Undergraduate Honors Projects 2005-2006

Past Undergraduate Honors Projects

Undergraduate Honors 2005-2006

Michelle Baldwin

Positive Bias in Perception of Physical Discipline

Advisors: Dr. Jennifer Freyd and Lisa Cromer

Recent research show that the general population tends to be very accepting of physical discipline by parents; survey results range from 70-88% approval of spanking or slapping (Bower-Russa, 2005). Endorsement of violent methods of discipline is significantly correlated with both the practice and severity of physical discipline (Scholar & Stein, 1995) and the abuse rate among parents endorsing physical discipline is four times higher than among those who do not (Straus, 1992). Attitudes towards discipline are significantly influenced by personal experience (Bower-Russa, 2005); people tend to endorse and view more positively forms of discipline that they have experienced. This can be partly explained by the Pollyanna Principle (Matlin & Stang, 1978) which predicts that people are more likely to interpret and remember experiences as more positive than they actually are. The current study examines positive bias specifically in memory for physical discipline situations. Participants were shown sets of images depicting scenarios in which parent figures disciplined child figures using either physical or verbal methods. Participants memory for the images was tested by showing participants a video comprised of the previously viewed (target) images and of altered versions of those images that were either more positive or negative than the target images. Participants were asked to indicate if each image in the video was the same or different from those in the set they had viewed earlier. For each participant, a valence score was calculated indicating whether they reported having seen more positive or negative images, ranging from -18 (most negative) to 18 (most positive). For the verbal discipline scenario, the mean score was .91, indicating a slight significant positive bias, t(76)=.036, p<.05. For the physical discipline scenario, the mean score was 6.67, indicating a strong significant positive bias, t(76)=14.618, p<.01. Comparison of the two mean scores showed that the positive bias was significantly stronger in the physical discipline scenario, t(152)=-9.322, p<.01. This study also examined participants attitudes towards and experiences with various forms of parental discipline.

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Tabitha Bolton

Taxonomy of Imaginary Companions

Advisor: Dr. Marjorie Taylor

Imaginary companions come in all shapes and sizes. In order to provide information about the diversity of imaginary companions, we have created a database of imaginary companions descriptions collected from various studies in the past decade. This study examines the influence of data source in relation to the types of imaginary companions that are created by children and adults alike by looking at descriptions of such friends provided by parents, children, and adults who recall their own companions from childhood. In addition to examining the diversity in types of imaginary companions, this study sought to establish a method of systematic record keeping for the collection of imaginary companion descriptions compiled in the Imagination Lab at the University Of Oregon.

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Michelle Harrison

The Mediation of Executive Functioning Between Parenting Styles and ToM

Advisor: Dr. Lou Moses

This research investigated the individual differences in theory of mind (ToM) and executive functioning (EF) in preschool-age children. The relationship between parenting styles and ToM was also investigated, and specifically examined EF as a possible mediator between parenting styles and ToM. A sample of 3.5- to 5.5-year-old children (N = 23) were run through a series of EF and ToM tasks while parents filled out a Parenting Style Questionnaire. It was hypothesized that a positive relationship would be found between Authoritative parenting and EF, as well as between parenting styles and ToM. After running a correlational analysis, a significant relationship was found between ToM and Authoritative parenting styles, r=.484, p<.05. Future studies should use broader, more diverse populations to capture a more representative sample, as well as include supplementary tasks to further investigate EF skills. Limitations are also discussed.

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Laura Johnson

Temperament and Strategies for Activational and Inhibitory Control

Advisors: Dr. Mary Rothbart and Jessica Kieras

Inhibitory control (the capacity to suppress inappropriate approach behavior) and Activational control (the capacity to perform an action when there is a strong tendency to avoid it) are of particular importance to the study of self regulation and temperamental differences in attention. These types of control are two areas used to measure temperamental Effortful Control. The researchers combined a measure of strategies used to engage in behaviors that require Inhibitory control or Activational control with Evans and Rothbarts Adult Temperament Questionnaire (short form). Strategies were categorized as Effortful, Mental, or Task management. The researchers also assessed participant focus on the potential punishments or rewards associated with activating or inhibiting a behavior. Through statistical analysis, the researchers found that people high in Negative Affect reported using more strategies which focused on the potential detriments of failing to control their behavior. Persons high in Extraversion/Surgency reported more strategies focusing on the potential benefits of regulating their behavior. Temperamental Effortful Control correlated with the use of Effortful type strategies and the use of strategies in general. This study adds to the body of research aimed at helping individuals more effectively regulate their behavior.

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John Knorek

Narcissism and Self-Perception Biases

Advisor: Dr. Sanjay Srivastava

This study examined narcissists self-perception biases in 117 same-sex dyads. We analyzed correlations between narcissism and self-enhancement of personality traits associated with either egoistic or moralistic biases. The egoistic bias is a tendency to overestimate ones own power, status, and agency, whereas the moralistic bias a tendency to overestimate ones own likeability and agreeableness. Narcissism was measured with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI); self-enhancement bias was operationalized as the difference between self-ratings and partner ratings on a variety of trait measures. NPI scores were significantly correlated with the egoistic self-enhancement bias (power and extraversion) but not with the moralistic self-enhancement bias (agreeableness and conscientiousness). Ways to better measure certain self-enhancement biases and the usefulness they will have in understanding narcissism are discussed.

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Kelsey McAlpine

The Original and Induced Roelofs Effects: Can the Same Shift in the Apparent Midline Explain both Illusions?

Advisor: Dr. Paul Dassonville

Roelofs (1935) demonstrated that when shown a rectangular frame offset left or right from straight-ahead, observers would consistently underestimate the eccentricity of that frame. This phenomenon became known as the (original) Roelofs effect. Later work by Bridgeman, Peery, and Anand (1997) showed that observers would misperceive the location of a target dot when it was presented within an offset frame, with the target seen to be shifted in the opposite direction of the frame (the induced Roelofs effect). Various studies have demonstrated that both the original and induced Roelofs effects can be explained by a shift in the observers apparent midline towards the center of the offset frame (Werner, Wapner, and Bruell, 1953; Dassonville, Bridgeman, Bala, Thiem, & Sampanes, (2004); Dassonville & Bala, 2004). However, a study by de Grave, Brenner, and Smeets (2002) suggests that the same shift in the apparent midline cannot explain both illusions. In light of possible confounds found in the de Grave study, an experiment was designed to retest the hypothesis that both the original and induced Roelofs effects could be explained by the same shift in the apparent midline. Results from this initial experiment replicated the finding of an original Roelofs effect, but failed to find a significant induced effect. A second experiment, designed to be more similar to previous ones demonstrating an induced Roelofs effect, replicated the finding of an induced effect, but now failed to find the original Roelofs effect. Although it is unclear why we are unable to find both an induced and original Roelofs effect in the same paradigm, this inability does seem to indicate that both effects cannot be explained by the same shift in the apparent midline.

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Jayne Mercer

Cross Cultural Differences in Attitudes and Beliefs about Intimate Partner Violence

Advisor: Jeff Todahl

The current study seeks to better understand the cross cultural differences in the attitudes and beliefs about intimate partner violence or interpersonal violence (IPV) based on ethnic identity. Research has shown that IPV does not discriminate between culture, age, socioeconomic status, gender, etc., but very little is understood about how specific ethnicities differ in their attitudes and beliefs about IPV. This study proposes to assess the attitudes and beliefs of a diverse population of students at the University of Oregon by means of an online survey consisting of three questionnaires. The first questionnaire assessed a subjects cultural identification, the second assessed the subjects attitude and beliefs about wife beating, and the third assessed a subjects attitudes and beliefs about IPV. The goal of this study is to better understand the way in which culture influences attitudes and beliefs about IPV and possibly be able to better serve its victims and perpetrators with this more in depth understanding. Data is currently being analyzed.

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Kristina Mullins

When students discuss diversity, what do they talk about?

Advisors: Dr. Holly Arrow and Jasmine Lam

Thirty groups of five students who shared the same ethnic/racial identity (15 groups) or had diverse identities (15 groups) discussed the climate for diversity at the University of Oregon (UO). Computerized text analysis of transcripts was used to examine the frequency with which twenty-eight topics related to diversity were discussed. The relative frequency of associated terms differed in common and diverse identity group conversations for 13 topics. Topics that came up more often in common than in diverse identity groups were definitions of diversity, the Universitys commitment to diversity, whether or not the campus is diverse, quantity of diversity, comparisons, settings on campus, regions of the United States, social categories, religion, ideologies, and identities (all p<.05). Diverse identity groups discussed language and nationality more often than common identity groups (p<.001). A post hoc division of groups into those composed mostly or entirely of students belonging to the ethnic/racial minority (Anglo/European-American/Caucasian, 15 groups) and those composed mostly or entirely of students with an ethnic/racial minority identity (15 groups) was used to check whether the common/diverse differences might be equally well explained by majority/minority status. Majority groups matched the common identity groups on all topics except for the Universitys commitment to diversity. These groups also used significantly more affirmative-toned terms than minority-dominated groups. Minority groups matched the diverse group pattern except that they solely discussed ability, a topic that included terms related to disabilities. Results suggest that common identity and majority groups focused more on differing categorizations of people, beliefs, and lifestyles and allocated more of the discussion to quantifying and comparing diversity levels at UO. Diverse identity and minority groups tended to discuss a broader range of topics, including issues related to adjustment, as indicated by the focus on nationality, languages, and abilities.

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Keely Muscatell

Stressful Life Events, Chronic Difficulties, and Symptoms of Clinical Depression

Advisor: Dr. Scott Monroe

Acute, major life events have found to be associated with depression onset and symptom specificity, but little is known about the relationship between chronic stress and these characteristics of depression. Employing an investigator-based measure of life stress with 100 individuals diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) we assessed acute and chronic stress and determined whether or not each participant had experienced a major difficulty or a severe stressful life event prior to depression onset. Severe stressful life events were found to be associated with heightened depression severity levels, lower levels of global functioning, and increased presentation of sad mood, hopelessness, and crying. Major difficulties occurring prior to depression onset were found to be unrelated to differences in depression severity, symptom patterns, and global functioning. These findings are discussed in terms of the differential roles that acute and chronic stressors play in the presentation of MDD.

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David Osborn

Individuals Willingness to Risk Death for Their Country

Advisors: Dr. Holly Arrow and Dr. John Orbell

This paper presents a review and analysis of the relevant literature. A variety of disciplines were reviewed, including sociology, anthropology, political science, military history, and psychology. The theories are organized into those that have a cultural or biological (evolutionary) emphasis. This willingness is also explored in its pre-modern manifestations in order to better understand its development from earlier forms of social organization to that of the nation. The analysis suggests that this willingness utilizes evolved mental mechanisms that served group identification and between-group conflict in small kin based groups. Such a willingness requires a strong affective component that is provided for by kin-like identifications with the nation. A case study of the breakup of Yugoslavia highlights the application of this type of analysis.

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Emily Peterson

Suppressing Visual Memories Through Executive Control

Advisor: Dr. Michael Anderson

Forgetting is often perceived as the challenge one must overcome to have a good memory, when in fact, forgetting is actually an important component in maintaining a good memory. If people remembered everything from their daily lives, they would be overloaded with unimportant thoughts, making it hard to recognize relevant information. For example, if one remembered every parking place ones car had ever occupied, it would become difficult to bring to mind only the current parking place. Irrelevant or intrusive thoughts can also be distracting and unpleasant. For these reasons the ability to push information out of mind can be a useful skill. For instance, if ones favorite restaurant changed location, one would benefit from pushing the memory of the old location from mind, so that one can now remember the new location. Being able to forget is a useful component of memory that allows people to focus on, and therefore, remember only relevant information from their surroundings. This study, using the Think/No-Think paradigm, attempted to determine how actively avoiding thought for a visual image would affect a persons ability to later recognize that item. The stimuli used were neutral words paired with complex visual-spatial pictures of neutral faces or natural places. The results indicate that relative to a perceptual baseline, there is an overall inhibition for items that were actively not thought about when collapsed across the faces and places stimuli. These findings validate the hypothesis that actively avoiding thought of a picture leads to impaired recognition of that picture at a later time. The final recognition test showed that when subjects were later presented with the word-picture pair that they had actively avoided thinking about, they were less confident that they had even ever seen that word-picture pair before. Further support for this paradigm showed that actively thinking of a picture in some cases facilitated memory of that word-picture pair, but this was not consistent across all stimuli. These findings support the everyday use of memory inhibition by indicating that humans have executive control over what they think or dont think about, which later influences what they remember. If people choose to avoid thinking about a picture, even when presented with its cue, they can actually inhibit that memory, making it harder to recognize at a later time.

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Emery Pinkert

The Geometry of Perception: Distortions of the Apparent Midline in the Induced Roelofs Effect

Advisor: Dr. Paul Dassonville

Previous research by Mergner, Nasios, Maurer & Becker (2001) has provided evidence that the apparent midline (or an observers perception of straight ahead) plays a fundamental role in our ability to locate objects in space. Despite the apparent midlines potential fundamental importance in our ability to locate objects, our perception of straight ahead is vulnerable to errors (Dassonville & Bala 2004a, 2004b; Dassonville, Bridgeman, Bala, Thiem, & Sampanes, 2004; Werner, Wapner, & Bruell, 1953). In the present experiment, we examined the distortion of the apparent midline caused by the induced Roelofs effect (Dassonville & Bala 2004a, 2004b; Dassonville et al., 2004) using stimuli presented in three-dimensional space to determine the geometry in which the apparent midline is distorted. Previous research has suggested that the distortion may be a rotation, translation, or warping (Vallar, Guariglia, Nico, & Bisiach, 1995; Ferber and Karnath, 1999; Gogel and MacCracken, 1979). The perceptual errors for targets located at different depths from observers were compared to the errors predicted by the three potential types of distortion. Two experiments were run, the second to address potential confounds in the initial design. The data from both experiments suggests that the geometry of the midline distortion is predominately a rotation. However, the axis of rotation indicated by the data is significantly behind the eyes (and head) suggesting that the distortion could include an additional translation component. The potential for a translational component may be supported by previous work indicating eye dominance switching based on stimulus characteristics and eye position in azimuth (Khan and Crawford, 2003; Banks, Ghose & Hillis, 2004).

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Leslie Sanchez

Reacting to Potential Prejudice: Implications for Interactions with Stigmatized Others

Advisor: Jonathan Cook

Because social stigmas are devalued, individuals with stigmatized identities may be more likely than others to be cautious in social interactions with new acquaintances. Such a strategy might be useful, for example, in evaluating the safety or prejudice level of a new acquaintance in order to avoid psychological or even physical danger. To test this hypothesis, we studied dyadic interactions between stigmatized and non-stigmatized participants. Participants with either a visible or concealable stigma were paired off with participants with no identifiable stigma and left alone to interact with each other for five minutes. These interactions were videotaped and coded for subjects comfort level, depth of personal disclosures, number of questions asked, and number of encouraging comments. We hypothesized that relative to non-stigmatized participants, stigmatized individuals would be less comfortable during the interaction, disclose less personal information, ask more questions, and encourage interaction partners to reveal more about themselves. Contrary to predictions, stigmatized participants were no less comfortable than non-stigmatized participants and did not disclose less. In fact, there was a general trend toward greater comfort and depth of disclosures among stigmatized participants. There were no significant differences between the groups with respect to questions and encouraging behavior. Results suggest that the way stigmatized individuals may be cautious in social interactions with new acquaintances may be profiled differently than hypothesized above.

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Carissa Sharp

Self/Other Overlap with God: Gender and Denominational Effects

Advisor: Dr. Sara Hodges

Self/other overlap is the perception having an overarching sense of we rather than you and me with an other. It has previously been studied in regards to the relationship between a person and a concrete other, such as romantic partner, but not in the relationship between a person and his or her concept of the divine. This study assesses members of Christian congregations including Unitarian Universalist, Presbyterian, Catholic, Seventh-Day Adventist, and Foursquare in order to determine whether there are differences in self/other overlap with God due to gender or denomination. Questionnaires are used to measure participants self/other overlap with God as well as factors such as religiosity, biblical foundationalism, sexism, right-wing authoritarianism, and collectivism, which may influence a persons perceived relationship with God.

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Andrew Shipley

The Development of Altruistic Preference: a cross-cultural study

Advisor: Dr. William Harbaugh

A cross-cultural developmental study is being conducted to measure youth preference for altruistic versus selfish behavior in Eugene, Oregon and the Pastaza province of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Rational choice models of human motivation and behavior predict individual maximization in social dilemma situations. This prediction has failed, however, to receive empirical support. Instead, significant variation both within and between cultures has been demonstrated in individuals preference for altruistic and selfish behavior. No cross-cultural developmental research exists to explain this variation in adult behavior or to map its developmental trajectory. In the current study, a mixture of decision and game theoretic tasks were used to assess the altruistic preference of children ages 6 to 15. Seeking to isolate degree of capitalist market integration, a predictor variable often implicated in between cultures variance, the study included participants in Oregon public schools and participants in remote Shuar villages of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Pending the completion of data analysis, this study seeks to map the development of altruistic preference across an important maturational period. The question of starting-state universality in human altruistic preference will be explored and key periods of socialization and cultural divergence will be identified.

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Lily Shipsey

Stressful Impairment of PPI and Asymmetry Effects in Schizotypy

Advisor: Dr. Patricia M. White

Attenuated pre-pulse inhibition of the startle blink reflex has been found in schizophrenia (Braff et al., 1978) and schizotypy (Cadenhead, Geyer and Braff, 1993) and is thought to reflect impaired sensorimotor gating. Although atypical laterality has been found in dichotic listening tasks for paranoid schizophrenics (for a review, see Romney, Mosely & Addington, 2000) differences in response laterality have not been examined for PPI in schizotypy and schizophrenia. This research examines atypical response laterality in schizotypal subjects by measuring PPI independently from both eyes during a dichotic listening task during both baseline and stressor conditions in 9 controls and 9 psychometric schizotypals. In a repeated-measures ANOVA with IV of eye, ear, condition and group, a main effect of condition showed impaired PPI during stress for each of the four lead intervals measured. Across conditions, PPI at each eye was diminished for probes administered through concordant ears at all lead intervals. For 120 ms probes administered binaurally, the groups showed similar PPI response in right and left eyes during baseline, but the groups showed opposite patterns of laterality impairment in right and left eyes during stress. In a pre-planned comparison of baseline PPI, schizotypals tended to have impaired PPI at 60ms but not at other intervals relative to controls. Correlational analyses reveal relationships between symptoms of schizotypy and laterality differences in both conditions, with higher symptom scores related to decreased PPI in the left eye and when sounds are delivered through the left ear. In summary, this research suggests that stress impairs short lead PPI across groups, that some symptoms of schizotypy are related to decreased PPI, and that laterality differences between groups arise during stress at 120ms lead intervals.

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Allison Sinclair

Interacting with Depressed Adolescents: Is it Aversive to Parents?

Advisor: Lisa Sheeber

The purpose of this study was to examine whether interacting with depressed adolescents has an adverse effect on parents emotional states (examining the potential adverse effects depressed adolescents have on their parents). Methods employed during data collection involved a two gate recruitment procedure consisting of a school assessment and an in-home diagnostic interview. The CES-D and the KSAD-S questionnaire scores from the two interviews were used to place participants into one of three groups; depressed, healthy, or subclinical. Certain selected families then participated in a family interaction assessment. Pre and post interactions scores evaluating levels of hostility, depression, and positive affect in each family member was determined by a self administered questionnaire. Pre scores evaluated participants emotions before the interaction, post scores measured participants levels of emotions during the interaction. Participants were 246 adolescents and their parents. We hypothesized that there would be a group by time interaction, indicating that parents of depressed adolescents were more depressed, more hostile, and had less positive affect than parents of adolescents in the other two groups, post problem solving interaction. Analyses were run separately for mothers and fathers, as well as for each emotion. The results of the repeated measures analyses did not support our hypothesis or past research in this area. This indicates that more research in the field of adolescent depression must be done in order to isolate more accurately some of the main contributors in terms of family functioning in an effort to develop more effective treatments and preventions.

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Andrea Stull

Observer Explanations for Stereotypic and Counterstereotypic Behaviors & the Role of Explanations in Stereotype Change

Advisor: Jonathan Cook

One theory of stereotype change suggests that thinking about convincing explanations for counterstereotypic behavior may prompt people to re-think and modify a group stereotype. Past research has had mixed success in determining the validity of this theory, perhaps in part because experimenter-derived explanations have not been particularly convincing to participants. We were interested in exploring the role of participant-generated explanations in stereotype change and the possibility of systematic differences between explanations for stereotypic versus counterstereotypic behavior. Participants were presented with identical images of either an elderly man (study 1) or an Asian woman (study 2) and asked to provide explanations for the persons behavior. Explanations were coded using an adaptation of Malles (2001) F.Ex coding scheme. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed that participants presented with a counterstereotypic target provided more intentional (reason and causal history) explanations and fewer unintentional (cause) explanations than participants presented with a stereotypic target. Contrary to expectations, there was no effect of generating explanations on stereotypic belief measures. Results are consistent with theories of subtyping, which suggest that counterstereotypic behavior is often seen as unrepresentative of a group, allowing perceivers to maintain stereotypic beliefs in the face of disconfirmation (Rothbart, 1981; Weber & Crocker, 1983). Thus one of the cognitive mechanisms underlying subtyping may be the generation of intentional attributions for counterstereotypic behavior.

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Shawn Vallereux

Are Extraverts Happier? Situation Matters: A Day Reconstruction Method

Advisor: Dr. Sanjay Srivastava

In a recent study, R.E. Lucas and E. Diener (2001) argued that reward sensitivity comprises the core feature of Extraversion. We accept their argument, though believe that a daily-diary type method is a necessary next step in testing this theory. In the present study, a Day Reconstruction Method (Kahneman, 2003) is utilized to test the reward-sensitivity hypothesis against a potentially competing hypothesis that extraverts select more enjoyable social situations than introverts. Data from a sample of 109 respondents were used to test the 2 hypotheses with a repeated measure of happiness on multiple reconstructed episodes. The results clearly show support for the situation-selection hypothesis with no support being found for reward-sensitivity.

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Kristin Williamson

The Influence of Language on Visual Selective Attention

Advisor:Dr. Edward Awh

Previous studies have indicated that sensory experience can modify attentional processing. Here we present evidence that language experience may modify target discrimination ability in the four quadrants of the visual field. Observers reported the identity of a single target digit that was presented either within a dense array of letter distractors (noise trials) or alone in the visual field (clean trials). Virtually all monolingual English speakers showed a significant deficit in discrimination ability in the upper-left quadrant, as demonstrated by low response accuracy, compared to performance in the other three quadrants. This asymmetry was found only with the noise trials, suggesting that it relates specifically to the resolution of visual interference rather than target signal enhancement. In contrast, subjects whose native language was Korean, Chinese, or Japanese showed either significantly lower discrimination ability in the bottom two quadrants of the visual field, or an overall null result, raising the hypothesis that long-term experience with English characters influenced the efficiency of interference resolution with these stimuli. In support of this claim, similar patterns were observed across both language groups when non-alphabetic distractors were presented, indicating that experience with written language modified the efficiency of interference resolution across quadrants.

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Undergraduate Honors 2004-2005

Will Backner

Reciprocal Affect During Peer Interaction Tasks: Differences Between Normative and Antisocial Teens and Between Genders

Advisor: Dr. Thomas Dishion

Friendships influence both children and adult's development. This makes the study of friendships important to the way that children develop and to the way adults see the world and change as they grow older. In this study, data taken from videotapes of a teen and their same sex friend interacting will be used to examine the way that teens respond to the affect of their friends. The data is comprised of affect codes and time stamps that records a teen's affect throughout the peer interaction. Statistical analyses will be done to determine whether the teens reciprocate the affect of their friends and the way that this reciprocation may differ between genders and between antisocial and normal teens. It is hypothesized that females will reciprocate affect at a higher rate than males, and that normal teens will reciprocate more than antisocial teens. If these hypotheses are supported, it will lend insight to what makes friendships "good." It may also give us insight into why antisocial people have difficulties with relationships throughout their lives.

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Sara Banks

Spatial perception and spatial working memory in schizotypy

Advisor: Dr. Patricia White

Deficits in spatial perception (Hardoy et al., 2004) and in spatial but not object working memory impairment (e.g., Tek et al., 2002) have been found in schizophrenic patients relative to controls. Recent research suggests that some cognitive deficits observed in patients with schizophrenia also can be found in individuals diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder, although spatial perception and spatial working memory were not tested (Matsui, Sumiyoshi, Kato, Yoneyama, and Kurachi, 2004). This study used the brief form of the Benton Judgment of Line Orientation task (BJLO) to assess spatial perception and spatial working memory in nine subjects psychometrically assessed with schizotypal personality disorder versus 15 control subjects. In standard administration, BJLO assesses spatial perception while delaying response to a spatial template forces subjects to retain spatial relationships in working memory. Right and left hemifield responses were grouped separately under both standard and delayed administration to test for laterality deficits known to be present in schizophrenia, but not yet tested in schizotypy. In comparison of standard to delayed stimulus presentation, a trend for delayed response x laterality was observed in schizotypal but not control subjects. During the delayed response task, which tapped spatial working memory, deficits in the right hemifield performance were observed in schizotypal subjects, suggesting deficits in left hemisphere function for spatial working memory but not standard administration or spatial perception. This finding is consistent with research showing deficits in spatial working memory tasks in schizophrenia and suggests another possible link in neurocognitive performance between schizotypy and schizophrenia.

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Kindra Carroll

Stressful Disruption of Attentional Networks in Schizotypy?

Advisor: Dr. Patricia White

Schizotypy is considered to fall within the schizophrenia spectrum, (e.g. Kendler, Gruenberg, & Strauss, 1981) and schizotypal subjects possess some attentional impairments relative to controls (for a review see Raine, 1995) although components of visual attention are not yet well studied. In normal subjects, at least 3 networks play a role in visual attention, alerting, orienting and executive control (Fossella, Posner, Fan, Swanson, & Pfaff, 2001). In this study, visual attentional networks were assessed during baseline and stressor conditions in 9 psychometric schizotypal and 15 normal comparison subjects using the Attentional Networking Task (ANT). Stress was manipulated by instructing subjects that performance was being videotaped for review by a panel of experts. Reaction times during stress showed a significant delay across groups for the alerting network but not orienting or executive function. This finding is consistent with the relationship of noradrenalin to alerting observed in previous research and also serves as manipulation check for the efficacy of the intended stressor. When right and left-handed responses were grouped separately and compared across tasks, schizotypals tended to differ from controls in responses to the executive control network only. During baseline and stress, controls showed greater difference between congruent and incongruent targets (measure of executive control) in left than right-handed responses, while schizotypals failed to show laterality differences during baseline but not stress. While preliminary, these results may suggest altered executive control in schizotypy and possible dysfunction of the dopamine neurotransmitter which is associated with the executive control network.

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Nicole Chiapella

Disorganization in the adult attachment interview: Physiological differences between the secure and unresolved classifications

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Ablow

The unresolved classification in the Adult Attachment Interview is indicative of the worst outcomes for children including psychopathology, clinical anxiety and depression. This classification is characterized by brief periods of disorganized speech and lapses in monitoring and discourse. It was hypothesized that during the periods of disorganization present in women classified as unresolved would be heightened physiologically when compared to women classified as secure. Physiology is indicative of behavior as well as a person's ability to regulate themselves using their autonomic nervous system. The measures of heart rate and respiration sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were compared between the two groups. An independent samples t-test found that women classified as unresolved showed a significant increase in RSA during periods of disorganization when compared to when women classified as secure were discussing loss during the course of the interview. This result supported the hypothesis that physiology would be heightened for women classified as unresolved.

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Barbara Cichosz

Perceptions of Diversity in the Self and Others

Advisor: Dr. Sara Hodges

The current study seeks to capture individuals' diversity, their perceptions towards identity features and the ways these perceptions interact with their knowledge of others. Participants were 70 undergraduates at the University of Oregon. A three-part questionnaire asked participants to identify themselves on a variety of social identity features within the "ADDRESSING" model (Hays, 1996, 2001) and to rate the valence and strength these features had on their lives currently. Participants also indicated their knowledge of the social identity features in three other people in their lives now. Contrary to hypotheis, there was no significant difference between modal and non-modal participants' knowledge of others. Results also suggest that participants whose identity features made them non-modal within the sample rated the features that made them non-modal as having a less positive influence on their lives than did participants who were modal for these features.

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Alicia Craven

Infants' Segmentation of Dynamic Action: The Effect of Familiarization to Novel Stimuli

Advisor: Dr. Dare Baldwin

Every day, infants observe and make sense of the complex, dynamic actions of the people around them. One strategy both adults and infants use to make sense of this action stream is segmenting the ongoing act into its smaller-level intentional component (i.e. -- cleaning a kitchen is processed as reaching for a towel, picking up a dish, etc.). This study investigated the extent of 10- to 11-month-old infants' action segmenting skills (N=16), and how these skills are effected by infants' previous level of familiarity to an action sequence. After an initial period of familiarization to a video of continuous, everyday action, infants were shown a series of eight test trials (4 of which involved the movie seen during familiarization, and 4 of which were entirely novel to the infant) that highlighted either the completion of intentional acts (endpoint test videos), or moments that occurred n the midst of intentional acts (midpoint test videos). Infants showed a crossover pattern of results such that they looked longer at endpoint test videos when the stimuli were novel, and longer at midpoint test videos when they'd had previous exposure to the stimuli. These findings demonstrate that infants actively engage in online segmentation of dynamic action, and that their action processing strategies change depending on their familiarity with the action they're viewing. Implications for autism are also discussed.

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Natalie Davis

Demand Characteristics and Response Biases on the MMPI-2

Advisor: Dr. Jason Quiring

The current study was designed to measure the effect of artificial demand characteristic instructions for inducing response biases and measuring the effects of those biases between two subject groups: (1) subjects who were instructed to lie that everything was going well for them, and (2) subjects who were instructed that they had many problems in life including many mental health problems. An overall significant difference was found between subjects who were directed to 'lie bad' and those directed to 'lie good.' Results suggested that the MMPI-2 successfully detected a difference in people presenting in an overly healthy or unhealthy way. This study adds to the discussion about how institutional demand characteristics may elicit patients' response biases on measures of psychopathology; and, understanding these effects is important for our ability to accurately diagnose, medicate and treat patients with psychopathology.

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Wanda Dixon

Rule Compliance in Individuals with High-Functioning Autism and Asperger Syndrome

Advisor: Dr. Debra Eisert

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) recently accepted high-functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger's Syndrome (AS) as disorders on the Autism Spectrum. There is an ongoing debate and continuing research on whether these two disorders are distinct conditions. This study looks at rule compliance in these two groups to determine if there is a difference in how they understand and comply with rules. A total of 18 parents, of adolescents aged 11 to 18 and identified with either HFA or AS, answered a 37-item questionnaire regarding rules compliance by their teens. The results demonstrate that the two groups differed significantly overall in their compliance with AS adolescents being more resistant to compliance.

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John Downes

Gender, Affect and Decision Making

Advisor: Dr. Ellen Peters

A series of two studies related decision making to affect and gender. In Study 1, participants responded to a series of questions measuring the attractiveness of a $9 bet in a Loss and a No loss condition and affect to that $9 bet (ie, how "good or bad" they felt about it). In Study 2, they rated their perceived risk of nuclear power when "nuclear power" was written in either a nice font or an ugly font. Findings were mixed when considering the hypothesis that women may use more affect in the decision making process. On the attractiveness scale men found the bet more attractive, in both the Loss and the No loss conditions. On the affect scale of "good/bad" men also felt more affect to the $9. Lastly, women rated the perceived risk of nuclear power higher than men on its own but the risk ratings of men were higher in the ugly font versus nice font condition while women's ratings were not influenced by the font. This gender difference may have been due to the ceiling effect for women's risk ratings.

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Scott Fraundorf

Betrayal trauma and attention: Emotional processing systems affect response to trauma related information

Advisor: Dr. Michael Posner and Dr. Mary Rothbart

This study examined the influence of an emotional set on processing of negative words related to trauma. Participants who were high or low on a scale of trauma experiences were randomly assigned to complete either an emotional writing task or a neutral writing task, designed to establish either an emotional or a more neutral processing set. Following this task all participants pressed one of four computer keys to indicate the color of words presented by computer. Each word was either emotionally neutral or trauma related. Data will be collected during April and early May 2005 and presented in terms of reaction time differences between neutral and trauma words. The results are expected to support the hypothesis that participants who experienced trauma respond more slowly to the trauma words than the neutral words when primed with the emotional task but respond to both categories at the same speed when primed with a neutral task. Participants who have not experienced trauma are hypothesized to respond at the same speed regardless of prime. These results would suggest that an individual's response to trauma related information depends on whether he or she has been set to use an emotional or neutral processing system.

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Christina Gamache Martin

The Relationship of ADHD Symptomatology and Teachers' Perceptions of Maltreatment Effects on Children's Learning and Behavior

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Freyd and Lisa Cromer

Stimulant medication sales increased 500 percent between 1991 and 1999 (U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, 2000). Has ADHD become an epidemic: Or, has there been a massive increase in the over-diagnosis of ADHD (Leslie, 2004)? Weinstein et al. (2000) reported that ADHD presentation in children resembles trauma symptoms. Further, maltreated children are often diagnosed with both ADHD and PTSD (McLeer et al., 1994). ADHD (Forness & Kavale, 2001) and maltreated children (Trocme & Caunce, 1995) are also largely represented in special education. Nearly one-third of children in special education are maltreated (Sullivan & Knutson, 2000). Similarity between ADHD and trauma symptomatology calls etiology into question. Because of teachers' important roles in children's lives, this study examines teachers' perceptions of maltreatment effects, beliefs about stimulant medication and the causes of ADHD, and motivations for special education referral. Teachers (N = 156) completed an internet survey. As predicted, teachers' described maltreated children as exhibiting many ADHD symptoms. However, teachers believing ADHD to be biological were not more likely to support stimulant medication use, and teachers who supported stimulant medication use were not more likely to refer students for special education. Implications for maltreated children identified as having ADHD are discussed.

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Mary Gray

Betrayal Trauma, Acculturation and Historical Grief among Native Americans

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Freyd and Lisa Cromer

Since European contact, Native Americans have experienced loss of life, land, and culture causing intergenerational trauma and unresolved grief (Yellow Horse Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998). Not surprisingly, identification with Native American heritage has been found to be affected by the individual's level of acculturation in, or resistance to, dominant white culture, as well as ownership of traditional customs and beliefs (Garrett & Pichette, 2000). Acculturation studies in the extant literature report ways to measure acculturation and discuss the relationship between acculturation and psychological health. They do not however, examine the relationship of acculturation to intergenerational trauma. The current research documents prevalence rates of historical grief and betrayal trauma to better understand how these relate to Native American identity and acculturation. Native Americans in Oregon (N = 46) participated in the study. Participants completed the Historical Losses Scale (Whitbeck et al., 2004) Native American Acculturation Scale (Garrett & Pichette, 2000) and the Brief Betrayal Trauma Survey (Goldberg & Freyd, under review). As predicted betrayal trauma is negatively correlated to acculturation r = -.256, p<.05, meaning that Native Americans who are less acculturated to dominant white culture experience more trauma. Results are discussed in relation to historical losses and Native American diversity.

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Andrea Hopkins

Activation asymmetry of prepulse inhibition in high and low trait anxious females during stress

Advisor: Dr. Patricia White

The startle blink (muscle reflex to loud sounds) is reliably reduced in humans and other species when preceded by a weak pre-stimulus (Dawson, Schell, Swerdlow, & Filion, 1997). This pre-pulse inhibition (PPI) is hypothesized to reflect an automatic pre-attentive inhibitory process that protects initial processing of the auditory prepulse by dampening effects of startling stimuli (Dawson et al., 1997) indexing sensory filtering. PPI is disrupted in schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders (Filion, Dawson, & Schell, 1998) although PPI has not been well-examined in anxiety disorders other than PTSD. Possible laterality shifts associated with anxiety were assessed using a dichotic listening task and bilateral eye recording during baseline and stress conditions in 8 high trait anxious and 12 low trait anxious right-handed females. Examination of startle blink amplitudes suggest that high trait anxious participants fail to show habituation of the startle blink during baseline relative to low trait anxious participants, while both groups show reduced habituation in startle blink amplitude during stress. PPI is reduced in high trait anxious participants during baseline conditions but effects of stress differed for binaural and monaural delivery. With regard to activation asymmetry, at a pre-attentional probe during baseline and across probes during stress, high trait anxious subjects show reduced PPI in the left eye/left ear, suggesting right hemisphere difficulties with auditory filtering. This finding is consistent with the more general literature reports of right hemisphere over-activation in trait anxiety in studies of spatial EEG.

Key Words: trait anxiety, PPI, laterality, stress

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Logan Johnston

Impact of Ethnic diversity and Familiarity on Similarity Judgments

Advisor: Dr. Holly Arrow

Studies of person perception have found that people routinely categorize others according to observable surface characteristics such as gender and ethnicity (Stanger, Lynch, Duan, & Glass, 1992). Less information is available on the degree to which such categories influence perceptions of self-other similarity among interacting dyads, although some theorizing suggests that the impact of these surface characteristics should decline over time as people get to know each other better (Moreland & Levine, 1992). Data from 30 five-member self-organized task groups was used to investigate the degree to which both ethnic similarity or difference and familiarity (inferred from length of acquaintance) affected self-other judgments of similarity and difference for dyads embedded in these groups. Some members were interacting for the first time, while others had known each other for months or years. Greater familiarity was predicted to increase both similarity and difference ratings based on the reasoning that people who knew each other better would discover both more ways in which they were similar and more dimensions of difference. People who had known each other longer rated one another as more similar and less different than those who had known each for a shorter period. Similarity and difference ratings were negatively correlated. An unexpected gender effect was found with regards to judgment discrimination. Women appear to be more discriminating in their judgments of similarity. In dyads that are different along both gender and ethnic composition lines, women saw the least similarity between themselves and the other dyad member. This effect was not seen in any other combination of ethnic and gender composition.

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Diana Kerr

Parental Support, Validation, and Positive Affect: Relationship Quality with Adolescents and Antisocial Behavior

Advisor: Dr. Thomas Dishion

The parent-adolescent relationship has been shown to influence adolescents' development of interpersonal problem solving skills and association with deviant peers. The present study attempts to answer how positive parent-adolescent relationship quality (PPRQ) characterized by parental validation and positive affect differentiates between normative and high-risk youth, African American and European American youth, and between male and female youth. The study was a secondary analysis of a sub-sample of 133 participants' observational data, coded with the Simple Affect Coding system (SACS) from a study called Project Alliance. It was hypothesized that normative youth would have a higher mean score of (PPRQ) compared to high risk youth, African American youth would have a lower mean score compared to European American youth, and that males would have a lower mean score compared to female youth. Results showed significant effects of risk group and ethnicity on (PPRQ) and supported the research hypotheses. A significant interaction effect of risk group and ethnicity on mean scores of (PPRQ) showed normative European American youth to have higher mean scores compared to African American youth, but no difference in mean scores between high risk European American and African American youth. Non-significant effects of gender or the interaction of gender, ethnicity, and risk were found. The findings provide implications for parental intervention and prevention research and indicate a need for further replication of the study with the consideration of socioeconomic status.

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Angela Lansing

The effects of parenting environment and child theory of mind on preschoolers' well being

Advisor: Dr. Kirby Deater-Deckard Dr. Katy Cahill

This study evaluates the link between the interaction of child theory of mind and parent child mutuality as a moderator of child well-being. Parent-child mutuality and cognitive ability have been shown to have an effect on child well-being. Yet, there is a limited body of knowledge about the interactions between parenting and cognitive ability in relationship to child self-concept. The present study is designed to examine these relationships as they pertain to preschool age children. Families with fraternal (DZ) and identical (MZ) twin pairs were evaluated on parenting environment (PARCHISY) child theory of mind (Stanford-Binet cognitive ability score) and child self-concept (Eder puppet interview). Results are hypothesized to predict the effects of parenting environment and child theory of mind on child well-being.

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Brittni Lauinger

Selective Auditory Attention and Socioeconomic Status in Young Children: An ERP Based Study

Advisor: Dr. Helen Neville and Dr. Lisa Sanders

This study examined the relationship between selective auditory attention in children and socioeconomic status (SES) through an event-related potential (ERP) based paradigm. Selective auditory attention is the ability to pick out which sounds you want to hear and which you want to ignore, also known as the "cocktail party effect" (Cherry, 1953). SES is a factor of interest because it is very strongly related to cognitive ability in children (Noble, Norman, & Farah, 2005). SES was measured by the Hollingshead Four-Factor Index, a composite based on the child's mother's and father's occupation and level of education (Hollingshead, 1975). The subject population was defined as normally developing children, ages 3.5 - 7.5 years old, and representing a continuum of SES levels (N = 46). The current study uses a paradigm in which linguistic and nonlinguistic probes are embedded in two simultaneous narratives to measure the auditory attention effect by means of ERPs. The attention effect is the difference in the ERP response to probe stimuli embedded in the attended versus the unattended stories. The first hypothesis was that 3.5 - 5 year old children in general would show similar attention effects to those of 6 - 7.5 year old children. The second hypothesis was that, when broken down by SES, children from high and low SES families would show different attention effects. Analyses of the data showed that the 3.5 - 5 year old children did show attention effects similar to those seen in 6 - 7.5 year old children. Also, when age groups were combined and divided (by median split) into two age-matched SES groups, differences were found. Although both high and low SES groups showed significant attention effects, only the high SES group showed a significant difference by probe type, an effect that has been shown in adults (Coch, Sanders, & Neville, in press). This may suggest that subjects from high SES families may be better at attending specifically to the story and therefore the linguistic probes on the attended side are also attended. The low SES group may be attending to anything coming from the attended story.

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Paul Monson

The Role of Event Plausibility in Autobiographical Memory Suggestion

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Freyd and Lisa Cromer

Research in memory suggestion has found that adults are susceptible to suggestion of an impossible event: meeting Bugs Bunny at Disney (Braun, Ellis & Loftus, 2002). The present study attempted to manipulate event plausibility in order to investigate the role of event plausibility (Pezdek, Finger & Hodge, 1997) in memory suggestion. Participants were University of Oregon undergraduates (N = 58) participating for credit in psychology courses. Participants read an autobiographical advertisement about an event in Disneyland that varied on event plausibility and possibility. It was hypothesized that event plausibility, and not possibility, would affect memory suggestibility. Specifically, it was predicted that events low in plausibility would be less suggestibility than events high in plausibility. Results were not significant. Directions for future research are discussed.

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Camilla Nermoen

Perspective-Taking and Perceived Overlap Between Representations of Self and Other

Advisor: Dr. Sara Hodges

This experiment investigated the effects of different perspective-taking instructions on perceived overlap between the self and other. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions: the "imagine target" condition, where they were instructed to imagine how a videotaped target felt; the "imagine self" condition, where they were instructed to imagine how they personally would feel in the target's situation; or the control condition, where they were given no perspective-taking instructions and were asked only to focus on factual information about the target. To measure perceived self-other overlap, participants adjusted two circles on a computer screen until the overlap of the two circles (or the distance between them) represented how close they felt to the target. With a preliminary sample collected (N = 56), the three groups did not differ significantly in terms of perceived self-other overlap. However, there was a trend for participants in the "imagine target" condition to perceive more overlap with the target than participants in the "imagine self" and control conditions, suggesting that imagining how another person feels evokes stronger feelings of closeness with that person than imagining how one would feel in the person's place or objectively observing that person.

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Chiew Woon Ng

The effect of negative emotions on mere exposure effect

Advisor: Dr. Paul Dassonville, Dr. Sanjay Srivastava, Katie Burns

Mere exposure effect is a robust phenomenon in which the mere exposure to a particular stimulus will enhance an individual's attitude toward it (Zajonc, 1968). Additional research found that this enhanced preference for the exposed stimulus also extends to novel, but similar, stimuli (Zajonc, 2001). Murphy (2001) suggested that the repeated exposures might be sufficient to create a positive mood state and result in positive evaluations of the exposed stimulus. This study will investigate the impact of a negative mood state on the mere exposure effect. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions, "no mood induction" or "frustrated mood induction" and asked to perform a subtraction task orally. Those in the "no mood induction" condition will perform the subtraction task without interruptions, whereas, those in the "frustrated mood induction" condition will be continuously interrupted throughout the task. Participants in both conditions will then be exposed to 15 nonsense words subliminally flashed at different exposure rates. After the exposure period, they will be asked to rate the words for both liking and familiarity. It is predicted that the frustrated mood induction will impede the necessary positive mood state from developing and the mere exposure effect will not occur.

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Yvette Pederson

A Comparative Analysis of Adolescent Language

Advisor: Dr. Thomas Dishion

Comparisons of vocabulary in conversation between at risk and normative adolescents were examined to determine if language has the potential to promote problem behavior within the at risk group. All volunteers for this secondary analysis were males aged 14 to 18 and of African American, Latino, Asian American or Caucasian descent. Their conversations about drugs and alcohol were transcribed and analyzed by the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Program, which designates each word of conversation into 1 of 74 categories, calculating a percentage for each. Preliminary review suggests at risk youth expressed a higher percentage of swearwords, the pronoun "I," along with words indicating negation and negative emotion. Language, a common denominator within groups, could prove to be a valuable predictor for early detection and intervention of problem behavior with further linguistic assessment.

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Giuseppe Pellegriti

Schizotypal Gender Differences on Trail Making Performance

Advisor: Dr. Patricia White

Numerous studies report executive function deficits in schizophrenia patients. For example, schizophrenic subjects have been found to produce slower scores on both motor speed (TMT-A) and executive function (TMT-B) trailmaking tasks compared to controls (Woelwer & Gaebel, 2002). In contrast, schizotypals report similar but milder symptoms and show executive function (TMT-B) but not motor speed (TMT-A) deficits relative to controls (Keefe, Silverman, Roitman, & Harvey, 1994). This project compared performance of psychometric schizotypals (n = 9) to controls (n = 12) on the traditional TMT tasks and an expanded version of TMT with 5 tasks, the CTMT, during baseline and stress conditions. In this preliminary and very small sample, results were mixed. Group differences were not found on either motor speed or executive function TMT tasks, but were found on two of the four tests of the CTMT. On CTMT 2 (which includes distractor stimuli) schizotypal males but not females tended to complete the task more slowly across baseline and stress conditions. On CTMT 4, which alternates word and numeric representations of numbers, male schizotypals were slower during stress than male controls, while female schizotypals were slower than female controls during baseline but not stress. Due to the extremely small sample size and failure to replicate previous TMT-B deficits among schizotypals, these preliminary findings are viewed with caution but suggest that gender may play a possible role in stress effects on executive function in schizotypy; data will continue to be collected.

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Melissa Pistono

Recovered Memory: Scientific Research and its Implications for the Justice System

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Freyd

The recovered memory debate has had an impact on more than just the scientific community; its effects can also be seen in the court room. Recovered memories; How do they occur? Why does it happen? What are the mechanisms involved? How frequently does it occur? Are recovered memories accurate? And how does the justice system use scientific research to evaluate the validity and reliability of recovered memory cases presented in a courtroom? This paper reviews the research on recovered memories and examines how the judicial system utilizes scientific research when determining the admissibility of testimony regarding recovered memories.

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Scarlet Rappl

Sleep and Memory Inhibition: Investigating the Effect of Sleep on the TNT Paradigm

Advisor: Dr. Michael Anderson and Ben Levy

Previous research using the Think/No Think (TNT) paradigm has demonstrated that people are able to intentionally suppress the memory of specific words (Anderson and Green, 2001). The current study examines the possible relationship between sleep and memory inhibition, as measured by the TNT paradigm. Participants were randomly assigned to sleep either 4-5 hours or 9-10 hours on the night before the experiment took place. The day of the experiment, each participant completed a computerized TNT task designed to measure their ability to inhibit the memory of specific words. After completing the task, participants completed two detailed questionnaires, one regarding the mental techniques they used to complete the TNT task, and the other surveying their sleep habits. Preliminary findings do not suggest a difference in performance between sleep-deprived and non-sleep-deprived individuals on the TNT task as hypothesized.

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Santiago Garcia Rodriguez

Effect of Surface- vs. Deep-level Diversity on Self-Other Similarity Judgments

Advisor: Dr. Holly Arrow

The current study examines the effects of diversity on the evolution of judgments of similarity within task groups. Literature on social psychology sustains that in the initial stages of group development, members pay more attention to surface-level traits, such as gender or ethnicity, when evaluating others. As the group interacts, group members shift their attention to deeper-level attributes, such as values and beliefs, to make their judgments (Moreland & Levine, 1992). Data on 44 five-person task groups that met for three consecutive weeks, and whose members were of same or different ethnicity, were used to investigate the evolution of similarity judgments. Results showed that males followed the expected pattern with higher ratings of similarity for same-ethnicity than for different-ethnicity members, but with means converging over time. However, female groups showed unexpected results giving higher ratings of similarity for ethnically-different than for ethnically-alike group members keeping means constant over time.

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Cassandra Tyson

Context, Induced Motion, & Spatial Localization: An Induced Motion task comparing real and illusory contours.

Advisor: Dr. Paul Dassonville

The visual system uses an abundant number of contextual cues in order to process incoming information about the environment. Although usually reliable, occasionally cues are inaccurate, leading to the experience of visual illusions. The perceptual system is vulnerable to illusion, and can easily be misled by the context of a visual scene into misperceiving object characteristics such as size, orientation, location, and movement. The context of a large frame offset to one side in an otherwise impoverished visual environment will cause the subjective sense of straight ahead to drift toward the center of the frame, known as the Roelofs effect (Roelofs, 1935, Brogsole, 1967, Dassonville & Bala, VSS 2002). A stationary target presented inside a moving frame will appear to move in the opposite direction, a phenomenon known as Induced Motion (Dunker, 1929). The motion induced in the stationary target can best be explained by the Induced Roelofs effect (Bridgeman & Klassen, 1983) in that the shifted frame causes the target mislocalization. What it is about the context of the frame that leads to the mislocalization of the target is unresolved; is it the low level physical characteristics of the stimulus, or higher level processing? To examine this question, we compared the magnitude and time course of the illusion of a real frame with one created using illusory contours. Illusory contours are created by differences in luminance, texture, or color and result in the perception of figure against ground where no actual boundaries exist. In the current experiment, the effect of an illusory rectangle (Kanizsa type) was compared to that of a real rectangle during a stroboscopic Induced Motion task. The first experiment examined the magnitude of the illusion. The second experiment sought to determine whether or not there was a significant difference in the time course of the illusion comparing real and illusory conditions. The Kanizsa figure evoked a small but significant Induced Motion effect, however there was no difference in the time course detected by the current experiment.

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Diana Woodworth

Comparing the observed emotion in adolescent-parent interaction

Advisor: Dr. Thomas Dishion

The study is a secondary analysis using the 117 adolescent-parent, video-taped interactions that have been coded using the Simple Affect Coding System (SACS). The objective of this study was to compare the RPMs and durations of positive affect, validation, distress, anger and neutral states between at-risk and normative subjects, between African-American and European-American subjects, and between female and male adolescent subjects. Comparisons derived from the coded emotion of the adolescent-parent interactions revealed the following: 1) significantly higher RPMs and durations of anger among at-risk adolescents and moms than among normative adolescents and moms, 2) significantly higher RPMs and durations of positive affect among at-risk moms than among normative moms, 3) significantly higher RPMs and durations of validation among European-American moms and adolescents than among African-American moms and adolescents, and 4) significantly higher positive affect among at-risk adolescent girls than among at-risk adolescent boys.

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Undergraduate Honors 2003-2004

Lauren A. Anas

The Influences of Early Adversity

Advisors: George M. Slavich and Scott M. Monroe

Recent research suggests a strong link between depression in adulthood and exposure to undesirable events and difficulties during childhood. In particular, parental separation as well as physical and sexual abuse appear to negatively affect the adjustment of the children, placing them at higher risk to experience recurrent episodes of depression in adulthood. To test the hypothesis that individuals who are exposed to parental separation and/or abuse are at increased risk to experience recurrent depression compared to individuals who are not exposed to early adversity, the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (LEDS; Brown & Harris, 1978) was administered to 84 depressed adults. Participants were asked a number of questions regarding early adversity. Information obtained from the interviews including whom the individual was separated from in childhood, reasons for the separation, the nature of the subject-parent relationship, and whether or not they experienced physical and/or sexual abuse as a child. Depression history was subsequently examined for each of the adult participants. Results from the study suggest that children who experienced a separation from a parent during childhood underwent a major transition during the period and experienced more than one depressive episode during their adulthood. Subjects that experienced bad relationships with their fathers during childhood were more likely to have more than one depressive episode during adulthood.


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Taylor Bryant

Influence of Reference Group on Body Image Perception

Advisors:Myron Rothbart

This study examined how comparison level and reference group influences women's satisfaction with personal body image. Participants examined 14 photographs of either thin or heavy women. Photographs were either European or African American women. Four independent sets of photographs were created, corresponding to the four experimental between-subject conditions: white/thin, white/heavy, black/thin, and black/heavy. Participants indicated satisfaction with their own body shape before and after observing the photographs. It was predicted that women would be less satisfied with their own body after observing thin than heavy women, and this effect will be strongest when viewing their own racial group. No significant findings supported the hypotheses, although there was strong correlation between ponderosity and dissatisfaction.


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Stephanie Carpenter

Mood and the Generalization of Affect: A Test of Emotional Specificity

Advisors:Ellen M. Peters

This study examined the impact of environmental factors on the generalization of affect using 225 university undergraduates. Following a mood manipulation, subjects in the control condition completed a numerical estimations task with sad and angering scenarios, cognitive load subjects listened to a musical composition while completing the estimations task, and reasons analysis subjects analyzed and listed reasons for making their estimates. We predicted that emotional specificity (angry or sad) would be greatest in the control condition, reduced under reasons analysis, and that affect under cognitive load would either generalize to valence (negative mood), or would display greater emotional specificity. Current results indicate that specificity is reversed under Reasons Analysis and Cognitive Load induces greater specificity for sad mood, suggesting an automatic emotional process.


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Lauren Corder

Underlying Mechanisms of Auditory Processing During Stress: Relationship of early muscle response and mid-latency ERP component

Advisors:Patricia White

The decline in amplitude of the P50 component of the auditory event-related potential in a paired click paradigm acts as indirect evidence of a pre-attentional gating deficiency. White and Yee (1997) found that normal P50 suppression was disrupted when non psychiatric subjects simultaneously performed an oral stressor. Subsequent investigation of 10 experimental modifications (Yee and White, 2001) showed that extreme facial muscle activity and silent stress both disrupt normal P50 suppression. In this study, the same 10 paradigms used by Yee and White were analyzed with regard to an earlier muscular component associated with auditory orienting, the post-auricular reflex (PAR) and component which follows P50 in auditory processing and is related to selective attention, the N100 component. Analysis of earlier and later components during auditory processing was conducted to investigate and clarify the mechanisms that may underlie the disruption of P50 suppression. In this work, both PAR and N100 also showed amplitude suppression to the second stimulus of the click pair. PAR was shown to alter in amplitude but not suppression ratio during facial muscle activation, and PAR also did not show suppression disruption during the stressor. In contrast, the N100 suppression showed similar effects of stress as the P50 component. Also, P50 and N100 ratios correlated positively during the stressor but were not associated during a passive baseline. Thus, results from this study suggest that response suppression to paired stimuli may occur as early as the orienting response (PAR) but stressor effects appear to occur later during auditory processing.


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Sarah Dailey

Individual Definitions of 'Race' for the Self

Advisors:Chuck Tate

This study examined how people define 'race' in reference to the self and whether these definitions matter for various self-relevant social judgments. Study 1 examined the structure of definitions of 'race' for the self. Two theory types were found: phenotype (physical appearance) and ethnicity (some combination of values, behaviors, and societal classification). Study 2 examined how theory type relates to how people want to be perceived by others when 'race' is an issue. Ethnicity theorists found it more acceptable for 'race' to be mentioned in a conversation than did phenotype theorists. Study 3 examined the relationship to perceptions of other in-group members, and ethnicity theorists rated that it negatively affects them personally when a person does not act consistent with their 'race' more than did phenotype theorists.


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Corrie A. Doyle

The Physiological Correlates of Life Stress and Depression

Advisors:George M. Slavich & Scott Monroe

Prominent theories have proposed a positive correlation between life stress and major depressive disorder (MDD). These events generally involve highly aversive experiences, concerning serious threats to core relationships. This investigation addresses the life stress and its effects on baseline and emotionally provoked physiology in MDD subjects. Behavioral measures to assess depression and severity of life events were administered, as well as physiological measurements known to be directly connected to innervations involved with the sympathetic nervous system: a key player in the stress response. The findings suggested MDD subjects who have experienced life stress exhibited physiological correlates consistent with a more intense and elongated stress response as compared to their no-stress counterparts. Differences in physiological correlates like these may reflect a core connection between objective and subjective variables in this disorder.


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Daniel J. Friend

The role of attachment and dissociation in the intergenerational transmission of abuse

Advisors:Jennifer Freyd

The goal of this project was to examine individual differences among perpetrators. Specifically, the relationship between attachment and dissociation was examined in association with abuse history and perpetration of abusive acts. The hypothesis was as follows: those with abusive history would be more likely to become perpetrators if classified as insecurely attached, those abused subjects who were classified as non perpetrators and securely attached would show higher DES scores, in accordance with Betrayal Trauma Theory. Data was collected using self-report measures from 233 undergraduates. Caution should be used in interpreting these results, since a limited number of subject reported being perpetrators. Limitation and future research implications are also discussed.


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Naruka Hirayama

Gender Differences in Social Support from Parents and Peers and Depressive Symptoms among Middle Adolescents

Advisors:Thomas J. Dishion

Adolescence is the time when a gender difference in depression first appears. However, no clear evidence exists for increased depression in adolescent girls. The purpose of this study is to combine sociological and psychological approaches to understanding middle-adolescent depression and to examine the question of why more adolescent girls experience depression than do adolescent boys in terms of a gender-differential socialization. The sample consisted of 527 high school students in Portland, Oregon, and they were administered questionnaires containing scales measuring depression, social skills, and parents' parenting skills. Middle adolescent depression was not directly related to family conditions and social support from family, but peer relationships played a significant role for both genders. The primary findings in this study were that girl's depression was strongly correlated with type of peers although they tend to have prosocial peers; Girls who have deviant peers, especially, develop depressive symptoms. In contrast, boy's depression was not related to the type of peers although they have more deviant peers, and social preference reduced their depression. Those results revealed that adolescent boys and girls have different ways of making socialization.


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Angela Rose Kelley

Sensory Gating Phenomenology in Relation to Modd and Quality and Duration of Sleep

Advisors:Patsy White

Poor sensory gating, or filtering of sensory input, has been observed in several clinical populations such as schizophrenia and mania (Freedman et al., 1987). Subsequent research has shown a relationship between anxiety or stress and sensory gating in schizophrenia (Yee, Nuechterlein, Morris and White, 1998) and in non-clinical populations (White & Yee, 1997). Stressful disruption of sensory gating has been attributed to effects of arousal. Clinical populations with impaired gating also possess disturbed sleep, which has been demonstrated to alter arousal independent of pathology. Thus, clinical pathology may directly influence gating, or previously observed poor gating in clinical populations may be a secondary effect stemming from disrupted sleep. Thus, these studies assessed the relationship of sensory gating phenomenology to disturbed sleep. In Study 1, poor sleepers (n=310) were found to have increased self reported disruption of sensory gating phenomenology. When depression was co-varied in this analysis, poor sleepers still showed a trend for self-reported disruption in subscales indexing distractibility and perceptual modulation. In Study 2, intended and unintended sleep loss, measured crudely, were not shown to cause differential disruption of sensory gating. In this study, typical sleep duration was found to vary with the stress/fatigue subscale of the Sensory Gating Inventory across participants (n=152). Among all males, but not females, total hours of sleep negatively correlated with stress-fatigue vulnerability and among males unintentionally deprived of sleep, sleep duration showed a negative correlation with perceptual modulation. Overall, disrupted sleep appears to impair at least some sensory gating phenomenology, with potentially greater disruption in males than in females.


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Molly Kessner

Evoked Heart Rate during Facial Affect Recognition in Schizotypy and Social Phobia

Advisors:Patsy White

Research has shown deficits in affect recognition in schizophrenia and attentional and memory biases to angry faces in social phobia. To assess the influence of social anxiety on arousal and physiological response during processing of facial emotion, schizotypal (SZ;n= 11), socially phobic (SP;n=11) and normal control subjects (CNT;n=12) were exposed to startle probes, at 120 ms and 3800ms, while viewing facial images. Heart-rate (HR) change while processing provided physiological measure of parasympathetic (HR deceleration) and sympathetic regulation (HR acceleration) while processing affective stimuli. The tri-phasic HR curve was derived from measuring changes in inter-beat interval duration, yielding measurement of cardiac acceleration and deceleration to affective stimuli. In this study, subjects viewed the same angry, happy and neutral images during 5 tasks in which attention was manipulated toward or away from specific emotional content, with HR acceleration and deceleration assessed for the 3800 ms probe. SZ show enhanced orienting and reduced arousal with affective targets, but in the absence of attention directed toward emotion, show enhanced orienting only for angry images. SP display specific attentional biases toward non-target angry images and reduced affective arousal after the non-target angry image offset, but also showed a an unpredicted reduction in affective arousal during viewing angry target images, with similar responding to happy and neutral images as controls. Taken together, these results suggest anomalies specific to each clinical group when processing angry images and support the need for attentional manipulation during processing of affective images to capture the full range of physiological response.


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Andy Kohnen

Feature-matching and self-other comparisons

Advisors:Sara Hodges

The current study explores the application of feature-cancellation and direction of comparison effects to self-other comparisons. College participants (N=90) made a comparison either between their own study habits and a fabricated comparison-other or between a previous participant's study habits and that previous participant's corresponding comparison-other. They did so on the basis of a checklist of 27 bad study-habits. Participants making a comparison involving a high degree of overlapping features tended to rate both people in the comparison very similarly. More interestingly, participants tended to rate the overall study habits of the other as significantly worse than those of the self when there was a low number of overlapping features, presumably because of direction of comparison effects. Finally, participants comparing two others with a low degree of overlap between their habits tended to rate the referent as worse than the target of comparison.


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Nathan D. McVeigh

Influence of Retrieval-Induced Forgetting during Second Language Acquisition

Advisors:Benjamin J. Levy and Michael C. Anderson

This study examined whether different verbal labels for a visual stimulus compete between languages, and, if so, does this lexical competition lead to retrieval-induced forgetting during second language acquisition. The participants were 32 undergraduates who had taken at least one year of college-level Spanish. Participants named objects on a computer screen in either English (e.g., cow) or Spanish (e.g., vaca), and then completed an independent probe rhyming test (e.g., bough _____). The results support the hypothesis that retrieving a word from a secondary language to name a picture causes the phonetic label from the primary language to become less accessible. Such findings suggest that retrieval-induced forgetting aids in second language acquisition by reducing lexical competition from the primary language.


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Kimberly L. Merrill

Chronic Life Stress and Major Depression

Advisors:George M. Slavich, Leandro D. Torres, & Scott M. Monroe

The literature on life stress and depression has identified at least two types of stress that differ temporally from each other: relatively-acute stressful life events and more-chronic ongoing difficulties (Monroe & Hadjiyannakis, 2002). Although a number of studies have investigated the role that relatively-acute stressful events play in the onset (Mazure, 1998; Kessler, 1997), course (Hammen et al., 1986; Lloyd et al., 1981), and symptom severity (e.g., Dolan et al., 1985; Hammen et al., 1992) of major depression, few studies have examined the role that ongoing difficulties play in this disorder. To address this void in the literature, 85 depressed adults were administered the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (LEDS; Brown & Harris, 1978) and the Beck Depression Inventory II (Beck et al., 1988,1987). The LEDS was used to assess the severity and nature of participants' ongoing difficulties occurring one year prior to their depressive onset, whereas the BDI was used to assess depressive symptoms. Researchers then examined the domain in which the difficulties occurred and the frequency of experiencing difficulties across the entire sample, as well as, within each of the sexes. Descriptive analyses were compiled to further elucidate the impact ongoing stressors have on depression.


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Dustin Selman

Investigations in Spatial Perception using Geometric Visual Illusions

Advisors:Paul Dassonville

The time course of the Delboeuf circles illusion was probed by flashing targets at different times within an alternating small and large contextual figure. Participants (college undergraduates) adjusted the target's sizes to match static comparison figures. The purpose was to examine the mechanisms of geometric visual illusions by examining the onset of assimilative and contrastive components within the Delboeuf illusion. It is hypothesized that the illusion is a distortion of perceived space (within which the target is embedded) rather than a distortion of the apparent size of the target itself. This hypothesis is supported by results showing non-instantaneous but gradual illusion onset, where the context must be present for some length of time prior to the probe for maximum effect.


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Aiko Takahashi

Temperament and Involved Parenting: Predicting Foster Children's Externalizing Behaviors

Advisors:Katherine C. Pears & Louis J. Moses

This study examined externalizing behaviors of preschool-aged foster children (60 boys and 53 girls) 6 months after a new placement. Parental involvement, child temperament, and treatment condition were tested as the predictors of externalizing behaviors. The only predictor was treatment condition, whether or not both parents and children had behavioral trainings. The treatment group showed higher levels of externalizing behaviors compared to the control group. An interaction between temperament and parenting showed high levels of externalizing behaviors in children who had difficult temperament with uninvolved parenting and those who had easy temperament and involve parenting. It was concluded that foster children may become reactive to the treatment within the first 6 months and optimal behavioral outcomes could be expected by such "Goodness of Fit" between child temperament and parenting.


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Catherine Tenedios

Adult attachment and traumatic experiences

Advisors:Jennifer Freyd

In the past infants have been the main focus in understanding attachment, but recently there has been a growing interest in studying attachment in adults. The purpose of this present study is to evaluate the five most prominent adult attachment scales; the Adult Attachment Scale (Collins & Reed, 1990), Bell Object Relations Inventory, (Bell et al, 1986), Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987), Parental Attachment Questionnaire (Kenny, 1987), and Parental Bonding Instrument (Parker, Tupling & Brown, 1979). Another aim is to explore the relations between traumatic exposure, dissociation, alexythymia and attachment. Undergraduate students at the University of Oregon completed a questionnaire that includes items form the five prominent adult attachment measures, along with traumatic exposure, dissociation and alexythymia surveys to assess any possible relationships.


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Dan Turano

The Effect of Marital Instability and Parental Support on Children's Behavior and Peer Group Choice

Advisors:John Light & Tom Dishion

Strong social networks have been discussed as a large contributing factor for positive outcomes during acute or chronically stressful events. An event that has become more common in society, and yet has received little direct research, is how marital instability and parental support, effects children. The purpose of this study was to create a mediational model that would accurately depict what factors lead children to perform antisocial behavior and spend time with deviant peers. It was purposed that marital instability and low parental monitoring would lead children to form stronger bonds with deviant peers who would promote antisocial behavior. The data used for the study was acquired through project Alliance, which is a sample of 373 sixth grade children who were selected from teacher report for having abnormal behavior. Through linear regression many factors were identified that lead children toward deviant behavior and social networks. The factors most salient across gender were marital status, reports of family conflict, and the child's report of parental monitoring. There were some limitations to this study due to the nature of how the data was acquired. Nevertheless, these finding are important because they focus on an ever increasing incident in child development that, if critically studied, may help society understand the ramifications of marital instability and parental support on children.


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Ginny Williams

Juror's Decision Making based on Story Model for Criminal Trials

Advisors:Robert Mauro

Story construction theories such as the constructionist, explanation based, and story model help to predict what people are concluding from the stories they hear. These models are useful for exploring juror's decision making using ideas like plot, character development, how well facts are expressed and consistency across the story. Up to this point research has only predicted decision outcomes. By looking at stories that vary in their facts (poor fitting story) and coherence (poorly written story) the researchers were able to determine that the good story with fitting facts had more support for a not guilty verdict in an assault case compared to the well written story that does not fit the facts. Further exploration of story models for juror decision making will help to determine the importance of story construction, which could help in regard to the way lawyers develop their arguments.


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Trey Gregory Willison

Effects of Parental Relationship Separations On Children: Increases In Adolescent Antisocial Behavior's

Advisors:Tom Dishion

A relationship between teenage antisocial behavior and early childhood parental relationship separations has been recognized in many studies. In the following, a total of three hypothesizes were tested. First, it was hypothesized that children who were younger at the time of their parent's relationship separation would display more teenage antisocial behavior than those who were older. Results indicated no significant effect for children's age at the time of a parental separation. The second hypothesis was that the total number of parental relationship separations would be predictive of teenage antisocial behavior. Results indicated that the numbers of parental relationship separations a child experiences are significantly correlated with early teenage antisocial behavior. Lastly, it was hypothesized that boys would show significantly more antisocial behaviors than girls. Results indicate there are no significant gender effects in predicting antisocial behavior. In sum, this study found that each parental relationship separation a child goes through regardless of their age or gender increases the amount of antisocial behavior displayed at age twelve.


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Ista Zahn

Stereotype threat, women's math test performance, and primed ideas about what the test measures

Advisors:Chuck Tate

Stereotype threat theory predicts that salient negative stereotypes about women's mathematical abilities will impair females' math test performance. We hypothesized that priming females with information suggesting that math tests measure learned skills (as opposed to innate ability) would reduce the impact of negative stereotypes on their test performance. Prior to taking a math test, 69 University of Oregon undergraduates were primed with information suggesting either that math tests measure learned skills or innate ability. Females who received the ability prime performed better in a reduced threat condition, while females who received the skill prime performed better when the threat was not reduced. This result suggests that salient negative stereotypes may not impair performance when skill is emphasized.


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Ting Ting Zhou

Investigation in the Activation Level of Critical Lures in the DRM Paradigm

Advisors:Ben Levy & Mike Anderson

The DRM paradigm demonstrates that people can misremember words that were not presented (Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Previous results have shown false recognition rates of critical lures (CLs) to increase, and then decrease, with study repetition (Seamon et al., 2003). Various strategies, such as source monitoring and recollective rejection may cause this reduction in false alarms. The current experiment uses independent probes (Anderson & Spellman, 1995) to examine the activation level of CLs with repetition. Forty-eight undergraduate participants studied word lists 1, 5, or 10 times, and their memory was tested for the words using recognition and independent probes. Results replicate the decrease in false recognition rate, despite a relatively constant activation level of the critical lures


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Undergraduate Honors 2002-2003

Kimberly A. Babcock

Dissociation & Home Environment: Mediators of Childhood Social Competence

Advisor: Jennifer Freyd

The focus of this research is the development of a theoretical model of childhood social competence. Specifically, the hypotheses of this study were 1) that maltreated children should display lower levels of social competence than non-maltreated children; 2) that non- maltreated dissociative children should display lower levels of social competence than non-maltreated non-dissociative children; and 3) that maltreated dissociative children should display higher levels of social competence than maltreated non-dissociative children. The participant in the study was one first grade teacher, who provided ratings for six first grade children, four male and two female. Data collection consisted of questionnaire data from the Child Dissociative Checklist, the School Social Behavior Scales, and a maltreatment symptoms checklist. The hypotheses are cautiously supported by the data, as the sample size is very small. Discussion focuses on the implication of this research and the need for additional study.

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Justin Birge

The Phenomenology of Sensory Gating Associates Predictably with Measures of Schizotypal Symptoms

Advisor: Patricia M. White

Physiological measures of sensory gating have been demonstrated to be reduced in schizophrenics and their first-degree relatives, relative to controls. It has been hypothesized that these impaired indices of sensory gating relate to symptoms of cognitive fragmentation and sensory overload observed in schizophrenics, although this has not been demonstrated. To assess the relationship of stimulus overload and schizotypal symptoms in the general population, the Sensory Gating Index (SGI) and the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) were administered to 491 undergraduates. Because previous research has shown relationships between schizoptyal symptoms, scholastic performance, and smoking rate, this study included self-reported smoking rate and grade-point average (GPA). As predicted, sensory gating (SGI) positively correlated with schizotypal symptoms (SPQ). Similarly, the predicted positive correlation between smoking and sensory gating (SGI) was demonstrated to be weak although statistically significant. In assessing whether SGI scores were elevated in smokers, males show the predicted pattern of greater sensory gating impairment in individuals who smoke, while females showed the reverse pattern. Self-reported GPA was found to correlate negatively with the SGI and SPQ but only in schizotypals. Overall, these results support the hypothesis that the phenomenology of sensory gating is associated predictably with measures of schizotypal symptoms as well as behavioral indices such as smoking and scholastic performance. Thus, this study lays the groundwork for assessing relationships between the sensations reported in the SGI and physiological measures of gating.

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Siong-Guan Chng

Advisor: George M. Slavich

The Effects of Confidant Social Support on the Severity and Recurrence of Major Depression

Social support is considered to be a critical psychosocial factor in the buffering of clinical depression in individuals diagnosed with depression. Previous studies had shown that individuals with confidants as social support were less likely to develop depression following very stressful life events (e.g., death of a spouse) than those without confidant support (Murphy, 1982). The present study investigated the effects of confidant social support on the severity and recurrence of major depression. Two predictions were made. First, individuals who had their significant other as a confidant at Time 1 are predicted to have less severe depression at depression onset as measured by the BDI compared to those people whose significant other was not a confidant at Time 1. And second, individuals who had their significant other as a confidant were predicted to be more likely to recover from depression at Time 2 (six months after onset) as measured by the BDI compared to those people whose significant other was not their confidant.

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Clintin Davis-Stober

Emergent Leadership in Focus Group Settings

Advisor: Holly Arrow

Emergent leadership has often been defined as the process through which a group member is granted leadership status in a previously leaderless group. The focus of this study is the behavioral process leading towards the emergence of a group leader, as well as a leader’s impact on the group’s overall performance. Focus groups of five members were recruited and given a discussion task involving intra-group discussion and consensus. Nine separate behaviors were recorded and regressed against the emergent leadership status of small group members. A factor analysis was then performed to identify possible common behavior categories. Data analysis is pending.

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Eric Edmondson

Understanding the Lay Conception of Human Values and Goals

Advisor: Bertram Malle

The contemporary social-psychological literature contains surprisingly little research on human values. Moreover, definitions of the values concept are mostly the subjective opinion of the researcher and do not necessarily reflect the lay person’s understanding. The purpose of this study is to document how lay people conceptualize values, and how they differentiate them from phenomena such as goals, principles, convictions, and attitudes. Data collected through computer-based questionnaires and a judgment task will provide the information needed to gather an intersubjective concept of values. Preliminary findings show that values, goals, principles, convictions, and attitudes are distinctly different in the lay person’s mind. Additional analysis aim at identifying the specific features that make values distinct and give them their psychological and social functions.

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Jason A. Fair

Maintaining Representations in Visual Working Memory

Advisor: Edward K. Vogel

Visual working memory facilitates the online storage and manipulation of visual information. Here, we recorded ERPs from subjects while they performed a visual WM task, in which they were presented a bilateral array of colored squares (4 in each hemifield) and were asked to remember the items in only one hemifield. Memory for those squares was tested two seconds later with the presentation of a test array that was either identical to the memory array or differed by one color. Approximately 200 ms following the onset of the memory array we observed a posterior slow negative wave over the hemisphere that was contralateral to the memorized hemifield in the array. This contralateral negativity persisted throughout the two-second blank delay period until the onset of the test array and appears to reflect the maintenance of these items in memory. In a control experiment we demonstrated that these results were due to memory maintenance and not spatial attention.

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Christoffer Hansen

An Investigation into the use of Patriotic Symbols and Imagery in Advertising in Television Commercials airing after 9/11/2001

Advisor: Dr. Sara Hodges

This study investigated participants’ reactions to advertising that used patriotism as a means of persuasion. The purpose of this study was to see whether the ads were stimulating patriotism beyond the initial message of 'buy our product', and to also create a reasonable intervention that prompts people to be responsible consumers of mainstream media. Pre-testing of subjects was required to obtain participants’ initial level of patriotic attitudes. There were two experimental manipulations that acted as an intervention (‘re-think’ and ‘exploit’ conditions) and a control condition. After pre-testing, participants were recruited to watch nine recorded television commercials and fill out a post-test that was identical to the pre-test. Statistical analysis indicated a significant main-effect in which participants became less patriotic from pretest to posttest. However, this was not a result of the experimental manipulations.

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Maureen A. Hansen

Influence of Gender Course on Attitudes about Gender

Advisor: Jennifer J. Freyd


This study examines whether a college course can affect students’ attitudes about gender. Effects of one University of Oregon general education course, Psychology of Gender, on students were measured using an anonymous survey assessing hostile and benevolent sexism completed before and after the course. A significant main effect of the course on overall sexism scores was found, with the mean sexism score after the course being significantly lower than before the course. A marginally significant (p = .075) result was that hostile sexism scores decreased more than benevolent sexism scores. Although there was not a statistically significant three way-interaction, a trend in the data suggests that the hostile versus benevolent differences are due to the males, who show no evidence of decreasing benevolent sexism during the course although their hostile sexism scores drop, and females show comparable decreases in both. There is also a trend in the data suggesting that younger students’ scores decreased more than those of older students. This study had some limitations, particularly due to the anonymous nature of the survey instrument. Nonetheless, the results provide insight warranting continued research to promote effectively designed curriculum to increase understanding regarding gender issues.

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Catharine Hochhalter

Temperament, Relational Styles, and Depressed Mood in Early Adolescence

Advisor: Mary K. Rothbart

During adolescence, girls show an increase in depression and affiliative need (Cyranowski, Frank, Young, & Shear, 2000). Work by Ellis (2002) indicates that levels of affiliation and depressive mood in adolescent girls are highly correlated. The current study examined whether affiliation might be linked to depressed mood through a socially dependent personality style. The possibility that correlations between personality style and depressed mood may be mediated by temperament variables was also investigated. A sample of 56 adolescent females, between the ages of 11 and 13 years, completed three questionnaires: (1) The Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire-Revised (Ellis & Rothbart, in preparation), (2) The Personality Style Inventory-Revised (Robins, Ladd, Welkowitz, Blaney, Diaz, & Kutcher, 1994), and (3) The Body Changes Questionnaire (Carskadon & Acebo, 1993). Significant correlations were found between depressive mood and social dependency, autonomy, shyness, and frustration. A significant correlation between affiliation and depressive mood was not found, and, thus, the possible mediating effects of social dependency could not be examined. However, further analyses revealed that shyness and frustration appear to be mediating the relationship between social dependency and depressive mood.

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Kurstin Hollenbeck

Action Parsing: A Study of the Role of Linguistic Labeling in the Segmentation of Action Streams

Advisor: Dare Baldwin

Past research studies have shown that both infants and adults use statistical information to segment continuous streams of language. This line of research extends that finding to segmentation of continuous streams of human action. The present study investigates the role of verbal labeling in action segmentation by adults. Subjects in the control group (n= 14) were shown one five minute long, silent video of a person performing a continuous stream of movement. The movement consisted of twelve individual actions, consistently occurring in four permutations of three, with the permutations repeated in random order throughout the five minutes. Subjects in the experimental group (n= 13) watched the same video, but with nonsense labels provided verbally for each of the four permutations every time they occurred. Subjects were then given a recognition test to assess whether they could distinguish between a permutation they had viewed repeatedly, and another group of three actions (each of which had occurred individually, but not in the order shown). Any difference between the groups’ performances on the recognition task would indicate the effect of labeling on adults’ ability to segment novel action. Data have not yet been analyzed.

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David Huh

Voluntary vs. Involuntary Immigration in the Acculturation of Asian Pacific Americans

Advisor: Gordon C. Nagayama Hall

Asian and Pacific Islanders migrate to the United States primarily for educational and economic opportunities, but also involuntary due to the misfortune of war and conflict in the native country. The rapid and involuntary culture shock faced by refugees and other involuntary immigrants would be expected to generate a qualitatively different acculturative experience than families who immigrated under less stressful conditions. This study is one of the first to empirically examine the differences with respect to the circumstances of immigration. It was hypothesized that students whose families came to the U.S. due to circumstances beyond control would favor protection of their ethnic identity and have greater degrees of family conflict. Students of Asian or Pacific Islander descent were given a self-report questionnaire containing demographic, acculturation, family connectedness, and family conflict measures. In contrast with the original hypotheses, Asian/Pacific Islanders from involuntary migration backgrounds were actually more acculturated than their peers. Furthermore, those from involuntary migration backgrounds had lower degrees of family conflict. The findings suggest that greater acculturation may be protective in families who endured a high level of migration stress, which leads to a lesser degree of family conflict.

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Akiko Ikkai

The Role of Muscarinic Receptors in Covert Orienting in Rats

Advisor: Richard Marrocco

The basal forebrain (BF) is one of the major sites of cholinergic projection to the cortex and limbic system, and there is evidence for its importance in spatial attention. In the current study, the role of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors in BF on reflexive visuospatial attention was investigated. Four Long-Evans rats were trained to perform CTD task; rats were trained to fixate at the central points and respond to the stimuli presented in the peripheral visual field. Reaction times (RT) to orient toward targets were measured and analyzed. The validity effect was defined as the difference in the mean RTs between valid (cue correctly forecasts the target location) and invalid (cue incorrectly forecasts the target location), and the alerting effect was defined as the difference in the mean RTs between double (both cues appear bilaterally, one target presentation) and no-cue (no cue presentation, one target presentation). Thirty-two gauge cannulae were implanted bilaterally into the BF. Either saline, oxotremorine (OXO) low dose (0.3µg/side) or OXO high dose (3.0µg/side) was infused 10 minutes prior to the CTD task. Contrary to our hypotheses, there was no significant effect of OXO on the overall validity or alerting effect. However, the analysis of cue type and cue-to-target interval (CTI) revealed that OXO high dose significantly slowed double cue RT at 700 msec CTI, which resulted in the smaller validity effect in that particular cue*CTI combination. There was a significant hemispheric effect. Rats responded faster to the targets presented in their right visual fields in any cue/drug combination. Cannuli placement confirmation with MRI is still in progress.

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Kyoung Rae Jung

Emotional Arousal and Lexical Semantic Priming: A Hi-Density Event-Related Potential(ERP) s