on people) to human development co-creation (doing research with people). Lastly, students in the academic institutions changed their way of interacting with their environment and others, and most importantly observed and changed behaviors that were sabotaging their efforts to succeed in life. They overcame their assumption of &ldquo;knowing&rdquo; and became more open to others&rsquo; perspectives. Each change was specific to the individual, resulting in the betterment of their lives.</p>

<p> This dissertation focused on advancing the current research on the connection between physical and psychological health. This study focused on two psychotherapy groups that integrate mind-body practices in the form of yoga, meditation, and relaxation. These groups were ongoing and are held once a week for one hour in an urban outpatient mental health clinic. Participants in these groups attended consistently for approximately 1-4 years and experienced a wide-range of trauma and chronic pain symptoms. Because the groups were active and running for several years, this study followed a qualitative research approach to comprehensively capture the participants&rsquo; subjective experience. Understanding the experience of these particular clients could prove to be advantageous to the field of psychology as it will help to elucidate the individual&rsquo;s experience of an integrated mind-body modality for trauma and pain treatment. Using phenomenological interviews, this study explored the subjective experience of individuals in these groups. In-depth interview questions focused on participants&rsquo; reactions to the mind-body interventions for combined physical and psychological symptom relief.</p>

<p> Bilinguals have been found to outperform monolinguals across a variety of cognitive tasks (e.g., Bialystok, Craik, &amp; Luk, 2008). Research regarding the generalizability of the bilingual advantage in driving, however, has not been conclusive (Chong &amp; Strybel, 2015; Telner, Wiesenthal, Bialystok, &amp; York, 2008). This study aimed to investigate differences in monolingual and bilingual performance in a simulated driving task. The Lane Change Test (LCT) was used to assess driving performance in the presence of a peripheral detection task (PDT), delayed digit recall task (2-back task), and visuospatial task (clock task). Results demonstrated that both monolinguals and bilinguals performed equally across all tasks. Completing a cognitive task, however, was found to be detrimental to both driving and the detection of peripheral stimuli. Given the controversial nature of the bilingual advantage, possible explanations for the null results obtained for the two language profiles are discussed.</p>

<p> <b>Purpose:</b> The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experience of play for adolescent and young adult video game players, perceptions of tobacco content in games, and to understand why game designers inserted tobacco content into the play experience. </p><p> <b>Background:</b> Viewing smoking in movies causes adolescents to start to smoke. Little research has been done examining whether tobacco content in video games may have similar effects. Teens play video games for an average of 1.4 hours a day, 83% of teens have a dedicated gaming console at home, and on any given day, 56% of teens play video games. </p><p> <b>Methods:</b> Four data collection strategies were used: interviews including in-person interviews with adolescents (n=20), online interviews with adults (n=41) in-person/video phone interviews with game designers (n=5), observation of gameplay (40 hours), watching movies made from gameplay (n=350 hours) and examining relevant artifacts, including: game ratings and commentary websites, game wikis, written material about video gaming and specific games. Data were collected and analyzed using an interpretive phenomenological approach. </p><p> <b>Results:</b> Game players valued playing because of the games&rsquo; ability to transport them into worlds where they experienced freedom, power, stress relief and relaxation. Far from being isolating, games also served as places to gather, make community and create, hone and extend identity. The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) did not rate games with tobacco content accurately. Only 8% (9/118) of the games examined had received ESRB tobacco-related content descriptors, but 42% (50/118) contained such content. Participant recall of tobacco content increased when players were actively involved with the tobacco product. Players and designers implicitly understood that insertion of tobacco content allowed messages to be rapidly conveyed about characters, including tobacco-industry groomed tropes such as being cool, rebellious, world-weary, stressed, &ldquo;badass&rdquo;, masculine or feminine, tough and normal. </p><p> <b>Conclusion:</b> Tobacco content is present in games played by adolescents and imbued with meaning. Game companies are uniquely positioned to inculcate game-normative values among players, including continuing the normalization of smoking and its associated tropes.</p>