<p> This thesis documents a correlational study of wayfinding experience and survey and route knowledge in a large, complex building. Twelve patient transport personnel who work in a very large, regional hospital facility participated as wayfinding subject matter experts. This correlational study addresses three primary research questions. Do more experienced patient transport personnel have more accurate survey knowledge of a large, complex building than less experienced patient transport personnel? Do more experienced patient transport personnel have more accurate route knowledge of a large, complex building than less experienced patient transport personnel? Do more experienced patient transport personnel choose more efficient routes in a large, complex building than less experienced patient transport personnel? The study measures survey knowledge using a pointing task and a mapping task. The study measures route knowledge and route efficiency using a route diagramming task. Linear and nonlinear regression analyses are used to analyze the data. The results of this study may contribute to a deeper understanding of the relationship between wayfinding experience and survey and route knowledge, as well as offer insights into how to better design wayfinding training materials and methods and building signage.</p>

<p> The web has become more than a supplementary information resource but a valuable and pervasive tool for nearly all aspects of daily life including social and community participation, health promotion, creative pursuits, education, and employment opportunity. However, the web is not yet easily accessible to all people, particularly those with cognitive disabilities who encounter many challenges with access and use of the web including limited accessibility of online content and difficulty with content comprehension. Furthermore, little is documented about how individuals with cognitive disabilities who currently use the web are overcoming or being inhibited by these challenges. Much of what is documented is anecdotal or generalized as broad technical guidance rather than providing methods to empower individual end users. This research explores which websites people with cognitive disabilities use and do not use and what challenges and successes they encounter with those websites. We developed the SimpleWebAnywhere tool to address the above research needs and serve as a technology probe to determine how content simplification affects web use by people with cognitive disabilities. We explored personalizable content transformation techniques, including advertisement removal, content extraction, and text to speech, to make webpages easier to use and comprehend. We found that many people with cognitive disabilities frequently access the web for long periods of time despite popular opinion to the contrary. Web access is preferred via mobile platforms, such as smartphones and tablet computers. Users had a strong preference for entertainment content largely comprised of images, videos, and games but did not necessarily have difficulty using or understanding long, complex textual content. An intercommunity approach of combining existing open source software to provide personalized content manipulations was found to be an effective method to improve web accessibility for people with cognitive disabilities.</p>

Memory for crossed and nested classifications was investigated. Two experimental groups were exposed to stimuli which could be organized by both a crossed and nested classification. The stimuli consisted of nine drawings in a 3 x 3 matrix. Each drawing is characterized by attributes on five dimensions. The nested classification requires four dimensions to organize the nine drawings, while the crossed classification requires two dimensions. Of the five dimensions, three are unique to the nested classification, one is unique to the crossed classification, and one is common to both classifications.

<p> Philosophers, cognitive scientists and developmental psychologists largely agree that we understand mental states and use them to explain and predict the behaviors of ourselves and of others (i.e. we &lsquo;mindread&rsquo;) by using a cognitive capacity known as the theory of mind (henceforth, &lsquo;ToM&rsquo;). However, a question remains as to what, exactly, underpins the ToM ability thereby allowing us such great accuracy in our first-person and third-person reports. My dissertation is an adjudication of the ongoing debate between two competing theories, each of which claims to have the best explanation of ToM. These two theories of ToM are known as the theory-theory (henceforth, the &lsquo;TT&rsquo;) and the simulation theory (henceforth, the &lsquo;ST&rsquo;). Because it is thought by cognitive developmental psychologists that autism spectrum disorders (henceforth, &lsquo;ASD&rsquo;) result from a ToM impairment or deficit, I pay especial attention to the case of ASD, using the features of the disorder, to adjudicate the debate. I suggest that the particular deficits and talents associated with ASD provide reasons to favor the ST over the TT in general and to favor an account of the ST that includes introspection over an account of the ST that excludes it.</p>

<p> Boundary extension is a perceptual phenomenon in which people remember more of a scene than they actually saw. This effect is very robust, found in subjects of all ages, and observed as rapidly as 1/20th of a second after scene onset. Due to several factors, including the rapid onset, boundary extension is thought to be an automatic process. However, some studies have indicated that attentional factors may influence the effect. This study examined the idea that differences in attention may alter the degree of boundary extension. Specifically, the current study investigated the automaticity of boundary extension by altering the attentional resources allocated to an image. This was manipulated in two ways. First, the location of the objects in the scene were placed either centrally or peripherally. Second, the categorical distinctiveness of the objects in the scene was manipulated such that half of the images contained a single distinctive object while the other half contained none. Including distinctive objects in the picture plane should entice participants to more deeply process the images, thus attenuate boundary extension. Individual differences in need for cognition and field dependence/independence were also considered. These additional scales allowed for the examination of individual differences in information processing styles in relation to the boundary extension error. Results indicate the relationship between these factors is complex, but that in general, increased attention reduces the degree of reported boundary extension. </p>

<p> Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most challenging children&rsquo;s public health concerns today. Children diagnosed with ADHD struggle more academically and are at a significant risk of lower academic achievement, increased grade-level retention, and additional diagnoses of learning disabilities. Symptoms of ADHD primarily arise from deficits in specific executive function (EF) domains, one of which is working memory (WM). Children diagnosed are impaired on tasks that specifically measure WM capacity and short-term visuo-spatial memory. In this study, four fifth-grade students diagnosed with ADHD were administered a variety of assessments. WM was measured through a math vocabulary recall, visuo-spatial WM via a computerized Corsi Block Tapping Test, and WM capacity was assessed through an Operation Span Task. In addition, on-task behavior was determined using the partial interval recording process with overall mathematical skill based knowledge being evaluated through a pre and post assessment. Using the ABAB Withdrawal Single-Case Research Design, a 10-min intervention of short burst high intensity exercise was introduced. Participants were assessed each session (daily) and exhibited improvement on all measurements during the intervention conditions of the study. </p><p> The results suggest that a vigorous 10-min daily regime of short-burst-high-intensity exercise improves the working memory and on-task behavior of preadolescent children diagnosed with ADHD.</p>

published_or_final_version / abstract / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

<p>FRANK, DAVID J., Ph.D. Aging and Task Representation Updating. (2015) Directed by Dr. Dayna R. Touron. 96 pp. Older adults? performance decrements can sometime be traced back to inferior strategic choices compared to their younger counterparts. Additionally, older adults often fail to revise their strategic choices with task experience (Bieman-Copland & Charness, 1994; Brigham & Pressley, 1988; Lovett & Schunn, 1999; Price, Dunlosky, & Hertzog, 2008; Touron & Hertzog, 2004a, 2004b; Touron, Hoyer, & Cerella, 2004). Metacognitive models of strategy selection suggests that beliefs, prior knowledge, goals, and task representation influence strategic decisions (e.g., Winne & Hadwin, 1998). No studies to date have attempted to compare task representation in older and younger adults to determine whether older adults? poor strategic choices might be driven by an impoverished understanding of the tasks they are asked to engage in. In two studies we used a pathfinder methodology to elicit conceptual knowledge about a novel chemistry task. In both studies, more conceptual knowledge was related to superior task performance in both younger and older adults. However, we found no evidence of age-related deficits in task representation, formation, or utilization. Surprisingly, participants? task representation scores did not improve following task practice. However, performance improved over trials, even for items that had to be learned with task practice, suggesting that task representation updating did occur. These findings provide indirect evidence of task representation updating in both younger and older adults. However, no age deficits in the ability to update task representations were found. Exploratory analyses suggest that performance in younger adults was related to motivational issues, whereas performance in older adults was driven by higher levels of processing speed and crystallized intelligence.

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