The aim of this study was to investigate two factors that have been claimed to be associated with the word retrieval difficulties experienced by individuals with aphasia. These factors were aphasic subjects’ level of phonological awareness and their lexical semantic processing. (For complete abstract open document)

This thesis encompasses five chapters. Chapter 1 details the background literature for how the inhibition of return effect manifests in 3D environments. Additional summary is provided about how positioning cues and targets within the boundary of the same objects affects the spread of IOR when compared to when attention is cued in empty space. Finally, the literature review also provides a background for whether the IOR effect is affected by a viewer-centered or world-centered frame of reference. Chapters 2-4 are empirical chapters. Chapter 2 observes a depth-specific IOR effect in a 3D composed of pictorial depth cues. Chapter 3 suggests that this depth-specificity can only occur when cues and targets are positioned in different objects rather than when positioned within a single object. Chapter 4 investigates how the distances between viewer and cue, viewer and target, and cue and target affect the magnitude of IOR, suggesting that the world-centered reference frame influences IOR. Chapter 5 serves as a general discussion and conclusion chapter, discussing the findings and implications of each empirical chapter. / The distribution of human attention in space can be modulated by spatial and temporal factors. This dissertation studied inhibition of return (IOR), a robust behavioural effect obtained through a spatial cueing paradigm where observers exhibit slower detection times to a target appearing over 300 ms after a cue in a previously cued location. Most research has studied the IOR effect in two-dimensional space; thus, it remains unclear whether, in three-dimensional space (3D) space, slower reaction times occur due to a target appearing in the same world location (defined in 3D coordinates) or in the same retinal location as the cue (i.e., anywhere along an observer’s line of sight to the cue). My thesis examines IOR in a computer-simulated 3D environment, with the location of the cue and target residing in the same versus different depth/distance position either within the same or different object and either relative to the observer or to the world environment. Following a general literature review (Chapter 1), the first empirical chapter (Chapter 2) demonstrates that IOR is depth-specific when the direction of depth switch between cue to target occurs from far-to-near space, suggesting a behavioural advantage for near space in the human attention system. Chapter 3 shows that this depth-specificity and depth-asymmetry of IOR is maintained only when cues and targets are not part of the same object; object membership can therefore override the depth-specific property of IOR in 3D scenes. Chapter 4 introduces motion of the viewpoint, showing that IOR is depth-specific when the cue and target appear in different depth locations in the world environment even when located at the same relative distance from the observer’s viewpoint. Thus, IOR could be the result of an inhibitory tag placed at a location relative to the environment rather than at a location relative to the viewpoint. / Dissertation / Doctor of Science (PhD) / Human attention can be distributed over space and affected by external events. Prior research using 2D environments has shown that some time after the first stimulus (a cue), the reaction time to a subsequent stimulus (a target) appearing in the same location is typically slower compared to when this target appears elsewhere. Thus, attention likely moves away from a previously observed to more novel location of interest. I examined, in a 3D environment, whether this “location” of reduced attention resides in the same 3D location or retinal location as that of the cue. I also assessed the impact on reaction time for when the cue and target belong to the same or different object and when their locations differ in reference to the observer or world environment. My research suggests that humans maintain a higher level of attention for nearer space when the cue previously appears at a farther location.

Novice Instructional Designers (IDs) often struggle to perform at the same level as experts. Specialized knowledge and experience are needed to discover the challenges and device appropriate solutions. Scaffold, guides, and heuristics can help novice when needing to perform tasks that require specialized knowledge. One common instructional design task requiring specialized knowledge is the development of instructional materials. Instructional message design (IMD) is a problem solving process to improve the quality of instructional materials through the application of research based principles. As this process is often not covered in novice IDs training, they will encounter more issues while attempting to address the challenges that come with creating instructional materials. Using a developmental study, a decision support tool was created to assist novice IDs with applying IMD, specifically the redundancy principle due to its ability to improve the communication within the materials. This study describes the operationalization of the principle, the design and development of the tool, expert review and revisions made based on their feedback, and the implications from the development of such a tool. / Doctor of Philosophy / Novices usually struggle to do tasks like experts. This is truer as the number of tasks and amount of specialized knowledge needed to do those tasks increases. Novices can perform these tasks if guides or tools are available. When creating courses, there are many tasks to accomplish like creating course materials. There are many rules to support the making of good, effective course materials. This study focused on designing and developing a tool to assist the novice when making course materials. The tool would help novices apply a rule to improve course materials so that students would have a better experience when using them.

Summary: Movement disorders are caused by impairment of the basal ganglia and extrapyramidal connections. The most common is Parkinson's disease (PD), characterised by hypokinesia together with resting tremor and / or rigidity, which may be influenced by dopaminergic therapy or invasive methods, including deep brain stimulation (DBS). Gait and balance disorders are part of the Parkinson's syndrome, progress during the disease course and limit daily activities, quality of life, may lead to falls and contribute to higher mortality of the patients in the late stages. Therapy is difficult. Gait disorders and parkinsonism may occur also in other diseases, including intoxications which may also lead to basal ganglia impairment. The theoretical part include the physiology of gait, gait disorders and examination. The section devoted to movement disorders focuses on Parkinson's disease and methanol intoxication. The practical part consists of 3 studies evaluating gait disorder in patients with advanced PD and possibilities of the treatment, the 4th study documents gait disorder in survivors after mass methanol poisoning with outbreak between 2012 and 2014 in the Czech Republic. The result confirm the effect of DBS in step length prolongation and gait speed increment in patients with PD. Compensation strategies using...

Recent research has suggested that music may enhance or reduce cognitive interference, depending on whether it is tonally consonant or dissonant. Tonal consonance is often described as being pleasant and agreeable, while tonal dissonance is often described as being unpleasant and harsh. However, the exact cognitive mechanisms underlying these effects remain unclear. We hypothesize that tonal dissonance may increase cognitive interference through its effects on attentional cueing. We predict that (a) consonant musical chords are attentionally demanding, but (b) dissonant musical chords are more attentionally demanding than consonant musical chords. Using a Posner cueing task, a standard measure of attention capture, we measured the differential effects of consonant chords, dissonant chords, and no music on attentional cueing. Musical chords were presented binaurally at the same time as a visual cue which correctly predicted the spatial location of a subsequent target in 80% of trials. As in previous studies, valid cues led to faster response times (RTs) compared to invalid cues; however, contrary to our predictions, both consonant and dissonant music chords produced faster RTs compared to the no music condition. Although inconsistent with our hypotheses, these results support previous research on cross-modal cueing, which suggests that non-predictive auditory cues enhance the effectiveness of visual cues. Our study further demonstrates that this effect is not influenced by auditory qualities such as tonal consonance and dissonance, suggesting that previously reported cognitive interference effects for tonal dissonance may depend on high-level changes in mood and arousal.

This study attempted to create experimentally the Hawthorne effect in a freshman general psychology class at Utah State University during tall quarter of 1967. It also attempted to discover the differential effect of cueing, sex, and relevance on the experimental creation of the Hawthorne effect as measured by six general psychology criterion tests. The design of this study included a control group and three experimental groups. The following five hypotheses were postulated: The experimental groups will show greater influence from the Hawthorne effect than the control group. Within the three experimental groups there will be an increasing Hawthorne effect with the least effect in the subject-object cue group and the greatest effect in the subject-object-observer group as compared to the control group. The females in all experimental groups will show significantly greater Hawthorne effect than males within the same groups. The group rating high on the Relevance scale will show significantly greater Hawthorne effect than the groups rating low in relevance. There will be sufficient interactive effects between factors to the extent that some will reach significance. The hypotheses were tested by means of analysis of covariance with ACT predicted grade point average as the covariate. None of the differences were significant at the .05 level. It was concluded that the Hawthorne effect does not exist as a potent enough variable to distort the influence of the independent variable on the dependent variable in educational and psychological investigations of short duration involving freshman university students. It was also concluded that the variables of Cueing, Sex, and Relevance are not functionally related to the creation of the Hawthorne effect and, therefore, need not be controlled.

abstract: Although tremor, rigidity, and bradykinesia are cardinal symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD), impairments of gait and balance significantly affect quality of life, especially as the disease progresses, and do not respond well to anti-parkinsonism medications. Many studies have shown that people with PD can walk better when appropriate cues are presented but, to the best of our knowledge, the effects of real-time feedback of step length and uprightness of posture on gait and posture have not been specifically investigated. If it can be demonstrated that real-time feedback can improve posture and gait, the resultant knowledge could be used to design effective rehabilitation strategies to improve quality of life in this population. In this feasibility study, we have developed a treadmill-based experimental paradigm to provide feedback of step length and upright posture in real-time. Ten subjects (mean age 65.9 ± 7.6 years) with mild to moderate PD (Hoehn and Yahr stage III or below) were evaluated in their ability to successfully utilize real-time feedback presented during quiet standing and treadmill walking tasks during a single data collection session in their medication-on state. During quiet standing tasks in which back angle feedback was provided, subjects were asked to utilize the feedback to maintain upright posture. During treadmill walking tasks, subjects walked at their self-selected speed for five minutes without feedback, with feedback of back angle, or with feedback of step length. During walking tasks with back angle feedback, subjects were asked to utilize the feedback to maintain upright posture. During walking tasks with step length feedback, subjects were asked to utilize the feedback to walk with increased step length. During quiet standing tasks, measurements of back angle were obtained; during walking tasks, measurements of back angle, step length, and step time were obtained. Subjects stood and walked with significantly increased upright posture during the tasks with real-time back angle feedback compared to tasks without feedback. Similarly, subjects walked with significantly increased step length during tasks with real-time step length feedback compared to tasks without feedback. These results demonstrate that people with PD can utilize real-time feedback to improve upright posture and gait. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Bioengineering 2014

abstract: Previous research has shown that people can implicitly learn repeated visual contexts and use this information when locating relevant items. For example, when people are presented with repeated spatial configurations of distractor items or distractor identities in visual search, they become faster to find target stimuli in these repeated contexts over time (Chun and Jiang, 1998; 1999). Given that people learn these repeated distractor configurations and identities, might they also implicitly encode semantic information about distractors, if this information is predictive of the target location? We investigated this question with a series of visual search experiments using real-world stimuli within a contextual cueing paradigm (Chun and Jiang, 1998). Specifically, we tested whether participants could learn, through experience, that the target images they are searching for are always located near specific categories of distractors, such as food items or animals. We also varied the spatial consistency of target locations, in order to rule out implicit learning of repeated target locations. Results suggest that participants implicitly learned the target-predictive categories of distractors and used this information during search, although these results failed to reach significance. This lack of significance may have been due the relative simplicity of the search task, however, and several new experiments are proposed to further investigate whether repeated category information can benefit search. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2014

In their first year, infants’ ability to follow eye gaze to allocate attention shifts from being a response to low-level perceptual cues, to a deeper understanding of social intent. By 4 months infants look longer to uncued versus cued targets following a gaze cuing event, suggesting that infants better encode targets cued by shifts in eye gaze compared to targets not cued by eye gaze. From 6 to 9 months of age infants develop biases in face processing such that they show increased differentiation of faces within highly familiar groups (e.g., own-race) and a decreased differentiation of faces within unfamiliar or infrequently experienced groups (e.g., other-race). Although the development of cued object learning and face biases are both important social processes, they have primarily been studied independently. The current study examined whether early face processing biases for familiar compared to unfamiliar groups influences object encoding within the context of a gaze-cuing paradigm. Five- and 10-month-old infants viewed videos of adults, who varied by race and sex, shift their eye gaze towards one of two objects. The two objects were then presented side-by-side and fixation duration for the cued and uncued object was measured. Results revealed 5-month-old infants look significantly longer to uncued versus cued objects when the cuing face was a female. Additionally, 10-month-old infants displayed significantly longer looking to the uncued relative to the cued object when the cuing face was a female and from the infant’s own-race group. These findings are the first to demonstrate that perceptual narrowing based on sex and race shape infants’ use of social cues for allocating visual attention to objects in their environment.

Rats were trained on a four-way shuttle box with a compound light-tone conditioned stimulus (CS) until they emitted 7 avoidance responses in 10 trials (7/10) prior to bilateral ablation of the visual cortex or sham surgery. On Day 5 after surgery, rats were cued with either the compound light-tone CS, the light or tone portion of the CS only, or had no exposure to the CS. On Day 10 after surgery, all animals were tested for avoidance retention under the same conditions as preoperative training. The findings indicate that following a lesion, cueing with the light-tone compound CS facilitates performance as does light alone. Cueing to the tone alone has no effect. In sham animals, only cueing with the light-tone CS was effective in enhancing avoidance retention. Results are interpreted as early and modality-specific sensory cueing may facilitate the recovery process.