Browsing by Author "Boltz, Marilyn"

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    A Child's Theory of Mind
    (1995) Gamble, Eleanor; Cassidy, Kimberly Wright; Boltz, Marilyn
    The purpose of the present experiment was to study children's theory of mind or their ability to attribute mental states to themselves and to others. Two tasks were used to test the theory of mind: the false belief task, the standard test for a theory of mind and the false pretend task, a newer version of the false belief task which employs pretense. The effects of perceptual pull and desire on task performance were also studied. The subjects of the experiment were twenty-seven preschoolers ages three, four and five. The major findings of this study showed that children's performance on these theory of mind tasks improves significantly between the third and fourth years. These results support a view claiming that children become more conceptually developed in this time period. In contrast to previous findings, the false belief task was also shown to be easier than the false pretend task. Future research needs to be conducted to determine under what conditions a child can and cannot use their theory of mind.
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    An Exploration of Current Pain Curriculums and Physical Therapists’ Knowledge of Pain: Specifically Emphasizing the Psychological Aspects of Pain
    (2008) Chu, Jennifer X.; Boltz, Marilyn; Sternberg, Wendy
    In the mid-1990’s and 2000’s studies revealed inadequacies in pain curriculums and pain knowledge of both occupational and physical therapists. The current study expands on prior studies by examining the physical therapy field specifically using a literature review and two surveys assessing current educational curriculums and physical therapists’ knowledge of pain, specifically knowledge of psychological aspects. The study suggests that while there have been improvements in pain curriculums and physical therapists’ knowledge, there are still areas that require enhancement. Regarding curriculums, the discussion focuses on course time devoted to pain information, incorporation of the IASP Core Curriculum and coverage of psychological issues. Regarding physical therapists’ knowledge in practice, the discussion focuses on understanding of psychological aspects of pain, satisfaction with entry level education, and changes physical therapists would implement to pain management and curriculums.
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    Anosognosia of Hemiplegia: An Analysis of Implicit and Explicit Access to the Body Schema and Motor Control Systems during the Genesis of Action
    (2006) Revere, Karen; Boltz, Marilyn; Sternberg, Wendy
    Anosognosia for hemiplegia (AHP) is characterized by a lack of awareness of hemiplegia following stroke. The purpose of the present study was to investigate two alternative accounts of AHP. The first account is that AHP results from an impaired body representation during the generation of action. Alternatively, the second account is that motor planning systems are intact, but not accessible for explicit report. Patients with right hemisphere lesions and clinical symptoms of AHP (N=3) and normal control subjects (N=18) completed two primary tasks. One involved finger movements and measured explicit body schema access and awareness, while the other involved making right-left hand judgments and measured implicit body schema access and awareness. Additionally, subjects were evaluated for cognitive impairment and neglect. All patients performed poorly relative to normal controls on both the implicit and explicit tasks. This suggests that AHP may be associated with a general disruption of the motor control system. Future research is necessary to establish whether a disruption in the motor system of patients with AHP during the genesis of action occurs during the generation of a motor plan or during the sensory comparison between intended and actual movement.
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    Are you afraid of the dark?: Exploring death, social isolation, & cultural enlightenment
    (2006) Chao, Brian; Boltz, Marilyn
    Terror management theory claims that human behavior is driven by a subtle but profound fear of personal death, a consequence of advanced cognitions. Coalitional psychology, on the contrary, claims that human behavior is driven by a desire for social affiliation, as a fitness related adaptation. In the present study, we conducted two experiments in order to evaluate the competing claims of terror management theory and coalitional psychology, with sensitivity to the influence that culture is known to have on cognitive processes. The first experiment investigated the effects of cultural priming (individualism or collectivism) and salience priming (mortality, social isolation, or neutrality) on death-, social isolation-, and fear-related thought accessibilities, as measure by the frequency of semantically-related word completions. A mixed-factorial ANOVA found no significant effect of salience prime on the types of word completions, but did find a significant main effect of salience prime within the neutral salience condition. The second experiment investigated the effects of cultural priming and salience priming on cognitive processing, as measured by field dependency and attributio1nal tendency. A mixed-factorial ANOVA found no significant effects on the field-dependency measure, but did find a significant main effect of culture prime on the attributional tendency measure. The inconsistency of the findings with prior research is discussed in light of methodological and theoretical limitations. Directions for future research are recommended.
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    Are You Lying to Me? : Using Nonverbal Cues to Detect Deception
    (2007) Dyer, Rebecca; Boltz, Marilyn
    The present study was designed to investigate the relationship between response latency, speech rate accommodation, and judgments of deception. Participants listened to a recorded conversation between Jim and Claire, a dating couple. The conversation contained 32 question/answer pairs, with each speaker responding to 16 questions. Half of the responses were self-oriented (benefiting the self), and half were other-oriented (benefiting someone else). Each response was manipulated in terms of response latency and speech rate accommodation. Participants rated each response as either honest or deceitful, as well as confidence in their judgments and seriousness of each lie. Results showed that response latency was generally weighted more heavily than speech rate accommodation as a cue to deception. Early and on-time latencies were viewed as truthful, while late latencies were viewed as deceitful. In addition, several significant differences emerged as a function of type of lie (self- vs. other-oriented), gender of speaker, and gender of participants. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive models, sex differences in deception, relationship between the speakers, and gender expectancies/stereotypes.
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    Art Therapy: A Unique Intervention for Mental Health
    (2012) Tocci, Andrea; Boltz, Marilyn
    Creating art is an innate human tendency that allows the individual to communicate and express emotion. Because of this quality and others, art has been used therapeutically to support mental health. The purpose of this paper is to examine the previous research on art therapy, how and why art is utilized in therapy, and the questions that arise in the research. The literature suggests that art therapy is an important and effective intervention for mental health because of its ability to resolve emotional conflict and enhance an individual’s sense of well‐being. The field of art therapy is becoming more and more popular and the techniques more widely used; however, art therapy is still mystery to many professionals. More quantitative controlled studies that evaluate the effectiveness of art therapy are necessary for the healing powers of art to be more fully understood.
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    Background Music As Related To Product Beliefs In Television Advertisements
    (2001) Gomez, Miguel; Boltz, Marilyn
    Previous research on background music in television commercials has demonstrated the fact that background music can affect the attitudes held about an ad. Several studies of the effects of background music in other settings (film soundtracks, store ambiance) have shown that background music can also affect belief structures by activating music relevant schemas. This study investigates the possibility that music can perform this function in television advertising. Furthermore, we examine how different levels of involvement with the advertisement, and different levels of familiarity of the music will affect the way relevant schema are activated and beliefs are formed. Subjects were shown three ads, each paired with a different type of music (familiar, unfamiliar, or none) embedded in a half hour sit-com. After watching the entire program subjects were asked to recall the main selling points of the ads, items in the ads, and the mood of the main characters in the ad, as well as completing a series of bipolar adjective ratings about the ads. Half of the subjects were told to attend to the commercials presented, and half were told to attend to the sit-com in which they were embedded. Results showed that music and involvement level do affect belief formation. Results were not consistent across all three ads, however, revealing that music and involvement level have differing effects depending on the specifics of the advertisements presented.
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    Body Weight Schematicity and its Effects on General Cognitive Functions
    (1995) May, Danielle; Boltz, Marilyn
    This experiment assessed body schematicity's effects on general cognitive functioning. Both schematics and aschematics for body weight performed three cognitive tasks. A lexical decision task presenting weight-related and non-weight-related stimuli was used to assess perceptual abilities and speed of processing. To explore interpretive behavior, an ambiguous stimuli task required subjects to write a stories about two ambiguous scenes. Finally, subjects watched a film containing both weight-related and non-weight-related items. A delayed recognition task was used to examine memory. Several analyses of variance revealed that, on a particular dimension, schematics and aschematics process information differently. More specifically, body weight schematics perceived more weight-related words and processed this information more quickly. They also tended to interpret situations as weight-related and had higher hit and false alarm rates for weight-related information presented in the memory task. In contrast, aschematics did not show such differential cognitive abilities as a function of information type. In addition, a multiple regression analysis revealed that performances on several of the tasks positively correlate to schematicity level. These findings extend the previous schema and body image literatures, and provide a basis for extensive research in these areas.
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    Child's Theory of Mind: Belief and Desire Distinction
    (1996) Murayama, Waki; Cassidy, Kimberly Wright; Boltz, Marilyn
    The present study investigated the child's theory of mind, the ability to attribute mental states to other people. This study was based on Fodor's proposal that children use two strategies in solving false belief problems, one focusing on a desire component, and the other on a belief component of mental states. Sixteen three year-olds and 16 four year-olds were presented with four short stories that varied in the desirability of the story topics and the roles of the main characters. They were asked to describe the main character's emotional reaction to the unexpected outcome, and to also recall the false belief of the character. Results supported Fodor's proposal that young children are as capable of false belief comprehension as are older children. However, the manipulations of topic desirability and the main character's roles were not shown to affect children's performance. These findings are discussed in terms of past research and theory concerning the child's theory of mind.
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    Computational modeling of musical enculturation: An investigation of multicultural music learning using self-organizing maps
    (2016) Pazdera, Jesse; Boltz, Marilyn
    Past research has shown that children are able to implicitly learn the underlying melodic structure of their native culture's musical system, even without formal musical training. Although implicit musical learning has been well studied, little is known about non-Western and multicultural musical enculturation. The present study addressed these issues though three experiments using self-organizing maps (SOMs), a type of neural model, to simulate implicit musical learning. Experiment 1 used SOMs to simulate Western, Chinese, and Hindustani musical enculturation, each learned independently from one another. Experiment 2 simulated a child growing up in a multicultural context, to investigate whether they might learn the structure of multiple native systems. Experiment 3 simulated an adult encountering an unfamiliar culture, to examine whether adults – not only children – may implicitly acquire the syntax of new musical systems. Results generally supported the plausibility of successful multicultural learning, with the caveat that certain systems disrupted the learning of others. Our findings led to further discussion of cross-cultural similarities between musical systems and the implications of these connections.
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    Computational Modeling of Musical Enculturation: An Investigation of Multicultural Music Learning Using Self-Organizing Maps
    (2016) Pazdera, Jesse; Chandlee, Jane; Boltz, Marilyn
    Past research has shown that children are able to implicitly learn the underlying melodic structure of their native culture's musical system, even without formal musical training. Although implicit musical learning has been well studied, little is known about non-Western and multicultural musical enculturation. The present study addressed these issues though three experiments using self-organizing maps (SOMs), a type of neural model, to simulate implicit musical learning. Experiment 1 used SOMs to simulate Western, Chinese, and Hindustani musical enculturation, each learned independently from one another. Experiment 2 simulated a child growing up in a multicultural context, to investigate whether they might learn the structure of multiple native systems. Experiment 3 simulated an adult encountering an unfamiliar culture, to examine whether adults – not only children – may implicitly acquire the syntax of new musical systems. Results generally supported the plausibility of successful multicultural learning, with the caveat that certain systems disrupted the learning of others. Our findings led to further discussion of cross-cultural similarities between musical systems and the implications of these connections.
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    Desire understanding and prosocial behavior: the relationship between early development of theory of mind and the social processes of preschool-age children
    (2003) Odessey, Rebecca; Carlson, Katharine L.; Martinez, Nicole; Boltz, Marilyn; Cassidy, Kimberly Wright
    This study explores the relationship between desire understanding and prosocial behavior. A sample of 49 children, ranging from 3 to 5 years of age, was given a battery of desire understanding tasks. Prosocial behavior, as comprised of prosocial orientation, social initiative, and selflessness, was measured by teacher and parent reports. Overall desire understanding was related to teacher ratings of prosocial behavior. This significant correlation remained when controlling for selfishness. Effects of age and "risk status" were also found. Implications of teacher bias within the classroom, factors influencing the development of prosocial behavior, and a possible interaction between these two components are discussed.
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    Desire Understanding as Related to Prosocial Behavior in Preschoolers
    (2003) Carlson, Katharine L.; Cassidy, Kimberly Wright; Boltz, Marilyn
    This study was designed to investigate the relationship between preschoolers' understanding of others' desires and prosocial behavior. Participants included children between the ages of three and five. Desire understanding was measured using tasks ranging in difficulty and included simple desire, conflicting/inferring desire, and wicked desire tasks. Prosocial behavior was rated and recorded in questionnaire form by teachers and parents. Teacher ratings of prosocial behavior were found to be significantly positively correlated with desire understanding in preschoolers, with older children performing significantly better than younger children in both areas as well. Differences in performance based on environmental differences, or "risk status," are discussed. These findings build on previous theory of mind research and have implications for early educational programs.
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    Did You See What I Just Heard? Auditory Dominance in Temporal Judgments
    (2008) Giffin, Carly; Boltz, Marilyn
    The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the auditory driving effect with naturalistic stimuli. To this end, two experiments were performed. Experiment One paired montages of photographs presented at a fixed rate accompanied by music where tempo was either faster, slower, or the same. After the initial montage, two shorter probes were shown. The subjects’ task was to choose which of two visual probes, consisting of shorter versions of the montage they had just seen without accompanying music, was presented at the same rate as the original montage. In Experiment Two, the experiment design was reversed such that the music was held constant while the speed at which the montages were presented was manipulated. The subjects’ task in this experiment was to choose which of two auditory probes, presented without accompanying photographs, was the same tempo as the music they had just heard. Results showed that discrepant auditory information had a larger biasing effect on subsequent visual probes than discrepant visual information had on subsequent auditory probes. Thus, the experiment provides support for the auditory driving effect using naturalistic stimuli. This finding has theoretical and practical implications.
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    Do Primates Have the Capacity for Language?
    (2009) Drucker, Matt; Boltz, Marilyn
    Nonhuman primates' capacity for language has been a heavily debated issue, most research focusing solely on attempts to teach primates language. In order to answer the question fully a combination of data must be taken into account, drawing on observations of behavior both in the wild and in the lab, and studies of the biological makeup of nonhuman primates. However, the question whether apes have the capacity for abstract concepts and the cultural aspects of human language is unanswered. With additional information from studies of primate representational play and attempts to communicate with humans, the conclusion is reached that nonhuman primates do have the capacity for language. One implication of nonhuman primates having language is that there is a strong cultural developmental aspect that allows for morals and abstract ideas that is not observed in apes in the wild. This work with primates has connections to research on teaching deaf children language as well.
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    Dopamine Deficiency Predicts Pain: Toward A Novel Framework for the Neurophysiological Classification and Treatment of Chronic Pain
    (2022) Herman, Arielle F.; Robinson-Drummer, Patrese; Boltz, Marilyn
    Chronic pain is a widespread issue which strips millions of people of their agency, and bears devastating and often debilitating lifelong consequences for mental and physical wellbeing. It is also one of the largest burdens on socioeconomic welfare, costing the United States government an estimated $635 billion each year in medical expense and lost productivity. Although its pathophysiological mechanisms are far from elucidated, research spanning the past several decades has revealed a number of significant neurobiological correlates and theoretical frameworks which have yet to escape the enclosure of scientific journals to enter both the clinic and public awareness. It is generally accepted that the treatment of chronic pain is somewhat of a medical conundrum, with few chronic pain patients experiencing long-term relief, and many encountering interpersonal frustration and systemic roadblocks in clinical care. In line with chronic pain's status as a public health crisis, a great deal of literature highlights the urgency for new targets in pain management and prevention. Many published studies and institutional reports even provide detailed protocol for the implementation of higher-efficacy treatment methods for a wide array of conditions. In other words, there already exists a substantial pool of scientific insight which, if extended to translational research, could decrease morbidity and improve quality of life for many individuals, some of whom may be suffering unnecessarily or excessively, in a medical system that cannot provide for their clinical needs, often prescribing treatments designed for acute injuries to those who live for years with an elusive chronic syndrome. As a result, people's lives are excessively devastated by pain conditions which could be better managed, mitigated, or entirely prevented. Among scattered literature originating from a range of perspectives, one set of relationships emerges as critically important, with expansive implications for many areas of pain research, as well as for those who suffer with chronic pain. However, these disparate findings are yet to be integrated, and are therefore largely unknown, and alarmingly under-researched. A close examination of decades of research that has remained largely under the radar reveals a significant contribution of the state of dopaminergic neurotransmission to the mechanisms which underlie pain chronification. This comprehensive review synthesizes research in pharmacology, neurophysiology, psychiatry, and etiology in an effort to delineate the evidence for dopamine dysfunction as a common mechanism in the development of chronic pain. This includes documentation of correlational data revealing its prevalence, neurophysiological findings demonstrating its essential role in the homeostasis of pain-processing circuitry, as well as clinical evidence of the pervasive downstream effects and predispositions consistently observed with an imbalance of this system. By triangulating a number of neurophysiological mechanisms which are rarely considered in tandem, this paper highlights a critical shortcoming in the current literature on chronic pain. Integration of this widely overlooked research ultimately points to significant new targets for the clinical intervention, prevention, and reversal of chronic pain conditions, under a novel framework which could advance the current understandings about the fundamental nature of pain.
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    Effects of Background Music on the Memory and Interpretation of Ambiguous Movie Scenes
    (1998) Larrimer, Karen; Boltz, Marilyn
    The present study investigates the effects of background music on the interpretation and memory of ambiguous movie scenes. Forty-eight subjects watched three short, ambiguous film clips accompanied by either positive, negative, or no music. The subjects were then asked to extrapolate the ending of each film, evaluate the personality and motivations of the main character(s), and complete a series ofbipolar adjective scales about each scene. The subjects were brought back a week later for a surprise memory recognition task to test their memory of certain objects from each scene. Results from the interpretation and adjective rating tasks suggest that relative to a control group (i.e. no music) positive music led to a more positive interpretations and adjective ratings while negative music led to a more negative interpretations and adjective ratings. The results of the "hits" and the "false alarms" from the memory task revealed that subjects remembered more positive items, regardless of the experimental condition. These findings are discussed in terms of the schematic influences of music which in turn suggest a number of ideas for future research.
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    Effects of Stress on Selective Attention: Bias or Deficiency?
    (2001) Osorio, Lisette C.; Compton, Rebecca J. (Rebecca Jean); Boltz, Marilyn
    The main goal of this study was to examine whether stress biases selective attention in a similar way as anxiety, with specificity and state/trait interactions playing a role, or whether it creates a general deficiency in this process. Subjects participated in a dichotic listening task in which they listened to neutral passages to be shadowed on one ear and either academic-stress, social-stress, or neutral words on the other ear. They were also instructed to respond simultaneously to a probe that randomly appeared on the computer screen. Subjects were then divided into 8 different academic-stress/social-stress/trait-stress combination groups for analysis. Results provided no support for the general deficiency hypothesis; however, specific state-stress/trait-stress/word-list interactions provided some support for the hypothesized similarity between stress and anxiety. In addition, main effects of trait-stress on probe reaction time and of academic-stress on shadowing errors were observed. These results have important implications for the way stress might affect people differently, depending on factors such as personality traits, type of stress, and the nature of environmental "distracters" present.
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    Effects of Video Mood Congruency on Music Perception and Memory
    (2014) Dougherty, Andy W.; Boltz, Marilyn
    Many studies have examined the effects of musical soundtracks on films and demonstrated that music can bias the emotional impact of an accompanying film and provide an interpretative framework for the visual material. Few studies have examined the reverse relationship of video's influence on music. The purpose of the present research was to investigate music videos to determine which types of videos were most effective for the interpretation, perception and memory of songs. In the experiment, subjects were presented with videos that varied in the affect of their music, lyrics and video. Comparisons of interest between incongruent pairings allowed for the relative impact of each music video component to be addressed. Results indicated that music had a much greater influence than video or lyrics on almost all types of perception, and it also had the greatest influence on memory, while lyrics affected interpretation the most. Video enhanced perceptual ratings and memory on a number of measures, indicating that it has a practical use in music. Mood-congruent positive videos are especially beneficial to perception while negative videos make many songs more memorable. Practical applications, strengths, and weaknesses of the current research are discussed in addition to directions for future research.