This study examined second-level agenda setting effects of six news sources on public opinion about the health care reform bill proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. The affective attributes (tone) of media coverage were measured immediately and cumulatively. A regression analysis found cumulative affective attribute salience, but not immediate affective attribute salience, was a significant predictor of support in public opinion polls. Separate regression analyses found that effects were greater on Republicans than on those who identified with another political party. A final regression analysis was performed to examine whether support in public opinion polls was a predictor of affective attribute salience in the media. Support was also measured both immediately and cumulatively. Findings show that only immediate support in public opinion polls was a predictor of affective attribute salience in the media. The political implications and the consequences for health care policy are discussed.

Analyzing the twelve-tone compositions of Shostakovich often requires the application of various analytical procedures. This study examines Shostakovich's Suite for Voice and Piano, Op. 143, focusing on the two twelve-tone songs in the Suite. While the songs exhibit some traditional treatment of twelve-tone rows, the study focuses on Shostakovich's unique manipulations and the integration of tonal elements and chromaticism. An innovative analytical tool developed by Dr. Stephen Brown (NAU) is utilized in the study, as it provides clarity and strengthens otherwise weak associations. Along with the application of Brown's dual interval space, the study includes twelve-tone analysis and traditional harmonic analysis to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the Suite.

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Mandarin tone categories are universally thought to center on pitch information, but previous work (Berry, 2009; Brenner, 2013) has shown that pitch cues reduce in the conversational context, as do the other concurrent cues such as duration or intensity that secondarily signal tone categories. This dissertation presents two experiments (an isolated word perception experiment, and a dictation experiment) aimed at discovering how Mandarin listeners deal with these reduced cues under everyday conversational conditions. It is found that detailed spectral information is far more useful in the perception of Mandarin tones—both in isolated words and in the perception of full conversational utterances—than pitch contours, and that the removal of pitch from the recordings does not greatly influence perception of the tone categories.

The critical aim of this dissertation is to show the lack of explanatory value of typological generalizations in generative research paradigms, and the constructive aim is to propose an alternative conception of typology which gives a justifiable place to typological facts. My contention is that we cannot conclude that the human language faculty (HLF) lacks the means to generate a linguistic phenomenon from only the lack of such a phenomenon in the languages of the world. The temptation to do so arises from equivocation regarding the term Language as used within different generative paradigms: the classical generative paradigm, and the generative-parametric paradigm. The former characterizes Language, understood as HLF, the mental object which allows us to produce and understand languages. For the latter, however, Language also includes the distribution of linguistic structures in the world. HLF is a natural kind; the distribution of linguistic structures in the world is not. Equivocation of the term ‘Language’; occurs when one notion is exchanged for the other within an argument. The problem: only natural kinds support induction. The goal of characterizing HLF is discovering what is necessarily true of HLF. The distribution of linguistic phenomena in the world, although constrained by what HLF allows us to acquire, is also constrained by historical contingency. Generalizations based on these accidental factors are valueless in characterizing HLF: I show this in two case studies, which deal with syllable structure and verbal morpheme order. I argue that the study of the distribution of linguistic phenomena in the world is a historical science, which requires a different set of assumptions than an experimental science such as the classical generative paradigm. The alternative I offer is called ideal-typology. Ideal-typology replaces inductive inference based on natural kinds with pragmatic explanation based on ‘ideal-types’. Ideal-types are convenient fictions, purpose-built to manipulate our cognitive systems into understanding the diversity of historical-scientific data. I illustrate the practice of ideal-typology by showing how the diversity of Chinese tone systems can be measured and organized by the use of ideal-types. Beyond increasing understanding of the data themselves, ideal-typology yields hypotheses that experimental sciences can test.

Theory and research suggests a link between self-esteem and cardiac vagal tone (parasympathetic nervous system influence on the heart). A literature review suggests that vagal tone protects the body against physiological threat responding (e.g., sympathetic responding) and that vagal tone is highest when we feel secure. Terror management theory posits that humans, who live in a largely symbolic world, derive feelings of security and protection from threat by way of acquiring and maintaining self-esteem. Thus we hypothesized that if vagal tone provides physiological security, and we derive a sense of security through symbolic means by way of self-esteem, then high or increased self-esteem should lead to high or increased vagal tone. To test this hypothesis we conducted two studies in which we manipulated self-esteem by giving participants positive or negative feedback. We predicted that positive feedback would lead to higher vagal tone than negative feedback. Consistent with these predictions, in both studies we found indications that positive feedback increased vagal tone relative to negative feedback. In Study 2, to more fully test our theoretical perspective we induced threat by leading participants to believe they would receive electric shocks. We predicted that both self-esteem and vagal tone would buffer against sympathetic threat responding. Consistent with our model we found that the positive feedback eliminated the sympathetic response to threat of shock that was elicited in the negative feedback condition. Also consistent with our model, higher vagal tone predicted lower sympathetic responding to threat of shock. We discuss future directions for this research and implications for physical health.

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In this thesis, I examine how auditors construct their mental representations and test their hypotheses about the strength of a client’s control environment. With regard to the former, I hypothesize that management’s frame of the control system and auditor’s retrieval of control environment information from memory may influence the auditor’s control environment mental representation and impact subsequent audit judgments. Consistent with my theoretical predictions, I find that retrieval of control environment information from memory biases an auditor’s mental representation, and that this biased mental representation impacts subsequent fraud assessment. In addition, there is limited evidence to support the conjecture that auditors may be susceptible to management’s framing of the internal control system resulting in relatively positive control environment evaluations which was found to transfer to some subsequent audit judgments. With regard to the latter, prior audit literature has examined how auditors evaluate person specific characteristics, such as competence, of other auditors, however there has been no research that has examined how auditors test such characteristics of client management. I disentangle whether auditors utilize a diagnostic and/or a conservative hypothesis testing strategy when testing client management’s ethicality and competence as these are fundamental components of the client’s control environment. A diagnostic testing strategy is evidenced by the auditor searching for the most informative information, whereas a conservative testing strategy is evidenced by the auditor searching for risks. I examine how a checklist decision aid contained in the current institutional context may inhibit auditors’ utilization of a diagnostic testing strategy, and examine how a schematic decision aid is able to enhance diagnostic testing. The results indicate that auditors utilize both diagnostic and conservative testing strategies when testing client management ethicality; however, the auditor’s testing strategy is only diagnostic when testing client management competence. In regard to decision aids, I found that when testing client management ethicality and competence, a schematic decision aid was able to increase the auditor’s extent of diagnostic testing. The checklist decision aid decreased the auditor’s extent of diagnostic testing only when testing client management ethicality, and was not different from unaided judgments when testing client management competence. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2011-02-22 13:43:07.232

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