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Description
There are several visual dimensions of food that can affect food intake, example portion size, color, and variety. This dissertation elucidates the effect of number of pieces of food on preference and amount of food consumed in humans and motivation for food in animals. Chapter 2 Experiment 1 showed that rats preferred and also ran faster for multiple pieces (30, 10 mg pellets) than an equicaloric, single piece of food (300 mg) showing that multiple pieces of food are more rewarding than a single piece. Chapter 2 Experiment 2 showed that rats preferred a 30-pellet food portion clustered together rather than scattered. Preference and motivation for clustered food pieces may be interpreted based on the optimal foraging theory that animals prefer foods that can maximize energy gain and minimize the risk of predation. Chapter 3 Experiment 1 showed that college students preferred and ate less of a multiple-piece than a single-piece portion and also ate less in a test meal following the multiple-piece than single-piece portion. Chapter 3 Experiment 2 replicated the results in Experiment 1 and used a bagel instead of chicken. Chapter 4 showed that college students given a five-piece chicken portion scattered on a plate ate less in a meal and in a subsequent test meal than those given the same portion clustered together. This is consistent with the hypothesis that multiple pieces of food may appear like more food because they take up a larger surface area than a single-piece portion. All together, these studies show that number and surface area occupied by food pieces are important visual cues determining food choice in animals and both food choice and intake in humans.
ContributorsBajaj, Devina (Author) / Phillips, Elizabeth D. (Thesis advisor) / Cohen, Adam (Committee member) / Johnston, Carol (Committee member) / Bimonte-Nelson, Heather A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The unpleasant bitter taste found in many nutritious vegetables may deter people from consuming a healthy diet. We investigated individual differences in taste perception and whether these differences influence the effectiveness of bitterness masking. To test whether phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) `supertasters' also taste salt and sugar with greater intensity, as suggested by Bartoshuk and colleagues (2004), we infused strips of paper with salt water or sugar water. The bitterness rating of the PTC strip had a significant positive linear relationship with ratings of both the intensity of sweet and salt, but the effect sizes were very low, suggesting that the PTC strip does not give a complete picture of tasting ability. Next we investigated whether various seasonings could mask the bitter taste of vegetables and whether this varied with tasting ability. We found that sugar decreased bitterness and lemon decreased liking for vegetables of varying degrees of bitterness. The results did not differ by ability to taste any of the flavors. Therefore, even though there are remarkable individual differences in taste perception, sugar can be used to improve the initial palatability of vegetables and increase their acceptance and consumption.
ContributorsWilkie, Lynn Melissa (Author) / Phillips, Elizabeth D. (Thesis advisor) / Cohen, Adam (Committee member) / Johnston, Carol (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Previously we found that subjects ate less from a four-piece bagel than from the same bagel served whole. Here, we determined if subjects differed in their perception of the amount of food based on the number of pieces of food served and measured the effects of these judgments on the amount of food consumed. A total of 213 (140 male, 73 female) undergraduate students with a mean age of 19 years participated in this study. Subjects were shown a whole food and the same food cut into pieces and asked which they perceived to be larger either before or after consuming that food, or not asked at all. We found that subjects ate less from a whole bagel than from a four-piece bagel. Furthermore, significantly more subjects perceived the whole bagel to be more food when asked this question after consumption of the bagel than before. People may be more familiar with the amount of satiation expected from a whole bagel than the four-piece bagel and this perceptual bias may be influenced by recent exposure to food, which ultimately may affect food intake.
ContributorsTurro, Cameron Nicholas (Author) / Capaldi-Phillips, Betty (Thesis director) / Bajaj, Devina (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Environmental and genetic factors contribute to schizophrenia etiology, yet few studies have demonstrated how environmental stimuli impact genes associated with the disorder. Immediate early genes (IEGs) are of great interest to schizophrenia research because they are activated in response to physiological stress from the environment, and subsequently regulate the expression of downstream genes that are essential to neuropsychiatric function. An IEG, early growth response 3 (EGR3) has been identified as a main gene involved in a network of transcription factors implicated in schizophrenia susceptibility. The serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT2AR) seems to play an important role in schizophrenia and the dysfunction of the 5-HT2AR encoding gene, HTR2A, within the prefrontal cortex (PFC) contributes to multiple psychiatric illnesses including schizophrenia. EGR3's role as a transcription factor that is activated by environmental stimuli suggests it may regulate Htr2a transcription in response to physiological stress, thus affecting 5-HT2AR function in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between Egr3 activation and Htr2a expression after an environmental stimulus. Sleep deprivation is an acute physiological stressor that activates Egr3. Therefore to examine the relationship between Egr3 and Htr2a expression after an acute stress, wild type and Egr3 knockout mice that express EGFP under the control of the Htr2a promoter were sleep deprived for 8 hours. We used immunohistochemistry to determine the location and density of Htr2a-EGFP expression after sleep deprivation and found that Htr2a-EGFP expression was not affected by sex or subregions of the PFC. Additionally, Htr2a-EGFP expression was not affected by the loss of Egr3 or sleep deprivation within the PFC. The LPFC subregions, layers V and VI showed significantly more Htr2a-EGFP expression than layers I-III in all animals for both sleep deprivation and control conditions. Possible explanations for the lack of significant effects in this study may be the limited sample size or possible biological abnormalities in the Htr2a-EGFP mice. Nonetheless, we did successfully visualize the anatomical distribution of Htr2a in the prefrontal cortex via immunohistochemical staining. This study and future studies will provide insight into how Egr3 activation affects Htr2a expression in the PFC and how physiological stress from the environment can alter candidate schizophrenia gene function.
ContributorsSabatino, Alissa Marie (Author) / Gallitano, Amelia (Thesis director) / Hruschka, Daniel (Thesis director) / Maple, Amanda (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Some scholars have suggested that individuals are inclined to believe that they have souls because they are also inclined to believe that they have a core, immutable self. The present study will explore this question in several parts. First, what is the extent to which individuals report having a core self? Next, how do beliefs about a core self relate to belief or non-belief in an eternal soul? The final question looks at location as an extension of the core self and soul relationship. Where is the self perceived to reside within a dualistic framework, the body or the soul? This study assessed the stated beliefs of 200 respondents using Amazon Mechanical Turk as a recruiting platform. Greater belief in a core self was moderately associated with greater belief in an eternal soul (r= 0.30, p<.01), and with belief in the self as a reflection of the soul (r=0.31, p<.01) and as a reflection of the brain (r=0.21, p<.01). This suggests that belief in a core self does hold association with belief in an eternal soul. However, its perceived location seems to show little preference as residing withing the soul versus the body.
ContributorsLy, Destiny (Author) / Hruschka, Daniel (Thesis director) / Parker, John (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
A review of current research on the relation between growth mindset and students with disabilities was completed. The goal for this project was to provide support for the idea that cultivating the growth mindset of students with disabilities could result in better academic outcomes and an overall improvement in the students’ lives including but not limited to self-efficacy skills, motivation, and dedication. Findings were used to design an evidence-based workbook for cultivating growth mindset in college students with disabilities.
ContributorsTrevino-Casias, Savannah (Author) / Bodman, Denise (Thesis director) / Van Vleet, Bethany (Committee member) / Corte, Corinne (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Music and emotions have been studied frequently in the past as well as music and memory. However, these three items don’t have as much research grouped together. Further, this research does not also encompass culture. In my research, the aim was to examine the relationship between music, memory, emotion, and culture of gender. The hypothesis was that women had more emotions linked to music than men. We gave 416 students an animal fluency task, a letter fluency task, six cultural fluency tasks, and a cultural identity survey. We used a t-test and created a graph to analyze my data. After administering my tasks, we found that women had recalled more adjectives linked to music than men. However, there was not a statistically significant difference between the number of adjectives with emotional valence between men and women, indicating that there was no relationship between gender and emotion in regards to music. The limitations on this study included the descriptions on how to complete the task, the cultural norms of the participants, and the disparity between the number of female and male participants. In a future study, it is necessary to be more specific in what is desired from the participants and to pay close attention to shifting gender norms. Further, we would also like to see how the results from future research can impact music therapy for memory-related mood disorders.
ContributorsLevin, Allison (Author) / Brewer, Gene (Thesis director) / Cohen, Adam (Committee member) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
The relationship between user experience, learning, and psychology is complex. There are many rules and concepts that guide experience design. It is likely that some of the guidance is valid whereas other guidance is not. This explores some of that guidance and evaluates how they are linked to learning. Do the guidance’s made 25, 50, 100 years ago still hold true today? Additionally, the psychological background behind the way someone holds memory is important. Knowing how information is stored and processed helps educators provide the best learning experience possible. With an eye toward perception and cognition, this paper examines the relevance of the various pieces of guidance. The results suggest that, overall, this guidance is still valid and valuable to current learning trends and designs. This suggests that user experience designers for education need to pay attention to the guidance provided by psychology when designing learning management systems, placing content in a course, and choosing which aesthetics to follow.
ContributorsLapujade, Lily Ann (Author) / Branaghan, Russell (Thesis director) / Roscoe, Rod (Committee member) / Human Systems Engineering (Contributor, Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
The degree to which adolescents describe themselves as gender typical, as defined by their interests, activities, personal qualities, and other characteristics, is related to a broad range of adjustment indices. The goal of this thesis was to review studies conducted between 2000 and 2017 to provide a summary and critique of this research. A total of 18 studies were reviewed. The majority of findings indicate a positive association between gender typicality and beneficial adjustment outcomes, and a negative association between gender typicality and poor adjustment outcomes. Suggestions for future research and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
ContributorsCohen, Alexandra Danielle (Author) / Updegraff, Kimberly (Thesis director) / Miller, Cindy (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Asian Americans are facing unprecedented and growing mental health issues brought by anti-Asian Racism and other forms of hyper-visible oppression (Yellow Horse et al., 2021). In response to racism, one potential solution for bolstering mental health outcomes among Asian Americans is critical reflection. Critical reflection is the process through which oppressed and marginalized people critically analyze oppressive social conditions (e.g., racism, sexism, and more) and consider actions they can take to change them (Watts et al., 2011). Recent research suggests that, overall, there is a strong link between critical reflection and the well-being of youth of color (Maker Castro et al., 2022). However, this relationship may vary based on additional factors, such as strategies used to cope with racism-related stress. For instance, Asian Americans with lower critical reflection about racism (e.g., as evidenced by endorsement of colorblind racial ideology, or the belief that racial differences are irrelevant and racism no longer exists) had a higher tendency to use avoidant coping mechanisms to deal with discrimination (Yi et al., 2022; Lewis et al., 2019). Additionally, there is other evidence to support that Asian Americans who held more colorblind racial attitudes experienced less anxiety when challenged with ambiguous discrimination compared to Asian Americans who held less colorblind racial attitudes (Lee, 2016). Overall, the literature suggests the importance of the relationship between critical reflection and mental health. However, studies have yet to quantitatively explore the impacts of critical reflection and strategies to cope with discrimination on mental health outcomes among Asian Americans (Spanierman et al., 2021) and young adults (Maker Castro et al., 2022).
The current study seeks to address this gap in the literature by examining the role of strategies to cope with discrimination in the relationship between Asian Americans’ critical reflection and mental health outcomes. It is crucial to explore these factors as Asian American students continue to shoulder prejudice, stereotypes, and systemic racism in professional and educational institutions. We hypothesize that the relationship between critical reflection and mental health will be mediated by the strategies used to cope with discrimination. More specifically, we expect that low levels of critical reflection (as indicated by high levels of color-blind racial attitudes) are related to greater use of internalization, substance use, and detachment strategies to cope with discrimination, which is related to greater endorsement of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms.
Data for this study were drawn from a larger study on college students’ experiences in ethnic studies courses. Participants were 288 Asian Americans recruited from ethnic studies courses at universities in various regions of the United States. During the first two weeks of their ethnic studies course, participants completed an online survey about their racial attitudes, critical consciousness, and psychological well-being. Mediation analyses will be conducted using the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2022) on SPSS version 27. Critical reflection, as measured by participants’ total mean score on the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (Neville et al., 2000; Keum et al., 2018) will be included as the independent variable; subscale scores on the Coping with Discrimination Scale (Wei & Alvarez, 2010) will be mediators; and each subscale of the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21; Henry & Crawford, 2005) will be the dependent variable in separate analyses. Relationships between the study variables and Asian subgroup (i.e., East, Southeast, and South Asian) will also be examined.
While analyses are currently ongoing, preliminary findings suggest that strategies to cope with discrimination and mental health outcomes vary between East Asians, Southeast Asians, and South Asians. Additionally, preliminary findings suggest that the use of substance use and detachment to cope with discrimination explains the relationship between low critical reflection and mental health outcomes.
Findings have implications for encouraging mental health specialists and educators to have open conversations about racism while helping those who experience discrimination cope in healthy ways. Thus, this research can contribute to improved psychological well-being of Asian American young adults.
ContributorsInocentes, Angeline (Author) / Ahn, Lydia (Thesis director) / Tran, Alisia (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor)
Created2023-12