Extant research suggests communication styles (CS) such as constructive communication (CC) to be associated positively with relationship satisfaction (RS) and negatively with mental health (MH) whereas self-demand / partner withdraw (SD/PW) communication is associated negatively with RS and positively with MH. Research also suggests child abuse (CA) to be associated with poorer CS, lower RS, and poorer MH. Further, RS has been differentially associated with MH and CS in adult intimate relationships. However, no study has examined these associations simultaneously. The current study aimed to (1) assess these associations in IPV-exposed women and (2) assess differences between those with and without a history of CA. Data (n = 412; Mage = 36.77, SD = 12.54) come from a larger data collection project (N = 676). I hypothesized that: (1) higher CC and RS would be associated with lower severity of MH symptoms; (2) higher SD/PW and lower RS would be associated with higher severity of MH symptoms; (3) women with a history of CA will report less CC, lower RS, and higher severity of MH symptoms; and (4) women with a history of CA will report more SD/PW, lower RS, and higher severity of MH symptoms. Results did not support …

Alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes are a major preventable cause of death in the United States. One potential factor that may modulate the influence of alcohol intoxication on driving-related decision-making is posttraumatic stress. The current study evaluated the influence of induction of acute trauma-related stress (via script-driven imagery) during alcohol intoxication (.06% BrAC) on driving-related risky decision-making – willingness to drive, driving-related decision-making (i.e., attempted red light runs), and driving-related reaction time (i.e., braking latency) – among 56 trauma-exposed (currently symptomatic) adult drinkers from the community (M = 25.32; 46.4% female). Results indicated that trauma-related stress may exacerbate willingness to drive during a state of acute alcohol intoxication, but, alternatively, may have only a minimal-to-moderate effect on performance-based, driving-related decision-making (i.e., red light runs), and a potentially mitigating impact on driving-related reaction time (i.e., braking latency) under the influence of alcohol. Generally, results suggest that trauma-related stress may differentially impact varying aspects of driving-related risky decision-making, above and beyond the influence of alcohol. Implications for theoretical modeling for driving-related decision-making during acute intoxication and for the advancement of education and intervention efforts, as well as suggestions for future directions, including methodological and procedural improvements, are discussed.

The purpose of this research was two-fold: (1) further validate the Virtual Reality Stroop Task HMMWV [VRST; Stroop stimuli embedded within a virtual high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle] via a comparison of the 3-dimensional VRST factor structure to that of a 2-dimensional computerized version of the Stroop task; and (2) model the performance of machine learning [ML] classifiers and hyper-parameters for an adaptive version of the VRST. Both the 3-D VRST and 2-D computerized Stroop tasks produced two-factor solutions: an accuracy factor and a reaction time factor. The factors had low correlations suggesting participants may be focusing on either responding to stimuli accurately or swiftly. In future studies researchers may want to consider throughput, a measure of correct responses per unit of time. The assessment of naive Bayes (NB), k-nearest neighbors (kNN), and support vector machines (SVM) machine learning classifiers found that SVM classifiers tended to have the highest accuracies and greatest areas under the curve when classifying users as high or low performers. NB also performed well but kNN algorithms did not. As such, SVM and NB may be the best candidates for creation of an adaptive version of the VRST.

Exceptional classroom management (CM) for face-to-face and online classes is vital to instructor success, and importantly, directly impacts students' ability to learn. Classroom conflict may disrupt an instructor's CM and can occur when a student is uncivil (e.g., sidetracks from lecture) or when an instructor misbehaves (e.g., antagonizes students). A small but meaningful line of work suggests that uncivil students and misbehaving teachers negatively impact the learning environment. However, no work has examined how the interaction between an uncivil student and misbehaving teacher impacts learning. As such, the purpose of the current study is to empirically investigate how teacher responses to student incivility impact cognitive learning in an online learning environment. The project evaluated approximately 252 undergraduate students via an online study. Participants watched a video of an online class in which the professor responds to an uncivil student in one of three different ways: antagonistically, positively, or neutrally. Participants then took a cognitive learning quiz based on the lecture and answered questions about their perception of the instructor, uncivil student, and the learning environment. Results of the one-way ANOVA suggest that how an instructor responded to student incivility did not significantly impact cognitive learning. Secondary analyses also indicated that …

Past research has provided evidence for cultural differences in episodic memory when comparing European American and East Asian samples. However, cultural cognitive neuroscience has become over-dependent on European American vs. East Asian samples, which has left very little research into groups outside of this dichotomy. The aim of this dissertation was to address the need of more diverse samples in cultural cognitive neuroscience and to address the lack of research on Latinx biculturals. In this dissertation I explored how language could serve as a priming method to activate specific cultural systems, how bicultural Latinxs may switch cultural frames through language priming, and how priming of cultural systems affects their perception and recognition memory for certain visual information. The present study was designed to include a specific technique to investigate the potential cross-modal effect of cultural priming through language on visual cognition in bicultural and bilingual Latinxs. Results suggest that language did prime bicultural Latinxs to perform differently in a behavioral task, where images encoded in Spanish were more likely to be identified as incorrect and images encoded in English were more likely to be identified as correct. Additionally, we found that Cultural Blendedness directly predicted recognition accuracy, where higher identification …

Time perception is a fundamental aspect of consciousness related to mental health. One cognitive state related to time perception is mind wandering (MW), defined as having thoughts unrelated to the current task. Little research has directly assessed the relationship between these two constructs, despite the overlap in clinical significance and the shared importance of attention for healthy functioning. In the present study, I addressed this by having a sample of 40 adults in the United States complete an online sustained attention to response task remotely while answering thought probes related to thought type and time perception. Multilevel modeling results indicated that cognitive factors were related to the judgements of passage of time (JOPOTs; the feeling that time is passing quickly or slowly) while they had little relation to the estimated duration or the accuracy of those estimations. Specifically, JOPOTs were related to attention to task and emotional valence, and the addition of MW, intentionality, and fixed/dynamic thoughts to the models explained additional variance. Duration estimations and JOPOTs were unrelated to each other, suggesting JOPOTs and duration estimations have different relationships to cognitive factors and should be studied as separate constructs. Additionally, results suggested that the heavy use of dichotomization in …

Racial stereotypicality refers to the degree to which an individual looks like a "typical" member of their ethnic or racial group by considering multiple phenotypical features such as skin tone and nose width. Prior studies have utilized real and photoshopped images to assess perceptions of individuals high in racial stereotypicality. However, no known studies have allowed participants to engage in the self-assessment of their own facial features outside of skin-tone. In the present study, I develop and investigate the underlying structure of a scale which allows Black individuals to self-assess their perceived degree of racial stereotypicality. I accomplished this by developing items, soliciting expert feedback, conducting cognitive interviews, disseminating the proposed scale, and conducting an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on a sample of 308 Black adults. EFA results produced a three-factor structure influenced by item wording and reverse coding. Findings also indicated that items which assessed one's overall degree of stereotypicality loaded onto a singular, separate factor as originally theorized. Results suggest that reverse coding, item wording, and response labeling may influence factor structure and negatively impact scale validation procedures. Additionally, items assessing overall stereotypicality may address something distinctly different from other items which assess individual features. Therefore, perceived overall …

Considerable media research has established that much of mainstream, United States based news is historically rife with content that both implicitly and explicitly reinforces popular cultural norms. Combined with a history full of inequities towards marginalized groups, many of which were based on race, consumption of mainstream news has been linked to increased hostility and more negative attitudes towards non-Whites in the United States. That said, much of this work views news from a monolithic perspective of news programming, irrespective of the differences in political orientation or broadcast integrity. By using quantitative assessments of how various mainstream news programs score on both left/right and fact/opinion-based dichotomies, the purpose of the present study is to address these gaps. As models for how mainstream news consumption is related to existing race-related attitudes, theoretical foundations of cultivation theory (how long viewers watch), the motivation and opportunities model (if viewers are motivated in their viewing) and social ecology theory (who viewers are), were used in relation to these dichotomies. However, overall results suggest that, while time spent with news, race, and gender appear to affect news consumption's relationship with race-related attitudes, preference for left vs. right wing news and fact vs. opinion-based was less …