Psychology Theses and Dissertations

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https://hdl.handle.net/1794/995

This collection contains some of the theses and dissertations produced by students in the University of Oregon Psychology Graduate Program. Paper copies of these and other dissertations and theses are available through the UO Libraries.

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Open Access
Attending to Action at Your Own Pace: Benefits for Knowledge Acquisition?
(University of Oregon, 2012) Sage, Kara; Sage, Kara; Baldwin, Dare
Past research has established that children typically learn better from live demonstrations than from 2-dimensional sources of information like video. The current dissertation investigated the efficacy of a new form of 2-dimensional learning medium, specifically the self-paced slideshow, where children advance through slides of an unfolding action sequence at their own pace. The primary purpose of this dissertation was to test whether the "video deficit effect" extends to the self-paced slideshow. In Experiment 1, children saw demonstrations of novel event sequences either live, via a video, or by advancing through a self-paced slideshow. They were then tested on their ability to perform the sequences, as well as their verbal memory for the action. Individual difference measures were also collected to provide some insight into how children's inhibitory control, theory of mind skills, and verbal ability related to their performance. Findings suggest that all children showed learning, in that children across the three learning media outperformed their peers in a no demonstration control group. In line with past work, children in the live condition outperformed those in the video and self-paced slideshow conditions at reproducing the target actions. However, children's memory did not differ across conditions. To further explore the self-paced slideshow, Experiment 2 directly compared learning from the self-paced slideshow to learning from a video. Two alterations were made to the slideshow: the method of extracting slides was altered to create a more natural flow of action, and the content of the slides was altered to help children focus more on the object than the person. Children's performance differed little between conditions, with the exception of children reproducing fewer actions in the slideshow condition on two (of four) toys. Ultimately, this dissertation documented that the video deficit effect extends to the self-paced slideshow: live demonstration produces superior learning for children. Future work should investigate at what age the self-paced slideshow might become a useful learning medium as well as how to enhance children's learning from 2D sources given the increasing role that they play in daily life.
Open Access
Coping with Complexity: Characterizing High and Low Learning During On-Line Acquisition of a Seminatural Micro Language
(University of Oregon, 2021-09-13) Konyn, Amy; Baldwin, Dare
Natural language is highly complex and can be challenging for some learners, yet the contribution of complexity to individual differences in language learning remains poorly understood. This poor understanding appears due to both a lack of consensus among researchers regarding what complexity is, and to on-line language research often employing low complexity, artificial grammar stimuli. This dissertation addresses the first aspect of this problem with an integrative review of complexity theories, and the second aspect with original research. A novel micro language paradigm made it possible to track learning online as participants were trained in a subset of a mini-language based on Japanese. Thirty-two adult native English speakers progressed through four phases of training to learn eight phrases, four at each of two complexity levels, while the acquisition was tracked online with dense-array EEG and frequent behavioral measures of learning. Participants first listened to a soundstream of micro language phrases to familiarize them with the phonology of the language. Next, they completed semantic training and practice. Finally, they listened to the soundstream again, now (presumably) comprehending the phrases. Participants were then divided into high and low learners based upon noun segmentation ability. Overall, findings suggested systematic differences between high and low learner responses to the simple and complex phrases. Both high and low learners were quick to develop a differential response to the noun initial and noun medial syllables, with a higher N1 response to the noun initial syllables emerging around the second minute and a later medial frontal negativity appearing to track engagement in learning. However, high learner electrophysiological response suggested a more strategic response to the noun syllables. It was speculated that the high learner response might constitute a customization of their attention to align with the information content of each syllable. In conclusion, observing learning online and using stimuli of varied complexity provided new insights into the nature of individual differences in learning. The micro language paradigm with the recall behavioral tracking method provides a new way to explore learning of sequential systems such as language.
Open Access
Development and Initial Validation of a Scale Measuring Young Children’s Awareness of Trait Cognitive Control
(University of Oregon, 2018-04-10) Ross, Robbie; Baldwin, Dare
Success in early childhood requires fluent cognitive control functioning and the ability to select and execute effective regulatory strategies across many new contexts including academics and social interactions. Cognitive control functioning has been positively linked to a host of important short- and long-term outcomes across many diverse domains. A wealth of research on self-efficacy, self-concept, and implicit theories of cognitive processes demonstrates that individuals’ self-perceptions of ability and cognition substantially influence important behavioral outcomes, namely academic performance. Investigations into the mechanisms underlying these links suggest that self-perceptions of abilities impact academic outcomes by differentially influencing the self-regulated learning behaviors that individuals choose to engage. Despite this knowledge, and evidence suggesting that capturing such self-perceptions from young children is highly plausible, the extent to which young children can reflect and report on their own cognitive control abilities has not been investigated. In this dissertation, I develop and validate an interview scale that aims to probe children’s self-perceptions of their cognitive control abilities using the Berkeley Puppet Interview administration format. Scale analyses of interviews from 125 children aged 4- through 7-years suggest the scale elicits responses that cluster around two correlated, but separable components: Self- and Emotion-Regulation and Attention Modulation. Responses on these two subscales were reliable, showing moderate to strong internal consistency. Subscale scores were strongly correlated with parent reports of similar skills, and self-reports of related constructs, but showed no such relations with behavioral tasks measuring executive functioning abilities. The findings suggest that young children are capable of reflecting and reporting on their own cognitive control skills, and that these skills correspond to parent reports of similar abilities. Further scale refinement and targeted validation efforts are called for; however, these encouraging early results suggest the new scale holds potential to play a key role in uncovering ways in which children’s self-perceptions influence their learning success.
Open Access
Investigating to What Degree Individual Differences in Language and Executive Function Are Related to Analogical Learning in Young Children Across Socio-Economic Populations
(University of Oregon, 2019-04-30) O'Neil, Lauren; Baldwin, Dare
Analogical reasoning is a foundational skill necessary for enabling learners to draw inferences about new experiences, to transfer learning across contexts, and to make abstractions based on relevant information from daily experiences. Linguistic and executive function (EF) skills may support analogical reasoning ability, as both these skill sets have previously been shown to influence other higher-order cognitive abilities, such as perspective taking. Outside influences such as socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds may also influence analogical reasoning, as they have been shown to affect other cognitive processes. At present, current research offers little information about developmental relations among SES, language, EF and analogical learning. The purpose of this dissertation research was to explore the extent to which the provision of relational language facilitates children’s analogical reasoning, and to investigate the influence of SES, executive function and language skills in regard to such facilitation. Results indicate that the use of relational language indeed aids analogical reasoning. SES significantly predicted analogical reasoning, but interestingly, this was so only when relational language was absent. These findings support that relational language plays a key role in scaffolding analogical reasoning, and this support is particularly beneficial to children whose cognitive skills may be influenced by SES.
Open Access
Pupillometry as a Window on the Role of Motionese in Infants’ Processing of Dynamic Activity
(University of Oregon, 2020-02-27) Kosie, Jessica; Baldwin, Dare
Over the first few years of life, infants acquire the ability to make sense of, predict, respond to, remember, and learn from a variety of everyday human actions. Finding segmental structure within unfolding activity – in particular, boundaries at which units of action begin and end – seems key to the acquisition of such action-processing fluency, and has important downstream implications for cognitive and linguistic development (e.g., Levine et al., 2018). However, action unfolds rapidly and is just as quickly gone. How do infants find structure in the complex, dynamic, fleeting action that they observe? Caregivers’ infant-directed action demonstrations might serve to help with this challenging task. In interactions with infants, caregivers modify their motion in a variety of ways that engage infants’ overall attention (i.e., “motionese;” Brand, Baldwin, & Ashburn, 2002). It seems likely that these modifications additionally highlight and promote infants’ processing of the internal structure of action. This dissertation explores the influence of motionese on infants’ online processing of action. We first created a corpus of infant- and adult-directed activity sequences. Next, we use a recently-developed, open source, inexpensive, infant-friendly methodology to measure infants’ pupil dilation as they viewed a select subset of these videos. We found that infants’ pupil size (an indication of attention or cognitive engagement) increased in response to action boundaries, but only for motionese demonstrations. Thus, in addition to engaging overall attention, motionese likely serves to promote infants’ processing of action’s internal structure. These findings set the stage for future work targeting the source of this increased pupil dilation at boundary regions. In sum, this work makes several important contributions to developmental science. First, we have created a large, open video corpus of caregiver-infant interactions. We have also validated a new methodology for addressing any number of novel questions about infants’ processing of visual information as it unfolds over time. Finally, this work provides the first demonstration to date that motionese influences infants’ on-line action processing, and in this way scaffolds their understanding of, and ability to learn from, dynamic, novel activity.
Open Access
The Development of Disability and Foreignness Concepts: A Comparative Approach
(University of Oregon, 2024-12-19) Weinstein, Netanel; Baldwin, Dare
Human cognition often displays a tendency to “see beyond” the available perceptual input. Although inferences indicative of such seeing-beyond tendencies are fundamental to efficiency in human cognition, they may also be associated with the expression of prejudice towards stigmatized others. In this dissertation, we systematically compared college students’ and children’s inductive generalization tendencies regarding two stigmatized social categories: foreignness and disability. Since such cues may be apparent both in speech (i.e., a foreign accent; a speech disorder) and appearance (i.e., foreign garb; a wheelchair), directly juxtaposing children and college students’ reactions to such cues may be particularly informative regarding the development of foreignness and disability concepts alike. In a first study, we compared 180 North American college-aged students’ and 163 young children’s (Mage = 5.75) explicit assessments of a) three speech categories (neurotypical American English - L1, Spanish English - L2, and American English with Autism Spectrum Disorder - ASD), and b) four illustration categories (children whose appearance was: able-bodied typical North American appearance; able-bodied foreign appearance; typical North American wheelchair-bound with signs of contracture in the wrist and torticollis in the neck; and typical North American amputee appearance) along several key dimensions (i.e., foreignness, dependence, competence, interest in friendship and comprehensibility for speech). To further explore developmental change in inductive generalization tendencies, in study 2, we assessed 130 college-aged students’ and 143 North American children’s (Mage = 5.3) associations between speech variability and visual appearance. Specifically, participants listened to one of three speech conditions (L1, L2, ASD) while looking at two illustrations side-by-side (one of a typical American child, the other depicting a foreign child or a child with a disability) and were asked to select the child who was talking. Across both studies, college students, but not children, appeared to associate the variability they detected in the ASD speech with a latent disability concept in a similar manner to which both samples associated L2 speech with foreignness. Nevertheless, there was an emerging age-related increase in this tendency for children as well, particularly for those with advanced metacognition. Furthermore, whereas college students were biased against ASD speakers but showed a prosocial bias towards images depicting physical disabilities (particularly amputees), children were biased against wheelchair (and foreign) images but showed no bias in the case of ASD speech. This work advances our understanding of complex ways in which conceptual representations of the social world relate to the expression of prejudice, and how such relationships may change developmentally. Our findings also hold potential to inform development of empirically-oriented interventions to reduce the expression of prejudice in childhood and across the lifespan.
Open Access
Understanding Patterns in Infant-Directed Speech in Context: An Investigation of Statistical Cues to Word Boundaries
(University of Oregon, 2017-05-01) Hartman, Rose; Baldwin, Dare
People talk about coherent episodes of their experience, leading to strong dependencies between words and the contexts in which they appear. Consequently, language within a context is more repetitive and more coherent than language sampled from across contexts. In this dissertation, I investigated how patterns in infant-directed speech differ under context-sensitive compared to context-independent analysis. In particular, I tested the hypothesis that cues to word boundaries may be clearer within contexts. Analyzing a large corpus of transcribed infant-directed speech, I implemented three different approaches to defining context: a top-down approach using the occurrence of key words from pre-determined context lists, a bottom-up approach using topic modeling, and a subjective coding approach where contexts were determined by open-ended, subjective judgments of coders reading sections of the transcripts. I found substantial agreement among the context codes from the three different approaches, but also important differences in the proportion of the corpus that was identified by context, the distribution of the contexts identified, and some characteristics of the utterances selected by each approach. I discuss implications for the use and interpretation of contexts defined in each of these three ways, and the value of a multiple-method approach in the exploration of context. To test the strength of statistical cues to word boundaries in context-specific sub-corpora relative to a context-independent analysis of cues to word boundaries, I used a resampling procedure to compare the segmentability of context sub-corpora defined by each of the three approaches to a distribution of random sub-corpora, matched for size for each context sub-corpus. Although my analyses confirmed that context-specific sub-corpora are indeed more repetitive, the data did not support the hypothesis that speech within contexts provides richer information about the statistical dependencies among phonemes than is available when analyzing the same statistical dependencies without respect to context. Alternative hypotheses and future directions to further elucidate this phenomenon are discussed.

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Browsing Psychology Theses and Dissertations by Author "Baldwin, Dare"

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