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Recognition memory was investigated for naturalistic dynamic scenes. Although visual recognition for static objects and scenes has been investigated previously and found to be extremely robust in terms of fidelity and retention, visual recognition for dynamic scenes has received much less attention. In four experiments, participants view a number of

Recognition memory was investigated for naturalistic dynamic scenes. Although visual recognition for static objects and scenes has been investigated previously and found to be extremely robust in terms of fidelity and retention, visual recognition for dynamic scenes has received much less attention. In four experiments, participants view a number of clips from novel films and are then tasked to complete a recognition test containing frames from the previously viewed films and difficult foil frames. Recognition performance is good when foils are taken from other parts of the same film (Experiment 1), but degrades greatly when foils are taken from unseen gaps from within the viewed footage (Experiments 3 and 4). Removing all non-target frames had a serious effect on recognition performance (Experiment 2). Across all experiments, presenting the films as a random series of clips seemed to have no effect on recognition performance. Patterns of accuracy and response latency in Experiments 3 and 4 appear to be a result of a serial-search process. It is concluded that visual representations of dynamic scenes may be stored as units of events, and participant's old
ew judgments of individual frames were better characterized by a cued-recall paradigm than traditional recognition judgments.
ContributorsFerguson, Ryan (Author) / Homa, Donald (Thesis advisor) / Goldinger, Stephen (Committee member) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Brewer, Gene (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
Although it has recently been demonstrated that source monitoring (SM) processes may mediate the relationship between working memory (WM) and false memories, little research has investigated whether the quality of monitoring processes can account for this reduction. In the current study, participants performed multiple false memory, WM, and SM tasks.

Although it has recently been demonstrated that source monitoring (SM) processes may mediate the relationship between working memory (WM) and false memories, little research has investigated whether the quality of monitoring processes can account for this reduction. In the current study, participants performed multiple false memory, WM, and SM tasks. Consistent with previous research, SM abilities mediated the relationship between WM and false memories (regardless of whether or not participants were warned of the illusions at encoding). High SM individuals were better able to recall contextual information from study to correctly reject lures, whereas low SM individuals were more likely to rely on the quality of retrieved details to reject lures. These results suggest that individuals low and high in SM abilities rely on qualitatively different monitoring processes to reduce errors, and that individual differences in diagnostic monitoring strategies may account for previous relationships found between WM and false memories.
ContributorsCoulson, Allison Rose (Author) / Brewer, Gene (Thesis director) / Ellis, Derek (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Public Affairs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Temporal discounting refers to our tendency to discount the value of future rewards. At the extreme, temporal discounting can give rise to detrimental myopic decision-making. Most studies examining the neural basis of temporal discounting in people have been performed using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). However, fMRI has relatively poor

Temporal discounting refers to our tendency to discount the value of future rewards. At the extreme, temporal discounting can give rise to detrimental myopic decision-making. Most studies examining the neural basis of temporal discounting in people have been performed using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). However, fMRI has relatively poor temporal resolution compared with the speed at which people make choices, so understanding choice dynamics using fMRI is difficult. We address the issue utilizing electroencephalography (EEG) to study cortical processes related to temporal discounting. The fMRI literature has found that a network of fronto-parietal brain regions plays an important role during the decision-making process. We aim to explore activity in these regions during the decision process and determine how cortical activity relates to choice parameters. Based on prior fMRI studies, we hypothesized that dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) may act as a regulator of dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and there will be an increase in dlPFC activity for more difficult decisions. We also hypothesized that neural activity may be directly related to the temporal discount rate we estimate behaviorally. We utilized regression analysis to determine the relationship. The results found supported our hypotheses. This study may open the door to a better understanding of the dynamic of brain regions while performing a temporal discounting task.
Created2017-05
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Description
By providing vignettes with manipulated scientific evidence, this research examined if including more or less scientific detail affected decision-making in regards to the death penalty. Participants were randomly assigned one of the two manipulations (less science and more science) after reading a short scenario introducing the mock capital trial and

By providing vignettes with manipulated scientific evidence, this research examined if including more or less scientific detail affected decision-making in regards to the death penalty. Participants were randomly assigned one of the two manipulations (less science and more science) after reading a short scenario introducing the mock capital trial and their role as jury members. Survey respondents were told that a jury had previously found the defendant guilty and they would now deliberate the appropriate punishment. Before being exposed to the manipulation, respondents answered questions pertaining to their prior belief in the death penalty, as well as their level of support of procedural justice and science. These questions provided a baseline to compare to their sentencing decision. Participants were then asked what sentence they would impose \u2014 life in prison or death \u2014 and how the fMRI evidence presented by an expert witness for the defense affected their decision. Both quantitative and qualitative measures were used to identify how the level of scientific detail affected their decision. Our intended predictor variable (level of scientific detail) did not affect juror decision-making. In fact, the qualitative results revealed a variety of interpretations of the scientific evidence used both in favor of death and in favor of life. When looking at what did predict juror decision-making, gender, prior belief in the death penalty, and political ideology all were significant predictors. As in previous literature, the fMRI evidence in our study had mixed results with regards to implementation of the death penalty. This held true in both of our manipulations, showing that despite the level of detail in evidence intended for mitigation, jurors with preconceived notions may still disregard the evidence, and some jurors may even view it is aggravating and thus increase the likelihood of a death sentence for a defendant with such brain abnormalities.
ContributorsBerry, Megan Cheyenne (Author) / Fradella, Hank (Thesis director) / Pardini, Dustin (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
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Description
Working memory is the cognitive system responsible for storing and maintaining information in short-term memory and retrieving cues from long-term memory. Working memory capacity (WMC) is needed for goal maintenance and to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli (Engle & Kane, 2003). Emotions are one type of task-irrelevant stimuli that could distract an

Working memory is the cognitive system responsible for storing and maintaining information in short-term memory and retrieving cues from long-term memory. Working memory capacity (WMC) is needed for goal maintenance and to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli (Engle & Kane, 2003). Emotions are one type of task-irrelevant stimuli that could distract an individual from a task (Smallwood, Fitzgerald, Miles, & Phillips, 2009). There are studies that show there is a relation between emotions and working memory capacity. The direction of this relationship, though, is unclear (Kensinger, 2009). In this study, emotions served as a distractor and task performance was examined for differences in the effect of emotion depending on participants' working memory capacity. The participants watched a mood induction video, then were told to complete a complex-span working memory task. The mood induction was successful- participants watching the negative emotional video were in a less positive mood after watching the video than the participants that watched a neutral video. However, the results of the complex-span working memory task showed no significant difference in the results between participants in the negative versus neutral mood. These results may provide support to an alternative hypothesis: cognitive tasks can diminish the effects of emotions (Dillen, Heslenfeld, & Koole, 2009).
ContributorsAhmed, Sania (Author) / Brewer, Gene (Thesis director) / Wingert, Kimberly (Committee member) / Blais, Chris (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
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Description
In this study, the oppositional processes theory was proposed to suggest that reliance on semantic and episodic memory systems hinder originality during idea generation for divergent thinking tasks that are generally used to assess creative potential. In order to investigate the proposed oppositional processes theory, three experiments that manipulated the

In this study, the oppositional processes theory was proposed to suggest that reliance on semantic and episodic memory systems hinder originality during idea generation for divergent thinking tasks that are generally used to assess creative potential. In order to investigate the proposed oppositional processes theory, three experiments that manipulated the memory accessibility in participants during the alternative uses tasks were conducted. Experiment 1 directly instructed participants to either generate usages based on memory or not from memory; Experiment 2 provided participants with object cues that were either very common or very rare in daily life (i.e., bottle vs. canteen); Experiment 3 replicated the same manipulation from Experiment 2 with much longer generation time (10 minutes in Experiment 2 vs. 30 minutes in Experiment 3). The oppositional processes theory predicted that participants who had less access to direct and unaltered usages (i.e., told to not use memory, were given rare cues, or were outputting items later in the generation period) during the task would be more creative. Results generally supported the predictions in Experiments 1 and 2 where participants from conditions which limited their access to memory generated more novel usages that were considered more creative by independent coders. Such effects were less prominent in Experiment 3 with extended generation time but the trends remained the same.
ContributorsXu, Dongchen (Author) / Brewer, Gene (Thesis advisor) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Homa, Donald (Committee member) / Goldinger, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
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Description
It has been suggested that directed forgetting (DF) in the item-method paradigm results from selective rehearsal of R items and passive decay of F items. However, recent evidence suggested that the passive decay explanation is insufficient. The current experiments examined two theories of DF that assume an active forgetting process:

It has been suggested that directed forgetting (DF) in the item-method paradigm results from selective rehearsal of R items and passive decay of F items. However, recent evidence suggested that the passive decay explanation is insufficient. The current experiments examined two theories of DF that assume an active forgetting process: (1) attentional inhibition and (2) tagging and selective search (TSS). Across three experiments, the central tenets of these theories were evaluated. Experiment 1 included encoding manipulations in an attempt to distinguish between these competing theories, but the results were inconclusive. Experiments 2 and 3 examined the theories separately. The results from Experiment 2 supported a representation suppression account of attentional inhibition, while the evidence from Experiment 3 suggested that TSS was not a viable mechanism for DF. Overall, the results provide additional evidence that forgetting is due to an active process, and suggest this process may act to suppress the representations of F items.
ContributorsHansen, Whitney Anne (Author) / Goldinger, Stephen D. (Thesis advisor) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Brewer, Gene (Committee member) / Homa, Donald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
Prospective memory is defined as remembering to carry out specified actions in the future. Research has suggested that prospective memory retrieval is reliant on multiple cognitive processes to function, and the ways in which these different processes are used is dependent on a variety of variables relating to the prospective

Prospective memory is defined as remembering to carry out specified actions in the future. Research has suggested that prospective memory retrieval is reliant on multiple cognitive processes to function, and the ways in which these different processes are used is dependent on a variety of variables relating to the prospective memory task at hand. The current study focuses on the strength of the association between the prospective
memory cue and the prospective memory intention. Based on literature suggesting that aspects of prospective memory are reliant on executive control functioning, the current study examined the possibility that executive control depletion would affect prospective memory ability on subsequent tasks. Results showed that depletion of executive control resources, measured objectively, did not impair prospective memory in either a low or
high cue-association condition. However, participants‟ subjective assessment of their own fatigue correlated significantly with their subsequent prospective memory performance, regardless of association condition. The results of the study indicate that depletion studies that fail to account for both objective and subjective measures suffer from an unclear interpretation of effects, and that recognition of perceived expectancies
of cognitive resource limitation can assist in improving prospective memory ability.
ContributorsCook, Carson (Author) / Brewer, Gene (Thesis director) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Homa, Donald (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
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Description
This study was conducted in order to create a brief task that more efficiently studies the memory of young and old dogs compared to previous dog radial arm mazes. The hypotheses were older dogs would perform worse than younger dogs, brief tasks with longer delays and the presence of an

This study was conducted in order to create a brief task that more efficiently studies the memory of young and old dogs compared to previous dog radial arm mazes. The hypotheses were older dogs would perform worse than younger dogs, brief tasks with longer delays and the presence of an occluder would produce worse results, and the brief task with the longest delay period without an occluder would be most correlated to the radial arm maze. 45 dogs were tested from a previous sample that had participated in a radial arm maze experiment. The dogs were tested in their owner's homes and watched the researcher place a treat behind one of two boxes. Dogs then waited during different delay periods, of 15, 30, or 45 seconds, and with or without an occluder, which was a curtain. Then, the dog was released to see if it could still remember which box the treat was behind. The results supported all the hypotheses, except the 45-second brief task with an occluder was most correlated the radial arm maze. Additionally, the dogs that had to be excluded from the radial arm maze still had a similar range of results on the brief tasks as dogs that were able to complete the radial arm maze. These results confirm the radial arm maze is very difficult and strenuous on dogs, but the brief task is correlated and probably much more effective at studying memory without these issues. This study can help researchers perfect this simple task in order to study many dogs much quicker and collect more information on dogs' memory. Future studies could overcome limitations including dogs that were not motivated by treats or that were too old to stand up. Specific breeds could be tested or longitudinal studies could be conducted to find differences in memory over time. In the future, this can hopefully relate to human cognitive decline knowledge, as dogs show similar cognitive decline to humans, and help find treatments for cognitive diseases.
ContributorsGlomski, Marissa (Author) / Wynne, Clive (Thesis director) / Presson, Clive (Committee member) / Brewer, Gene (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
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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

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