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.

In the wake of the Trump and Biden administrations, during which movements such as Christian nationalism and religious deconstruction brought civil religion into the public eye, scholarship regarding religion as it interacts with politics becomes increasingly relevant. My thesis aims to investigate the role of Christianity in the political communication of our two most recent presidents, arguing that public religiosity is not diminishing in America -- rather, it is in a constant state of evolution to fit an ever-changing nation. This content analysis compares Trump's and Biden's usages of Christian language to one another as well as to former presidencies, addressing the question of how religious rhetoric is shifting in American political discourse. Through creation of a codebook of more than one hundred Christian keywords, which are then applied to presidential communication such as State of the Union addresses (accessed through The American Presidency Project), I determine the frequencies and contexts of religious mentions within Trump's and Biden's communication. Using programs such as Atlas.ti, I measure, analyze, and visualize Trump's and Biden's individual invocations of Christian talk. I hypothesize that Donald Trump's use of religious language increased over the course of his presidency as well as being significantly concentrated in self-referential contexts. Meanwhile, Joseph Biden's religious language is expected to be concentrated in contexts of national crisis, mainly taking the form of Biblical quotations. Overall, findings are expected to demonstrate that Christian language in the American presidency is not broadly declining, but rather used in more niche contexts. This project contributes to the vast field of religious and political scholarship by comprehensively analyzing not just the frequency but also the context of religious language in these presidencies, supporting the notion that public religion is a living entity that functions as a sociological and cultural phenomenon.

Some older individuals exhibit the pathological hallmarks (i.e., amyloid-beta plaques and tau-containing neurofibrillary tangles) of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) yet remain cognitively intact, a phenomenon known as resilience. Microglia, the primary immune cells of the central nervous system are important for clearance of debris and responding to injury in the brain. When exposed to aggregated proteins, they can release inflammatory molecules toxic to neurons.  Because neuroinflammation has been implicated in neurodegeneration, understanding how microglia interact with Aβ could provide insight into immune mechanisms that support cognitive preservation despite AD pathology. In patients with AD who have dementia, it is known that their microglia cluster around amyloid-beta (Aβ) plaques which possibly contribute to damaging inflammation.  Whether microglia in resilient individuals share the same relationship to plaque is unknown. This study investigated whether microglia in resilient individuals differ in their spatial relationship to amyloid plaques compared to non-resilient individuals in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Using confocal montage images from postmortem human brain tissue where immunofluorescence stained for Iba1+ microglia and PanAβ+ Aβ plaques, I quantified the proportion of microglia clustering around Aβ in three groups: 1) individuals with symptomatic AD, 2) cognitively intact individuals with AD pathology (resilient), and 3) cognitively intact individuals with no/low AD pathology (resistant). By generating 2D surface reconstructions, I measured microglia-Aβ overlap and proximity to assess colocalization patterns. I identified differences in microglia-Aβ colocalization between these three groups. This approach can help understand how microglial interactions with Aβ may contribute to resilience mechanisms and could inform novel therapeutic strategies for AD.

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.