Tag: Cerebral Matters

The competitive relationship between linguistic perception and production when learning a new sound contrast

Presenter(s): Tillena Trebon—Linguistics, Spanish

Co-Presenter(s): Zoe Haupt, Allegra Wesson, Maggie Wallace

Faculty Mentor(s): Dr. Melissa Baese-Berk, Dr. Zachary Jaggers

Session 6: Cerebal Matters

This research investigates the connection between perception and production when learning to discriminate between unfamiliar sounds . It is commonly assumed that humans use the same neural mechanisms for recognizing a spoken sound and producing a sound . If this assumption is correct, when we get better at perceiving sounds, we should also get better at producing them, and vice versa . Our research asks: Do linguistic perception and production utilize the same neural processes? Does one get better at perceiving the difference between two sounds by producing them? To answer these questions, experiment participants were trained on a new sound contrast . In the “Perception and production” condition, subjects produced the sounds during training . In the “Perception only” condition, subjects did not produce sounds during training . Results show that “Perception only” participants learned to perceive the difference between the sounds they were trained on . “Perception and production” participants did not learn the contrast nearly as well . Our research challenges traditional assumptions of linguistic perception and production by showing that the relationship between perceiving and producing new sounds appears competitive . Our research reveals that producing new sounds while learning to discriminate between those sounds hinders perceptual learning . Our results are consistent with recent research, which also show that perception and production may not utilize the same neural mechanisms . These results shed light on the complex language acquisition mechanisms in the brain . Understanding the relationship between linguistic perception and production is essential for optimizing second language teaching methods and for understanding how humans acquire language .

Parental Stress Correlate Children’s Cognitive Ability

Presenter(s): Jingjie Lu—Psychology

Faculty Mentor(s): Leticia Hayes, Tyson Barker

Session 6: Cerebal Matters

Early childhood is a critical time period for cognitive development, and children exposed to adverse familial stress may impair child cognitive development . Therefore, my hypothesis is parents with a greater stress index will be correlated to higher levels of oxidative stress biomarker-F2 Isoprostane, and lower levels of executive function and language development in their biological children . The tests administered to assess children’s cognitive ability mainly focus on the domains of executive function and language development . We also collected parent-child urine samples to assess parent- child oxidative stress biomarker (F2 Isoprostane) levels, and administered psychological stress questionnaires to the parent . For this research, parent stress will be analyzed from responses on the Parent Stress Index-IV questionnaire . All scores will be compared between the child participants aged three to six on executive function and language measures (N=103) .

Augemented Reality Effects on Mood, Stress & Cognition

Presenter(s): Ray Jackson—Psychology

Faculty Mentor(s): Dasa Zeithamova-Demircan, Lea Frank

Session 6: Cerebal Matters

Research with Virtual Reality has shown that a brief meditation experience is effective in reducing feelings of stress and anxiety (Keller, Bunnell, Kim & Rothbaum 2017) . When combined with interactive biometric feedback (for example: one’s heart rate) these same interventions have a stronger effect on both subjective feeling states as well as physiological changes associated with a relaxation response (Jester, Rozek, & McKelley 2019) . While it has been previously shown that reductions in stress can facilitate improved performance on cognitive tasks (Wu & Yan 2019), no research to date has specifically examined the ability of a brief Augmented Reality based meditation experience to boost cognitive performance . Our aim was to investigate if an AR-based meditation experience can stimulate a temporary boost in cognition by way of lowering stress, and to examine any additional effects of an addition of biometric feedback .

Naturalistic Perspective Taking: Themes Found in People’s Naturalistic Accounts

Presenter(s): Clare Brinkman—Psychology

Faculty Mentor(s): Sara Hodges

Session 6: Cerebal Matters

The current body of psychology literature on perspective taking is largely made up of studies which instruct participants to take the perspective of another person . In order to better understand the circumstances under which unprompted perspective taking occurs, an online study (n = 238) was conducted to explore naturalistic accounts of everyday perspective taking . In this study, university student research participants were asked to write about a time, preferably in recent days, when they took the perspective of another person . Narratives were coded using a reliable coding scheme developed to capture the prevalence of and variation in the following elements: whose perspective was taken; what triggered the perspective taking; strategies mentioned (if any) for perspective taking; interpersonal or other outcomes of perspective taking; and use of perspective-taking metaphors (e .g ., use of visual or place metaphors) . Results will help shed light on when people think they engage in perspective taking, and may address whether these contexts are related to prosocial and interpersonal understanding outcomes associated with perspective taking .