There is a prevalent assumption in the recognition memory literature that the terms “novelty” and “familiarity” are words ascribed to differing extremities of a single memory strength continuum. The aim of the current thesis was to integrate experimental methodologies across human and rodents to further investigate novelty processing at both a cognitive and neural level, and assess whether it is dissociable from familiarity processing. This dissociation was questioned at a cognitive level in human participants in Experiments 1 to 3 and at a neural level in rats in Experiment 4 and 5. Participants were found to differentially assess novelty and familiarity when making confidence judgements about the mnemonic status of an item (Experiment 1). Additionally, novelty and familiarity processing for questioned items were found to be dissimilarly affected by the presence of a concurrent item of varying mnemonic statuses (Experiment 2 and 3). The presence of a concurrent familiar item did not impact novelty processing in the perirhinal cortex (Experiment 4 and 5), yet disrupted the neural networks established to be differentially engaged by novelty and familiarity (Experiment 5). These findings challenge the assumption that the terms “novelty” and “familiarity” relate to a single recognition memory process. Finally, to allow integration of the findings from the human and rodent experiments, the relationship between measures or recognition memory obtained from spontaneous object recognition (SOR) task in rats and recognition memory measures estimated from signal-detection based models of recognition memory in humans was investigated (Experiment 6 and 7). This revealed that novelty preference in the SOR was positively correlated to measures of recognition memory sensitivity, but not bias. Thus, this thesis argues for the future inclusion of a novelty as a dissociable process from familiarity in our understanding of recognition memory, and for the integrations of experimental methodologies used to test recognition memory across species.

<p> Background: Breast cancer diagnosis and treatment are traumatic experiences that leave an enduring sense of fear and worry about recurrence for most survivors. African-American breast cancer survivors experience moderate levels of fear of recurrence- a cancer-related maladaptive psychological outcome that involves worrying about cancer returning. Based on the social-cognitive processing theory, breast cancer survivors experience psychological distress when they have attempted to process the trauma of cancer within an environment that is not supportive. A previous study has found that breast cancer survivors with poor social environments (low social support and high social constraints) experience greater psychological distress and that emotional intelligence serves as a moderator in that relationship. No study to date has examined the impact of social environment on fear of recurrence and the usefulness of emotional intelligence as a moderator in African-American breast cancer survivors. </p><p> Purpose: This study sought to examine the relationships between social environment (social support and social constraints) and fear of recurrence and to examine emotional intelligence as a moderator in the relationships between the social environment and fear of recurrence in African-American breast cancer survivors. </p><p> Method: A community sample of 64 African-American breast cancer survivors completed a questionnaire assessing demographic and clinical variables, social support, social constraints, emotional intelligence, and fear of recurrence. The relationships between the social environmental variables (social support and social constraints) and fear of recurrence were examined using Pearson's <i> r</i> Partial Correlations. Using the PROCESS Macro for SPSS, moderation analyses were conducted to test emotional intelligence as a moderator in the relationships between the social environmental variables and fear of recurrence dimensions. </p><p> Results: Fear of recurrence was experienced by 60.9% of the sample. Contrary to expectations, increased social support was positively associated with increased fears of recurrence in the form of Role Worries, Health Worries, Womanhood Worries, and Death Worries (<i>p</i>&lt;.05) indicating that participants with more social support tended to experience more fears of recurrence. As expected, increased social constraint was positively associated with increased fear of recurrence on all five dimensions (<i> p</i>&lt;.05) indicating that participants with more social constraints experienced more fears of recurrence. Also, emotional intelligence moderated the relationship between social support and death-related fears of recurrence, indicating that the positive relationship between social support and death related fears of recurrence no longer occurred at high levels of emotional intelligence. </p><p> Conclusion: The present study generated results that highlight the need to further explore the relationship between social environment, fear of recurrence, and emotional intelligence in African-American breast cancer survivors.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of acculturative stress on body image dissatisfaction in Hispanic patients post &ndash; bariatric surgery. The conceptual foundation of this study was primarily derived from the social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954), which postulates that most people tend to engage in upward comparison to models seen as superior to them. Acculturative stress was conceptualized as a psychological reaction a person experiences after encountering stressors associated with the process of acculturation. Participants in this study included 160 patients of Hispanic origin from Doctors Hospital at Renaissance who were identified as post-operative between 12 to 24 months. Acculturative stress was assessed with the Multidimensional Acculturative Stress Inventory (MASI), which consists of four factors. Social comparison was assessed with the Comparison to Models Survey. The outcome variable was measured with Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ). As predicted, a positive correlation was found between acculturative stress and body image dissatisfaction for the overall sample. The strength of the relationship differed for each acculturative stress factor. The correlations between the different types of acculturative stress were generally stronger for the female participants than for the male participants, with the strongest factor being the pressure to acculturate. Although there was a strong relationship between social comparison tendency and body image dissatisfaction, there were no statistically significant gender differences between these two factors. </p><p> Lastly, the generational status did not yield any significant relationships with body image dissatisfaction. However, there were differences in the type of acculturative stress reported by the different generational status groups. An additional analysis also revealed that disordered eating tendencies played an important role in the body image dissatisfaction in this sample of bariatric patients, whereas depression did not seem to produce a significant change when added to the model.</p><p>

Internalized racism is a contributing factor to the inability of African Americans to overcome racism. (Speight, 2007) Because this is a cognitive phenomenon over which individuals can have agency, it is important to study, understand, and seek out ways that African Americans are able to gain a liberatory perspective in the midst of a racist society. By using colonization psychology and post-traumatic slave psychology to define the phenomenon, and Jackson's Black identity development model theory to ground and analyze participants' process of liberation, this study used phenomenological in-depth interviewing to understand the experiences of African American and Black women who have gained more consciousness of their internalized racism. The researcher interviewed 11 U.S. Born African American and Black women for an hour and a half to gain their understanding of internalized racism and liberation. The study found that Black and African American women in a process of liberation (1) move from experiencing lack of control to an experience of having agency; (2) gain agency from developing greater knowledge and pride of a positive black identity; (3) replace negative socialization with a knowledge of self; and 4) are supported in their liberation by a systemic analysis of racism. The study also found that (1) internalized racism and liberation are complexly defined phenomena, (2) participants continued to practice manifestations of internalized racism while practicing a liberatory consciousness, which confirms the theories of the cyclical nature of identity, and (3) racial identity development models offer a framework for understanding a transition from internalized racism towards liberation but lack clarity about how transformation actually occurs.

Researchers have traditionally evaluated success and achievement by examining prescribed constructs and their relationship to specific behaviors, performance skills, or cognitive abilities. The adolescents that have been studied were primarily from urban or metropolitan environments, and these studies did not factor in the influence of cultural context on variations in adolescent success strivings. This longitudinal investigation attempted to expand upon existing studies by not only focusing on a rural, southern high school sample, but also by allowing the students to generate their own criteria for defining success. A 12 category questionnaire, which was developed for this research project, and the Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale for Children were administered on two occasions to the same group of subjects. The first study (T1) was conducted at middle adolescence, when participants were ninth graders; the second study (T2) was conducted at late adolescence during the twelfth grade. At T1, 149 students, ages 14-16 participated. Eighty were African American (AA); 54 were Caucasian (C). At T2, 152 students, ages 16-19 completed the assessment. Fifty-nine in this study were C and 75 were AA. At both T1 and T2, participants consistently identified three criteria when they generated their own success definitions: accomplishments/recognition, personal attributes and work/career. This was true across the variable of race though some variation was noted in comparison of gender-specific responses. The most frequently cited component of success, accomplishment/recognition, was described as setting and achieving goals being their best, working hard and achieving fame. Comparison of self-concept scores between T1 and T2 showed a significant increase in self-esteem across variables of race and gender. These data provide a profile of rural, southern adolescents viewed from a cultural and longitudinal perspective. The definitions generated by these adolescents can be valuable in the assessment of their success oriented behaviors. Further investigations of adolescents' perceptions of success can contribute to the development of plans and strategies for parents, educators and counselors to assist adolescents with their strivings for success.

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The “All-or-None Hypothesis (ANH)” (Diamond, 2005; 2006) was examined, positing that executive systems process information and respond to the environment using global heuristics, versus a more piecemeal approach. 104 adults were tested on two novel paradigms designed to uniquely test the ANH. Working Memory (WM) and Inhibitory Control (IC) demands were manipulated, to test the impact of these task demands. Performance measured by reaction times and accuracy on both paradigms provided some support for the ANH. However, this effect was greatest when participants required ‘executive-type’ inhibition, versus ‘motor-type’ inhibition to suppress a response. Further, increasing the WM load increased the ANH trend, while varying the IC requirements had little effect. To our knowledge this is the first direct test of Diamond’s ANH, and extended its specificity in terms of task demands.

This thesis explores the phenomenon of change and transformation on the level of subjective consciousness, focussing in particular on the questions of how such change and transformation might come about, and of what it might entail for the subject’s experience of self and world. Building on work from the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, I not only inquire into the disruptive (and transformative) potential of extreme, emotionally significant experiences, but also construct a conceptual framework for characterizing the changes and transformations that such experiences can provoke. After establishing this framework as a means of addressing the questions above, I deploy it in relation to the models of subjective transformation set forth by Georges Bataille, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Slavoj Žižek, demonstrating how it helps to enrich these models by contributing to a more expansive understanding of their dynamics and implications on the level of subjective consciousness.

The utility of selective retrieval processes in our everyday lives is evident across the varied contexts we are subjected to as human beings. Memory is characterised by an unlimited storage capacity, but limited retrieval capacity. Subsequently, we are selective in what we remember in a given context in order to use memory in an adaptive manner. Previous theory places memory at the centre of deriving and maintaining a sense of self and personal identity. In contrast however, the extent to which memory serves the representation of social identities and the groups to which they are linked is unclear. As social identities are said to be the extension of the self to the social context, the present empirical investigation examined the role of selective processes of retrieval and forgetting on the remembrance of social identity and group-based information in the areas of gender, religious, partisan, and ideological identity. Findings illustrated that we implicitly preserve and retrieve information that is relevant to our sense of social identity, whilst forgetting and implicitly diminishing information that is irrelevant. The findings also established that information retrieved not only pertains to the in-groups in which we seek membership, but also of opposing out-groups that seek to contrast and potentially challenge our in-group's worldview. Furthermore, mechanisms and structures that support the representation of self were extended to the findings, delineating how processes of organisational and distinctive processing support the retrieval of social identity-based information of relevance and importance. The thesis concludes with the assertion that memory is not only the looking glass through which we see the reflection of the self, but also serves to act as the reflection through which we acquaint ourselves with, and relate ourselves to, our significant others in the social context.

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