VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "Diana, Rachel A."

Browsing by Author "Diana, Rachel A."

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Comparing the Cognitive Mechanisms of False Memories with the Misinformation and DRM Paradigms
O'Neill, Meagan (Virginia Tech, 2017-06-16)
Many methodologies have been used to generate false memories, with the misinformation (MI) paradigm and the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm being the most commonly studied. The MI paradigm generates false memories based on retroactive interference across episodes, while the DRM paradigm generates false memories based on semantic similarities across stimuli. Since current research is ambiguous about whether the processes for different types of false memories are similar, the purpose of this project was to compare the neural mechanisms between MI and DRM false memories. We used a novel paradigm to limit methodological differences, while maintaining the defining characteristics of each paradigm. We made ERP predictions for false memories in both paradigms based on four current cognitive theories of false memories: fuzzy-trace theory, spreading activation/monitoring theory, global matching models, and source of activation confusion (SAC) model. We found no LPC, FN400, or N2 neural differences between the two types of false memories. This result is discussed in the context of the theories and the implications about our understanding of false memories. Our results support that there may not be mechanistic differences in false memory recollection when paradigms to produce the false memories are similar.
Computational and Human Learning Models of Generalized Unsafety
Huskey, Alisa Mae (Virginia Tech, 2020-08-20)
The Generalized Unsafety Theory of Stress proposes that physiological markers of generalized stress impair learning of safe cues in stressful environments. Based on this model, chronic problems inhibiting physiological arousal lead to a heightened perception of threat, which involves experiencing anxiety symptoms without any obvious precipitating stressful or traumatic event. This investigation aims to determine the impact of stressor- versus context-related emotional learning on generalized unsafety, using a Pavlovian threat-conditioning paradigm. The difference in learning threatening cues ([CS+] paired with an aversive stimulus) compared to safety cues ([CS-] not paired with an aversive stimulus) was used as a proxy measure of generalized unsafety, as conceptualized by the GUTS model. This difference is expected to be moderated by individual differences in tonic cardiac regulation (i.e. heart rate variability). Lastly, a temporal-differences learning model was used to predict skin-conductance learning during stressor, stressor context and general contexts to determine which best predicts Pavlovian learning. TD learning is expected to better predict skin-conductance in individuals with higher fear inhibition in comparison to those with low fear inhibition.
Controlling for Acute Caffeine Intake in Cardiovascular Reactivity Research
Grant, Shara Soyini (Virginia Tech, 2016-04-08)
Caffeine substantially affects cardiovascular functioning, yet wide variability exists in caffeine control procedures in cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) research. This study was conducted in order to identify a minimal abstention duration in habitual coffee consumers whereby CVR is unconfounded by caffeine; Six hours was hypothesized (average half-life). Thirty nine subjects (mean age: 20.9; 20 Women) completed a repeated measures study involving hand cold pressor (CP) and memory tasks. Caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee were administered. The following CV indices were acquired during baseline, task, and recovery epochs prior to coffee intake, 30 minutes-, and six hours post-intake: Heart rate (HR), high frequency heart rate variability (hfHRV), root mean squared successive differences (RMSSD), systolic and diastolic blood pressures (SBP, DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), pre-ejection period (PEP), left ventricular ejection time (LVET), and total peripheral resistance (TPR). Results support the adequacy of a six-hour abstention in controlling for caffeine-elicited CVR changes. The current study contributes to methodological endeavors in psychophysiology. Further investigations are crucial in establishing ideal caffeine controls, which would promote increasingly valid and reliable cross-study results.
Cortical Processing of Visual Parts and Wholes
Roldan, Stephanie Marie (Virginia Tech, 2014-08-25)
Visual perception theory distinguishes between two distinct levels of object processing: holistic, based on global shape, and configural, based on local features and/or component parts. Empirical evidence suggests that different cortical regions may support these levels; holistic processing correlates with activation in the lateral occipital-temporal cortex (LOC), whereas configural processes correspond to activation in the parietal lobe, particularly the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). This study combined theories of visual part structure with neuroimaging methods to investigate the relative contribution of holistic and configural processing in an ecologically valid object recognition task. Rather than rely on stimuli specifically designed to evoke holistic or configural processing, this study used photographs of objects selected without a priori assumptions concerning physical part structure. Twenty participants viewed objects at fixation while undergoing fMRI, followed by a behavioral object identification task involving the same objects presented in peripheral vision. Behavioral data were analyzed according to theories of visual crowding to yield an objective estimate of the number of parts perceived within each object. Neuroimaging results revealed increased activation for holistic objects containing fewer parts in the right parietal lobe and superior temporal gyrus and bilaterally in the fusiform gyrus, suggesting a relation between holistic processing areas and object perception. Configural objects with many parts elicited increased activation in the left angular gyrus. This study, to our knowledge, is the first to investigate the cortical visual regions involved when observers engage in holistic and configural processing as a natural part of visual recognition.
Development of Neuroconnectivity and Inhibitory Control: Relation to Social Cognition in Late Childhood
Broomell, Alleyne Patricia Ross (Virginia Tech, 2019-05-03)
Social cognition is a set of complex processes that mediate much of human behavior. The development of these skills is related to and interdependent on other cognitive processes, particularly inhibitory control, which allows for willful suppression of dominant responses. Many aspects of social behavior rely on inhibitory control to moderate impulsive or socially inappropriate behaviors and process complex perspective-taking. Furthermore, the brain regions associated with inhibitory control and social cognition overlap functionally and structurally. I review neurodevelopmental literature to suggest that social cognition is developmentally dependent on inhibitory control and that the neural foundations of both these skills are measurable in infancy. I tested this model using growth curve and structural equation modeling and show that 10-month, but not 5-month, frontotemporal coherence predicts social cognition in late childhood through preschool inhibitory control. These findings provide insight into the neurodevelopmental trajectory of cognition and suggest that connectivity from frontal regions to other parts of the brain is a foundation for the development of these skills.
EEG-Based Control of Working Memory Maintenance Using Closed-Loop Binaural Stimulation
Beauchene, Christine Elizabeth (Virginia Tech, 2018-05-17)
The brain is a highly complex network of nonlinear systems with internal dynamic states that are not easily quantified. As a result, it is essential to understand the properties of the connectivity network linking disparate parts of the brain used in complex cognitive processes, such as working memory. Working memory is the system in control of temporary retention and online organization of thoughts for successful goal directed behavior. Individuals exhibit a typically small capacity limit on the number of items that can be simultaneously retained in working memory. To modify network connections and thereby augment working memory capacity, researchers have targeted brain areas using a variety of noninvasive stimulation interventions. However, few existing methods take advantage of the brain's own structure to actively generate and entrain internal oscillatory modulations in locations deep within the auditory pathways. One technique is known as binaural beats, which arises from the brain's interpretation of two pure tones, with a small frequency mismatch, delivered independently to each ear. The mismatch between these tones is perceived as a so-called beat frequency which can be used to modulate behavioral performance and cortical connectivity. Currently, all binaural stimulation therapeutic systems are open-loop "one-size-fits-all" approaches. However, these methods can prove not as effective because each person's brain responds slightly differently to exogenous stimuli. Therefore, the driving motivation for developing a closed-loop stimulation system is to help populations with large individual variability. One such example is persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which causes cognitive impairments beyond those expected based on age. Therefore, applying a closed-loop binaural beat control system to increase the cognitive load level to people with MCI could potentially maintain their quality of life. In this dissertation, I will present a comparison of algorithms to determine brain connectivity, results of open-loop based binaural stimulation, the development of a closed-loop brain network simulation platform, and finally an experimental study to determine the effectiveness of closed-loop control to modulate brain networks hence influencing cognitive abilities.
The Effect of Binaural Beats on Visuospatial Working Memory and Cortical Connectivity
Beauchene, Christine; Abaid, Nicole; Moran, Rosalyn J.; Diana, Rachel A.; Leonessa, Alexander (PLOS, 2016-11-28)
Binaural beats utilize a phenomenon that occurs within the cortex when two different frequencies are presented separately to each ear. This procedure produces a third phantom binaural beat, whose frequency is equal to the difference of the two presented tones and which can be manipulated for non-invasive brain stimulation. The effects of binaural beats on working memory, the system in control of temporary retention and online organization of thoughts for successful goal directed behavior, have not been well studied. Furthermore, no studies have evaluated the effects of binaural beats on brain connectivity during working memory tasks. In this study, we determined the effects of different acoustic stimulation conditions on participant response accuracy and cortical network topology, as measured by EEG recordings, during a visuospatial working memory task. Three acoustic stimulation control conditions and three binaural beat stimulation conditions were used: None, Pure Tone, Classical Music, 5Hz binaural beats, 10Hz binaural beats, and 15Hz binaural beats. We found that listening to 15Hz binaural beats during a visuospatial working memory task not only increased the response accuracy, but also modified the strengths of the cortical networks during the task. The three auditory control conditions and the 5Hz and 10Hz binaural beats all decreased accuracy. Based on graphical network analyses, the cortical activity during 15Hz binaural beats produced networks characteristic of high information transfer with consistent connection strengths throughout the visuospatial working memory task.
Ego Depletion-Induced Aberrant Driving in the Post-Work Commute
Mitropoulos, Tanya Elise (Virginia Tech, 2020-12-11)
Spillover research has shown that workday stress hampers commuting safety, while ego depletion research has demonstrated that prior self-regulation leads to performance decrements in subsequent tasks. This study sought to unite these two lines of research by proposing that ego depletion-induced alterations in attention and motivation are the mechanisms by which workday experiences spill over to the commute and impair driving safety. To examine the daily influences of these within-person processes on driving behavior in the post-work commute, this study adopted a daily survey design, wherein participants took an online survey immediately before and after each post-work commute across one work week. In these daily surveys, fifty-six participants (N = 56; n = 250 day-level observations) reported their workday self-regulatory demands; pre-commute levels of attention, motivation, and affective states; and driving behavior during the commute home. Using multilevel path analysis to isolate within-person effects, the current study found no evidence to suggest that workday self-regulatory demands lowered pre-commute attention and motivation, nor did it detect associations of attention and motivation with post-work aberrant driving. Results indicated that an ego depleted state might impair attention and motivation but not driving safety in the commute. Instead, the results pointed to the person-level factor of trait self-control as potentially having a greater impact on post-work aberrant driving than daily experiences.
Employing an Implicit Task to Measure the Effects of Contextual Constraints on Perceptions of Leadership
Boyd, Kathleen Benton-Snead (Virginia Tech, 2015-09-03)
A laboratory experiment was conducted to test the effects of follower behaviors (passive or active) and affect (positive or negative) on leadership perception within the context of an implicit association task (IAT). Individuals watched either a positive or negative affect inducing video, were placed in a leader role, and were asked to read a brief scenario detailing the behavior of their followers. The results indicated that: 1) active follower behavior information activated leadership perceptions that reflect an implicit preference for Visionary Leadership, and 2) positive affect activated leadership perceptions that reflect an implicit preference for Visionary Leadership. It was hypothesized that there would be an interaction between follower behavior and leader affect such that negative affect would lead to more detailed follower behavior information processing and therefore follower behavior would have stronger effects on leadership perceptions. The interaction was not significant; however the main effects provide support for the Connectionist Model of Leadership, such that contextual constraints do influence perceptions of leadership. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.
Employing Intracranial EEG Data to Decipher Sleep Neural Dynamics
Kvavilashvili, Andrew Tomaz (Virginia Tech, 2023-01-24)
Over the course of a typical night, sleep is comprised of multiple different stages that involve changes in brainwave patterns. Intracranial EEG (iEEG) is an invasive brain recording technique used in hospital settings in epileptic patients to determine the focus of their seizure activity. The intracranial data recorded allows one to directly observe the neural activity of deep brain structures such as the hippocampus and to detect single unit activity and local field potentials, thus providing a level of physiological detail normally available only in animal studies. In this thesis we employ intracranial data to advance our understanding of sleep neural dynamics in humans, and to this end its focus is in two areas : (1) developing a way of sleep scoring iEEG data and (2) investigating the neural dynamics of a particular waveform found during sleep, the sleep spindle, and its role in memory consolidation. Typically, iEEG recordings do not include electrooculogram or electromyogram recordings, which are normally needed for sleep scoring—especially for scoring rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep. We identified differences in alpha power between wake and REM sleep to develop a methodological way to reliably differentiate between wake and REM sleep states. We also wanted to investigate the neural dynamics involved with a particular brainwave seen during sleep, the sleep spindle, which is thought to be important for sleep-mediated memory consolidation. Historically, sleep spindles were thought to occur synchronously across the cortex, but recent findings using iEEG have identified that sleep spindles can also be local. We utilized intracranial EEG to confirm previous findings that iEEG can identify local sleep spindles. In addition to identifying local sleep spindles, we aimed to investigate the potential role that sleep spindles have on learning and memory using standard targeted memory reactivation paradigms for iii both procedural and declarative memories. We found that local sleep spindles occurred at a specific time following auditory stimulation for both procedural and declarative memories. This work has opened up the use of iEEG recordings to investigations of REM sleep dynamics and laid the groundwork for examining the role of local sleep spindles in memory consolidation.
Episodic Memory during Middle Childhood: Active vs. Passive Processing
Blankenship, Tashauna L. (Virginia Tech, 2014-05-07)
Episodic memory refers to context based explicit memory and shows vast improvements during middle childhood. In this study, episodic encoding was manipulated using stimuli that were hypothesized to require active or passive processing. Nine to eleven-year-old children were presented with a recall task using lower resolution (active processing) and clear (passive processing) images. It was hypothesized that children would recall more low resolution images than clear images. Executive function ability was also assessed to investigate possible contributions to performance. Furthermore, this study investigated whether frontal and temporal brain electrophysiology predicted unique variance in recall performance. Results suggested that overall there were no performance differences between low resolution and clear images; however, differences may exist within task blocks. Electrophysiology at temporal scalp locations and executive functions predicted unique variance in memory task performance. Specifically, set-shifting and working memory predicted a unique amount of variance in memory task performance. The results suggest that explicit memory may require certain executive processes more than others, and that active and passive processing may enhance this effect.
Examining the neurovisceral integration model through fNIRS
Condy, Emma Elizabeth (Virginia Tech, 2018-09-10)
The neurovisceral integration model (NVM) proposes that an organisms ability to flexibly adapt to their environment is related to biological flexibility within the central autonomic network. One important aspect of this flexibility is behavioral inhibition (Thayer and Friedman, 2002). During a behavioral inhibition task, the central autonomic network (CAN), which is comprised of a series of feedback loops, must be able to integrate information and react to these inputs flexibly to facilitate optimal performance. The functioning of the CAN is shown to be associated with respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), as the vagus nerve is part of this feedback system. While the NVM has been examined through neural imaging and RSA, only a few studies have examined these measures simultaneously during the neuroimaging procedure. Furthermore, these studies were done at rest or used tasks that were not targeted at processes associated with the NVM, such as behavior inhibition and cognitive flexibility. For this reason, the present study assessed RSA and neural activation in the prefrontal cortex simultaneously while subjects completed a behavior inhibition task. Using a series of go/no-go tasks, RSA and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) were collected to investigate the relationship between prefrontal activation and vagal activity at rest and during behavioral inhibition. There are three primary aims of this study. First, examine prefrontal activation during various inhibition tasks through fNIRS. Second, evaluate the NVM during a cognitive task using simultaneous fNIRS and RSA analysis. Third, relate task performance, imaging, and RSA measures during behavioral inhibition to deficits in flexible everyday responding, as indicated by self-report measures of behavior. Doing so will elucidate the connection with prefrontal activation and RSA as proposed by the NVM model and determine whether neural and RSA metrics can be related to broader symptoms of inflexibility.
Exploring human-vehicle communication to balance transportation safety and efficiency: A naturalistic field study of pedestrian-vehicle interactions
Roediger, Micah David (Virginia Tech, 2018-06-29)
While driving behavior is generally governed by the nature and the driving objectives of the driver, there are many situations (typically in crowded traffic conditions) where tacit communication between vehicle drivers and pedestrians govern driving behavior, significantly influencing transportation safety. The study aimed to formalize the tacit communication between vehicle drivers and pedestrians, in order to inform an investigation on effective communication mechanisms between autonomous vehicle and humans. Current autonomous vehicles engage in decision making primarily controlled by on-board or external sensory information, and do not explicitly consider communication with pedestrians. The study was a within subject 2x2x2 factorial experimental design. The three independent variables were driving context (normal driving vs. autonomous vehicle placard), driving route (1 vs. 2), and narration (yes vs. no). The primary outcome variable was driver-yield behavior. Each of the ten drivers completed the factorial design, requiring eight total drives. Data were collected using a data acquisition system (DAS) designed and installed on the experimental vehicle by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. The DAS collected video, audio, and kinematic data. Videos were coded using a proprietary software program, Hawkeye, based on an a priori data directory. Recommendations for future autonomous vehicle research and programming are provided.
Exploring the Role of Prospective Memory in Location-Based Reminders
Wang, Yao (Virginia Tech, 2017-05-03)
Location-based reminder systems (LBRs) are typically used to remind people to complete a to-do task at a particular location. People use their prospective memory to remember future to-do tasks. However, the current design of LBRs fails to take advantage of human prospective memory theory. In this dissertation, I propose a framework connecting human prospective memory theory with LBRs. My work applies human prospective memory into the technical design of LBRs. The goal of my work is to make the reminder work more consistently with how human memory works. Prospective memory research suggests that encoding of the location and familiarity with the location have an impact on prospective remembering. I conducted two empirical studies to test how this theoretical knowledge applies to LBRs. In one experiment, I hypothesized that if the encoding stage provides a closer match to the retrieval stage in LBRs, then location recognition and task recall should improve at retrieval time. The results indicate that providing a first-person view (street view of the desired location) at the encoding stage benefits prospective remembering the most. Prospective memory theory also suggests that the familiarity with the external cue has a significant influence on prospective remembering. In the second experiment, I hypothesized that familiarity with a location has an impact on the location recognition at the retrieval. The results show that the encoding interface is used differently for familiar and unfamiliar cities and businesses to support recognizing a target location. The findings have implications for the design of future LBRs. I designed an LBR prototype by applying these empirical research findings and conducted a usability evaluation. Future designers of LBR should consider 1) providing more support in matching the encoding stage to the eventual cue in retrieval stage and 2) involving user’s familiarity level with the places at the encoding stage to provide a better user experience. My work showed the importance of using prospective memory theory in the design of LBR systems.
Eye Movements and Hemodynamic Response during Emotional Scene Processing: Exploring the Role of Visual Perception in Intrusive Mental Imagery
Roldan, Stephanie Marie (Virginia Tech, 2017-06-05)
Unwanted and distressing visual imagery is a persistent and emotionally taxing symptom characteristic of several mental illnesses, including depression, schizophrenia, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Intrusive imagery symptoms have been linked to maladaptive memory formation, abnormal visual cortical activity during viewing, gaze pattern deficits, and trait characteristics of mental imagery. Emotional valence of visual stimuli has been shown to alter perceptual processes that influence the direction of attention to visual information, which may result in enhanced attention to suboptimal and generalizable visual properties. This study tested the hypothesis that aberrant gaze patterns to central and peripheral image regions influence the formation of decontextualized visual details which may facilitate involuntary and emotionally negative mental imagery experiences following a stressful or traumatic event. Gaze patterns and hemodynamic response from occipital cortical locations were recorded while healthy participants (N = 39) viewed and imagined scenes with negative or neutral emotional valence. Self-report behavioral assessments of baseline vividness of visual imagery and various cognitive factors were combined with these physiological measures to investigate the potential relationship between visual perception and mental recreation of negative scenes. Results revealed significant effects of task and valence conditions on specific fixation measures and hemodynamic response patterns in ventral visual areas, which interacted with cognitive factors such as imagery vividness and familiarity. Findings further suggest that behaviors observed during mental imagery reveal processes related to representational formation over and above perceptual performance and may be applied to the study of disorders such as PTSD.
Genetic Risk Factors for PTSD: A Gene-Set Analysis of Neurotransmitter Receptors
Lewis, Michael (Virginia Tech, 2020-07-08)
PTSD is a moderately heritable disorder that causes intense and chronic suffering in many afflicted individuals. The pathogenesis of PTSD is not well understood, and genetic mechanisms are particularly elusive. Neurotransmitter systems are thought to contribute to PTSD etiology and are the targets of most pharmacotherapies used to treat PTSD, including the only two FDA approved options and a wide array of off-label options. However, the degree to which variation in genes which encode for and regulate neurotransmitter receptors increase risk of developing PTSD is unclear. Recently, large collaborative groups of PTSD genetics researchers have completed genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using massive sample sizes and have made summary statistics available for public use. In 2018, a new technique for high-powered analysis of GWAS summary statistics called GSA-SNP2 was introduced. In order to explore the relationship between PTSD and genetic variants in widely theorized molecular targets, this study applied GSA-SNP2 to manually curated neurotransmitter receptor gene-sets. Curated gene-sets included nine total "neurotransmitter receptor group" gene-sets and 45 total "receptor subtype" gene-sets. Each "neurotransmitter receptor group" gene-sets was designed to capture concentration of genetic risk factors for PTSD within genes which encode for all receptor subtypes that are activated by a given neurotransmitter. In contrast, "receptor subtype" gene-sets focused on specific subtypes and also accounted for intracellular signaling; each was designed to capture concentration of genetic risk factors for PTSD within genes which encode for specific receptor subtypes and the intracellular signaling proteins through which they exert their effects. Due to practical considerations, this work used summary statistics derived from a GWAS with far fewer participants (2,424 cases; 7,113 controls) than initially planned (23,212 cases; 151,447 controls). Prior to controlling for multiple comparisons, 7 of the investigated gene-sets reached statistical significance at the p ≤ .05 level. However, after controlling for multiple comparisons, none of the investigated gene-sets reached statistical significance. Due to limited statistical power of the current work, these results should be interpreted very cautiously. The current study is best interpreted as a preliminary study and is most informative in relation to refining study design. Implications for next steps are emphasized in discussion and nominally significant results are synthesized with the literature to demonstrate the types of research questions that might be addressed by applying a refined version of this study design to a larger sample.
How does context variability affect representational pattern similarity to support subsequent item memory?
Lim, Ye-Lim (Virginia Tech, 2022-09-13)
Episodic memories are neurally coded records of personally experienced events across a lifetime. These records are encoded via medial temporal lobe structures in the brain, including the hippocampus, and are commonly called "representations" or "memory traces". Existing studies indicate that information about the neural signal corresponding to a memory representation can be found in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data when the pattern across its smallest units (voxels, often 3mm3 sections of the brain) is measured. Many prior studies have measured these voxel patterns in response to stimuli as if they are a spontaneous brain function, regardless of cognitive factors. These studies sometimes find that similarity in the voxel patterns across repetition of a to-be-remembered event predicts later memory retrieval, but the results are inconsistent. The current fMRI study investigated the possibility that cognitive goals during encoding affect the type of neural representation (voxel pattern) that will later support memory retrieval. This seems likely because prior behavioral studies indicate that cognitive variability across repetitions of an event benefits later memory retrieval, which is difficult to reconcile with the common finding that voxel pattern variability across repetitions of an event harms later memory. We tested this hypothesis by comparing voxel patterns that support later memory retrieval to those associated with forgotten items in the medial temporal lobe, including the hippocampus, and lateral occipital cortex. Overall, as previously demonstrated, the behavioral results showed that exposure to variable cognitive goals across repetition of events during encoding benefited subsequent memory retrieval. Voxel patterns in the hippocampus indicated a significant interaction between cognitive goals (variable vs. consistent) and memory (remembered vs. forgotten) such that less voxel pattern similarity for the repeated events with variable cognitive goals, but not consistent cognitive goals, supported later memory success. In other words, variable hippocampal neural activations for the same events under different cognitive goals predicted better later memory performance. However, there was no significant interaction in neural pattern similarity between cognitive goals and memory success in medial temporal cortices or lateral occipital lobe. Instead, higher similarity in voxel patterns in right medial temporal cortices was associated with later memory retrieval, regardless of cognitive goals. In the lateral occipital lobe, the main effects of cognitive goals, hemisphere, and memory success were found but no interactions. In conclusion, we found that the relationship between pattern similarity and memory success in the hippocampus (but not the medial temporal lobe cortex) changes when the cognitive goal during encoding does or does not vary across repetitions of the event.
I Can See What You Are Feeling, but Can I Feel It? Physiological Linkage while Viewing Communication of Emotion via Touch
Kissel, Heather Ann (Virginia Tech, 2022-05-20)
Past research has demonstrated that emotions can accurately be communicated via touch (e.g., Hertenstein, Keltner, App, Bulleit, and Jaskolka, 2006). In stranger female dyads, physiological linkage plays a role in the mechanism whereby this successful communication occurs, as touch strengthens and lengthens linkage (Kissel, 2020). While touch has a direct impact on physiological processes, viewing touch may have similar effects. The current study explored this possibility in regard to physiological linkage. Hertenstein et al., 2006 demonstrated that participants can correctly decode emotions from observing videos of communication via touch to the forearm and hand. The current study replicated this finding with forty-seven female participants, while also determining the levels of physiological linkage between the "live" observers and the video-recorded participants from Kissel (2020) using dynamic linear time series modeling. Results showed that physiological linkage can occur between "live" and recorded participants. Participants demonstrated longer linkage times with the initial dyad they viewed, but linkage with videoed communicators whose communications were correctly perceived by their fellow videoed receiver had a larger influence on emotion word, valence, intensity, and quadrant detection accuracy. Based on these results, physiological linkage may influence empathic accuracy in virtual settings.
Impact of Attitudes on the Relationship between Psychological Symptoms and Help Seeking Behavior in a Black and Non-Black International Sample
Jones, Sydney B. (Virginia Tech, 2024-04-08)
Internationally, members of the African diaspora, (Black people), report higher rates of untreated mental illness than peers of other races. Research has suggested that symptoms associated with poor mental health such as clinical depression and anxiety are associated with negative evaluations of help seeking behaviors such as contacting mental health professionals for care. The current study sought to examine the impact of attitudes toward seeking mental health care on the causal relationship between symptoms of depression, anxiety or stress as measured by the DASS-21 to help seeking behaviors reported by participants. This study further examined the impact of racial identity on this relationship to highlight any discrepancies specific to Black people. This research is intended to help guide and improve outreach, access, and clinical approaches to treating Black people with mental illness. A total of 500 participants were recruited for this study via online surveying software. Participants were divided into two groupings of 250 Black participants and 250 Non-Black participants (N=500) to complete the survey. A moderated mediation analysis was conducted to examine the mediating effects of attitudes towards professional help seeking on the relationship between psychological symptomology and help seeking behaviors, as well as to examine any moderating effects that could be highlighted by racial differences. There was a significant direct relationship between symptoms and help seeking behaviors found with a significant partial mediating effect of participant attitudes on the direct relationship (R2= 0.1521, p=<0.000). Race was not found to be a significant moderator of this mediation (CI95%: -0.001 to 0.004), though race did moderate the direct relationship from symptoms to help seeking behaviors (β= 0.016, SE= 0.0025, t= 6.375, p= < 0.000).
Individual Differences in Preschool Aged Children's Inhibitory Control: Adding Borders to the Day/Night Task
Ross, Alleyne Patricia (Virginia Tech, 2016-04-28)
Inhibitory control is vital to typical development and matures rapidly throughout early childhood. Inhibitory control deficits are seen in both autism spectrum disorders and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and, along with other executive functions, inhibitory control contributes to school success. The tasks used to measure and stress these skills in children have not been fully explored. Even given the cognitive development levels of young children, the current inhibitory control tasks for preschoolers are not completely comparable to the tasks used with adults. For my thesis study, I added a mixed condition to the day/night inhibitory control task in preschool children using methodological design features from the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) Task. This addition allowed the day/night task to serve as a better analogue to the Stroop task, which is an inhibitory control task commonly used with adults. In addition, electroencephalogram (EEG) illuminated the neural patterns of the task in children at age four. This study demonstrated that the borders condition of the day/night task is an appropriate executive function task that can be used with preschool aged children.

Browsing by Author "Diana, Rachel A."

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