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- All Subjects: Cognitive Psychology
Description
When a rolling ball exits a spiral tube, it typically maintains its final inertial state and travels along straight line in concordance with Newton's first law of motion. Yet, most people predict that the ball will curve, a "naive physics" misconception called the curvilinear impetus (CI) bias. In the current paper, we explore the ecological hypothesis that the CI bias arises from overgeneralization of correct motion of biological agents. Previous research has established that humans curve when exiting a spiral maze, and college students believe this motion is the same for balls and humans. The current paper consists of two follow up experiments. The first experiment tested the exiting behavior of rodents from a spiral rat maze. Though there were weaknesses in design and procedures of the maze, the findings support that rats do not behave like humans who exhibit the CI bias when exiting a spiral maze. These results are consistent with the CI bias being an overgeneralization of human motion, rather than generic biological motion. The second experiment tested physics teachers on their conception of how a humans and balls behave when exiting a spiral tube. Teachers demonstrated correct knowledge of the straight trajectory of a ball, but generalized the ball's behavior to human motion. Thus physics teachers exhibit the opposite bias from college students and presume that all motion is like inanimate motion. This evidence supports that this type of naive physics inertial bias is at least partly due to participants overgeneralizing both inanimate and animate motion to be the same, perhaps in an effort to minimize cognitive reference memory load. In short, physics training appears not to eliminate the bias, but rather to simply shift it from the presumption of stereotypical animate to stereotypical inanimate behavior.
ContributorsDye, Rosaline (Author) / Mcbeath, Michael K (Thesis advisor) / Sanabria, Federico (Committee member) / Megowan, Colleen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The use of synthetic cathinones or "bath salts" has risen dramatically in recent years with one of the most popular being Methylendioxypyrovalerone (MDPV). Following the temporary legislative ban on the sale and distribution of this compound , a multitude of other cathinone derivatives have been synthesized. The current study seeks to compare the abuse potential of MDPV with one of the emergent synthetic cathinones 4-methylethcathinone (4-MEC), based on their respective ability to lower current thresholds in an intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) paradigm. Following acute administration (0.1, 0.5, 1 and 2 mg/kg i.p.) MDPV was found to significantly lower ICSS thresholds at all doses tested (F4,35=11.549, p<0.001). However, following acute administration (0.3,1,3,10,30 mg/kg i.p) 4-MEC produced no significant ICSS threshold depression (F5,135= 0.622, p = 0.684). Together these findings suggest that while MDPV may possess significant abuse potential, other synthetic cathinones such as 4-MEC may have a drastically reduced potential for abuse.
ContributorsWegner, Scott Andrew (Author) / Olive, M. Foster (Thesis director) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Sanabria, Federico (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Temporal-order judgments can require integration of self-generated action-events and external sensory information. In a previous study, it was found that participants are biased to perceive one’s own action-events to occur prior to simultaneous external events. This phenomenon, named the “Egocentric Temporal Order Bias”, or ETO bias, was demonstrated as a 67% probability for participants to report self-generated events as occurring prior to simultaneous externally-determined events. These results were interpreted as supporting a feed-forward, constructive model of perception. However, the empirical data could support many potential mechanisms. The present study tests whether the ETO bias is driven by attentional differences, feed-forward predictability, or action. These findings support that participants exhibit a bias due to both feed-forward predictability and action, and a Bayesian analysis supports that these effects are quantitatively unique. Therefore, the results indicate that the ETO bias is largely driven by one’s own action, over and above feed-forward predictability.
ContributorsTang, Tim (Author) / Mcbeath, Michael K (Thesis advisor) / Brewer, Gene A. (Committee member) / Sanabria, Federico (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Capacity limits of the human nervous system require important or rewarding information to be prioritized and encoded over less important or rewarding information. The present dissertation aims to identify structural and functional neural correlates of reward-motivated memory encoding. Chapter 1 reviews studies of reward-motivated memory encoding and their neural correlates, as well as the structure and function of dopaminergic midbrain circuits. Chapter 2 presents a study that utilizes electroencephalography (EEG) to determine which of two hypothesized processes underly the influence of reward value on episodic memory. One hypothesis is that value engages prefrontal executive control processes, so that valuable stimuli engage an elaborative rehearsal strategy that benefits memory. A second hypothesis is that value acts through the reward-related midbrain dopamine system to modulate synaptic plasticity in hippocampal and cortical efferents, thereby benefiting memory encoding. The results revealed that EEG signals thought to index dopamine-driven attention allocation were modulated by reward value and were positively correlated with individual differences in behavioral measures of memory prioritization. Chapter 3 employs diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to dissociate heterogenous functional circuits of the midbrain reward system. The results comport with primate histology and show that midbrain circuits are differentially predictive of impulsivity and of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Chapter 4 presents a study that also employs diffusion-weighted MRI. The findings replicate Chapter 3 in dissociating heterogenous functional circuits of the midbrain reward system. Additionally, the structural integrity of midbrain-hippocampus circuits was quantified. Structural integrity of these circuits was positively correlated to behavioral measures of memory prioritization. These findings suggest that structural and functional measures of the dopaminergic reward system may underlie reward-motivated memory encoding in humans.
ContributorsElliott, Blake Louis (Author) / Brewer, Gene A (Thesis advisor) / McClure, Samuel M (Committee member) / Sanabria, Federico (Committee member) / Bae, Gi-Yeul (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021