Browsing by Subject "Cognitive psychology"
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Item An assessment of visuo-spatial and phonological components of working memory(Texas Tech University, 1997-12) Dunlap, Ronald D.In 1974, Baddeley and Hitch proposed a model of working memory that consisted of a central executive and two slave systems: the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial scratchpad. Since that time, much research(e.g., Baddeley, Lewis, & Vallar, 1984; Kyllonen, 1993) has been completed to provide evidence for the existence of these three components. However, one area that has not been investigated is the role that each of the slave systems contributes to span measures of working memory. Therefore, four studies were conducted to determine the effects of manipulating the contribution of the slave system that was not apparently activated by the task under investigation. The primary hypothesis was that as the contribution of the slave system not under investigation increases, span measures increase as well. A number of secondary hypotheses conceming gender and the relationship between span measures and standardized test scores also were investigated.Item Cognitive Science in technology(2010-12) Cabrera, Victoria Marrujo; Lewis, Kyle, 1961-; Ambler, TonyCognitive Science is an interdisciplinary field that ties together the curricula of liberal arts and technical fields of study. However, it is de-emphasized in technical undergraduate studies such as Engineering. Cognitive Science is essentially the study of the human mind and how humans process information. It is the study of human responses, thinking, and perception. Human behavior and a person’s reaction are undetermined, but it can be better understood. Although human behavior and interaction is a routine part of life, engineers are taught to decipher code and not how to decipher a human’s behavior. Cognitive Science affects all aspects in the work environment. Organizational practices can be improved by understanding common biases and motivational theories in people. Having a cognitive awareness of typical human behavior will help to promote improved communication and positive reactions from people in the workplace. Human behavior is inevitable in any field but more crucial in technical fields especially when there is lack of communication or ambiguous guidelines and definitions. In technical fields, miscommunication or ambiguity can be a matter of life or death. In many situations, miscommunication can drive ambiguity. Although some people are happy with flexible guidelines, others seek to have well defined expectations. How do people react in situations surrounding miscommunication or ambiguity? In both situations, some people create opportunities and others become a hindrance. Processes and procedures can be put in place to alleviate ambiguous situations, but human performance and psychological factors still play a role as well. Human error can result from psychological factors, but the environment can be improved to limit those factors. As with any situation, mishaps are still prone to happen. Although human error is preventable in most cases, it’s never completely unavoidable. Human error continues to be a deep-rooted cause that can lead to negative outcomes. As stated by Alexander Pope, “to err is human…” (Moncur). This paper will explore underlying human behavior in daily activities. By understanding common biases and motivational theories driving human behavior, one can address negative behavior in a technical field in order to create opportunities.Item Precursors of humanistic, existential, and social cognitive approaches in American psychology: the contributions of Emerson and Thoreau(Texas Tech University, 1990-12) Goudie, Andrea KayBefore the inception of psychology as a formal discipline in the late nineteenth century, Emerson and Thoreau articulated what were to become central constructs in twentieth-century American personality theory. This study demonstrates that Emerson and Thoreau have made substantive contributions to humanistic, existential, and social cognitive psychology which have not been given their rightful place in the annals of American psychology. (1) Emerson and Thoreau contributed to the humanistic perspective of Maslow and Rogers. They articulated comparable conceptualizations of self and its positive character, comparable conceptualizations of self as an interactive creator of experience, comparable conceptualizations of the actualizing potential of the self, and comparable conceptualizations of the receptivity of the self to peak experiences. (2) Emerson and Thoreau were formulators of the existential perspective. For them, as for twentieth-century American existentialists, being and nonbeing were central to the human condition. The active human being was subject to contingency but was, simultaneously, a participant in this contingency. Emerson and Thoreau grappled with the conceptualization of the subject-object split, and recognized both personal and cosmic/intrinsic potential. (3) Emerson and Thoreau were contributors to the psychological thought of William James. Emerson in particular laid the foundation for James's conceptualizations of the stream of consciousness, the relationship between the self and consciousness, self as a definer of reality and provider of directionality, and the processes of volition, reasoning, and cognition. (4) Emerson and Thoreau contributed to cognitive theory in a two-pronged manner: Emerson contributed indirectly through the intellectual continuum which extends from him through James to contemporary cognitive theory; and both Emerson and Thoreau contributed directly to Bandura's social cognitive conceptualizations of observational learning, self-efficacy mechanism, self-regulatory agencies, and reciprocal determinism. The study endorses the position that because psychology coalesced out of diverse disciplines, the approach to its study which most successfully avoids both parochial fragmentation and the intellectual counterpart of reinventing the wheel is an understanding and appreciation of its indebtedness to a diversity of contributors.Item Reevaluating the determinants of category-based induction(2010-05) Rein, Jonathan Raymond, 1983-; Markman, Arthur B.; Griffin, Zenzi; Legare, Cristine; Loewenstein, Jeffrey; Maddox, ToddWhat makes one more or less likely to project a novel property from an item to that item’s broader category? Research on category-based induction has documented a consistent typicality effect: typical exemplars promote stronger inferences than atypical exemplars. This work has been largely confined to categories whose central tendencies are the most typical members of the category. Experiments 1 and 2, using natural and artificial categories, showed that central tendencies have greatest induction strength even for categories that are best represented by ideal exemplars. Experiments 3-7 investigate the role of familiarity in induction. Experiments 3 and 4 directly contrast statistical averageness against familiarity through category learning procedures. Experiment 5 creates this contrast through frequency differences across stimuli. Experiments 6 and 7 investigate how the familiarity advantage found in Experiments 3-5 can be modified through fluency manipulations, independent of actual experience. Taken together, these studies suggest that category-based induction is driven largely by a familiarity heuristic.Item A study of the effects of thought suppression techniques(2005) Lin, Yi-Jen; Wicker, Frank W.Item The role of conceptual structure and background knowledge in category learning(Texas Tech University, 1998-12) Johnson, Matthew CarlTwo experiments were conducted in order to determine whether background information acquired by reading from text differentially influences category learning relative to when no background information is provided. Experiment 1 was a control study that compared short and long versions of text containing information that describe the characteristics of different plant features (e.g., roots, stems, leaves, and flowers) and how each is able to adapt to the characteristics of desert and mountain environments. Seventy-two participants sorted eight drawings of plants into two categories (desert and mountain plants) and read either a short list or a longer, more elaborate text describing the characteristics of plant features. Then after reading, they answered comprehension questions over the text until they mastered the information, and then they re-sorted the plants again. The results indicated that learners applied what they had read when resorting as evidenced by fewer errors relative to initial sort patterns. Experiment 2 compared the learning of linearly separable and non-linearly separable concepts for groups of participants that either received no background information (no text), read background information from a text to a high level of mastery (comprehensive text), or read at their own discretion prior to learning (available text). After participants completed one error free run through the eight training stimuli, they classified old training items and eight new transfer items. The results indicate that requiring participants to fully comprehend the text (the comprehensive text group) facilitated learning of the linearly separable concepts, but not non-linearly separable concepts. This finding is consistent with the assumption that learning is enhanced when the items to be learned do not violate background knowledge, as was the case for the comprehensive text group who learned the linearly separable concepts. In addition, transfer performance for the available and comprehensive text groups was driven more on what they had read relative to how similar the items were to past examples. However, exemplar similarity was predominantly used by all groups after learning non-linearly separable concepts. These findings were interpreted as supporting a mixed representational model that accounts for both exemplar similarity and background knowledge.