High rates of early dropout or premature termination in university psychology training clinics adversely affect both patients and clinicians. Prior research suggests that among clients seen at training clinics approximately 70% terminate prematurely and approximately 55% do not report reliable change at the conclusion of treatment. To help assess the generality of this issue, we are investigating the rate of premature termination in a university-based clinical psychology training clinic in the Northwest. Using the Reliable Change Index (RCI) as a marker of recovery, we calculated the RCI for 3 outcome measures: the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7 (GAD-7), and the Brief Adjustment Scale-6 (BASE-6). Additionally, the training clinic in this study practices Measurement-Based Care (MBC) which involves the systematic administration of symptom rating scales known to increase treatment efficiency and effectiveness by assisting with clinical decision-making and informing patient progress. The hypothesis was that there would be a higher rate of reliable improvement and lower rate of deterioration at the end of treatment. Our examination of the test-retest reliability within 2 weeks of these outcome measures found the total scores of all three scales to perform adequately. Within the training clinic, 18.18% reliably improved using the GAD-7, 21.51% reliably improved using the PHQ-9, and 27.27% reliably improved using the BASE-6. These results did not support the hypothesis and instead found a lower rate of reliable improvement than the published norms. Potential reasons for the discrepancy will be discussed. This study will benefit those suffering from ineffective treatment outcomes and those struggling with untreated debilitating mental disorders. It will also add to the growing literature on the benefits and obstacles of MBC which has been gaining increasing recognition recently. 

Semantic ambiguity arises in language when a word or sentence can take on multiple meanings. The resolution process can not only greatly inform theories of language processing, but can also provide novel insights into human general cognitive abilities. There is evidence for basal ganglia (BG) involvement in semantic ambiguity resolution from a breadth of neuroimaging research and clinical populations. The current project focuses on bilingualism, which creates the higher cognitive demand of selecting, shifting, and inhibition information that is co-activated in two language systems. Our study tested 73 proficient bilinguals using a self-paced reading task that contained a lexical ambiguity manipulation. A probabilistic learning task was used as an index of BG functioning. We anticipate that bilinguals with a more balanced use of their two languages train their BG due to frequently managing interference between multiple languages, in comparison to bilinguals who have an imbalanced use of their languages. This should result in a better performance in resolving semantic ambiguities that arise due to low frequency word meanings. Specifically, we expect this better performance to result in smaller increases in reading speed, which reflect interference, for sentences containing low frequency word meanings, relative to control trials. Better understanding of the role of the BG in semantic ambiguity resolution in various bilingual populations will provide novel insights into the neurocognitive bases of human language processing and executive functioning. We see this as an exciting foundation for studies looking into bilingualism as a form of executive function training.

Dogs have been shown to use the direction of humans’ gaze to infer information about hidden food, a behavior referred to as social referencing. We might expect that social dependency towards a handler will be higher for dogs that are more dependent on humans’ presence, especially when faced with uncertain situations. We tested whether there was a relationship between attachment and dependency behaviors and social referencing in companion dogs. Dog owners completed an intake survey that included the previously validated Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ), which gives a score for the degree of separation-related distress behaviors dogs exhibit which we used as a measure for dogs’ attachment and dependence on their owners. These owners then brought their dogs to participate on-location for our experimental set up. We taught the dogs a location-based discrimination task, in which subjects learned to expect a food reward in one location (the positive stimulus), and no reward in an opposing location (the negative stimulus). When dogs approached the positive stimulus faster than the negative stimulus, we intermittently presented them with ambiguous stimuli, i.e. intermediate between the positive and negative stimuli. We measured social referencing as the frequency of glancing behavior of dogs toward their owner or the handler for each trial. We analyzed social referencing by stimuli in order to assess whether dogs would treat ambiguous stimuli as they do the rewarded location or the non-rewarded location with respect to glancing behavior. We hypothesized that dogs with higher C-BARQ scores for separation-related behavior would exhibit higher proportions of social referencing behavior, particularly when presented with ambiguous stimuli. Our research has implications regarding potential effects of canine dependency on their owners in their decisions in certain situations, such as those that introduce ambiguity.

 Domestic dogs express individual differences in personality and perception, affecting their behavior towards objects they encounter in the world. One of these differences is a form of cognitive bias called judgement bias. Dogs that approach an ambiguous stimulus at a rate closer to that of approach towards a rewarded stimulus demonstrate a positive judgement bias. Likewise, dogs who approach at a rate closer to that of a non-rewarded (or aversive) stimulus have a negative judgement bias. Some dogs refuse to approach the non-rewarding stimulus entirely, which can be defined as refusal behavior. We analyzed whether refusal behavior was related to companion dogs’ judgement bias and general fear and anxiety. Dog owners completed the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ), a previously validated questionnaire measuring a variety of individual differences in dog behavior, and, most importantly, fear and anxiety. Afterwards, dogs were brought in for in-person testing. We measured each dog’s latency to approach ambiguous stimuli and compared this to their latency when approaching rewarded versus non-rewarded stimuli. We would expect that dogs who refuse to approach ambiguous stimuli will also exhibit higher C-BARQ scores in fear and anxiety than dogs who do approach ambiguous stimuli. Refusing to approach may also suggest a negative judgement bias. These findings are extremely useful to not only further understand canine behavior and cognition, as refusal to engage with a stimulus may be a future tool to define a canine’s perception of ambiguous stimuli. They also have practical implications for both animal welfare and training efficacy, as individual cognitive differences among dogs may impact how they will respond in behavioral tests and training regimes.

Methodological advances have made it possible to generate predictions of brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for cognitive architectures, such as Adaptive Control of Thought—Rational (ACT-R), thus expanding the range of model predictions and making it possible to distinguish between alternative models that produce otherwise identical behavioral patterns. However, for tasks associated with relatively brief response times, fMRI predictions are often not sufficient to compare alternative models. Presently, we outline a method based on effective connectivity, which significantly augments the amount of information that can be extracted from fMRI data to distinguish between models. We show the application of this method in the case of two competing ACT-R models of the Stroop task. Although the models make, predictably, identical behavioral and fMRI predictions, patterns of functional connectivity favor one model over the other. Finally, we show that the same data indicates, provided reasonable task constraints, that we may be able to automatically generate modifications to our models using measures of effective connectivity, further increasing the validity of our models and opening new avenues for model development. We see this an exciting opportunity for future research.

This work replicates previous research used to criticize the use of principle component (PCA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Factor analysis is often used when research is being conducted in a new area and there is limited background knowledge about what one might expect to find. It’s useful because of its ability to reduce the number of variables in a dataset by examining the correlations between items and identifying latent dimensions that account for measured item variance and covariation. A criticism of this method is that it detects patterns in random data where there is no underlying structure. We tested this criticism by replicating the methods in a 1981 paper by Robert Vierra and David Carlson. We generated random data in R Studio and looked at the variance accounted for by the factors identified by EFA and PCA. We also examined the Type I error rate in sample correlation matrices tested with Bartlett's test. Additionally, we have begun a literature review looking at the modern methods similar to exploratory factor analysis, including machine learning, in order to understand how these criticisms have been addressed by these modern approaches.

Music, like language, is considered a human universal. However, like language, individuals learn particular genres of music based on their cultural exposure. Recent behavioral and neuroimaging research on music cognition has shown that individuals can more easily process and remember music that is culturally familiar to them than music that is culturally novel. The goal of this research is to investigate whether individual differences in the ability to learn novel musical structures (or music aptitude) relates to individual differences in the ability to learn new languages, or language aptitude. Our study includes 5 minute eyes-closed resting-state electroencephalography (EEG), language aptitude tests (LLAMA D&F) of phonological awareness (tests participants’ memory of a series of words in a foreign language) and grammatical inferencing (ability to extract underlying rules), and a music learning test in which participants learn a form of foreign music. We predict that phonological awareness will positively correlate with overall memory for foreign music, as it relates to the ability to remember sequences of sounds. In contrast, we predict that grammatical inferencing will positively correlate with the extent to which individuals learn to distinguish between different types of foreign music through statistical learning. This study provides evidence of the connection of individual differences in foreign music comprehension to individual differences in second language acquisition at both a behavioral and neurological level.

Measurement in Psychology usually assumes continuous dimensions. Correspondingly, theoretical constructs are typically conceptualized as dimensions, meaning that observations differ in degree. However, theoretical constructs may also be categorical, i.e., rather than differing by degree, differing qualitatively. Different construct operationalization’s may lead to different scientific conclusions. Self esteem has long been of interest in Psychology. It has been conceptualized in various different ways, but always dimensional. Some self-esteem measures (for example, the The Rosenberg Self Esteem scale) seek to measure globally how much one values themselves as a person, without focusing on specific domains. On the other hand, other self-esteem measures (for example, the State self esteem scale) focus on perceived capabilities in specific domains, such as performance, social, and appearance. In the National Survey of Youth, participants rated themselves in specific areas, and then again as they would like to be. Using these data, we examined how different operationalization’s of self-esteem are associated with a few psychologically interesting outcomes such as drug use and crime. Specifically, we compared continuous and categorical representations of self-esteem. By examining the assumption of continuous latent variables, we shed light on how scientific conclusions differ based on construct operationalization.
 

The basal ganglia, evolutionarily old subcortical brain structures, are not commonly considered to be part of the 'language network' despite mounting evidence of their involvement. The current experiment explores two existing hypothesised roles for the basal ganglia in language, based on their known neurocomputations. These hypotheses characterize basal ganglia function as "control" - (prioritization of competing, stable-valued responses), or as "anticipitory" - (ongoing semantical organization based upon syntactic rules). The current experiment aims to adjudicate between these hypotheses by investigating the role of the basal ganglia using an individual differences approach. We utilize two neuroimaging paradigms targeting these hypotheses via lexical-semantic selection under uncertainty and sentence comprehension under varying syntactic complexities, completed by the same subjects. By correlating the neural responses to these tasks with individual differences in vocabulary and working memory capacity, we will explore the predictions made by two hypotheses. Specifically, if the basal ganglia nuclei are involved in controlling compteting linguistic responses, we expect to see greater levels of activation in the left caudate head when subjects are prompted with ambiguous lexical-semantic word choices, as well as 'spillover' activation in the right caudate nucleus negatively correlated with vocabulary percentile and accuracy; if the basal ganglia nuclei are involved in anticipating meaning via syntactic cues, we anticipate higher levels of activation in the left caudate with more syntactically complex sentences in lower-working-memory-capacity readers.

Research has shown transgender children respond similarly to categorical measures of gender identity as their gender-matched cisgender peers, rather than those who share their sex assigned at birth. However, categorical measures may be limiting responses and not encompassing the diversity of gender identities. We presented a continuous measure to 223 transgender children (socially-transitioned children to live and present as a gender opposite the one assigned at birth), 71 gender nonconforming children (children who have not socially transitioned but show characteristics stereotypically associated with a gender other than the one assigned at birth), 281 cisgender control participants, and 181 cisgender siblings of transgender and gender nonconforming participants. Provided a line, participants were asked to mark their gender identity, with the left-most end indicating feeling completely like a boy, the right-most end indicating feeling completely like a girl, and in between representing varying degrees of a mixture of both. Each participant’s mark was converted to a percentage, with 100% indicating feeling completely like the gender they present as (for transgender/gender nonconforming children, opposite the gender assigned at birth). A univariate ANOVA examining the effect of participant group on identity showed a significant main effect, F(3,752)= 38.72, p < .001. Post-hoc Tukey comparisons showed, consistent with previous research, transgender children (M=0.81, SD= .189) did not differ significantly from the cisgender controls (M=0.87, SD= .181), nor cisgender siblings (M=0.87, SD=.206), in their identification with their current gender. However, gender nonconforming participants (M= 0.59, SD = .309) differed significantly in their scores from each of the other groups (ps < .001). These results are consistent with previous research conducted with categorical measures. Additionally, as none of the groups showed 100% binary identification, this study also demonstrates the importance of continuous measures of gender identity within gender development research.

Individuals with ambivalent and avoidant adult attachment styles are more likely to use negative coping strategies such as denial and disengagement, while individuals with a secure adult attachment style are more likely to use positive coping strategies such as reappraisal and support seeking. Certain negative coping strategies are linked with mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. Most research regarding the relationship between coping strategies and adult attachment style has been done on undergraduates and veterans. No research to date has examined gender as a moderator of the relationship between adult attachment style and coping strategies. However, research suggests that both coping strategies and adult attachment styles vary by gender. In the present study, a series of multivariate regression analyses were conducted to determine whether gender moderated the relationship between close, and anxious adult attachment styles and emotional support seeking, and substance abuse coping mechanisms. Participants (N=385) completed self-report measures of coping strategies and adult attachment styles online. This project may reveal that gender changes the relationship between adult attachment style and coping strategies. This information may help inform psychological interventions for individuals with maladaptive coping strategies and improve our ability to predict who might engage in maladaptive coping strategies.

Latent class models are frequently used to classify observations into homogeneous albeit qualitatively different sub-groups. Typically, these models are unrestricted, meaning there is no a priori structure or restrictions on model estimates. This approach is similar to many cluster analysis approaches. The study examines modeling conclusions when an unrestricted model is applied to data generated from a highly restrictive population model through a simulation study. We expect that a researcher will conclude fewer classes than the true number specified in the population. Simulated data for this work is based on a substance use example identified in other research. The population was generated based on six classes, but with a within class error rate fixed to 5%. Preliminary analyses indicate that commonly employed model selection criteria indicate that models with fewer than six classes are preferable. This is important because most analysts using latent class models use unrestricted models with little apparent consideration to what realistic error rates may be. In research domains where smaller error rates may be plausible, restrictive models of the sort used to generate the data for this study may be worth considering.

Over 350 million people are affected by major depression on a global scale according to the World Health Organization with an increasing economic impact of over $210 billion annually with a growth of 21.5% since 2005. The ability to switch behaviors or strategies when faced with chronic stress is an important determinant to the susceptibility and longevity of depression within people, also referred to as cognitive flexibility. The objective of this proposed study is to analyze the effects of the endogenous cannabinoid (ECB) system on cognitive flexibility through the lateral habenula. Cannula implant surgeries will be conducted on rats to input antagonist or agonist drugs into the brain. Behavioral tests will be conducted on rats to examine whether these manipulations will promote or deter cognitive flexibility.

Detection of uncomplicated mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is difficult because there are no visible brain lesions that are often associated with more severe forms of TBI. New biomarkers would allow doctors to more sensitively screen for mTBI using neuroimaging methods. One promising biomarker technology is resting-state functional connectivity, which is brain activity measured at rest using functional magnetic resonance imaging. One particularly salient resting-state network is the Default Mode Network (DMN). Our research focused on identifying differences in resting-state functional connectivity between individuals diagnosed with mTBI and healthy controls. We examined mTBI in 254 U.S. military personnel deployed to a combat theatre in the Middle East from 2010-2013. Each subject underwent initial magnetic resonance imaging and screening for TBI following medical evacuation to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC), the primary triage center for all evacuated combat casualties, up to 30 days post-injury. We used four distinct groups for our analysis; Blast/Non-Blast (n=79, 44) TBI, and Blast/Non-Blast Control (n=35, 96) while covarying for age and gender. We hypothesized that resting-state networks will be disrupted in TBI and blast populations when compared to controls. We used two different methodologies; the first was a seed-based analysis examining group differences in the correlations from the Posterior Cingulate Cortex (PCC, a key hub within the DMN) to the whole brain. The second analysis used the Yeo Seven Network parcellation to compute correlations between all seven networks to the DMN. We were unable to distinguish any group from controls, suggesting that early differences in functional connectivity are not a robust biomarker of injury.

Research has shown that positive outcome expectancy (i.e., anticipated positive consequences as a result of engaging in a behavior) and positive affective responses to exercise play an important role in predicting exercise behavior as well as future exercise intentions. Unlike most research in which the valence (i.e., positive - negative) of outcome expectancy and affective responses are typically assessed through survey items whose valence is predetermined, the current study used a spontaneous word association test (WAT) to examine the subjective meaning of exercise-related outcome expectancy and mood before exercise, and how they are related to exercise intentions and behaviors. One-hundred and eleven undergraduate and graduate students (74 females; 64 undergraduate students) performed an exercise-related WAT in which they were asked to write down the first word or a short phrase that comes to mind when they thought of (a) things that might happen from exercising and (b) their mood right before exercising. Subsequently, they were instructed to rate their subjective valence (i.e., positive-negative) to each of their responses to the WAT. They also completed a series of online self-report surveys that included assessments of exercise intentions and past exercise behavior. Path analyses will be conducted to test our hypotheses that the subjective valence of their mood right before exercising is expected to be directly associated with exercise behavior whereas the subjective valence of outcome expectancy is expected to be indirectly associated with exercise behavior through exercise intentions. This study examines the potential value and usefulness of a spontaneous word association procedure to more accurately measure affective evaluations of an individual’s feelings and thoughts toward exercise behavior.

It is an evitable instinct to develop snap judgements of people as we encounter them in passing; therefore, our experiment attempted to replicate this quick encounter and asked the question of whether one’s gender and race impacted how they perceive others’ friendliness. Our sample consisted of 35 males (27.1%) and 89 females (66.7%). 82 of our participants were Caucasian (63%), 25 Asian-American (19%), 4 African American (.03%), 1 Hawaiian (.007%), 20 Latino American (15%), 14 who identified as mixed race (10%); all an average age of 23 years (SD = 2.6). Participants were shown 8 photographs of White and Latino men and women smiling for 5 seconds each. They then had to rate the friendliness of each photo within 15 seconds of viewing. Our findings suggest that the intersectionality of race and gender play a role in how individuals perceive men and white men. Implications of these findings suggest that a holistic view of a person’s identity will give a better indication of how they might view those who do and do not look like them.

By their second birthday, toddlers help others. Moreover, infants as young as 9 months of age can detect others’ needs. Yet it is unclear if early helping behavior is based on and motivated by an underlying assessment of others’ needs, or motivated by other factors, like the desire to socially interact or affiliate with others. Here, we investigate whether toddlers utilize an experimenter’s needs when helping. We presented N=24, 24-month-old toddlers with two helping tasks: a puzzle and hunger-or-thirst task. In the puzzle task, toddlers watched an actor fail to complete a puzzle due to a missing puzzle-piece. Toddlers then had the opportunity to help the actor by either bringing her a puzzle-piece that fit the puzzle (need-fulfilling) or a puzzle-piece that did not fit the puzzle (not need fulfilling). Overall, toddlers were more likely to help with the puzzle-piece that fulfilled the actor’s need than the puzzle-piece that did not fulfill the actor’s need, p=.008. In the hunger-or-thirst task, the actor told toddlers that she was either hungry or thirsty. Toddlers could help the actor by giving her one of three different items: (a) cereal, (b) water, or (c) a shoe. Here, toddlers brought the needed item (e.g. cereal if she was hungry) at chance, p=.11. However, toddlers were more likely to bring the needed or the thematically related item (e.g. water if she was hungry) significantly more than chance, p<.001. Our findings provide initial evidence that 24-month-old toddlers are motivated to help based on others’ concrete needs: toddlers brought the needed puzzle-piece. However, toddlers have a harder time helping appropriately when the actor’s need is internal and therefore more abstract; hence, the equal likeliness to help with the needed and related item during the hunger-or-thirst task.

Understanding prosocial behavior, the concern for the welfare of others, is critical to navigating the social world. Here, we investigated the nature of infants’ understanding of prosociality by asking whether they expect those who are fair (i.e. those who distribute resources equally) to also be trustworthy (i.e. respect someone else’s property). We showed 32 22-month-olds videos of two actors, one who distributes goods fairly (3:3) and another who distributes goods unfairly (5:1). Using eye-tracking, we captured infants’ active and passive expectations about the trustworthiness of these actors when both were warned by a third character, a toy-owner: “Don’t touch my toy”. When she left the room and came back to find the toy missing, she asked “Where is my toy?”. We predicted that more infants would give anticipatory looks towards the unfair actor than towards the fair actor, suggesting that infants expected the unfair actor to have stolen the toy (i.e., active expectations). Next, infants either saw the fair actor steal the toy (n=16) or the unfair actor steal the toy (n=16). Here, we predicted infants would look longer at display when the fair actor stole the toy, a signal that this event violated their expectations (i.e. passive expectations). Additionally, we were interested in how social-environmental factors may influence infants’ expectations. Thus, we also investigated the influence of siblings on infants’ expectations. Findings revealed that infants with siblings looked anticipatorily at the unfair actor while infants without siblings looked anticipatorily at the fair actor. Additionally, infants who saw the unfair actor steal the toy looked longer at the display. This may be explained by infants looking longer at the actor whose behavior they found most interesting. Together, these findings provide insight into infants’ understanding of various sociomoral traits and how this understanding may be influenced by social-environmental factors.

Morality has significant social importance as it influences the way we interact with others. We know that adults and children (aged 3-11) expect all groups to follow moral norms such as fairness, but only in-group members to follow non-moral norms like certain food preferences (Liberman, 2017). It remains unknown if this applies to infants. Studying infants’ moral sensitivities will shed light on the origins of morality, and it will give us insights on its socialization. We are investigating infants’ expectations about in-group and out-group members performing actions that are consistent/inconsistent with moral norms (i.e., distributing resources fairly/unfairly) and actions that are consistent/inconsistent with non-moral norms (i.e., using an object according to its established function or unconventionally). In Study 1, 24-month olds (N=32, testing ongoing) are first familiarized to a storyteller speaking English (in-group) or Spanish (out-group). Infants are then shown the storyteller doing a fair (equal) or an unfair (unequal) distribution of cookies to two third parties. We are measuring, via infants’ visual attentiveness, whether they expect fair or unfair resource distributions. We predict that infants will show enhanced attentiveness to the unfair event, thereby suggesting what they saw violated their expectations. During piloting, infants in both conditions looked longer at the unfair distribution (English-Unfair: M=32.44 seconds (SE=9.09), Fair: M=28.8 seconds, (SE=15.4), Spanish-Unfair: M=27.8 (SE=15.2), Fair: M=17.3 (SE=5.39), providing preliminary support for our hypothesis. We are also testing how non-moral norms translate across group boundaries. After the same familiarization events as before, the test trial shows an unconventional action (ie. brushing your hair with a fork) pitted against a convention one (ie. eating with a fork). We predict that non-moral norms will be group-specific because they should be seen as culturally dependent and not encompasing. In sum, these findings will provide important new insights into the origins of morality.

Although Asians and Asian Americans are often classified as belonging in the same social category, these two groups may perceive and think about the world differently. This project examined whether UW students who are Asians and Asian Americans hold different viewpoints regarding social identities and social statuses. Primarily, we examined group differences in Status Legitimizing Belief, Perceived Racial Discrimination, and Racial Identification. Status legitimizing belief is a set of beliefs (measuring protestant work ethic, perceived system permeability, and system legitimacy) asserting that if individuals work hard, are motivated, and are talented, they can improve their social statuses. Perceived racial discrimination measures the extent to which racial minorities believe that they are targets of discriminations. Racial identification measures individuals’ beliefs and perceptions that their racial group matters and is central to how they perceive themselves. Through meta-analyses of self-report surveys across 13 academic quarters, we found significant differences between Asian Americans and Asians across all measured variables. First, we found that Asians have higher status legitimizing belief than Asian Americans. Asians also perceive lower racial discrimination than their Asian American counterparts. And finally, Asians are less likely to identify with their racial in-group than Asian Americans. This research demonstrates that while both groups are often classified or perceived as the same social group, they, in fact, hold different perspectives regarding their identities as well as their statuses. Understanding how these two groups rationalize and perceive legitimacy and discrimination offers insight into intergroup relations.

With the rise of social media numerous nationally publicized incidents of large groups of people harassing a private party over the internet have taken place. A review of current research points to several possible causes. One body of research suggests certain patterns in neural activity which could be encouraging individuals to harass total strangers online - a phenomena which may be partially to blame. These patterns may be anthropological artifacts evolved to protect humans in primitive tribal groups which provide neurological rewards for actors who punish detrimental behavior in bad actors. These reward structures are now manifesting in the online environment due to its unique low-risk nearly anonymous nature and/or lack of tangible repercussions that would normally inhibit this behavior. Other researchers suggest these attacks may be a form of virtue signaling to let peers know the harasser is not like the perceived bad actor. (e.g. harassing a perceived racist signals to others that one is not racist). The issue is so new there is no strong scientific agreement in the psychological community as to what is really taking place, or in some cases even what terminology applies. Research in this topic may lead to better understanding of human machine interaction, and cyber-psychology.

Despite their sophisticated visual system, convergent and comparable in complexity to that of vertebrates, Octopus rubescens is largely nocturnal and forages mostly at night. Without visual information, their primary means of gathering information from the environment is through the sophisticated chemotactile sensory system within their arms. Octopuses blinded from lesions to their optic nerves have been observed relying on chemotactile perception of their environment with their arms fully extended to maximize their sensory range. Such behavioral profiles optimizing the acquisition of one sensory modality in the absence of another would be critical for navigating and monitoring changes within their environment. Our intention is to characterize how Octopus rubescens modifies its chemotactile range after an acclimation period of either light or darkness, simulating a natural 24 hour light cycle, and then a rapid change to the opposite lighting condition. Using 3d tracking cameras we will be able to quantify the change in the range of arm extension and overall posture that accompanies locomotion during light and dark conditions.

Sexual harassment is pervasive yet many people underestimate its prevalence or often do not believe victims when they come forward. The current research examines a potential source of this bias. Specifically, we theorize that people assume and misperceive victims of sexual harassment as prototypical women (i.e., those who fit the stereotypical, idealized image of women), and those who deviate from this prototypicality are less likely to be believed as victims. In this study, participants read a vignette describing a woman named Anna who was either sexually harassed by a male boss or not (control group). Importantly, we manipulated her prototypicality using photographs obtained from previous research. After reading the vignette, participants rate how likely they think Anna experienced sexual harassment. This is a 2 (prototypical vs non-prototypical images) x 2 (harassment vs control) between-subject design. We are primarily interested in the interaction between the two conditions. If the interaction is significant, then we will examine the non-prototypical vs prototypical within the harassment condition as well as in the control condition. We are trying to see how the interaction effect works for women who are prototypical or not when they have been harassed because we believe that prototypical women will be more likely to be believed than non-prototypical women. We do not expect this pattern to repeat in the control condition because prototypicality should not influence women who are not harassed. This research will allow us to understand how perception of harassment can be influenced by women’s resemblance to the prototypical image of womanhood.

Despite possessing only one photopigment in its retina, a feature which should render an animal colorblind, the octopus, like other cephalopods, possesses an unrivaled capacity to camouflage itself with its surroundings. A recent theory suggests that cephalopods discriminate color in their environment through exaggerated chromatic aberrations, or the focusing of different wavelenths of light at different points behind a lens, caused by morphological changes in the eye. By monitoring the blurring of different wavelengths of light upon the retina from the visual field in response to the shape of the pupil, a cephalopod can still perceive color with only one photopigment. We test this theory using conditioning to a two-toned visual stimulus and its two differently-colored halves, to look at whether strobing between the two differently colored stimuli evokes the same response as that paired to the combined stimulus or one of its halves. Evoking the response of the combined stimulus would suggest that they can see the two differently colored halves simultaneously, and that a morphological change is not needed to see two different wavelengths of light. This would present a model for color perception with one photopigment that could be explored in various other vertebrates and invertebrates previously thought to be colorblind.

Over the last few decades, there has been increasing interest worldwide in nature preschool programs, which provide young children the freedom to explore, discover, and construct knowledge from their direct experience with the natural environment. This research project investigates how the presence of nature provides affordances that lead to important developmental outcomes. Using a naturalistic observational methodology, I collected over 700 short videos of preschool children (18 months – 6 years old) interacting with nature in a leading nature preschool program in Hong Kong. Analyses draw on interaction pattern theory, wherein an interaction pattern is understood to characterize essential forms of human-nature interaction, specified abstractly enough such that many different instances of the same pattern can be enacted. Results are revealing 38 keystone interaction patterns, such as Cohabiting with Wild Animals, Immersing One’s Body in Water, Splashing in Mud Puddle, Climbing High in Small tree, Gathering Nature Items, etc. Based on this interaction pattern analysis, I am then testing a core hypothesis: that children enact more relational behavior in more wild parts of the outside nature, and more domination behavior over nature in more domestic parts of outside nature. If this hypothesis is supported, it will provide data that speaks to how interaction with more wild forms of nature can help move our world away from its largely domination-oriented sensibilities (human domination over nature and over other people) to those that are more relational.

Exposure to traumatic events during infancy can lead to adverse health effects later in life, stemming from an imbalance between the innate and acquired arms of the immune system. Trauma experienced at an early age, such as childhood abuse or environmental stress, is categorized as early life adversity. As the immune consequences of early life adversity are unclear, our study explores how early life adversity affects immunological development and parasite susceptibility in gelada monkeys (Theropithecus gelada). Geladas are an ideal species to study early life adversity due to the similarity of their immune response to that of humans and the fact that they may face adversity early in life. Male geladas compete for reproductive access to females, which often leads to attempted infanticide. Surviving juveniles experience trauma that may have similar physiological consequences to early life adversity in humans. Thus, we determine if there are differences in the immune development of the acquired immune system between geladas exposed to takeovers as infants and those who were not. Acquired immune system development is measured by the identification of gastrointestinal (GI) parasites species that commonly infect geladas, as these parasites trigger the adaptive immune response. We identify these GI parasites using high throughput methods to sequence a region of DNA with known variation across nematode species, allowing us to identify parasites at the level of genus. We expect to see greater GI parasite species diversity in geladas with underdeveloped acquired immune systems as we continue to identify GI parasite species in geladas that were exposed to early life adversity and those who were not.

As theorized in Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins articulates the four main controlling images that surround the Black female experience: Mammy, Matriarch, Welfare Recipient and Jezebel. According to Collins, these negative images are associated with Black women as a means to enact justifiable violence. Past studies examining Black women’s responses to these images have found that there is either a distancing, reimagining, or acceptance of the image as a part of personal identity. It is important to weave out the nuanced responses to the knowledge of these images to gain a deeper understanding into the effects on socialization and self-image. In this study we ask the question, How do undergraduate Black women aged 18-24 attending Portland State University respond to the controlling image of the Jezebel? Due to the social aspect and hook-up culture of college, the image of the overly promiscuous and sexaully-available Black woman is particularly important to understand in a University setting, and furthermore, in a space where the population of Black women is low. Through in depth interviews, we expect to gain responses that initially distance participants from the image of the Jezebel, yet communicate a complex relationship between sexual agency and stigma.

Albinism is a genetic mutation that strips those affected of the pigment in their skin, hair, and eyes. This alters the appearance of the affected and at times, subjects them to ostracism when interacting with their ethnic group(s). Albinism affects less than 1% of the human population and it is for this reason that understanding their attitudes and opinions on their racial-ethnic identity is important. The goal of this study is not only to investigate participants’ attitudes on and experiences with ethnicity and race, but to spread awareness of participants’ experiences. Participants attitudes and experiences were assessed using a survey and interviews which elaborated on the survey responses. Data for this study are in the preliminary stages of analysis. However, once completed this study they will prove to be one of the few psychological studies on Albinism. This study’s findings also aim to provide information to families of those with Albinism to better care for individuals with this mutation.

Non-invasive prenatal testing is a recently approved form of genetic testing for pregnant women to screen for chromosomal problems such as Trisomy 21 (i.e., Down syndrome [DS]) without the risk of miscarriage. In the event that this test indicates DS, people may consider whether to continue pregnancy, and perceptions of DS may influence this decision. The present study examines whether positively and negatively framed information about DS influences perceptions of DS and the imagined decision to continue or terminate pregnancies when testing indicates a fetus has DS. It was hypothesized that participants who receive positively framed information would be more likely to imagine continuing pregnancy and have more positive perceptions of DS. Participants were given the same set of facts about DS, either framed positively (e.g., “50% have no heart problems”) or negatively (e.g., “50% have heart problems). The participants reported their perception of the syndrome, including personality traits, adult achievements, and level of learning disability. The participants were then asked whether their feelings toward a pregnancy might change if they were aware their child would have DS. Contrary to the hypothesis, there was no significant effect of framing on perceptions of DS or imagined decisions about pregnancy. However, perceptions of positive personality traits were significantly related to greater expected adult achievement (r=.33, p<.03) and lower expected level of learning disability (r=.39, p<.01). Although this study did not show framing effects, the framing manipulation studied was subtle. Given the possible implications for genetic counseling, more research—with a stronger manipulation—could be done to examine these effects.

Fragile race avoiding is defined as the tendency to refrain from talking about race or racial issues to hide one’s bias due to sensitivity concerning the topic. Some even demonstrate discomfort or incoherence when directly talking about racial issues. This is common amongst whites who want to avoid conflict regarding racism. Although white people may believe that avoiding racial topics stops disagreements from arising, fragile race avoiding can promote ignorance about stereotypes and inhibit cultural awareness. We believe that this is a method in which individuals suppress their discomfort towards blacks. Therefore, we predict that a higher score on fragile race avoiding will correlate with higher levels in overall racism. We tested this prediction in a study in which UW undergraduate students talked about various scenarios with a research confederate to prompt a discussion about current day racial issues. Coders watched these taped interactions and rated various categories of microaggressions on a scale from zero to three. Scores of zero for fragile race avoiding indicates that the research participant is comfortable talking about racial issues and brings up race without being prompted by the confederate. Meanwhile scores of three indicate that the participant actively avoids mentioning race and shows palpable discomfort throughout the interaction. For the scores on overall racism, coders considered the interaction as a whole and determined how black individuals would feel when in a room with the participant. A score of zero represents comfort and understanding of the racial implications these topics were created to induce, while a three shows that the participant’s racist beliefs are explicit and clear. We hypothesize that there will be a positive correlation between the scores on fragile race avoiding and overall racism, indicating that fragile race avoiding is a modern form of racism in which individuals suppress their discomfort among blacks.

Becoming a mother can be an incredibly beautiful process, but it can also become overwhelming and extremely stressful, especially when lacking support and resources. The chronic and significant stress that low-income, pregnant women experience put them at greater risk for adverse health outcomes and their infant at risk for poor developmental outcomes. At the University of Washington’s Center for Child and Family Well-Being, our research team has developed mindfulness-based interventions to help new moms adjust to their new life. Our goal is to examine the effects of stress on the mother-infant dyad and to evaluate whether these programs are beneficial for moms and their babies. Expecting mothers are randomly assigned to attend one mindfulness-based program that focuses on preparing for childbirth, reducing postpartum stress, or developing parenting skills. Administration of extensive questionnaires to the mother and recordings of the mother and baby completing various tasks, before and after the program, measure the pair’s socioemotional development. We also collect cortisol, a stress hormone, and measure heart rate and breathing during a stress-reactivity paradigm to inform us of the physiological effects of stress. We hypothesize that mothers who exhibit high levels of mindfulness are more likely to engage in consistent, warm, and responsive parenting skills. As a result, these mothers' infants will display better self-regulation and focus. We also predict that mothers and babies who participate in these mindfulness interventions are more likely to show a decrease in cortisol production and have controlled cardiovascular reactivity. Recommendations for future research include establishing a systematic way of identifying mothers at risk so that we may prevent further harms caused by stress. Implications of the findings can be used to advocate for equitable, accessible mental health programs and implementation of public health policy centered around protecting and empowering vulnerable women and children in our community.

The mental health of transgender children, children who have socially transitioned to live as the gender “opposite” their assigned sex at birth, have not been researched extensively, although the occurrence of childhood social transitions have increased in recent history. Instances of bullying and discrimination are reported in the LGBTQ community in high rates, which has been known to lead to higher rates of internalized symptoms. Previous studies have looked at the stress buffering hypothesis, which postulates that social support protects against the negative effects of victimization experiences, but the results from those studies are mixed. In the present study, we examine whether social support moderates the association between bullying and discrimination with internalizing symptoms in transgender youth. To test our hypothesis, we had the parents of 265 socially transitioned children, from ages 3-15 (mean age 9.41), answer questions regarding a child’s support structure (family, peer, school) and whether their child has been bullied and/or discriminated against specifically because of their gender. Our results show that the relationship between victimization experiences and internalizing symptoms was moderated by peer support, but not by family support or school support. We found that when participants had less peer support, being victimized more was associated with more internalizing symptoms, while higher levels of peer support do not yield significant results between the two variables, indicating that peer support may act as a buffer between victimization experiences and internalizing symptoms in transgender youth.

Often, when rodents are faced with a decision on a maze, they will pause to look back and forth between different paths. This behavior has been termed vicarious trial-and-error (VTE) and has been linked to the reactivation of hippocampal place field sequences as animals look back and forth. Previous research has shown that place field sequences represent a neural map of the paths the animals can potentially take as if they are pre-playing their future path. These reactivation events give merit to the idea that VTEs are reflective of a deliberative process. Additionally, studies show that when animals reach such decision points there is increased communication between the hippocampus (HPC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) as measured by increased correlates in local oscillatory power. We wanted to further study the mPFC’s role in initiating VTEs during a task that is HPC and mPFC dependent: the spatial delayed-alternation-task. This task was carried out on a plus maze; it required rats to alternate between reward arms every trial while the start arm was pseudo-randomly selected every trial. During this task we used a closed-loop system to optogenetically disrupt the mPFC upon detection of specific phases of HPC theta oscillations. Additionally, disruption was applied across three different task-epochs: delay, choice, and reward in order to determine under which epoch is the mPFC most important for VTE behavior. We hypothesized that mPFC disruption during the choice epoch would reveal the greatest change in the number of VTE’s as the mPFC is thought to initiate retrieval events when decisions are to be made. Because VTE’s are a unique and observable behavior that has clear neural activity correlates, we hope to use this study to better understand the relationship between the hippocampus and mPFC in learning and memory.

As anhedonia, characterized by a blunted sensitivity to reward, is associated with decreased goal-directed behavior, increased risk taking in those with high anhedonia may reflect a lack of concern for the outcomes of risk-related behaviors. Observational studies indicate anhedonia is associated with some risky behaviors, with skydivers endorsing higher levels of anhedonia than non-skydivers and high-risk sports players who report higher anhedonia taking fewer precautions. Gender has also been shown to influence riskiness, with men reporting more recreational and health-related risk taking than women. Despite having behavioral tasks that show predictive validity in assessing real-life risk taking, the relationship between anhedonia and risk taking has not been examined using a controlled, experimental paradigm, which is critical to establishing a predictive association between these constructs. This study aims to characterize the relationship between anhedonia and behavioral risk taking. Sixty individuals, either high in anhedonia (15 female, 15 male) or within a healthy range (15 female, 15 male), were recruited. Risk taking behavior is operationalized with the Game of Dice Task, a gambling task that has shown validity in assessing risk taking in clinical samples. We hypothesized that individuals with high anhedonia would score significantly higher on risk taking compared to those with low anhedonia. Further, we hypothesized a moderating role of gender, such that male participants with high anhedonia would be even riskier than females with high anhedonia. As risk taking often precipitates harm, understanding this association is an important public health concern. Moreover, characterizing the relationship between anhedonia and risk taking may provide insight into high rates of suicidal behavior observed in individuals with high anhedonia.

Previous study found that neural oscillations recorded in the resting-state electroencephalogram (EEG) can predict the learning rate of monolinguals. However, it is unknown whether bilinguals’ learning rates can also be predicted by their resting EEG. This study investigatesd to what extent the brain oscillations in the resting-state EEG of bilinguals and monolinguals would predict the learning rates. The resting-state EEG were used to predict the learning rates of native English speakers and Chinese-English speakers in three experiments. In each experiment, an eyes-closed and an eyes-open resting-state EEG were collected for each subject before participants completed two learning tasks (map and vocabulary). The relationship between power oscillations in alpha (8 to 13 Hz), beta (13 to 30 Hz), and theta (4 to 8 Hz) bands and learning task performance were investigated. The differences in bilinguals and monolinguals resting EEG are hypothesized to predict and reveal the variations in individual learning rates. The results of this study can contribute to the research of brain patterns observed in the resting-state EEG on investigating the impacts of individual linguistic abilities on predicting learning rates.

Diet influences mammalian physiology and has been linked to obesity and the development of carotid artery disease. Carotid artery disease (CAD) is a result of plaque buildup in arteries leading to the brain and other parts of the head, reducing blood flow and increasing the risk of stroke. Rates of obesity and carotid artery disease are higher in countries with Western diets (higher saturated fat and carbohydrate composition) compared to those with Mediterranean diets (higher produce and monounsaturated fat composition). Although there is evidence demonstrating the effect of diet on overall health and physiology, the mechanisms by which these changes arise could be better understood. These health consequences of diet are thought to be mediated by changes in gene expression caused by eating different diets. Understanding how diet influences gene regulation in different tissue types could give critical insight into our understanding of diet’s effect on physiology. To this end, I measured gene expression via RNA-Seq in 37 cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fascicularis) that were randomly assigned either a Western or Mediterranean diet. By analyzing gene expression in samples collected from two types of fat (subcutaneous and visceral) as well as two arterial tissue types (iliac and carotid), I aim to gain insight into the transcriptomic changes due to diet. Further, by understanding diet’s role in gene regulation, I aim to construct a clearer picture of the mechanisms through which western diet might heighten the risk of obesity and the development of CAD. I predict that the differentially expressed genes in fat tissues will be associated with obesity and that the differentially expressed genes in the arterial tissues will be associated with plaque build up and CAD. This study will illuminate how diet mediates gene regulation in a variety of tissues, providing a mechanistic link to diet-related diseases such as obesity and CAD.

This cross-sectional study examined how participants’ NTB (need to belong) moderates the relationship between anxiety and FBSC (Facebook social comparisons). Higher Facebook use has been linked to greater anxiety and increased Facebook social comparisons. Although the literature has demonstrated that people who spend more time on Facebook are more prone to negative consequences, it has yet to demonstrate who might be more vulnerable to comparing themselves to others on social media. Students from a Southern university (N=152, 61.18% female, M=22.55 years) participated in this study. Linear regression analysis was used. Results revealed anxiety and NTB were significantly and positively associated with FBSC. Those with higher levels of anxiety and NTB engaged in the most FBSC, whereas those with higher levels of anxiety and lower NTB engaged in the least FBSC. These results may be useful for clinicians to identify highly anxious clients who are also higher in NTB, as these individuals might be more susceptible to the negative mental consequences associated with FBSC.

The Yerkes-Dodson law suggests that performance is optimal when physiological arousal is moderate. Prior research has shown that arousal induced by listening to music will affect task performance on a cognitive task. The goal of this study was to test whether different music tempos would affect arousal levels and performance on a cognitive task. We recruited 16 UW undergraduates and exposed them to different tempos of the same song while performing a math test. We tested their accuracy, completion time, and recorded their heart rate. Results suggest that accuracy was higher under moderate music tempo than slow but there was no difference between moderate and fast. Interestingly enough there was no difference in completion time or physiological arousal. Although we failed to establish an effect of arousal and completion time the fact that participants did better on accuracy when music tempo was moderate is in line with what we predicted. Music tempo could still be influential to performance and future research can be done to understand these effects by operationalizing performance differently. Future directions about ways to improve the study will be discussed especially whether music/music tempo affect people subjective arousal and physical arousal differently.

The use of mindfulness for emotion regulation has led to its adoption as a strategy to manage emotion and mood. Studies on eating behavior have utilized mindfulness exercises for those with eating disorders and Type 2 diabetes and found that mindfulness improves healthy eating habits. This study extends prior work by examining a mindfulness-based eating intervention among college students. Participants were randomly assigned to a weekly 30-minute mindfulness group or relaxation control group for six weeks. Mindfulness exercises ranged from meditations on nonjudgmental self-acceptance to advanced mindfulness procedures utilizing common snack foods. These exercises encouraged the use of mindfulness strategies to help regulate emotional eating, mood, and eating strategies in daily life. Mindful eating participants reported significant decreases in depressive symptoms compared to controls. However, there was no significant differences between mindful eating, anxiety symptoms, and emotional eating in response to stress over time in mindful practicing participants and compared to controls. Results suggest that a mindful eating intervention for a non-clinical sample helps maintain mindful awareness of dietary behavior and decrease depressive symptoms, but has little effect on emotional eating and mindfulness.

In a majority of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), resources for mental health care are extremely limited. For children and adolescents especially, there is little to no mental health care available. In a recent large randomized controlled trial, an evidence-based treatment (EBT) was delivered in two LMICs, Kenya and Tanzania, using trained lay counselors in a task-shifting/sharing model. Over a 12-week span consisting of weekly group meetings, this EBT, trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), was delivered to orphaned children who had posttraumatic stress (PTS) and/or grief symptoms, along with their guardians. The effects sizes were large for child PTS/grief, but little is known about how to scale up and implement TF-CBT to benefit more children. The current study uses data from a large TF-CBT trial implemented in 10 schools and 10 communities in Kenya by existing staff who served as lay counselors (teachers in schools and community health volunteers [CHVs] in communities). After the delivery of the treatment, qualitative interviews were conducted with the lay counselors from 6 of 10 sites in each to better identify efficient implementation practices and policies (IPPs) that supported TF-CBT delivery. The goal of studying the IPPs is to identify those that support the effective adoption and fidelity of TF-CBT. This study pinpoints which IPPs are most critical for the different settings, sectors, and populations that this study encompasses. We analyzed the IPP resource provision to be able to compare the difference in resource allocation in urban versus rural settings in regards to transportation, materials, etc. This study allows us to gain a better understanding of the necessary implementation strategies to better tailor to the needs of communities to support evidence-based mental health care in specific sectors and settings in LMICs.

Mindfulness involves being present, aware, and non-judgmental. The present study investigates the efficacy of a brief weekly mindfulness intervention within the college classroom as a means of increasing psychological well-being among students. We hypothesized that mindfulness would have emotional, cognitive, and social benefits, and that students who participated more frequently would benefit more. Across six 10-week classes, N=800 university psychology students participated in a five-minute weekly mindfulness activity. Students completed measures of emotional, cognitive, and social functioning in both the first and last weeks as well as some questions specific to the mindfulness activities. We found strong support for our hypotheses for emotional and cognitive benefits. Emotional benefits included increased happiness, resilience, and significantly lower anxiety. Cognitive benefits included engagement in the activities, engagement in the class, being more focused in class, and a positive impact on grades. Students who participated more frequently and to a greater degree saw more positive effects from the intervention. We conclude that a brief mindfulness intervention may be an effective way to improve wellness on the university campus.

Could women’s strength of gender identity direct them predominantly to awards open only to women, leaving other awards less gender-diverse? We examined whether women’s awards could steer women away from more lucrative all-gender awards and if women’s strength of gender identity moderates this decision. Undergraduate women (N=169) decided between two fictional scholarships valued at $2500 and $5000. In the control condition, both awards were open to all genders. In the experimental condition, the $2500 award was only open to women. A chi-square test showed that in the control condition, women were more likely to pick the $5000 all-gender award, while in the experimental condition they were more likely to pick the $2500 women’s award. Women’s likelihood to apply to the $2500 award in both conditions was not moderated by identification with their gender. This indicates that women’s identification with their gender was not driving their tendency to select an award targeted to women. Low-value women’s awards may decrease the number of women applying for higher value all-gender awards, potentially contributing to higher proportions of male applicants and winners to those awards.