Psychology Honors Theses

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Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder characterized by atypical development in the domains of social, emotional, language and cognitive functioning in the first few years of life. Research indicates an associated phenomenon of sensory processing abnormalities in the ASD population (Baker, Lane, Angley, & Young, 2008), and specifically auditory domain (Tecchio et al., 2003) which may relate to language deficits (Baranek, David, Poe, Stone & Watson, 2006). This study researched the effect of auditory sensory abnormalities on language in young children with ASD (n = 118), specifically receptive and expressive language and prosody. A specific subdomain of auditory abnormalities, sensory seeking, was found to be predictive of expressive language (β = .30, p=.009), perhaps due to a focus on auditory stimuli to the exclusion of expressive language interaction. There was no significant effect for receptive language (β = .16, p=.16) and prosody (β = -.09, p=.493).

This study analyzed racial differences in the way African Americans and Caucasians perceive emotion from facial expressions and tone of voice. Participants were African American (n=25) and Caucasian (n=26) college students. The study utilizes 56 images of African American and Caucasian faces balanced for race and sex from the NimStim stimulus set (Tottenham, 2006). The study also utilized visual and auditory stimuli form the DANVA2. Participants were asked to judged emotion for each stimulus in the tasks. The BFRT, the WASI, and the Seashore Rhythm test were used as exclusionary criteria. In general the study found few differences in the way African Americans and Caucasians perceived emotion, though racial differences emerged as an interaction with other factors. The results of the study supported the theory of universality of emotion perception and expression though social influences, which may affect emotion perception, is also a possibility. Areas of future research were discussed.

In this experiment I investigated the relationship between set-switching and transfer learning, both of which presumably invoke executive functioning (EF), which may in turn be correlated with intelligence. Set-switching was measured by a computerized version of the Wisconsin Card Sort Task. Another computer task was written to measure learning-transfer ability. The data indicate little correlation between the ability to transfer learning and the capacity for set-switching. That is, these abilities may draw from independent cognitive mechanisms. The major difference may be requirement to utilize previous learning in a new way in the learning-transfer task.

This paper presents the results of a study conducted at a domestic violence safehouse for an undergraduate Honors Thesis. Twenty-three children ages 4-16 from African American and immigrant communities were interviewed while residing at a safehouse for victims of domestic violence regarding their beliefs and attitudes about perceptions of self, conflict resolution skills, and feelings of anger and coping strategies. The study found a strong relation between length of stay & positive coping strategies. Age & gender were also related to conflict resolution skills. Qualitative data provided interesting & potentially important insights into children’s internal experiences of being witnesses of domestic violence. The study did not support past research in terms of child witnesses exhibiting low self-esteem, poor conflict strategies, and high rates of aggression. This study concludes that more research needs to be conducted on protective factors and resiliency to the effects of domestic violence to explain this study’s results.

The present study examines the relationship of emotional awareness to anticipatory psychophysiological markers and performance on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The IGT is a computerized card game that simulates real-life decisions through uncertainty of reward or punishment. The participant’s goal is to make advantageous card choices. Anticipatory somatic markers of physiological arousal, like electrodermal activity and heart rate, have been proposed to bias decisions in the IGT. The central hypothesis is that a participant’s emotional awareness is related to their ability to make advantageous decisions through biasing psychophysiological responses. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale was used to assess each participant’s emotional awareness. Less emotional awareness was associated with enhanced performance on the IGT. However, anticipatory physiological arousal (electrodermal activity and heart rate) and emotional awareness yielded no significant relationships. Findings suggest a need for further research on cognitive models, such as the expectancy valence model, in relation to decision-making.

The current study attempted to discern the extent to which a gender bias influences the adult ratings of observed childhood pain. While gender differences in pain sensation are well documented in physiologically mature individuals, there seems to be no such difference in children. The effect of manipulating gender on the procedural pain ratings of 201 university undergraduate and nursing students was examined via a deceptive pain observation task. Results demonstrated no significant difference between gender conditions; however a strong link was established between prior exposure to painful pediatric medical procedures and lower pain ratings. The results suggest that, while a gender bias failed to alter pain ratings, desensitization to viewing painful procedures could alter how much pain healthcare professionals believe a patient is experiencing.

Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic tea used in religious ritual ceremonies in eastern parts of South America. Ayahuasca is becoming more popular in western countries for therapeutic use for depression, drug addiction, and emotional distress (Domínguez-Clavé et al., 2016). Previous research has explored the effects ayahuasca may have on cognition, neurological functioning, and psychopathology. Although several studies have been done on cognition and psychopathology, few studies have examined the long-term use of neurological functioning. This study focused on neuropsychological effects chronic recurrent religious users of Ayahuasca may develop, using an existing data set. This study analyzed the default mode network (DMN) comprised of the posterior cingulate cortex, angular gyrus, and the medial prefrontal cortex. To assess the DMN functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) scans were collected. This study included 12 Ayahuasca users from the U.S. branch of União do Vegetal (UDV) and 13 non-Ayahuasca-using controls from Albuquerque Protestant and Catholic churches. No differences were found between groups on connectivity in any region of interest nor in relation to mood assessments. However, the right medial prefrontal cortex and the angular gyrus revealed a positive associated with sleepiness. Possible effects can be assessed on default mode network (DMN) connectivity using a larger sample size. These findings display evidence that long-term use of Ayahuasca does not have essential lasting neuropsychological effects.

Nonhuman animals can make relative quantity judgments of two or more sets of things (e.g., which set has more food items). However, a more sophisticated judgment requires assessing the larger or smaller set on the basis of a proportion within that set (e.g., red candies in a set of red and black candies). Judgments of relative proportion cannot rely on an absolute number comparison for the pertinent subset type but rather must rely on how much of one thing exists relative to another within each set. This more sophisticated form of quantitative cognition is nearly unstudied in other species. This thesis focused on the ability of capuchin monkeys and macaque monkeys to distinguish the relative proportions of stimulus sets presented to them on a computer screen. The task presented to capuchin and rhesus monkeys was to judge which of two matrices of varying numbers of items had the larger proportion of one designated color relative to the other. Rhesus monkeys performed above chance in all trial types and capuchins in all trials wherein they could rely on black dots as the relevant cue. Their performance was in accordance with Weber’s Law, indicating that the same mechanism may be at work when judging absolute and relative quantities.

Since the past presidential elections in 2016, the topic of deportation has become one of the most discussed subject matters by policymakers. Recent reports show that Latinx immigrants make for more than ninety percent of the total number of deportations; making them, without a doubt, a targeted population. Some research on this topic has focused on the effects on family dynamics and economic stability, while others focus on children’s cognitive, behavioral, and emotional changes. Many of these deportees have reported being parents of U.S. citizen children. Therefore, this thesis reviews the literature on the effects of parental deportation in U.S. citizen children across several age groups, from middle childhood to teenage years. As expected, data demonstrated that children develop a variety of internalized and externalized problems after parental deportation.

In previous research, Gupta et al. (2015) analyzed gray matter density as well as volume reductions related to schizophrenia in the region of the insula and medial prefrontal cortex. Sprooten et al. (2015) then identified a set of quantitative trait loci (QTLs), which is a region of DNA associated with variability in these gray matter concentration patterns. The aim of this study is to examine the QTL they found in a region of chromosome 5. We hypothesized that there will be a set of genes in the QTL on chromosome 5 that is related to abnormal brain patterns in potential disorders such as schizophrenia. We identified genes present in the region of the QTL to analyze their function and relatedness to other genes using various software like Ingenuity Pathways Analysis, and Gene Cards. We evaluated their biological functions as well as any related disorders. For the imaging and genetic analyses, the genotypic data contained 9,228 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from shared aggregated datasets. The datasets contained clinical information for 616 subjects (364 controls, 252 cases). Each subject had a corresponding brain image. We identified a set of genes, including SLC1A3, GDNF, C6, C7, and C9, that are possibly related to neurodegeneration as well as brain injury processes. Lastly, we employed the parallel independent component analysis technique (pICA) to incorporate the genetic data with brain imaging to possibly identify an area related to schizophrenia. Some of the genetic variations found corresponded to the genes C7, RPL37, and PTGER4 with a correlation of 0.1012. C7, RPL37, and PTGER4 are involved in the immune system, multiple sclerosis, and neurodegenerative diseases. These genes were correlated with the imaging pattern from the pICA in the regions of the cerebellum, vermis, and mid-temporal lobe. Further analyses are needed to evaluate the correlation obtained from the pICA.

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a fatal neurodegenerative genetic disease that causes motor difficulties, mood impairment, and cognitive dysfunction. Prodromal Huntington’s disease (PrHD) refers to people who carry the mutated huntingtin (htt) gene, but do not yet fit the criteria needed for a full diagnosis. Changes in mood typically begin in the prodromal phase, and apathy is a particularly devastating change that progresses in severity throughout the course of the disease. We investigated neural connectivity changes that could be associated with apathy severity within this population. We performed a seed-based connectivity analysis on resting state scans of 89 (PrHD) patients, with the supplementary motor area, bilateral caudate and caudate head as our regions of interest. We found that apathy severity was significantly correlated with increased connectivity between the caudate head and the supplementary motor area (p = 0.03). Further analyses are needed to establish the extent of the effect of caudate atrophy on this relationship, which we would predict would be highly related due to the degenerative nature of the disease.

This study was conducted in order to replicate the findings of Earle (1985) in a modern-day setting. Earle (1985) supported that different hemispheres aid in problem solving depending on problem difficulty. These findings were evident by a change in lateral hemispheric inhibition while participants solved “medium” difficulty math problems. Participants were asked to solve multiplication problems in their heads, without the help of a pen, paper, or a calculator. Electroencephalogram (EEG) data was recorded over the Parietal and Temporal lobe during a resting state and while participants solved math problems of “easy”, “intermediate”, and “hard” conditions. Data was recorded from two matching base pairs across the cortex in order to measure changes in the alpha frequency across the two hemispheres. This study was unable to replicate the findings from Earle (1985), but provides information regarding factors to consider when measuring the alpha band with an EEG.

The hypotheses of the current study are that (1) black women will be more spiritual and (2) will have more knowledge of the Holy Spirit than white women, and (3) spirituality will be negatively correlated with eating disorder symptomatology and body dissatisfaction. (4) African American women will have lower body dissatisfaction and (5) less eating disorder symptomatology than Caucasian women. It is predicted that (6) ethnicity will have more influence on eating disorder symptomatology and spirituality than current and ideal weight. (7) Current weight will have more influence on body dissatisfaction than ethnicity or ideal weight. Finally, (8) the ideal weight of black women will be higher than that of white women. Participants included 95 African American and Caucasian female college students. All the hypotheses were supported. Prospective research can discern whether racial differences in spirituality have causal influence on healthier body image held by many black women.

Previous literature has explored sex differences to explain differences in cognition and behavior. If there are sex differences in the brain, how would these differences alter our perception of treatment and diagnosis in a clinical population, such as people with schizophrenia? In our study, we wanted to find out whether there is an effect of sex on cortical thickness (CT) in the parietal lobule and cognitive measures of verbal memory, verbal learning, attention, spatial reasoning, and working memory in healthy controls (HC) and people with schizophrenia (SZ). We additionally explored relationships between cognition and parietal lobule CT. RESULTS: There is no effect of sex on cognition and CT in the parietal lobule, but we found differences in correlations between CT and cognition in each sex and diagnosis group. DISCUSSION: Further research is necessary to discover whether clinicians need to consider gender in the treatment of people with schizophrenia.

In the 1980’s, a handful of authors distilled the anecdotal experiences of adult children of alcoholics (ACoAs) into a syndrome of dysfunctional characteristics that they proposed were shared by most ACoAs. The books they published were commercially successful and launched a popular movement and a self-help industry, which mental health clinicians would eventually need to either acknowledge or refute. In the ensuing years, the ACoA syndrome has become broadly accepted among laypersons, but efforts to validate this syndrome through empirical research have been inconclusive. To date, there is little evidence regarding the degree to which mental health clinicians have embraced the validity of an ACoA symptomology. In this study, mental health clinicians in a southeastern state were surveyed regarding both their endorsement of a distinct ACoA syndrome and the therapeutic utility of ACoA support groups. The results indicated a lack of support for either.

The current study is part of a larger program evaluation of Caminar Latino, a community-based organization that works with Latino families affected by domestic violence. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects that community-based programs have on children. We wanted to investigate the relationship between children’s knowledge of violence and their attitude towards it. We hypothesized that children who have more educational awareness of violence can better recognize it when it happens, and therefore have better coping skills. Sixteen Latino children were interviewed and results showed that there was no significant relationship between violence knowledge and attitudes. This study found correlations between the number of siblings and attitudes towards violence: The more siblings a child had, the more he/she endorsed “if you are mad at someone you can just ignore them” and the less likely he/she endorsed “you try to talk out a problem instead of fighting”. Findings show that it is important to consider siblings when exploring attitudes towards violence. The biggest limitation of this study was that these preliminary data’s sample size may have been too small to show effects.

The current study is part of a larger program evaluation of Caminar Latino, a community-based organization that works with Latino families affected by domestic violence. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects that community-based programs have on children. We wanted to investigate the relationship between children’s knowledge of violence and their attitude towards it. We hypothesized that children who have more educational awareness of violence can better recognize it when it happens, and therefore have better coping skills. Sixteen Latino children were interviewed and results showed that there was no significant relationship between violence knowledge and attitudes. This study found correlations between the number of siblings and attitudes towards violence: The more siblings a child had, the more he/she endorsed “if you are mad at someone you can just ignore them” and the less likely he/she endorsed “you try to talk out a problem instead of fighting”. Findings show that it is important to consider siblings when exploring attitudes towards violence. The biggest limitation of this study was that these preliminary data’s sample size may have been too small to show effects.

Evidence-based programs (EBPs) are the gold standard of prevention and intervention programs to address child maltreatment. SafeCare® is a parent-training EBP that significantly reduces risk factors and occurrences of child neglect and abuse. To ensure that EBPs are being implemented correctly and effectively, it is important to evaluate provider fidelity (adherence to program protocol) and competency (skill level to deliver protocol). Provider fidelity has been more frequently measured than provider competency. However, research has shown competency to be complementary to fidelity, and competency seems to be an important predictor of patient outcomes. The current study used SafeCare to analyze how provider competency relates to provider training and family outcomes. Results showed that provider competency was positively correlated with provider training quizzes but not to provider training role plays or family outcomes. These findings suggest that provider knowledge acquisition during training may be an important factor in providers achieving strong competency in the delivery of an EBP.

Introduction: Emotion regulation, the process of changing one’s emotion is necessary for efficiency when performing cognitive tasks, and is often measured using a Stroop task that provides conflict between emotional and factual information. Researchers have found that listening to music increases performance on cognitive tasks, and we hypothesize that listening to music samples that evoke different arousal and valence levels will affect participants’ emotion regulation skills. Method: 38 Georgia State University undergraduates listened to three-minute excerpts of film scores known to evoke a particular mood and arousal state while completing an emotional-Stroop task. Results: We performed a repeated measures ANOVA and found a significant difference of music type and an interaction between music type and word context. Discussion: These results provide evidence that music evokes different arousal and valence states, which have a distinct effect on emotion regulation skills.

We examined event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during comprehension of the English Causative. The main goal was to examine ERP responses to grammatical violations that reflect a mismatch between the verb and the sentence structure. The second goal was to compare effects among native English speakers (NES) and native Spanish speakers learning English as a second language (ESL). We expected group differences to reflect different neurolinguistic processes, particularly for sentences that are well-formed in English, but not in Spanish.

The English Causative is a grammatical construction that is syntactically ditransitive ('SubjNP–V–ObjNP–PP') and means '[someone]–[CAUSED-by-doing-X]–[something]–[change-of-state]'. An example is the sentence, Jack sent his sister to the store, which implies that Jack (SubjNP) caused his sister (ObjNP) to undergo a change of location (PP) by sending her (V). Importantly, only certain verbs are permitted within this construction: In English, ditransitive verbs (e.g., send), are allowed, as are alternating unaccusatives, such as walk (Jack walked his sister to the store). Non-alternating unaccusatives, such as arrive, are disallowed, even when the sentence has a meaningful interpretation (*Jack arrived his sister to the store). To comprehend these structures as they unfold in time, a language-user must therefore reconcile word- and clause-level constraints and dynamically update his or her understanding throughout the sentence.

In the present study we asked nine NES and eight ESL participants to view a series of sentences, presented one phrase at a time, while we recorded their EEG. Each sentence was intransitive ('SubjNP–V' ), transitive ('SubjNP–V–ObjNP'), or ditransitive ('SubjNP–V–PP'), and was followed by a response probe. The task was to say whether each sentence was acceptable. Brain activity was measured using electroencephalography (EEG) and processed to create ERPs. We had four predictions. First, we predicted that the ObjNP following an intransitive verb would elicit a P600 effect, reflecting a syntactic violation (e.g., *Jack walked/arrived his sister). Second, for non-alternating (arrive-type) verbs, we predicted that a subsequent PP (e.g., *Jack arrived his sister to the store) would elicit a P600 effect, whereas Alternating (walk-type) verbs would elicit a minimal or no P600. Third, we expected that ESL partiticpants, like NES participants, would show an P600 effect to the ObjNP for sentences containing intransitives. However, in contrast with English, we predicted that the final PP would elicit an error-related response among ESL participants for walk-type verbs, as well as for arrive-type verbs.

Study results partly confirmed our predictions. The two groups showed similar patterns of acceptability, although ESL participants were slower overall. As predicted, the ObjNP elicited a P600 effect for arrive-type verbs for NES participants. Interestingly, ESL participants exhibited N400 rather than P600 effects to the ObjNP. Further, in response to the PP, both groups exhibited N400 effects to arrive-type verbs, without a subsequent P600 effect.

In summary, although their behavioral patterns did not differ, ERPs revealed group differences in verb–construction mismatches at different points in the sentence. The pattern of N400 and P600 responses was partly unexpected. We consider implications for syntax-semantic interactions, integration of word- and clause-level information, second-language learning, and functional correlates of N400 and P600 effects.