Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is one of the most common mental disorders in the world. People with PTSD often have difficulty managing time or have witnessed a traumatic event in the past. PTSD is also associated with memory issues which are characterized by intrusive memories that can cause re-experience aspect of the traumatic event. Through the use of computational models, we aim to investigate the differences in memory retention in spaced vs massed practice presentations. We hypothesize that mass practice will lead to less accuracy in recognition and less intrusive thoughts during retention. Through recruiting healthy adult participants with no history of PTSD or other stress-related psychiatric disorders we get a base data avoiding discrepancies. Participants view visual stimuli as images, either neutral or triggering which are presented in pseudo-order and are asked to rate them based on their valence ranging from neutral to extremely negative. The images are presented under two conditions: mass and space presentation. For spaced presentation, different versions of the triggering image category are presented in no particular order with neutral and filler images in between. For massed presentation, all versions of the triggering image category are presented one after the other with no neutral or filler images in between. 24 hours after the initial presentation of the images, participants are tested on memory retention in the form of image recognition. Participants are asked about the difficulty of recalling the image and how often they think about the image. Having collected data during AUT 24, we were able to understand there is a correlation present between memory retention in mass and spaced recognition in terms of traumatic and non-traumatic events. By collecting data through WIN 25, we will have greater accuracy in terms of significant data.

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a relatively common debilitating psychiatric disorder, marked by a preoccupation with one's physical appearance and associated with significant morbidity and mortality. This preoccupation is due to one's perceived flaws that are not noticeable to others, causing extreme distress and functional impairment. Previous neuroimaging studies have shown how aberration in visual processing is central to BDD. BDD participants often exhibit an unusual focus on high-detail image information (high spatial frequency processing) versus broad image information (low spatial frequency processing), leading to perceptual disturbances. Other research has shown hypoactivation of early cortices, such as V1 and V2, can be found in BDD participants compared to healthy controls when viewing low spatial frequency information. Hypoactivation in visual cortices extends across multiple stimulus categories, indicating a fundamental deficit in integrating low-spatial frequency information. This study aims to isolate and examine low-level visual processing using fMRI and visual mapping techniques to precisely localize the stage of the visual hierarchy where visual processing is altered in BDD. We aim to recruit n=30 participants (n=15 with BDD, n=15 healthy controls), all of whom will undergo clinical diagnostic interviews and behavioral assessments characterizing spatial frequency processing, ending with a spatial frequency processing task involving both low-level and high-level spatial frequency processing. We hypothesize that the results of our research will show that those with BDD will display reduced sensitivity to low spatial frequency stimuli in early visual cortices. If our hypothesis is confirmed, these findings will reveal potential new biomarkers of perceptual dysfunction in BDD, informing intervention efforts to address more fundamental perceptual deficits and identify potential risk markers for early detection of this disorder.

Language mixing occurs when words and grammar from two languages combine in the same sentence, demonstrating how bilingual speakers creatively use their language skills. Understanding how bilingual children mix languages provides insight into their thinking and navigation between languages. While prior research has focused on noun mixing, fewer studies have examined verbs. Thus, this study aims to investigate how English-speaking bilingual children (ages 4-7) evaluate two verb-mixing strategies: direct insertion (using a verb directly from one language) and indirect insertion (changing the verb to match the grammar of the other language). Participants will be assigned to one of two conditions: one where both characters mix languages and another where only one character does. This allows us to examine how interlocutor context (the conversational partner's language use) and age influence children's judgments. Participants will be introduced to pairs of cartoon aliens having conversations and told that the aliens just arrived on Earth and are learning English; therefore, they may mix their own language with English words. After watching each conversation, children will rate how well the alien spoke using a scale of expressive faces. We hypothesize that children’s preferences for language mixing will be shaped by interlocutor context and age. We predict that younger children will rate direct insertion more positively, while older children will rate both strategies similarly. However, as older children may be more aware of social dynamics, they will rate strategies more negatively when only one character language mixes compared to both. This manipulation allows us to explore how children's developing social awareness influences their judgments of language mixing and expectations of conversational norms. These findings will provide new insights into how bilingual children think about and use their languages as they grow, as well as how language is tied to communication and social connections. 

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects millions of people. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a noninvasive stimulation typically used in psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety. rTMS works by using an electric current to generate a transient magnetic field, depolarizing neurons in a target region and creating lasting changes in brain connectivity via synaptic plasticity. Patients with AD show disruptions in the Default Mode Network (DMN), a network of brain regions typically active during rest and crucial for memory consolidation. We hypothesize that strengthening the DMN through rTMS targeted at the left Brodmann 8AV region, selected for being an easily accessible node of the DMN, will improve memory in AD patients. To test this hypothesis, we are conducting a single-blind, single-arm, randomized cross-over trial of rTMS on early-stage AD patients over a 12 week period with week 1 where we scan for the 8AV region via MRI, during week 3 and 8 being the placebo or treatment week. We measure our primary outcome of the participants’ speed of forgetting —a novel index of memory function—through an individualized, adaptive memory test. To eliminate potential confounding variables, we also measure depression and anxiety symptoms during the 1st, 8th and 12th week of the study. Additionally, functional MRI scans will be analyzed for potential structural or functional differences caused by treatment. Preliminary results from our initial participants have shown promising improvements, and we are hopeful that similar outcomes will be observed in the remaining participants. Successful results would provide a novel target for AD treatment using rTMS, and support further investigation of rTMS as a viable treatment option.

Depression is one of the most commonly co-occurring mental health conditions among individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for which there are not currently effective strategies to minimize onset. Given that early caregiver support in autism-specific and general areas of functioning predict the development of a range of adaptive social and behavioral patterns, leveraging caregiving processes in childhood and adolescence may represent one approach to decreasing the risk for psychological disorder. However, current research recognizes that the high levels of stress experienced by many families with an autistic child may undermine the quality of support caregivers are able to provide. As a result, there is limited understanding of caregiving strategies that will reliably confer resilience to depression and that will support the successful implementation of mental health-related interventions in autism. As such, this project assesses caregiver involvement in childhood and adolescence as a predictor of depressive symptomatology in autistic adults, and additionally to evaluate the family environment as a moderator of this relationship. It is hypothesized that there will be a negative association between caregiver involvement and severity of depression symptoms, and that the association will be stronger under conditions of high familial warmth but reversed in family environments characterized by high control or rejection. Taken together, family environment will account for appreciable variations in the effectiveness of parent involvement as protecting against the development of depression. This survey study will lay the groundwork for researchers and autism service providers to develop an informed approach to leveraging parent involvement as a preventative measure against depressive symptoms in adulthood.

Latine people constitute the largest minority in the US, yet the prevalence of diabetes within the Latine community is nearly twice that of White Americans. Latine populations also experience food insecurity at higher rates than the national average, which heightens their risk for chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes (T2D). While nutritional counseling is critical for T2D care, there is limited research on the barriers to effective counseling, especially for minoritized identities. Understanding how Latine patients relate to counseling and barriers to adherence is an urgent health concern with significant implications for addressing health disparities. This study investigates both micro (e.g., provider pathologization of culturally relevant foods) and macro (e.g., food access) barriers to following nutritional guidance for Latine people with T2D. Previous research in South Asian communities shows providers pathologize culturally relevant foods, leading to poor metabolic control, increased complications, higher healthcare costs, and lower quality of life. Food insecurity exacerbates outcomes, with food-insecure diabetic patients reporting less control over their diets despite understanding dietary requirements. However, these barriers remain unexplored for Latine people with diabetes in the US healthcare context. Through a qualitative study in Greater Seattle, we seek to understand the experiences of Latine people managing T2D by conducting structured interviews on barriers to following nutritional counseling. Content analysis uncovers themes related to micro and macro barriers. We aim to enhance culturally competent healthcare to overcome barriers preventing Latine people with T2D from following nutritional guidance. By amplifying the voices of Latine patients, we can inform providers on more effective ways to interact with this population and develop tailored care plans.

Previous work has shown frequency-specific modulation of dorsal hippocampus (dHPC) neural activity during simple behavioral tasks, suggesting shifts in neural population activity during different task phases and animal behaviors. Relatively little is known about task-relevant orchestrated shifts in theta, beta, and gamma rhythms across multiple behavioral timescales during a complex task that requires repeatedly adapting behavioral strategies based on changing reward contingencies. To address this gap in knowledge, we used a spatial set-shifting task to determine whether dHPC plays a specific role in strategy switching. The task requires rats to use two spatial strategies on an elevated plus maze: 1) alternating between East and West reward locations or 2) always going to the same reward location (e.g., only East or only West). Across specific timescales (session based alignments, comparisons of trial types, within trial epochs), dHPC associates differentially with all three temporal categories. Across a session, we observe a decrease in theta and beta power before, and an increase in theta power after, the target strategy changes. Beta power is increased around the point at which rats learn the current rule. Comparing trial types, on trials before a rat has learned the correct strategy, beta power is increased. Within a single trial, after an incorrect (but not correct) choice, beta and gamma power increase while the rat returns to start a new trial. If gamma (but not beta) power was high during this return, the rat is more likely to make a correct choice on the next trial. On the other hand, low gamma power during the return is associated with incorrect trials. dHPC, therefore, appears to track task demands, with the strength of each rhythmic frequency differentially associating with specific behaviors across three distinct timescales.

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a prevalent lifelong communication disorder that encompasses challenges in learning, understanding, and using language not attributed to other bodily or environmental conditions. It is heritable, but its exact cause is unknown. Understanding why a specific population has language difficulties is essential to clinical communication support. This research aimed to establish a protocol for using a novel method of neuroimaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRspec), to investigate the brains of adults with DLD. We used MRspec to measure the neurotransmitter levels in regions associated with language guided by existing functional and structural findings about the DLD brain. Adult participants were recruited via survey and identified using the Fidler test. We scanned the head of the caudate nucleus and the inferior frontal gyrus in both hemispheres. I identified metabolites in those regions and am testing their possible language skill correlations. We expect, even with minimal data, to find lower concentrations of choline and glutamate and elevated concentrations of GABA in individuals with DLD compared to TD participants. Additionally, because choline chloride is linked to memory and poorer verbal and nonverbal working memory is associated with DLD, we anticipate a lower level in the caudate head. GABA may be at a higher level because it is inhibitory, which means it slows down messages in the nervous system, which may lead to difficulty processing and producing language. Inversely, we expect lower levels of glutamate as an excitatory neurotransmitter. I selected our software, TARQUIN, for processing and conducted analyses on MR data throughout the project. Ongoing analysis includes a visual reference and quantitative data to compare between participants. This study is the baseline for future research exploring neurotransmitters in adult individuals with DLD. Our results help better understand why specific language difficulties exist and how clinicians can help.

Asian Americans are victims of anti-Asian racism, but recent studies have also shown that they have a different role in perpetuating anti-Blackness and White supremacy. Our research aimed to specifically examine whether White and Asian Americans perceive a difference between anti-Blackness and White supremacy. We ran a qualitative study where anti-Blackness and White supremacy were defined for Asian and White American participants, who were then asked to write about their racial group’s relationship with those phenomena. We defined anti-Blackness as the belief that Black people are inherently inferior to others, and the corresponding practice of them being given insufficient power. Similarly, we defined White supremacy as the belief that White people are inherently superior to others and the corresponding practice of them being given disproportionate power. A few research assistants and I rated the similarity between the responses on anti-Blackness and White supremacy on a Likert scale from 1 to 7, with 1 indicating “not similar at all,” and 7 indicating “very similar.” We then performed a two-sample t-test (a type of statistical data analysis in psychological research) on this data to compare the responses between the Asian and White American participants. As expected, we found that the Asian American participants rated anti-Blackness and White supremacy as being more distinct than the White Americans did. The p-value for this data analysis was a statistically significant 0.004. These findings establish a foundation for future studies on the Asian American role in anti-Blackness and White supremacy. I have also conducted data analysis and ran participants for two such studies, which examined whether reminders of anti-Blackness caused Asian Americans to take more responsibility for anti-Blackness and show more solidarity with African Americans more than reminders of White supremacy.

Eating disorders increase the risk of co-occurring mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety. Asian Americans are an underrepresented population in eating pathology research; they may be under or misdiagnosed and often do not seek services because interventions do not align with their culturally specific needs. The existing literature often neglects the impact of acculturation and acculturative stress on disease presentation and etiology. Acculturative stress arises from balancing the dominant culture's values with one's culture of origin, leading to psychological distress and disordered eating as a coping mechanism. Acculturation, the process of culture change, can increase the pressure to conform to Western thin beauty standards. People who ruminate may be particularly at risk for using disordered eating as a maladaptive coping mechanism against stress. Examining the critical roles of acculturation, bicultural stress, and rumination as unique and interactive determinants of eating pathology can lead to culturally relevant knowledge about its etiology and enhance utility and effectiveness of interventions. This study is aimed to examine acculturation orientations and bicultural stress as predictors of eating pathology symptoms, and rumination as a moderator. We hypothesize that higher levels of acculturative stress will be linked to greater eating pathology symptoms, over and above acculturation orientations. Rumination—particularly brooding—is expected to exacerbate the association between eating pathology symptoms and acculturative stress. Data are from the baseline measurement occasion of an existing longitudinal survey study that examined associations among mental health, personal and sociocultural risk and protective factors. Asian American undergraduate students (N=313; Mage=19.89; 72.5% U.S.-born; 55.6% female and 32.9% male) completed the baseline survey. With the anticipated support of the Mary Gates Scholarship, we will complete hierarchical regression analyses to test the hypotheses. Regression coefficients and effect sizes, model statistics, and p-values will be reported. 

Overgeneral Autobiographical Memory (OGM) is a common symptom of depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Instead of remembering specific details, individuals with OGM can only describe past events from their lives in general terms. The "trauma hypothesis" suggests that OGM emerges because individuals suffering from PTSD tend to reduce the number of details they retrieve about their memories to avoid remembering their trauma. However, this hypothesis does not fully explain how this avoidance is learned, or why avoidance spreads from traumatic memories to all autobiographical memories. To this end, we propose a computational model of OGM that integrates theories of memory retrieval and trauma with reinforcement learning. In this model, multiple episodic memories are nodes in an interconnected network, and memories are retrieved when visiting that node in the network. The more nodes that are visited, the more detailed that autobiographical recall will be. On the other hand, visiting more nodes comes with an increased risk of encountering a traumatic memory, which comes with negative emotional valence. The decisions about whether to visit another node or terminate the retrieval process are made using reinforcement learning, which takes actions based on predicted outcomes. By obtaining a greater understanding of OGM through this model, we hope to improve treatments for PTSD that specifically targets its effects on memory. 

Remembering ‘when’ things happened is difficult relative to ‘where’ things happened. One reason for this may be because time is an abstract concept while locations are concrete. Many cultures worldwide use space to represent time to get around this problem. A common representation is a mental timeline: a linear mental model of time. For most Western adults, the mental timeline flows from left-to-right: representing the past on the left and the future on the right side of space. Previous research suggests that U.S. adults recall the order of events more accurately when items are presented from left-to-right, rather than nonlinearly or from right-to-left, indicating that adults spontaneously organize temporal order in terms of a mental timeline. However, it is unknown what memory processes influence this benefit. We examine the relation between the mental timeline and temporal memory by assessing both encoding (committing to memory) and recall (remembering) phases. In this study, adults first view triplets of images arranged from left-to-right, right-to-left, or nonlinearly (encoding). Then, images are shown individually, and participants identify whether the image appeared first, second, or third within the triplet (recall). We record participants' responses and their pupil dilation. We predict that item location will affect participants’ errors. For example, they might be more likely to incorrectly remember an image as ‘first’ if it appeared on the left, even if the triplet was presented right-to-left. Additionally, we expect adults to exert greater mental effort when encoding triplets presented nonlinearly or from right-to-left, indicated by increased pupil dilation. These results will provide insight into how the mental timeline interacts with temporal memory beyond memory accuracy measures. The pupil dilation measures will reveal the role of mental timeline in the encoding process, and errors will reveal its role in the recall process.

Visual word interpretation involves both phonology, sound-based processing common in alphabetic languages, and orthography, visual pattern recognition common in logographic languages. Previous research suggests that word recognition in alphabetic languages, such as English, activates the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), and logographic languages, such as Mandarin, engage the visual word form area (VWFA). The goal of this study is to investigate the neural and behavioral differences between native English speakers and native speakers of logographic languages when processing English phonemes. I hypothesized that native English speakers would show more activation in the LIFG whereas native logographic language speakers would show more activation in the VWFA. Participants completed a rhyming judgment task based on English phonemes while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure neural activation. English proficiency was recorded through both self-report and the Nelson-Denny Comprehension test. Behavioral results suggested that native logographic language speakers had significantly longer response times and lower accuracy compared to native English speakers. Both self-reported and objectively measured English proficiency were negatively correlated with response times and positively correlated with accuracy. Although the neural analysis did not yield statistically significant results, there was a trend of increased VWFA activation in native speakers of logographic languages compared to English.

The ability to recognize that others have mental states, separate from us, and that these states are not always accurate portrayals of reality, is central for theory of mind (TOM). This capacity becomes particularly crucial when children explain causal relationships, as they must integrate their understanding of causality with their awareness of other's knowledge states. Skills like this are essential for effective communication and reflect a key developmental milestone in both cognitive and social reasoning. This study examines how children process causal scenarios while considering and tracking the knowledge states of multiple people. We will examine how children (ages 4-7) perform with conjunctive causal relationships, where two separate effects must combine to produce an outcome (e.g., watering a plant and giving it fertilizer causes it to bloom). Children are asked to explain how the outcome happened, and what knowledge each character has. The children will be given four causal events, varying in content, and follow the same causal structure, where each character is only aware of one cause (A or B). After the scenario, children will answer open-ended questions to assess their recall of what each character knows and test their understanding of how the outcome (C) occurred. We predict that younger children will recognize the causal outcome but struggle to differentiate knowledge states, while older children will demonstrate an improved ability to tailor their explanations based on other's perspectives. This study extends beyond previous studies that primarily focused on children's passive evaluation of explanation as our study will investigate children's active role in generating explanations tailored to different character's knowledge states. Our findings will contribute to the understanding of how the development of TOM shapes children's ability to understand and reason about causal relationships.

Parents play a significant role in shaping adolescent alcohol use. The specific role of adolescent decisional freedom—the extent to which adolescents independently make decisions— has yet to be examined. I conducted a brief literature review on adolescent decisional freedom, and this study explores its links with alcohol use within distinct developmental periods. Data from baseline to year 6 follow-up of the National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence study (N=831) were tested for cross-sectional associations between decisional freedom and alcohol use phenomenology (i.e., drinking days per average month, past month alcohol consumption, quantity of drinks during average drinking period, and binge drinking days in the past year and month). Separate models were tested for early adolescence (ages 12-14), middle adolescence (ages 15-17), late adolescence (ages 19-20), and emerging adulthood (ages 21-24). Adolescent decisional freedom was measured using a self-report 5-point Likert scale across distinct domains (e.g., spending money, drinking alcohol, time spent with friends). Gender and age of first drink were covariates, and each model examined associations between decisional freedom and gender. Regression results consistently linked lower decisional freedom to lower alcohol use across all phenomenology in early adolescence (bs ≤ −.41, ps < .01). For middle adolescence, the protective effect of limiting decisional freedom only emerged for drinking days per average month (b = −.29, p < .01) and quantity of drinks during average drinking period (b = −.46, p = .001). In early and late adolescence, the association between lower decisional freedom and fewer past month binge drinking days was stronger for boys (bs ≥ 0.43, ps < .05). These findings suggest that increasing control over early adolescents’ decisional freedom, particularly for boys, and flexibly granting greater decisional freedom over time may protect adolescents from harmful decisions associated with alcohol use.

Behavioral flexibility is the ability of an animal to adapt to environmental changes, crucial decision making and goal directed behaviors. Impaired behavioral flexibility has been linked to psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders. Emerging research suggests that psilocybin, a psychedelic drug that acts on serotonin receptors, may improve behavioral flexibility by promoting adaptability in responses to new information. Given the growing literature exploring the impact of psilocybin as a therapeutic treatment for psychiatric disorders, this study aims to explore the effects of psilocybin on the use of behavioral strategies on a complex spatial set-shifting task. Long-Evans rats were trained on an elevated plus maze with two start arms, north and south, and two reward arms, west and east. The task requires rats to alternate between two strategies: alternation and place. The alternation phase required rats to switch between reward arms (go West, then go East), and the place strategy required choosing the same arm (e.g. go West) continuously. Rats must determine the correct strategy and implement it; once 12 out of 15 trials are accurately completed, an uncued switch in the correct strategy will occur, requiring adaptation to a new strategy. Once animals were well-trained on the task, a single dose of psilocybin (1mg/kg) or saline was administered 10 minutes prior to a session and their behavior was analyzed. Metrics such as performance, and flexibility scores were assessed to determine the impact of psilocybin on behavior. Preliminary findings suggest psilocybin improves behavioral flexibility compared to the saline group, though overall performance remains relatively stable. These results provide insight into the potential of psilocybin as a therapeutic tool for conditions characterized by behavioral rigidity; even in wild-type animals, psilocybin improves flexibility, indicating the possibility for mitigating more severe impairments in flexibility seen in psychiatric disorders.

Our brains have evolved to navigate survival and respond to danger, but trauma dysregulates these systems, causing the brain to misinterpret everyday experiences as threats. This dysregulation results in hypervigilance, which can manifest as panic attacks, dissociation, and other debilitating symptoms. Current treatment options for trauma often focus on symptom management, overlooking the physiological impacts of trauma. These treatments can be expensive, inaccessible, and may have side effects. This literature review examines holistic, non-pharmaceutical, neuroplasticity-based (NPNB) approaches, such as breathwork, nutrition, exercise, and sleep, to challenge traditional methods and advocate for integrating holistic interventions into mainstream trauma care, emphasizing accessibility and autonomy for trauma survivors. As we explore the increasing need for mental health care, we look at the interplay between psychological trauma and physical health by exploring the mind-body connection and trauma-induced inflammation. Additionally, this exploration aims to understand how these treatments can reshape neural pathways, improve emotional regulation, and enhance psychological and physiological well-being. It also examines potential paradigm shifts in trauma care and advocates for increased accessibility to alternative treatments, particularly for individuals who cannot access conventional therapies. We expect to find that NPNB treatments are underutilized in the treatment of trauma and, if expanded upon, would have the potential to improve accessibility, reduce or eliminate side effects, and help survivors regain a sense of autonomy.

Although being in nature has been associated with benefits including health and well-being, many people do not spend time in nature. Some studies have focused on the reasons why people do not spend time in nature; however, both in this research and in nature and health research, the term "nature" is inconsistently defined. Without a concrete definition of nature, it is unclear what participants consider nature and if this affects their reasons for not spending time in nature. This work is part of a larger experiment looking at students at the University of Washington's reported time in nature, and whether or not having a definition of nature impacted people's responses to nature-related questions. Here, we identify the underlying reasons given for the individual's not spending time in nature. Additionally, we examine whether having a definition of nature which includes urban nature affects reasons why participants report spending no time in nature. Out of 1,573 participants, 273 individuals (17%) responded that they had spent no time in nature in the previous week. They were then asked to explain why they spent 0 hours in nature that week. Common themes included being too busy with school, work, and other responsibilities. Notably, one theme emerged, "feels limited by place" in which participants stated they do not spend time in nature because they "live in Seattle". Preliminary results indicate that when nature is defined, the theme feeling limited by place did not occur, meaning receiving a definition of nature appears to affect the qualitative reasons given for spending no time in nature. This study highlights the importance of defining nature while also providing valuable insights into the reasons why some might prefer to not spend time in nature, as well as barriers that prevent students from spending time in nature.

Poor sleep quantity and quality are associated with increased risk of negative health outcomes such as chronic conditions, depression, and anxiety, which ultimately impact overall well-being. The present study aims to investigate the association between perceived stress and sleep quality among college students. A sample of 113 college students in the United States completed an online survey that asked questions about their sleep and perceived stress. Perceived stress was assessed using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen et al., 1983) and sleep quality measured through the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI; Buysse et al., 1989). Sociodemographic data were also collected. Results indicate that college students with higher perceived stress reported poorer sleep quality. Given that perceived stress and sleep were correlated, we conducted additional analyses to compare levels of stress and sleep quality among different sociodemographic groups. We found that international students exhibited lower perceived stress and better sleep quality compared to domestic students. Furthermore, college students who reported lower family income, and those whose native language was not English experienced higher perceived stress and poorer sleep quality across both groups. Taken together, the data demonstrate an association between perceived stress and sleep quality and highlight differences in both variables based on immigration situation, as well as linguistic and socioeconomic factors. Further longitudinal studies could be helpful to determine the temporal relationships among these variables and the long-term role that they play in health. 

Can early adverse experiences possibly enhance cognitive functions? The current literature pertaining to children and youths with adverse experiences suggests that they often present extensive deficits, potentially showing less working memory, later language disorders, and lower impulse control (Ellis et al., 2020; Dannehl et al., 2017; Dixon et al., 2023; 2016; Snow, 2021). However, this deficit-based perspective is incomplete – the hidden talents framework suggests that children possess adaptive strengths of unique skills that emerge under stress and in particular, adverse environments. Children and youths with experiences of adversity show social and cognitive adaptations, revealing enhancements in certain domains (Ellis et al., 2020). Here, we examine a facet of their adapted strengths: cognitive flexibility in adulthood as a response to childhood unpredictability, defined as the rate of alterations or instability in the individual’s childhood environment. We propose that adults with prior experiences of childhood unpredictability develop enhanced cognitive flexibility to adapt to unpredictable environments. In this experiment, we will recruit a normative sample of 180 adults and measure their cognitive flexibility along with experiences of childhood harshness and unpredictability using the Perceptions of Childhood Harshness and Unpredictability scale and the Number-Letter Task. We predict that participants who experienced a high level of unpredictability will demonstrate more cognitive flexibility compared to those who experienced high general childhood harshness. Preliminary analyses from the UW psychology participant pool indicate similar trends, suggesting that higher childhood unpredictability correlates with increased cognitive flexibility, while higher childhood harshness is associated with lower cognitive flexibility. Framing cognitive flexibility as a form of adaptation from unpredictable environments is imperative to pivot the current narrative toward children’s hidden talents – revealing that children are resilient, adaptive individuals with unique abilities to overcome adversity. 

Brains can somehow maintain functionality despite significant neuron loss. However, we do not yet fully understand what factors contribute to this robustness or under what conditions brains become fragile to neuron loss. Research in our lab has identified two types of neurons: those that, when removed, lead to large changes in the network’s expected activity patterns, and those that do not appear to be so critical. My research aims to address this gap. I study the network properties that confer robustness in an ideal system: the Drosophila fly, the most complex organism with a fully mapped brain at ~140,000 neurons. I am focusing on one particular brain region, the Antennal Motor and Mechanosensory Center (AMMC), because it is a primary sensory region that receives direct connections from the fly’s ear (the antennae) and contributes to auditory-driven behaviors such as courtship, which we can easily measure.  I have found that many anatomically distinct neurons share high level network properties. I hypothesize that the morphological and network properties of these neurons make them special. Here, I investigate the morphological features of several neurons, such as arborization patterns, neurotransmitter profile, and synaptic partners, and also search for genetic driver lines through a large database that will help us test the impact of these neurons in a living fly. Investigating the relationship between neural properties and robustness to removal of a neuron is crucial for developing a deeper understanding of how brain circuitry copes with injuries and the progression of neurodegenerative diseases.

Diabetes mellitus is a rapidly growing metabolic disease, marked by abnormal functioning and inability to adequately regulate insulin production, which is responsible for the conversion of glucose into energy. The pathology of diabetes has been extensively investigated in the biomedical literature, but biosocial factors have yet to be explored with equal significance. A small body of emerging genetic and biosocial studies of South Asians with diabetes suggests that specific biomarkers, shaped by negative environmental influences, may heighten risk factors and lead to a high prevalence of diabetes mellitus in South Asians. South Asians, in particular, exhibit profound susceptibility to developing diabetes relative to other ethnic groups. This remains a small body of literature, signifying a need for more culturally competent research and raising awareness of the topic itself. The first half of the oral presentation will briefly highlight the main themes and findings of current biosocial literature regarding South Asians with diabetes, exploring possible factors, including genetic and environmental influences through South Asian history (e.g., famine, malnutrition, and chronic stress). The second half of the presentation will reference the literature, highlighting statements from South Asians with diabetes on their lived experiences navigating healthcare spaces. Following this, an open dialogue will generate ideas on how to implement initiatives that could lead to better outcomes, such as improved South Asian patient satisfaction. This research presentation aims to launch a necessary dialogue on diabetes within South Asians, while establishing a critical overview of the existing data and current cultural perceptions. Keywords: diabetes, epigenetics, genetic expressions, cultural perceptions, famine, environmental stressors, South Asians, Indian Asians. 

Nature is an abstract concept with no universal definition—for example, some see a city park as nature, while others disagree. Definitions vary from physical elements (e.g., plants, animals, landscapes) to broader systems of growth and change. Disagreements arise over human-altered environments, wilderness, and spiritual significance. Much of the existing literature is limited by its focus on Western perspectives, highlighting the need for diversity. This project investigates the underlying reasons why individuals’ definitions of nature differ. In particular, I focus on less agreed upon elements, or “gray areas” (e.g., a tree between concrete or a playground structure in a park) of what constitutes nature, and seek to determine whether these differences are associated with culture, spirituality, and religion. Fifteen University of Washington students, representing diverse cultural, spiritual, and religious backgrounds, were selected from a screener sample (N=180) to participate in interviews featuring a sorting activity with nature-related terms, photos, and phrases. Throughout this activity, questions are posed to delve deeper into the nuances of "gray areas" pertaining to nature, and to understand the factors influencing these perceptions. Additional questions circle back to participants' cultural backgrounds, spirituality, and religion to provide a comprehensive understanding of how these factors influence the individual's definitions of nature. Preliminary results reveal differences in how individuals categorize phrases, words, and photos as “nature,” “not nature,” or “unsure.” Findings also suggest that understandings of nature are shaped by religious affiliations, influencing how people perceive and relate to natural environments. Identified themes, perspectives on gray areas, and connections with cultural, religious, and spiritual beliefs will be presented. Understanding how cultural, spiritual, and religious affiliations shape perceptions of nature is essential for interpreting nature-related research, informing policy, and enhancing environmental management.

Fear extinction, the process of extinguishing conditioned fear responses, plays an essential role in the treatment of anxiety disorders. Research has shown that fear regulatory mechanisms appear to be modulated by fluctuating endogenous hormones, such as estradiol, resulting in altered fear extinction strength at different phases of the menstrual cycle. This project explores the neural and physiological mechanisms of fear extinction across different phases of the menstrual cycle. This research addresses a significant gap in the literature, as women are historically underrepresented in fear extinction studies despite experiencing higher rates of anxiety disorders. I hypothesize that participants in the early follicular phase will exhibit attenuated fear extinction and recall compared to those in the mid-luteal phase. Using a combination of skin conductance response, pupillometry, and self-report measures, I will assess fear responses during acquisition, extinction, and recall phases of a basic fear conditioning paradigm. Additionally, functional MRI will be employed to investigate brain activity. Specifically I expect to see attenuated activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a brain region which appears to modulate amygdala activity, in the early follicular group. Our study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how menstrual cycle phases influence fear extinction, leading to more effective and tailored exposure therapy protocols for women.

Originating from Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP), the Awareness, Courage, and Love (ACL) model is a widely disseminated approach to building profound social connections and reducing loneliness through the practice of vulnerable self-disclosure and compassionate reflection. This model, however, has not been systematically examined through a cultural lens. This proposal investigates the potential cultural effects of the ACL intervention, focusing on individualism and collectivism. A single-blind design will be conducted with participants from both cultural contexts who will be randomly assigned to either the ACL intervention or an advice-giving intervention. Data will be collected through standardized questionnaires. We hypothesize that the ACL model will be more effective in individualistic cultures, where vulnerable self-disclosure is more culturally normative, compared to collectivistic cultures, which may prioritize group harmony over personal disclosures. The findings from this study will have implications for the cultural adaptation of the ACL model, highlighting the importance of tailoring interventions to different cultural contexts.

Children are not merely passive observers; they actively seek to understand the why behind events. A fundamental distinction in causal reasoning is between agentic causes, which attribute outcomes to the actions of an agent like a person, and non-agentic causes, which focus on environmental factors. Do children show preferences for agentic versus non-agentic explanations? Moreover, are they influenced by the outcome’s valence (positive or negative)? This study examines how outcome valence influences children's (4-9 years old) preferences for agentic versus non-agentic causes in situations where the cause is ambiguous. By analyzing their explanatory preferences, we investigate how the valence of outcomes shapes causal reasoning across development. Participants will be presented with scenarios describing everyday events. Each scenario will have a clear positive or negative outcome, and the cause of the event will be ambiguous, with both agentic and non-agentic explanations being plausible. For example, some participants might see an apple falling perfectly into someone's hand (positive), while others see it hitting their head (negative) - events that could be attributed to either a squirrel jumping up and down, or the wind blowing. Participants will then be asked to answer what caused the outcome via a forced-choice task. We predict that children will more often select agentic over non-agentic causes for negative outcomes compared to positive ones. We also expect that as age increases, their choice differences based on outcome valence will be more pronounced. This investigation helps us understand whether agency itself plays a role in early causal reasoning. If children demonstrate a stronger preference for agentic causes in negative outcomes, this may suggest that emotional valence influences how children construct causal explanations. Furthermore, examining children’s explanatory preferences - whether biased toward agentic causes or not - can tell us how they incorporate agency into their developing understanding of causality.

Recent research suggests an association between comprehensive sex education and improved sexual health–demonstrated by lowered rates of STIs and teen pregnancy and higher rates of contraceptive use in states with comprehensive sex education as compared to states without comprehensive sex education. However, there is still an overall dearth of literature regarding the association of sex education legislation and relationship health. Some data suggests that education programs can have effects on relationship health, such as gender equality education programs that predict lower levels of intimate partner violence. Our project aimed to provide insight into how sex education legislation is associated with relationship health indicators by examining the relationship between legislative requirements and relationship health outcomes. We ran a series of t-tests and point biserial correlations, comparing states with comprehensive sex education and those with abstinence only education requirements, and found significant group differences in teen birth rates and STI rates. We also analyzed the association between legislation requiring medically accurate sex education and sexual health outcomes, and found no significant associations. We similarly did not find any significant associations between the requirement of consent in sex education legislation and intimate partner violence rates. Our significant results align with prior literature indicating that comprehensive sex education is associated with lower rates of sexual health outcomes like teen pregnancy and STI rates. Our non-significant findings are more difficult to interpret and could be influenced by limitations in our research, including inadequate sample size and a lack of publicly available databases on variables that accurately operationalize relationship health. Future research might conduct new surveys on relationship health indicators such as happiness, trust, and satisfaction within each state to better operationalize relationship health. These results can inform policy development around sex education in a direction that promotes higher-quality public health outcomes.

Coaching is a collaborative, goal-oriented process aimed at supporting individuals in achieving personal or professional goals. Coaching originated in workplace settings and expanded in the 1990s to include life coaching. Life coaching has been applied to many specialized areas, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Contrasting with psychotherapy, coaching is not intended to treat mental disorders. As such, the intersection of coaching and clinical care has sparked debates about the boundaries between coaching and psychotherapy, particularly when clinical conditions such as ADHD are involved. The COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by an increase in seeking mental health services for ADHD. This coincided with an apparent influx of new ADHD coaches joining the profession to fill the increased demand. We created the U.S. National ADHD Coaching Survey to better understand the activities and behaviors of ADHD coaches in the U.S. and how ADHD coaching might fit into the broader context of ADHD care. We explore the differences between ADHD coaches who began their practice prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic with those who began their practices following the onset of the pandemic. We distributed this survey to ADHD coaches through ADHD coaching professional organizations, in-person at a professional conference, and through targeted invitations based on web searches of ADHD coaches. We hypothesize that newer post-pandemic coaches are less likely to be members of coaching organizations, more likely to market themselves on social media, and cover a greater variety of session content. I document ADHD coaching workforce trends over time. Additionally, I compare the professional identities and training, referral networks and marketing, and session content of ADHD coaches who began offering their services pre vs post pandemic using independent samples t-tests and chi-square tests. I explore how those differences might impact the current landscape of ADHD treatment and support.

Spatial skills are early predictors of future achievement in STEM, making early spatial development crucial. Early exposure to spatial language helps children form spatial concepts during tasks like guided block play. Parental engagement in spatial play fosters exploration and flexibility. This study looks specifically into interactive play, exploring how parents' active engagement in play with their infants may scaffold their infant's learning. We investigate parent-infant dyads' play engagement with a shape-sorter toy during a 5-minute free-play session. Pre-registered analyses will be conducted on 53 parent-infant dyads (mean infant age = 11.53 months, SD = 0.91). Coders will transcribe videos of free-play sessions, recording the play actions (motor, block, shape, and color play) of parents and infants, and the initiator of play actions. We hypothesize that parents will engage in more shape and color play to facilitate learning by focusing on features of the play objects (e.g., shape, color) while infants will prefer motor play due to its simpler characteristics. We also hypothesize that parents will use more spatial language during spatial play (e.g., shape-focused and block-building play) compared to non-spatial play (e.g., color-focused and motor play). We hypothesize that parents will initiate more spatial play to support infant's spatial ability while infants will engage more in non-spatial play, as their development may incline them towards sensory-driven exploration. To test our hypotheses, we will measure the 1) proportion of time spent on play types by parents and infants, 2) proportion of spatial words used by parents during interactive play, 3) proportion of initiation by parents and infants during interactive play, and 4) infant response to parent guidance by play type. 

In Western cultures, people conceptualize both time and number as progressing linearly from left to right in phenomena known as the mental timeline (past to the left, future to the right) and the mental number line (smaller numbers to the left, larger numbers to the right). These spatial representations are influenced by cultural conventions, particularly the reading direction of an individual’s primary language. The present study investigates whether these two cognitive representations develop simultaneously or independently, and whether familiarity with English print direction predicts a left-to-right mental timeline and number line in preschoolers. Preschoolers arranged three cards depicting either story events or quantities from “first to last” or “smallest to biggest” and completed the Concepts of Print (COP) assessment, which measured their familiarity with print direction. Preschoolers were more likely to represent time in a linear, left-to-right arrangement than number. In addition, linear, left-to-right arrangements in one task predicted similar arrangements in the other task. These findings suggest that cognitive structures for abstract thinking emerge from shared processes, meaning that once children develop this spatial framework for interpreting time, they utilize the same framework for number. Given that the mental number line is a predictor of STEM achievement, this finding suggests that reinforcing spatial representations in one domain (e.g., sequencing events in time) could support numerical understanding. Preliminary results suggest COP scores do not significantly predict linear, left-to-right arrangements when controlling for age. Because not all COP questions refer explicitly to the directionality of print, future analysis will refine COP questions to those that target reading direction. This study contributes to our understanding of how cultural and cognitive factors interact in shaping abstract thought, which could in turn strengthen children's STEM achievement and inform early childhood teaching strategies.

Multitasking, such as walking and talking, is common for humans and other animals, yet we are limited in how many behaviors we can perform simultaneously. The neural circuit mechanisms that limit multitasking are not well understood. Uncovering these mechanisms will help us understand how brains combine some, but not all, behaviors during normal function, but also in the context of aging and neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, where multitasking gets compromised. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster walks and “sings” by vibrating a wing during courtship, in a natural example of multitasking. These stereotyped behaviors are controlled by a relatively simple brain, which can be experimentally driven via artificial stimulation of key neurons, making the fly an amenable model to study multitasking. I therefore developed a platform to record and manipulate the interaction between locomotion and “singing”. I will activate sing-inducing neurons during two contexts, when flies are stationary (single-tasking) vs. moving (multitasking). I hypothesize that singing characteristics will change depending on context. For example, multitasking may decrease the likelihood of singing because the fly’s nervous system is “busy” controlling locomotion. Alternatively, locomotor context may make it easier to drive wing vibrations because of the higher activity levels in the circuits involved. My results will therefore help uncover how neural circuit interactions shape an animal’s ability to multitask.

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is characterized by Amyloid β (Aβ) plaques, clumps of misfolded proteins which interfere with neural function, leading to cognitive decline. Despite being the most common form of dementia, exact causes and accessible early markers for AD remain elusive. Recent literature has suggested that deficits in risky decision-making appear before memory loss, making them a potential early marker. My project investigated how risky decision-making and corticolimbic circuit activity is impacted by Aβ pathology in 5XFAD mice, an established model of AD. Mice were lowered to 85% weight for motivation to forage, and then habituated to a rectangular nest area separated with a sliding door from the foraging arena. This was followed by baseline trials over four days where mice foraged for a short, medium, and long-distance pellet each day. On the fifth day, mice procuring the long-distance pellet encountered a weasel on wheels which surged forwards, simulating a predatory threat. Mice were given three minutes to procure the pellet. Ninety minutes after the encounter, mice were euthanized and brains extracted. Brain tissue was immunostained for c-fos, a molecular indicator of neural activity, to compare neural "snapshots" of control and 5XFAD mice who encountered/did not encounter the weasel. Brain regions to compare included the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus, responsible for processing fear, decision-making, and spatial information, respectively. The study ended when mice were eleven months old. In line with previous studies, it is expected that 5XFAD mice will have more weasel trial pellet retrieval attempts and exhibit differences in c-fos activity in brain regions of interest. These findings could help confirm deficits in risky decision-making as an early marker of AD, significant due to the scarcity of early markers.

Previous research indicates that males typically outperform females in spatial perspective-taking tasks where an individual is prompted to assess a scene by adopting a perspective other than their own. However, a recent study, with only female participants, found an increase in female perspective-taking performance when the task asked subjects to take the perspective of a social agent. Many have theorized that this performance increase is exclusive to females, who are believed to hold superior social skills. This implies a distinction between purely spatial perspective-taking and social perspective-taking, the latter of which females are theorized to perform better at. More recent studies have countered this notion, suggesting that directional information provided by a social agent could explain the increased performance in females. Assessing the relationship between spatial and social perspective and sex-based differences in performance can provide insight into social perspective-taking in human cognition. To clarify the influence of social agents on perspective-taking performance in both males and females, we administered two spatial perspective-taking tasks, with either a social or non-social agent. We aim to clarify theorized sex-based differences in performance by comparing accuracies and reaction times in social and non-social conditions. We hypothesize that male and female performance in perspective-taking tasks will be equally affected by the presence of a social agent.

Machine learning models are increasingly applied across scientific disciplines, with deep-learning based pose estimators revolutionizing the fields of neuroscience and marine biology, allowing researchers to automate and enhance accuracy of behavioral analysis. While markerless pose estimators have transformed behavioral neuroscience, their effectiveness is limited by a lack of species- and domain-specific data, especially for marine invertebrates such as cephalopods and starfish. Due to their highly flexible body structures, starfish cannot be effectively represented by the rigid skeletal models commonly used for terrestrial vertebrates, making existing pose estimation techniques unreliable for tracking their movements. This project addresses this by developing a deep learning-based pose estimation model and archive database specific to cephalopods and starfish. Using DeepLabCut, we train a supervised machine learning model to track movement patterns in both naturalistic and laboratory settings. Our dataset, sourced from the Hodin lab in Friday Harbor, undergoes preprocessing with embedding and clustering algorithms to identify representative frames for model training. By establishing a reliable, quantitative framework for cephalopod behavior analysis, this product can enhance reproducibility and contribute to the development of standardized methodologies and definitions of behaviors in marine and neuroscience research. This tool would ease cross-lab collaboration and eliminate ambiguities when investigating cephalopod and starfish behavior.

There is evidence that screen habits (i.e., screen time and parental involvement) may be associated with a series of academic achievement precursors among children. Mental rotation is an early emerging spatial skill that serves as a foundational academic precursor, predicting future spatial reasoning abilities and later success in STEM fields. While prior research has found associations between unmediated screen time and outcomes such as language development, little is known regarding how screen time context influences spatial skill development. In this study, we are examining the impacts of children's media use (specifically total screen time and parental mediation) on mental rotation performance. To assess mental rotation abilities, 50 24- to 36-month-old toddlers complete an eye-tracking task requiring them to mentally transform a giraffe to predict the direction it will move. Children respond to the task via anticipatory eye-movements and the giraffe increases in rotation with each successful trial, progressively increasing task difficulty. Mental rotation is assessed based on the highest angle of rotation achieved within the task. Parents report their child’s screen time across different media types and parental mediation through a subsection of the Comprehensive Assessment of Family Media Exposure questionnaire. Parental mediation is defined as parents’ active regulation of the type, duration, and context of screen time exposure. In our analyses, we will investigate the relationship between total screen time and parent-mediated screen use on spatial skill abilities. We hypothesize that children with high parent-mediated screen time and low total screen time, assessed separately, will have stronger mental rotation abilities. Advancements in technology in recent decades have led to an increase in digital media use among children in the United States and we hope our anticipated results will promote a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between media use and spatial skills in early childhood development.

Introduction: Evidence-based treatments (EBT), such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) remain underused in community mental health (CMH) settings in part due to financial, time, and geographical barriers associated with training clinicians in-person. Virtual EBT training offers a potentially cost-effective and feasible alternative; however, limited research has examined its effectiveness in improving clinicians' perceived knowledge and skills for treating youth with various mental health conditions. The current study uses benchmarking analyses to compare change in perceived knowledge and skill levels for treating youth with depression, anxiety, trauma and behavior problems among clinicians trained in-person versus those trained online. Method: Participants included 1,250 Washington State CMH clinicians (Mage=35.58 years, SD=12.12, 92% Master’s level) involved in the CBT+ initiative, a Washington statewide EBT training program. Of these clinicians, 658 attended training in-person (years 2016–2019), while 592 participated virtually (years 2020–2023). Clinicians self-reported their perceived knowledge and skill levels for treating youth with depression, anxiety, trauma, and behavior problems before training and after completing a six-month consultation period. Results: Preliminary analyses using paired samples t-tests revealed that across all disorders, perceived knowledge and skill scores significantly increased from pre-training to post consultation for in-person training clinicians (all p’s < .001, Cohen's d ranged from .93 to 1.61), as well as virtual training clinicians (all p’s < .001, Cohen's d ranged from 0.75 to 1.73). Benchmarking analyses will be conducted to compare effect sizes for changes in perceived knowledge and skill levels between clinicians trained in-person and those trained virtually. Discussion: As the need for youth mental health services continues to grow, it is vital to evaluate alternative training methods to expand access to high-quality mental healthcare.

Visual perspective-taking (PT) is a fundamental spatial cognition task, requiring an individual to adopt another’s viewpoint. Previous experiments have shown that response times increase as the angular difference between viewer and reference perspectives grows. Preliminary fMRI results suggest that neural activity in specific brain regions follows a similar pattern, their activity increases as a factor of angular difference, reflecting the cognitive demands of mental perspective transformation. However, little is known about how eye-gaze behavior varies in this task. In this study, we analyze eye-tracking data collected during fMRI scans with an Eyelink 1000 to examine the relationship between gaze patterns and perspective alignment. Specifically, we investigate whether eye-gaze behavior differs between aligned and unaligned trials and whether angular difference influences gaze dynamics. Gaze coordinates (xpos, ypos) will be analyzed trial-by-trial to determine how visual attention is modulated during perspective-taking. Understanding these gaze patterns may provide insights into the strategies used in spatial perspective shifts and their neural underpinnings.

Individuals vary in their bias toward visual or verbal information when perceiving and making decisions. These differences in information processing style are not all-or-nothing; people vary not only in the direction of attentional bias, but also in its strength. If forced to choose between competing visual and verbal stimuli, people exhibit differing degrees of bias when selecting information. The Card Sorting Task measures this bias by asking people to select either the visual (shape) or verbal (word) representation of a card suit. On 75% of trials, the word and shape match, however, 25% of trials contain inconsistent information, which is used to show visual/verbal bias. My prior research found that people more biased toward visual or verbal information had faster response times than more neutral people and showed more bias during consistent and inconsistent information trials, suggesting biased attenders are less sensitive to conflicting information than more neutral attenders. This study seeks to follow up on my previous work; exploring whether a preference for picture/word stimuli (Relative Skill) or sensitivity to evidence needed to make a decision (Decision Sensitivity) drives the individual differences in conflicting stimulus responses. 100 participants will complete the Card Sorting Task, followed by subsequent trials modified to instruct participants to select the visual or verbal information. This creates “correct” and “incorrect” ways to sort the stimuli, allowing the use of Drift Diffusion Modeling to measure evidence accumulated before decision making. If the Relative Skill hypothesis is true, we expect a higher drift rate when participants sort according to their preferred modality, meaning that they have faster response times. If the Decision Sensitivity hypothesis reigns true, biased attenders will have higher drift rates, not needing as much evidence to make a decision, while neutral attenders will have a lower drift rate, taking their time responding.

Schizophrenia is a complex mental illness influenced by genetic, environmental, and neurodevelopmental factors. Cognitive impairments are a prominent symptom of schizophrenia and are associated with long-term outcomes. Current literature suggests that damaging genetic risk factors, such as copy number variations (CNVs) and loss of function (LOF) mutations, are important contributors to schizophrenia etiology and may influence cognitive functioning among patients. However, isolating the effects of these variants can be complicated by the contributions of other factors, such as environmental factors, to schizophrenia etiology and functioning among patients. Using a within-family study design offers one way to control for background factors and isolate the effects of rare, damaging risk variants. This study used data from 446 subjects enrolled in the University of California, Los Angeles Family Study, involving 83 schizophrenia and 59 control families with genetic and behavioral data. An initial analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that schizophrenia probands showed a significantly greater decrease in IQ compared to their own relatives than control probands compared to their own relatives. Building on these findings, this study aims to explore whether extreme within-family IQ differences are associated with the presence of known risk CNVs for schizophrenia and broader neurodevelopmental disorders or LOF mutations in genes previously associated with these disorders. By elucidating the heterogeneity of schizophrenia through the examination of genetic risk variants and their connection to cognitive impairments, this research may help inform optimal intervention strategies for different patients and thereby improve clinical outcomes for individuals with schizophrenia and related disorders.

Social insects not only take care of their nestmates in life but also in death. Research has shown that ants, honey bees, and termites demonstrate a variety of corpse managing behaviors, such as corpse removal, burial, avoidance, and even cannibalism. These behaviors, collectively known as undertaking behaviors, help to maintain the fitness of the colony, keeping the nest hygienic and promoting nutrient recycling. However, how undertaking behaviors arose in the evolution of sociality is unknown. To address this gap in knowledge, we performed experiments that exposed bumblebees, Bombus impatiens, to dead adult nestmates or larvae to identify key undertaking behaviors. Unlike ants, honey bees, and termites, bumblebees are described as “annually eusocial” and lack the strict age-based division of labor seen in other highly eusocial insects. Instead, bumblebees exhibit smaller colony sizes, flexible division of labor, and annual life cycles. Their unique position on the spectrum of sociality makes investigating their corpse management behaviors impactful for understanding the evolution and diversity of behaviors that enable social living. Using deep learning methods, we identified key behaviors like corpse removal, antennation, and mandible contact, and even less frequent behaviors like aggression. Our results characterize the intricacies of this important set of social behaviors and help construct the evolutionary history of this behavioral adaptation. Our future work will explore the plasticity and specialization of bumblebee undertaking and the neural mechanisms behind the behaviors.

Visuospatial attention is a complex, dynamic process critical to our conscious perception of the world. The N2pc event-related potential (ERP) is a time-locked EEG waveform implicated in the modulation of visuospatial attention and observed in Posner task paradigms. The N2pc ERP functionally represents attention mechanisms, with hypotheses suggesting it could represent target enhancement or distractor suppression. Further, perceptual differences have been found in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) populations, suggesting that these differences could be discriminated in N2pc properties. Visuospatial cueing differences are observed in autistic individuals, yet the neural mechanisms underlying these differences remain unclear. This study investigates possible differences in the N2pc component reflecting distinct patterns of attentional modulation in autism. We conducted 32-electrode EEG recordings of neurotypical and autistic adults engaged in a Posner paradigm visual detection task, detecting grayscale circles embedded in a checkerboard stimulus. Using MatLab and EEGLAB, we expect to localize N2pc ERPs in parietal regions in epochs post-cue and post-stimulus presentation. We hypothesize that we will see different amplitude and latency N2pc ERPs in autistic individuals compared to neurotypical controls, reflecting differences in attention modulation. Results may provide insight into how attentional mechanisms differ in autistic individuals, allowing for a greater understanding of neurotypical and neurodivergent approaches to visuospatial attention.

Gender disparities persist in male-dominated fields, with women often underrepresented in STEM fields such as computer science. We examine “sense of mattering”– the perception of one's contributions and work being valued and recognized by others– as a factor that may help explain women’s underrepresentation in male-dominated fields. We investigate whether manipulating sense of mattering in a hypothetical computer science class influences actual participation, interest, and anticipated performance in group tasks. Participants (n=200) recruited from the University of Washington’s Psychology Research Pool will be randomly assigned to either a high or low peer recognition condition via an online survey wherein participants engage in a group chat with peers to complete computer science tasks. Participants will contribute to this chat using both prewritten and open-response options. Participation will be analyzed for language content and response length and perceived interest and anticipated performance in computer science will be assessed through a self-report measure. We hypothesize that heightened peer recognition will lead to greater participation, interest, and anticipated performance outcomes for all participants, with a stronger effect for women than men. Future directions for this study include exploring other channels through which sense of mattering could be influenced (e.g., teacher behaviors) and investigating its relevance in disciplines beyond computer science. Examining the potential significance of mattering may pave the way for interventions that foster environments that better appreciate women's contributions.

Developing solutions to address social risk factors (SRF) in low- and middle- income countries (LMIC) can be difficult as many SRFs are a result of lacking financial support. SRFs are adverse living conditions that may impact the physical or mental well-being of an individual or community. Addressing SRFs in LMICs can increase implementation of evidence-based practices aimed at improving mental health outcomes. In this study, we focused on who is involved in proposed solutions that address SRFs and what specific roles those individuals undertake. Understanding what persons and roles are involved in a solution can help organize and facilitate action. We conducted a secondary inductive thematic analysis on qualitative data from a parent NIMH-funded study which aimed to develop strategies to address SRFs alongside a culturally adapted form of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) for children who experienced parental death in Western Kenya. In the parent study, clinical supervisors conducted a workshop and training for TF-CBT lay-counselors to co-develop strategies to address SRFs. Most suggested strategies supported economic empowerment and a worksheet was designed to aid implementation of the strategies. This study uses data from worksheets filled out at 10 different schools in which lay-counselors designed economic empowerment strategies. The primary solutions included poultry rearing, vegetable gardening, and tree nurseries. Preliminary results show that most solutions tend to require school administration, teachers, children, for whom the solutions are for, and their guardians. Administrative roles tended to supply land required for solutions, teachers and guardians mostly supplied resources, while children were tasked with implementation of the solutions. Knowing who executes what roles can help inform what resources, skills, or knowledge a person can contribute to a solution, which may facilitate transferability between solutions. This can help researchers and communities individualize strategies to address SRFs where certain persons may be unavailable.

Caffeine is one of the most widely consumed stimulants globally, yet its effects on explicit memory remain an area of active research. This literature review examines how caffeine influences explicit memory, particularly in short-term recall and recognition memory in young adults ages 18-22. By synthesizing findings from recent peer-reviewed studies, we explore the neurochemical mechanisms, focusing on caffeine’s role in modulating adenosine receptors, enhancing neuronal activity, and affecting hippocampal-dependent memory functions. Some studies indicate that caffeine improves attention and alertness, which can indirectly support memory formation. However, other studies suggest that excessive intake or habitual use may lead to adverse effects, particularly if it disrupts sleep patterns or increases anxiety—both of which are known to impair memory. These conflicting findings highlight the complexity of caffeine’s effects and the challenge of drawing definitive conclusions. Beyond individual consumption patterns, methodological differences across studies like varying dosage intake and testing periods also contribute to conflicting findings. Variations in participant characteristics, experimental designs, and memory assessment methods make direct comparisons across studies challenging. Some studies focus on immediate recall, while others examine delayed retrieval or recognition memory, further adding to the variability in reported outcomes. By critically evaluating existing research, we aim to clarify the relationship between caffeine and explicit memory while identifying research gaps that future studies should address. Given the widespread use of caffeine among young adults, particularly for academic performance, a deeper understanding of its cognitive effects is essential. Investigating how caffeine influences memory under different conditions—such as varying levels of stress or sleep deprivation—could provide valuable insights. Future research should also refine methodologies to isolate caffeine’s specific effects on explicit memory in young adults.

Students often face academic pressure, interpersonal issues, and employment challenges during the transition into college. While 48.9% of undergraduate students face depressive symptoms (Luo et. al, 2024) and 52% of students report anxiety significantly inhibiting their academic performance (Crosswell et al), only 15% of students with mental illness utilize college mental health resources (Jaisoorya, 2021). To overcome conflicting schedules, stigma, and limited accessibility, we investigate whether self-regulated mindfulness practices would reduce anxiety and depression symptoms in college students. Participants were instructed to practice guided meditation videos daily. Depression and anxiety were measured through Qualtrics using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) (Beck et al., 1996) and Generalized Anxiety Questionnaire (APA) (Spitzer, et al., 2006) before and after a 2-week meditation practice. We hypothesize that regular mindfulness meditation practices moderately reduce anxiety and depression in college students. 

People who identify as Black and African American face disproportionate mental health and addiction burdens, but they access existing evidence-based services at lower rates than their White counterparts. There has been historical harm from unethical research practices and questionable interpretations of research data generated from the black community; these have resulted in sustained distrust in research and healthcare among Black individuals. Whereas culturally tailored approaches can improve engagement, Black individuals remain underrepresented in research and often feel excluded. Our study explores: What do Black young adults perceive as essential for building trust in research and healthcare, and what priorities do they identify as critical for improving mental health and engagement within their communities? Our data are from an ongoing parent study examining the effects of daily and racial stressors on alcohol and cannabis use among Black young adults. We will use the qualitative data collected from participants of the parent study. Participants are 78 Black adults aged 18-25 (M_age=22.1, 50% female, 56% full-time students) recruited from Seattle, WA, and Dallas, TX. Each participant completes a 30-minute, one-on-one semi-structured virtual interview. The recorded interview is transcribed and coded for themes that answer our research questions. Interview questions are designed to understand participants' recommendations for building trust between the Black community and scientists and healthcare providers, and important or timely mental health needs in the Black community. First, participants highlighted the importance of researchers' cultural competency, increased diversity of healthcare providers and researchers, and clear, transparent communication between scientists/providers and Black individuals. Participants emphasized the need for accessible medical language, informed consent, and improved health literacy to build trust. Second, participants identified pressing research and healthcare needs, including destigmatizing mental illness, addressing racial and generational trauma, and increasing access to culturally competent care. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Visual Perspective-taking (VPT) is the ability to recognize another’s viewpoint, and can play a role in communication and empathy. Previous research supports that VPT in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) populations is altered compared to neurotypicals (NT), but the traits within both populations that contribute to VPT differences remain unknown. This study investigates how VPT differs in ASD compared to NT adults using both animate and inanimate target objects. We also explore how these differences might be associated with ASD traits, measured by the Social Responsiveness Scale-2 (SRS-2). Participants complete computerized tasks that evaluate how stimuli appear from a different perspective. Psychophysical tests determine participants' ability to identify the position of an object from the perspective of an animate object (an avatar in the image) and an inanimate object (a chair), measuring accuracy and reaction time. We expect to replicate past findings of increased reaction time with greater angular disparity between the participants’ viewpoint and the viewpoint of the target object, for both ASD and NT subjects. We hypothesize this interaction between reaction time and angular perspective for both populations may interact with the type of reference object (animate vs. inanimate) and SRS-2 scores. We believe that NT participants will demonstrate greater accuracy and faster reaction times than ASD participants in both animate and inanimate conditions, with the difference being evident in the animate condition for ASD participants, possibly due to challenges in processing social cues reflected by higher scores on the SRS-2. This research can increase the understanding of the psychological disparities in individuals with ASD compared to NT contributing to diagnostic tools and targeted interventions for improving social cognition in ASD populations and potentially other neurodivergent populations with VPT differences.

Attention restoration theory (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989) which has shaped our understanding of the benefits of nature, centers around the idea that certain qualities of nature innately capture our focus and encourage restoration. Based on this theory, it seems unlikely individuals would feel predominantly bored in nature. Using data from a larger study of University of Washington undergraduates' nature encounters, the goal of this research is to investigate how often individuals experience boredom in nature and to better understand the characteristics of those who may be prone to boredom. Participants who reported having spent time in nature over the past week were queried about whether they had felt bored during the experience. 101 (8%) said they “always” or “often” felt bored in nature, a contrast to 1154 (92%) who said they were “never” or “sometimes” bored. This group represents a unique subset of the data and preliminary findings show they self-reported higher levels of stress, depression and anxiety. This group also seems to have different trends regarding phone usage in nature. 64% of participants who were “often” or “always” bored reported looking at their phone for over half their time in nature, compared to only 20.3% of participants who didn’t report high levels of boredom. Additionally, 74% of participants with high levels of boredom reported using their phone for more than just checking maps, taking photos of nature and identifying plants or animals, compared with just 55% of the rest of the sample. This research has important implications for identifying what kinds of nature interaction may be more or less engaging and beneficial to the wider population, as well as understanding who may be more prone to boredom in nature. 

Young adult cannabis use has become increasingly prevalent in the US, particularly among individuals attending four-year colleges. The perceived social acceptability of cannabis use plays a crucial role in shaping attitudes and behaviors towards substance consumption. While societal attitudes towards cannabis have evolved over the last two decades, there is a gap in understanding how these perceptions differ between college students and their non-college peers. My research aims to compare perceptions about the social acceptability of cannabis with the actual frequency of use among young adults who attend four-year colleges, versus same aged individuals that are not attending school. I am using a subsample of young adults using baseline data from a larger longitudinal study on health behaviors, the Washington Young Adult Health Survey (WYAHS), for the analysis. I am conducting the data preparation and analysis using SPSS. I believe that there will be a significant difference in perceived social acceptability of cannabis use between college students and those not attending school, but I also anticipate that actual consumption will not be significantly different. The results of this research could be important for improving substance use education and addressing preconceived notions of cannabis use acceptability among young adults. Previous research on the WYAHS data has shown significant changes in substance use behaviors over the last six years, especially throughout the pandemic. Future research is needed, which focuses on how my findings may change when based on data from before the COVID-19 pandemic.