Matching Items (220)
Description
Human perceptual dimensions of sound are not necessarily simple representations of the actual physical dimensions that make up sensory input. In particular, research on the perception of interactions between acoustic frequency and intensity has shown that people exhibit a bias to expect the perception of pitch and loudness to change together. Researchers have proposed that this perceptual bias occurs because sound sources tend to follow a natural regularity of a correlation between changes in intensity and frequency of sound. They postulate that the auditory system has adapted to expect this naturally occurring relationship to facilitate auditory scene analysis, the tracking and parsing sources of sound as listeners analyze their auditory environments. However, this correlation has only been tested with human speech and musical sounds. The current study explores if animal sounds also exhibit the same natural correlation between intensity and frequency and tests if people exhibit a perceptual bias to assume this correlation when listening to animal calls. Our principal hypotheses are that animal sounds will tend to exhibit a positive correlation between intensity and frequency and that, when hearing such sounds change in intensity, listeners will perceive them to also change in frequency and vice versa. Our tests with 21 animal calls and 8 control stimuli along with our experiment with participants responding to these stimuli supported these hypotheses. This research provides a further example of coupling of perceptual biases with natural regularities in the auditory domain, and provides a framework for understanding perceptual biases as functional adaptations that help perceivers more accurately anticipate and utilize reliable natural patterns to enhance scene analyses in real world environments.
ContributorsWilkinson, Zachary David (Author) / McBeath, Michael (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Rutowski, Ronald (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Standardized testing plays a pivotal role in education. The results of standardized testing are used as performance metrics for students, teachers, and schools. The goal in education is to use performance metrics that are as accurate as possible. There are numerous measurement methods, but a popular choice is Student Growth Percentiles. This study will provide an analysis of Student Growth Percentiles in the Chandler Unified School District, located in Arizona. This study will use the Chandler Unified School District data to calculate standard error measurements and create Student Growth Percentile confidence intervals.
ContributorsSmith, Jacob (Author) / Boggess, May (Committee member) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Committee member) / Matthew, Strom (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
Often learning new skills, such as how to throw a basketball or how to play the piano, are better accomplished practicing with another than from self-practice. Why? We propose that during joint action, partners learn to adjust their behavior to each other. For example, when dancing with a partner, we must adjust the timing, the force, and the spatial locations of movements to those of the partner. We call these adjustments a joint body schema (JBS). That is, the locations of our own effectors and our own movements are adapted by interaction with the partner. Furthermore, we propose that after a JBS is established, learning new motor skills can be enhanced by the learner's attunement to the specifics of the partner's actions. We test this proposal by having partners engage in a motor task requiring cooperation (to develop the JBS). Then we determined whether a) the JBS enhances the coordination on an unrelated task, and b) whether the JBS enhances the learning of a new motor skill. In fact, participants who established a JBS showed stronger coordination with a partner and better motor learning from the partner than did control participants. Several applications of this finding are discussed.
ContributorsMunion, Amanda Kathleen (Author) / Glenberg, Arthur (Thesis director) / Knight, George (Committee member) / McBeath, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The purpose of this creative thesis project is to create the framework of an educational class package based off of a course offered at Arizona State University. The course chosen for this project is an honors course titled Deductive Logic: Leadership and Management Techniques and is taught by Dean Kashiwagi, PhD. The class package is designed to be published over an online platform so students and professors from various institutions can access the material. Currently the platform is in its final stages of development and is slated to go live on July of 2014. The future development of the package will be geared towards facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration between institutions based off of course concepts.
ContributorsGunnoe, Jake Alan (Author) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Thesis director) / Kashiwagi, Jacob (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Del E. Webb Construction (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Tempo control is a crucial part of musicianship that can provide an obstacle for novice musicians. The current study examines why novice percussionists increase their playing tempo when they increase their loudness (in music, loudness is referred to as dynamics). This study tested five hypotheses: 1) As actual tempo changes, listeners perceive that the tempo is changing; 2) There is a perceptual bias to perceive increases in acoustic intensity as also increasing in tempo; 3) All individuals, regardless of percussion experience, display the bias described in hypothesis 2; 4) Unskilled or non-percussionists increase or decrease produced tempo as they respectively increase or decrease loudness; and 5) Skilled percussionist produce less change in tempo due to changes in loudness than non-percussionists. In Experiment 1, percussionists and non-percussionists listened to metronome samples that gradually change in intensity and/or tempo. Participants identified the direction and size of their perceived tempo change using a computer mouse. In Experiment 2, both groups of participants produced various tempo and dynamic changes on a drum pad. Our findings support that both percussionists and non-percussionists, to some extent, display a perceptual bias to perceive tempo changes as a function of intensity changes. We also found that non-percussionists altered their tempo as a function of changing dynamic levels, whereas percussionists did not. Overall, our findings support that listeners tend to experience some integrality between perceptual dimensions of perceived tempo and loudness. Dimensional integration also persists when playing percussion instruments though experience with percussion instruments reduces this effect.
ContributorsJohnson, Adam Gregory (Author) / McBeath, Michael (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Yost, William (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The Information Measurement Theory (IMT) is a revolutionary thinking paradigm. Its principles allow an individual to accurately perceive reality and simplify the complexities of life. To understand IMT, individuals start by first recognizing that everything must follow natural law and cause and effect, that there is no randomness, and that everyone changes at a certain rate. They then move on to understanding that individuals are described by certain characteristics that can be used to predict their future behavior. And finally, they discover that they must learn to understand, accept, and improve themselves while understanding and accepting others. The author, who has spent a considerable amount of time studying and utilizing IMT, believes that IMT can be used within the field of psychology. The extraordinary results that IMT has produced in the construction industry can potentially be produced in a similar fashion within the psychology field. One of the most important principles of IMT teaches that control or influence over others does not exist. This principle alone differentiates IMT from the traditional model of psychology, which is dedicated to changing an individual (through influence). Five case studies will be presented in which individuals have used the principles of IMT to overcome severe issues such as substance abuse and depression. Each case study is unique and exhibits a remarkable change within each individual.
ContributorsMalladi, Basavanth (Author) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Thesis director) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Committee member) / Kashiwagi, Jacob (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Abstract The purpose of this project is to utilize the models and concepts from Information Measurement Theory (IMT) to help minimize future decision making with respect to my career path. When I began this project, my future was clouded, my initial conditions were unknown, my stress over future career-path decisions was high, and I had eight possible career paths in mind. I have narrowed my career-path options from eight to four. In addition, I have determined a one-year plan that enables me to be prepared to pursue any of the four career paths that I have found align with me. In this project, I explored my dominant initial conditions with respect to my career path. I tracked the job history of my grandparents and parents. These efforts allowed me to identify the strengths and weaknesses that I was exhibiting by the age of three. Natural law dictates that the strengths and weaknesses of my younger self will be the same strengths and weakness that I excel at and struggle with today. I then used my understanding of natural law and the event model process to map the strengths and weaknesses of my parents and grandparents and to compare and contrast these to my strengths and weaknesses, including those that were apparent by the time that I was three years old. Focusing in on what I really want from a job, four main goals were established to grade the various future career-path options. Finally, I documented my transition from uncertainty to clarity. It began with my sobriety and ended with a milestone one-year plan that will give me information that I need to commit to my career path. This transition has had significant impact. The elusive "who am I" has been addressed, not completely but addressed sufficiently so that the question no longer plagues me. I know from where I have come. I have gained significant insight from those around me who know me. All of this has been documented for my own personal use, and for my children someday. This process permitted me to eliminate outliers from my eight original career paths, reducing them to four. In addition, application of IMT models and concepts has allowed me to see one year into the future. With my new-found knowledge, I will listen and watch the doors close on three of the remaining four career paths, as there is only one path I am meant to take.
ContributorsRichardson, Trevor Woods (Author) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Thesis director) / Kashiwagi, Jacob (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Del E. Webb Construction (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
This study analyzes the impact of incentive programs on performance. Agency theory and Information Measurement theory are used to hypothesize about the impact of incentives upon performance. Empirical evidence from the case study shows that incentives are ineffective at increasing performance, but the statistical significance of the data is too low to generalize the findings beyond that of short term cold call sales. Several avenues for continued research are suggested.
ContributorsCarlson, Andrew Wayne (Author) / Lee, Peggy (Thesis director) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Committee member) / Totscheck, Chaz (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of Management (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
In an increasingly global economy, companies face challenges with implementing successful business and marketing strategies in cultures different from their own. This paper calls upon previous research to compile a per-country outline of general behaviors and expectations when doing business overseas. Using categorical definitions from Hofstede's 1984 study and those found in the Handbook of Global and Multicultural Negotiation, a table has been prepared to group similar countries based on their cultural biases.
ContributorsPetruccelli, Lauren Taylor (Author) / Shunk, Dan (Thesis director) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Committee member) / McCarville, Daniel R. (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
What characteristics do people prefer in potential mates? Previous studies have explored this question, discovering that preferred characteristics vary by people's sex and sexual strategy, but have implied that these preferences remain constant across the lifespan. We suggest, however, that systematic variation exists in individuals' mate preferences across the lifespan, as they shift their investments from mating toward parenting. We suggest that the characteristics of a potential mate can be viewed as affordances that assist or hinder an individual in achieving certain fundamental goals. Incorporating the framework of Life History Theory with this affordance-management approach to social behavior, we propose that an individual's life stage, sex, and life history strategy together serve as the basis for these goals and thereby shape the characteristics people seek in potential mates. Using data collected from participants aged 18-45 recruited on Amazon's Mechanical Turk, we tested a range of hypotheses derived from our approach. In general, results provide mixed support for a role of life stage in shaping mate preferences. For example, nurturance and social competence were viewed as more necessary characteristics in a mate by participants invested in parenting. Moreover, as their investment in mating increased, females expressed a greater preference for ambition in their potential mates, but males did not. Other predictions were not borne out, however, suggesting that there is still much to be learned from investigating the relationship between life stage and mate preferences.
ContributorsKalina, Catherine Ellen (Author) / Neuberg, Steven (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Gangestad, Steven (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Graduate College (Contributor)
Created2014-05