Cognitive Psychologyhttp://hdl.handle.net/1803/2132024-03-29T05:11:44Z2024-03-29T05:11:44ZAre You Making the Right Choice? How Deciding Impacts Food Evaluation and JudgmentLai, Kehttp://hdl.handle.net/1803/180722023-04-11T14:01:16Z2023-04-10T00:00:00ZAre You Making the Right Choice? How Deciding Impacts Food Evaluation and Judgment
Lai, Ke
Traditional approaches in studying decision making typically use artificial or well-defined lab stimuli to investigate changes in the perception of choices. However, the processes of how people generate, evaluate, and integrate attributes of real-world choices are less-studied and understood. In this study, we used food as an example of the real-world stimuli to investigate how deciding between options can accentuate the differences in the perception of their attributes. Specifically, we examined whether making decisions would accentuate the differences between food items and increase the differences in subsequent judgments of pleasure, healthiness, and overall value for similar food pairs. We found that the accentuation effect only occurred for pleasure and overall value judgments of the food but not for healthiness judgment. We propose multiple explanations to account for these results.
Course: PSY 4999 Honors Thesis. Faculty Mentors: Dr. Jennifer Trueblood, Dr. Ashleigh Maxcey. PhD Student Mentor: Eeshan Hasan.
2023-04-10T00:00:00ZAntecedents of Blame: Causal Attributions and AppraisalsJeong, ChanyoungSmith, Craighttp://hdl.handle.net/1803/180672023-03-29T00:29:13Z2023-03-20T00:00:00ZAntecedents of Blame: Causal Attributions and Appraisals
Jeong, Chanyoung; Smith, Craig
There are studies (Smith, Haynes, Lazarus, & Pope, 1993) suggesting that appraisals of blame mediate between causal attributions and anger. Thus, causal attributions appear to be systematic antecedents to appraisals of blame. The purpose of this study was to develop and test a model of attributions and blame that depicts the specific ways that particular attributions contribute to the definition of anger-inducing blame. A survey was administered using the online survey manager REDCap consisting of two vignette scenarios with four conditions each. These conditions manipulated attributions of causal locus, controllability, foreseeability, and intentionality. These attributions as well as appraisals of other blame and the emotion of anger, were assessed. The resulting data were analyzed through a series of ANOVAs and regression analyses designed to map out how, given other locus, various combinations of the other attributions determined blame and thus emotion. Thus, this study demonstrates the specific ways that key attributions contribute to appraisals of blame, and hence how those attributions contribute to the experience of anger.
There are studies (Smith, Haynes, Lazarus, & Pope, 1993) suggesting that appraisals of blame mediate between causal attributions and anger. Thus, causal attributions appear to be systematic antecedents to appraisals of blame. The purpose of this study was to develop and test a model of attributions and blame that depicts the specific ways that particular attributions contribute to the definition of anger-inducing blame. A survey was administered using the online survey manager REDCap consisting of two vignette scenarios with four conditions each. These conditions manipulated attributions of causal locus, controllability, foreseeability and intentionality. These attributions as well as appraisals of other blame and the emotion of anger, were assessed. The resulting data were analyzed through a series of ANOVAs and regression analyses designed to map out how, given other locus, various combinations of the other attributions determined blame and thus emotion. Thus, this study demonstrates the specific ways that key attributions contribute to appraisals of blame, and hence how those attributions contribute to the experience of anger.
Course: PSY-PC 4999-01 Honors Thesis (2023S)
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Craig A. Smith
2023-03-20T00:00:00ZUnique and Shared Mechanisms of Reading Skill and Anxiety Symptoms in ChildrenDai, Jiulinhttp://hdl.handle.net/1803/180662023-03-28T18:13:28Z2023-03-20T00:00:00ZUnique and Shared Mechanisms of Reading Skill and Anxiety Symptoms in Children
Dai, Jiulin
The current study examines the distinct and common mechanisms underlying individual differences in reading skill and anxiety symptoms in children ages 7- to 12-years-old. A standardized oral word reading assessment is used to measure reading skill and a questionnaire is used to measure anxiety symptoms. Mechanisms are measured by a rhyming task manipulating lexical processing (i.e. low- versus high-frequency words), valence reactivity (i.e. negative versus neutral images) and working memory load (i.e. 2- versus 1-back). Overall, we observed a non-significant, negative relation between word reading skill and anxiety symptoms. Using hierarchical regressions, we observed 1) weak evidence supporting lexical processing as a mechanism of word reading skill, 2) no evidence supporting valence reactivity as a mechanism of anxiety symptoms, 3) weak evidence for working memory relating to both word reading skill and anxiety symptoms but word reading skill explains unique variance above and beyond anxiety symptoms. Although these findings were inconsistent with our hypotheses and prior literature, they could be due to the small sample size and the lack of less skilled readers in our present study. This study lays the groundwork for future brain imaging study and helps us gain a better understanding of mechanisms of reading and anxiety, which may ultimately inform intervention strategies for children struggling in these areas.
2023-03-20T00:00:00ZThe Causal Role of Alpha Oscillations in Selectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1803/180622023-03-23T12:16:20Z2023-03-21T00:00:00ZThe Causal Role of Alpha Oscillations in Selection
Alpha oscillations, or brain waves with a frequency between 8-12 Hz, are a neural correlate of attentional selection. Correlational studies show increases and decreases in alpha-band activity are associated with the suppression of irrelevant information and processing of relevant information respectively, but it is unclear how alpha oscillations relate specifically to these distractor suppression and target enhancement mechanisms. We manipulated alpha levels in the posterior parietal cortex with transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) while participants completed a color change detection task with a variable number of distractors and targets. Our results showed that alpha tACS enhanced working memory capacity in a distractor-absent condition while having no effect in distractor-present conditions. Alpha tACS also had no effect on modulating distractor filtering ability. This contributes causal evidence that alpha supports target enhancement, not distractor suppression, in the debate about alpha’s role in attention.
PSY-4999: Honors Seminar; Faculty mentor: Dr. Geoffrey Woodman
2023-03-21T00:00:00Z