abstract: Timing performance is sensitive to fluctuations in time and motivation, thus interval timing and motivation are either inseparable or conflated processes. A behavioral systems model (e.g., Timberlake, 2000) of timing performance (Chapter 1) suggests that timing performance in externally-initiated (EI) procedures conflates behavioral modes differentially sensitive to motivation, but that response-initiated (RI) procedures potentially dissociate these behavioral modes. That is, timing performance in RI procedures is expected to not conflate these behavioral modes. According to the discriminative RI hypothesis, as initiating-responses become progressively discriminable from target responses, initiating-responses increasingly dissociate interval timing and motivation. Rats were trained in timing procedures in which a switch from a Short to a Long interval indexes timing performance (a latency-to-switch, LTS), and were then challenged with pre-feeding and extinction probes. In experiments 1 (Chapter 2) and 2 (Chapter 3), discriminability of initiating-responses was varied as a function of time, location, and form for rats trained in a switch-timing procedure. In experiment 3 (Chapter 4), the generalizability of the discriminative RI hypothesis was evaluated in rats trained in a temporal bisection procedure. In experiment 3, but not 1 and 2, RI enhanced temporal control of LTSs relative to EI. In experiments 1 and 2, the robustness of LTS medians to pre-feeding but not extinction increased with the discriminability of initiating-responses from target responses. In experiment 3, the mean LTS was robust to pre-feeding in EI and RI. In all three experiments, pre-feeding increased LTS variability in EI and RI. These results provide moderate support for the discriminative RI hypothesis, indicating that initiating-responses selectively and partially dissociate interval timing and motivation processes. Implications for the study of cognition and motivation processes are discussed (Chapter 5). / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Psychology 2018

The present study is an introduction to the Audio-Tutorial approach to instruction for teaching Biology and associated fields and an evaluation of its use. The audio-tutorial system way introduced in the Biology class at Goulburn College of Advanced Education in Spring 1975. The 16 students who enrolled in the Introductory Biology course had no prior knowledge that a self-paced individualized method would be used. The method of course presentation was based on the audio-tutorial approach to learning introduced by Professor Postlethwait at Purdue University. The course material was divided into 10 Study Units each accompanied by a unit quiz. The text was 'Biological Sciences' by Keeton (1972). For each Study Unit a 'Student Study Guide' and an 'Exercise Notebook' were prepared by the author in advance. The Study Guide gives explicit objectives which the students have to achieve and the activities designed to achieve them. When the student has achieved the objectives, he will take a unit quiz. The instructor gives help when needed and administers and reviews each unit quiz with the students as soon as the quiz is completed. The Study Unit III entitled 'Molds, Yeasts and Mushrooms' was taught to two groups of 8 students each, chosen at random from the 16 students who enrolled in Biology course 904111, one continued using the audio-tutorial system and the other was taught by a conventional method. The instructional time was one week. The cognitive achievements of these two groups of students was compared through a pretest-post test approach. The audio-tutorial system did substantially better. Data of this experiment are discussed in the light of the present study and the findings of other workers.

This dissertation examines the processing of sentences involving long-distance linguistic dependencies, or sentences containing elements that must be linked across intervening words and phrases. Specifically, both behavioral (self-paced reading and eye tracking) and neurophysiological (electroencephalography) methods were used (a) to evaluate the relative importance of backward- and forward-looking dependency satisfaction processes in the comprehension of sentences involving wh-dependencies and (b) to determine the extent to which common neurocognitive mechanisms are involved the processing of wh- and anaphoric dependencies. With respect to the first issue, both behavioral andneurophysiological results indicated a core role for forward-looking, expectancy-based processes in the comprehension of wh-dependency sentences. Regarding the latter issue, despite considerable overlap in the reading patterns associated with wh-dependencies and (at least some types of) anaphora, the neurophysiological responses related to these dependency types indicated that their processing draws on distinct neurocognitive mechanisms.

This study utilized the moving-window self-paced reading paradigm to investigate the processing of English morphemes by native speakers of English, Chinese, and Korean. The morphemes belonged to three distinct theoretical types: Stratum 1 derivation ({-ALADJ}, {-ITY}, and {-OUSADJ}), Stratum 2 derivation ({-NESS}, {-FULADJ}, and {-ERAGENT}), and inflection ({-SPL}, {-EDPAST}, and {-S3RDSGPRES}). Participants were presented with either (1) fully grammatical sentences which contained words featuring these morphemes or (2) ungrammatical sentences in which one word form lacked one of the morphemes when it was obligatory (e.g., Canada is one of the most *prosper and developed countries in the world). Half the sentences were presented with a concurrent working memory load, which consisted of remembering the result of a simple calculation (e.g., subtracting 3 from 95) while processing a sentence and reporting the number immediately thereafter. Reading times for the target word and the three words immediately following it were used as the main dependent variable. The background measures included a C-Test of English proficiency, a reading span task, a digits-forward task, a digits-backward task, and a detailed background questionnaire. In agreement with previous research, it was found that morphological violations tended to cause slowdowns in processing. Conversely, the presence of a concurrent memory load tended to cause speedups. Native speakers differed from non-native speakers by: (1) showing an early sensitivity to violations of Stratum 2 derivational morphology; (2) exhibiting a delayed response to violations of Stratum 1 derivation; and (3) not slowing down after violations of inflectional morphology. In addition, native speakers were the only group exhibiting no relationship between morphological processing on one side and short term-memory, working memory, and C-Test scores on the other. Overall, the similarity between native and non-native speakers was the greatest in the processing of Stratum 1 derivation. Crucially, the temporal pattern of the Korean participants’ responses to morphological violations in English placed them in an intermediate position between the English and Chinese native speakers, which was interpreted as evidence of L1 – L2 transfer in morphological processing. Notably, this transfer occurred between an agglutinative L1 and an unrelated mixed-type L2.

This study utilized the moving-window self-paced reading paradigm to investigate the processing of English morphemes by native speakers of English, Chinese, and Korean. The morphemes belonged to three distinct theoretical types: Stratum 1 derivation ({-ALADJ}, {-ITY}, and {-OUSADJ}), Stratum 2 derivation ({-NESS}, {-FULADJ}, and {-ERAGENT}), and inflection ({-SPL}, {-EDPAST}, and {-S3RDSGPRES}). Participants were presented with either (1) fully grammatical sentences which contained words featuring these morphemes or (2) ungrammatical sentences in which one word form lacked one of the morphemes when it was obligatory (e.g., Canada is one of the most *prosper and developed countries in the world). Half the sentences were presented with a concurrent working memory load, which consisted of remembering the result of a simple calculation (e.g., subtracting 3 from 95) while processing a sentence and reporting the number immediately thereafter. Reading times for the target word and the three words immediately following it were used as the main dependent variable. The background measures included a C-Test of English proficiency, a reading span task, a digits-forward task, a digits-backward task, and a detailed background questionnaire. In agreement with previous research, it was found that morphological violations tended to cause slowdowns in processing. Conversely, the presence of a concurrent memory load tended to cause speedups. Native speakers differed from non-native speakers by: (1) showing an early sensitivity to violations of Stratum 2 derivational morphology; (2) exhibiting a delayed response to violations of Stratum 1 derivation; and (3) not slowing down after violations of inflectional morphology. In addition, native speakers were the only group exhibiting no relationship between morphological processing on one side and short term-memory, working memory, and C-Test scores on the other. Overall, the similarity between native and non-native speakers was the greatest in the processing of Stratum 1 derivation. Crucially, the temporal pattern of the Korean participants’ responses to morphological violations in English placed them in an intermediate position between the English and Chinese native speakers, which was interpreted as evidence of L1 – L2 transfer in morphological processing. Notably, this transfer occurred between an agglutinative L1 and an unrelated mixed-type L2.

Background: When people walk while performing a cognitive dual-task, a decrease in gait velocity will occur because of the demand for some of the same cognitive resources. However, in a previous study they found an increase instead of a decrease in gait velocity when subjects walked on a self-paced treadmill while performing a color-word Stroop task. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine if the increase found in gait velocity in the previous study was a consequence of the subjects’ position. Additionally, it was investigated whether real-time feedback about the subjects’ position could substitute the lack of a reference point. Method: Position and gait velocity was measured in twelve healthy subjects during a trial consisting of eight control conditions and eight different interventions. Results: A significant difference was found in gait velocity between the interventions where the accelerations-line was moved furthest to the front and back (IzerolineA, IzerolineB) and in position between the original intervention and one with a neutral zone (Iorginal1, Ineutralzone). No differences were found in position or velocity with any of the feedback systems. Conclusion: From the results it could be concluded that the increase in gait velocity was a consequence of the subjects positioning themselves further in the forward direction on the treadmill. No conclusions could be drawn with the feedback systems.

Three separate fMRI studies were conducted to study the neural dynamics of free decision formation. In Study 1, we first searched across the brain for spatiotemporal patterns that could predict the specific outcome and timing of free motor decisions to make a left or right button press (Soon et al., 2008). In Study 2, we replicated Study 1 using ultra-high field fMRI for improved temporal and spatial resolution to more accurately characterize the evolution of decision-predictive information in prefrontal cortex (Bode et al., 2011). In Study 3, to unequivocally dissociate high-level intentions from motor preparation and execution, we investigated the neural precursors of abstract intentions as participants spontaneously decided to perform either of two mental arithmetic tasks: addition or subtraction (Soon et al., 2013). Across the three studies, we consistently found that upcoming decisions could be predicted with ~60% accuracy from fine-grained spatial activation patterns occurring a few seconds before the decisions reached awareness, with very similar profiles for both motor and abstract intentions. The content and timing of the decisions appeared to be encoded in two functionally dissociable sets of regions: frontopolar and posterior cingulate/ precuneus cortex encoded the content but not the timing of the decisions, while the pre-supplementary motor area encoded the timing but not the content of the decisions. The choice-predictive regions in both motor and abstract decision tasks overlapped partially with the default mode network. High-resolution imaging in Study 2 further revealed that as the time-point of conscious decision approached, activity patterns in frontopolar cortex became increasingly stable with respect to the final choice.

The CAREN-Extended system is a fully immersive virtual environment (VE) that can provide stability-challenging scenarios in a safe, controlled manner. Understanding gait biomechanics when stability is challenged is required when developing quantifiable metrics for rehabilitation assessment. The first objective of this thesis was to examine the VE’s technical aspects to ensure data validity and to design a stability-challenging VE scenario. The second and third objectives examined walking speed changes and kinematic strategies when stability was challenged for able-bodied and unilateral transtibial amputees. The results from this thesis demonstrated: 1) understanding VE operating characteristics are important to ensure data validity and to effectively design virtual scenarios; 2) self-paced treadmill mode for VEs with multiple movement scenarios may elicit more natural gait; 3) gait variability and trunk motion measures are useful when quantitatively assessing stability performance for people with transtibial amputations.

abstract: Temporal adverbial clauses are present in many forms of writing. These clauses can impact the complexity of a sentence. Sentence complexity can have some effect on how readers with a diagnosed reading disability, such as dyslexia, process language. This study incorporated Hawkins’ (1994) theories about Early Immediate Constituency into a self-paced reading task designed to evaluate whether or not temporal adverbial clause positioning caused the main clause of the sentence to become more difficult to understand. Hawkins theorized that main clauses appearing at the beginning of a sentence would create an environment where a reader could reach sentence comprehension faster (CITE). The experiment used software called Linger to present the self-paced reading task. Eight participants – four with dyslexia and four without – volunteered to read sentence items from a college level textbook that had temporal adverbial clauses appearing before and after the main clause of sentences. Statistical significance in the findings show that participants read sentences more quickly when the temporal adverbial clause appeared before the main clause; however, more research is required to determine the difference between sentences fronted by adverbial clauses and sentences fronted by main clauses. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Linguistics and Applied Linguistics 2020

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