Today, mammography screening is the best method of detection for breast cancer, yet many women have never been screened and underprivileged, minority and rural women have lower screening rates then other populations. The purpose of this study, through individual interviews(N=88), was to understand the cues that women perceive to have received spurring them to participate in mammogram screening. The Health Belief Model guided this research. Media influence, Health Care Practitioner recommendation, social networks, and symptoms were the cues to action explored in this research prompting compliance to mammography screening. All four of these cues were found to influence women in screening behaviors. Family history emerged as a major overarching category as well as various cross categorical and emergent subcategories. This research provides support for the Health Belief Model and by exploring the data qualitatively, provides evidences for further research in communication cues to action prompting mammogram screening.

Predator cues can influence how aquatic organisms respond to anthropogenic contaminants. This study examined the effects of predator cues on behavior, metabolic rate, and sulfate (as Na2SO4) toxicity in amphipods (Gammarus minus). Predator cues included alarm cue (macerated conspecifics) and kairomone from mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis). Amphipods decreased activity and increased time in refuge when exposed to alarm cue, and increased time in refuge when exposed to kairomone. While median lethal concentrations (96-h LC50) were not influenced by predator cues, analysis of dose response curves indicated that kairomone exposure increased amphipod sensitivity to mid-range concentrations of sulfate (500-1,000 mg/L). Amphipods increased oxygen consumption in response to kairomone but not alarm cue. The influence of predator cues on contaminant lethality can be dependent on the type of cue, and physiological endpoints such as metabolic rate may help explain the basis of observed interactions.

Research on public support for green building has, to date, been incomplete. Understanding the demographics of individuals that support green building has remained secondary to merely determining real opinions on the topic. The identity of supporters and the motivation behind their support is the focus of this research. Specifically, is support for green building dependent on the way in which the issue is framed? This research aims to focus on those that are spreading the message about green building, industry experts, and the mass public. By exposing how green building experts talk about the issue, we may begin to understand why public support for green building has yet to reach the kind of mainstream acceptance other planning and design techniques have,such as New Urbanism. I predict that green building experts perceived low levels of public awareness, with the exception of those within the Northwest region, which I believ will perceive higher levels of awareness. In addition, I assume that industry experts will be most focused on energy efficiency as a primary concept of green building. As for the public, I hypothesize that those aware of green building and individuals age 50 and older will be more likely to support green building. With the introduction of source cues, I expect that support for green building will decrease when respondents received either an environmentalism cue or a government program cue. Using survey instruments, I was able to determine that all green building experts perceive public awareness as low and do, in fact, focus their efforts on energy efficiency. With regards to the public, support was highest among those that are aware, as well as those age 50 and older. In addition, insertion of source cues decreased support for green building, with the government program source cue providing the lowest levels of support for green building.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the impact of an online introductory college nutrition course that implements evidence-based intuitive eating (IE) concepts and principles on students’ application of IE behaviors. A secondary outcome explored the relationship between student grades and changes in IE behavior implementation. Researchers hypothesized an increase in the average use of IE practices post-intervention. Methods: This study was a non-randomized pilot intervention using pre- and post-test surveys. Enrolled students completed the intuitive eating scale-2 (IES-2) survey on the first and last days of the 16-week course. Students participated in typical nutrition coursework throughout the semester with the addition of information on IE. Total and subscale average IES-2 scores were calculated and analyzed before and after the intervention. Results: Weight-neutral, non-diet nutrition education on IE led to improvement in the total average implementation of IE behaviors (p=0.022) in twenty-three college students. No significant changes were detected in the IES-2 subscale measures. A significant positive association was observed between student grades and changes in mean IES-2 scores. Conclusions and Implications: Based on study findings, adding education regarding IE principles into a basic nutrition course is an effective way to significantly increase total IE habits within an undergraduate student population. Results warrant consideration for standardizing incorporation of weight-neutral education in health courses to improve health behaviors.

Adult obesity is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Increasing success in weight loss maintenance will decrease the prevalence of overweight and obesity, and therefore help control the adverse health effects of excess weight. Much is known about the behavioral characteristics of successful long-term weight loss maintenance, but less is known about the cognitive processes behind weight loss maintenance. The purposes of this study were to (1) identify differences in visual attention to high-energy dense foods between individuals who are normal weight, weight loss maintainers, and overweight/obese in a high-risk (food-buffet) situation; (2) to evaluate differences in food choices from a food buffet between weight status groups; (3) to analyze correlations between food attention and food choice across weight status groups. No significant differences were found between groups with respect to food attention or food choice. Overall, findings from this study may have been limited by methodology, technology, and sample size. Future research is needed to better understand the interaction of cognitive processes and weight loss maintenance.

America’s elementary-aged children are struggling in school. Teachers and parents report that children are demonstrating difficulty attending to and staying engaged with instructional activities in classrooms nationwide. As a result, teachers must manage children's dysregulation as it may impact their immediate learning abilities and produce further downstream consequences in the K-12 environment. These elementary-aged children are often referred to school-based occupational therapy. The referrals indicate social-emotional learning (SEL) deficits. These social-emotional processes and the child’s learning are negatively impacted by increased anxiety. Evidence supports these findings. In fact, the current literature on the topic reveals multiple contributing factors including sensory functions that link body cues to emotions. This doctoral project provides an overview of My Body Feelings (My BF) curriculum. This project details the curriculum’s development, and the specific connection of school-based interventions. My BF is informed by three educational theories including Sociocultural Theory, Social Cognitive Theory, and the Theory of Constructed Emotions. Curriculum materials and lessons are organized as well as structured for the instructors using the Understanding by Design Framework. The program incorporates current evidence-based intervention strategies in 21 accessible 30-minute sessions complete with take home Exit Tickets. The result is an educational curriculum which directly addresses decreased self-regulation in children. The skills developed in the program will drive situation-specific coping skill development in children in grade levels 1-5. The anticipated outcome is improved emotional health and well-being of today's elementary-aged children impacting their important occupational role of student.

Across the animal kingdom, predation is a ubiquitous and omnipresent selective agent for a variety of traits. I aimed to address gaps in our knowledge pertaining to how predation shapes animal behavior. Many species of fish naturally occur in drainages that differ in the density of predators and exhibit obvious population divergence, making them ideal study organisms to investigate predator-driven behavioral evolution. In Chapter 1, I conducted a systematic review of the literature. The purpose of this review was to determine if predation acted as a stronger or weaker selective agent on particular behavioral traits (e.g., foraging, mating, antipredator etc.) across fish. This review showed that predation does not always drive behavior in predictable ways, and that some behavioral traits more consistently diverge than others. It was evident that antipredator behaviors are extremely variable but were typically measured in response to a visual stimulus. Investigations on intraspecific variation pertaining to how fish acquire, process, and respond to information across other sensory modalities are needed. To address this, I focused on a Neotropical fish, Brachyrhaphis rhabdophora (Poeciliidae), from Costa Rica that occur in distinct predation environments. For Chapter 2, I evaluated whether males and females exhibit differential responses to conspecific chemical alarm cues. Chemical alarm cues are released when a prey is injured by a predator and are an honest indicator of risk. It was clear that B. rhabdophora responded to alarm cues, but that males and females sometimes employed different antipredator strategies depending on what predation environment they were from. However, we know that in group-living species, such as B. rhabdophora, risk information can also be acquired indirectly through social cues. There are tradeoffs associated with relying on direct vs. indirect information, and these sources of information may sometimes conflict. For Chapter 3 I considered how B. rhabdophora integrates conflicting information to elicit antipredator behavior. I again exposed fish directly to chemical alarm cues and measured how their antipredator responses changed when visually observing conflicting or reinforcing social information. I found that individuals integrated personal and social information differently based on their evolutionary history with predators. Further, we found evidence that even a single observer fish is able to influence group behavior. Finally, for Chapter 4, I evaluated sex-specific variation in brain size across predation environments. According to the "expensive-tissue hypothesis" there should only be investment in brain tissue when there is sufficient selection for enhanced cognitive abilities. Prey under elevated selection from predators should invest more in cognitive traits to enhance survival, but how sex interplays with this effect is unclear. I found that females had higher relative total brain volumes than males, but males exhibited more variation across predation environments in the relative volumes for certain brain regions. This work as a whole suggests that, yes, evolutionary history matters for a variety of sensory-related traits in B. rhabdophora.

Impairment of stereoacuity is common in the elderly population and is found to be a risk factor for falls. The purpose of these experiments was to extend knowledge regarding impairment of binocular vision and adaptive gait. Firstly using a 3D motion analysis system to measure how impairment of stereopsis affected adaptive gait during a negotiation of a step, secondly by determining which clinical stereotest was the most reliable for measuring stereoacuity in elderly subjects and finally investigating how manipulating the perceived height of a step in both binocular and monocular conditions affected negotiation of a step. In conditions of impaired stereopsis induced by acutely presented monocular blur, both young and elderly subjects adopted a safety strategy of increasing toe clearance of the step edge, even at low levels of monocular blur (+0.50DS) and the effect was greater when the dominant eye was blurred. The same adaptation was not found for individuals with chronic monocular blur, where vertical toe clearance did not change but variability of toe clearance increased compared to full binocular correction. Findings indicate stereopsis is important for accurately judging the height of a step, and offers support to epidemiological findings that impaired stereoacuity is a risk for falls. Poor agreement was found between clinical stereotests. The Frisby test was found to have the best repeatability. Finally, a visual illusion that caused a step to be perceived as taller led to increased toe elevation. This demonstrates a potential way of increasing toe clearance when stepping up and hence increase safety on stairs. / The Study data files are unavailable online.

The studies reported in this thesis aim to provide insights on the process of navigation while driving. Driving requires processing and monitoring multiple tasks and sources of information. Navigation while driving increases the cognitive load of the driving task. Offloading the task of navigation to navigation aid systems such as GPS has potential disadvantages for our spatial memory skills. In this thesis, we introduce useful cues and skills to improve the performance of drivers in a variety of situations where they must navigate without the help of GPS. We used a motion simulator with six degrees of freedom to simulate various virtual reality driving scenarios that combine both visual and vestibular cues. In the following chapters, we report the effects of landmark cues, vestibular cues, self-reported mood disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety, and stress), individual differences at the visual spatial level (e.g., working memory span and mental rotation skills), age, and self-reported navigation skills on drivers’ route learning. We showed that successful navigation in various navigational situations depends on the type of landmarks available in the environment and the specific visual-spatial skills of drivers. We showed that vestibular self-motion cues improve egocentric route learning. Depression, anxiety, and stress affected drivers' route learning ability and dependency on GPS. We observed no deficit in age-related navigation performance when older drivers were able to use an egocentric frame of reference, however there was less optimal navigation performance of older drivers when wayfinding required an allocentric frame of reference. Overall, the application of the findings of this thesis may lead to an increase in efficacy and success in navigation performance and wayfinding while driving. / Thesis / Candidate in Philosophy / This thesis focuses on enhancing our understanding of wayfinding while driving in young and older adults. Using a driving simulator, we ran various virtual reality experiments to examine the underlying mechanisms of navigation while driving and ways to improve wayfinding of drivers. We identified useful cues for route learning in different environments where there were no navigation aid systems. We examined correlations between various spatial skills and performance that may improve drivers' wayfinding in unfamiliar environments. Furthermore, we assessed age-related effects on route learning and potential interventions to improve navigation in older drivers. The findings from the experiments reported in this thesis introduce the principle of route learning while driving in terms of how various internal and external factors can affect it. Drivers can incorporate these findings into their navigation tasks to overcome the wayfinding challenges that they encounter when driving in unfamiliar environments.

Visual cues are a technique used for the purposes of guiding a viewer towards points of interest. Most commonly this is done with the use of color and contrast to make objects stick out more from its environment. Within the context of video games, visual cues are implemented to guide player actions in otherwise complex scenarios. Due to the steady increase of high-fidelity graphics in video games, visual cues are becoming more important for players so that visual clarity can still be maintained. In the video games analyzed in this thesis this is primarily done by adding a glowing outline (highlight) around the object or entity that the game designers want the player to interact with. Thus, this thesis attempts to explore two different qualities of visual cues: color and glow intensity, to see their effects on player performance and experience. To do this, an experiment was conducted in a scaled-down version of an FPS game with the purpose of testing these different qualities in four different scenarios and how they may influence both reaction time and player satisfaction. The results from this study indicate that neither of the tested qualities had any significant impact on a participant’s ability to complete their task. On the other hand: color had a big effect on player experience where one color, purple, was deemed irritating by most participants. Finally, the differences in glow intensity went unnoticed in most of the tested scenarios which points towards color being the more important quality of the ones tested in this study.