eCommons Community: Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Effects of Emotion on False Memory Production

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:25:04 GMT

Title: The Effects of Emotion on False Memory Production

Authors: Rutman, Vanessa

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of emotion on false memory production. 118 undergraduate college students participated in this study. Each participant was first asked to listen to a list of study words taken from the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm. After listening to the word lists, participants were then given an emotion induction task that induced moods by rating person descriptive words taken from the Dumas norms. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: positive, negative, or neutral. Each participant was then given an immediate recognition memory test. One week later, participants were given a delayed recognition memory test to measure the degree of false memory. Results indicate that on the immediate memory participants in the positive mood condition were more susceptible to false memory. On the immediate memory test it was also found that participants in the neutral condition had the highest acceptance rates for target words, suggesting they had the best true memory. On the delayed memory test, it was found that participants in the negative condition were less likely to accept all types of words than participants in the negative and positive emotion conditions. This finding is consistent with what was found on the immediate memory test. Interestingly, on the delayed memory test participants in the positive emotional condition actually increased their acceptance rate for targets while participants in the neutral condition decreased their acceptance rates and participants in the negative condition kept their target rates consistent.

The effects of forestry management practices on environmental factors and woodland amphibians

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:06:00 GMT

Title: The effects of forestry management practices on environmental factors and woodland amphibians

Authors: Rockwell, Christina

Abstract: Hardwood forests are abundant in the U.S., the eastern region especially, and there is interest in managing them to serve economic and ecological objectives. Management actions can have a detrimental effect on wildlife populations and ecosystem processes. Using woodland salamanders as model organisms, we investigated differences between mature, thinned, and clear cut forests in the summers of 2000, 2001, and 2005. In 2005 we added sites from a recent regeneration cut where residual leave had been intentionally left on the ground. We compared light intensity and temperature between four treatments: open, fenced, tree tops (a layer of woody debris), and wood piles and in the plots established in 2000. Mature forests had higher salamander counts than thinned forests, and thinned forests had higher salamander counts than clear cut forests. Daily light and temperature fluctuations in clear cut areas were significantly higher than in thinned plots. In the regeneration plots, daily light and temperature fluctuations decreased as level of ground cover increased. Open plots had the most variable conditions, whereas piles were the most moderate. Tree tops were found to be effective at moderating environmental conditions. The type of forest management affects environmental conditions and salamander populations. Leaving woody debris from a harvest or creating piles could be viable methods to providing suitable habitat for woodland amphibians and are highly recommended.

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Are You Lying Now? A Linguistic Examination of Deceptive Utterances in Online Conversation

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:22:50 GMT

Title: Are You Lying Now? A Linguistic Examination of Deceptive Utterances in Online Conversation

Authors: Amos, Barrett

Abstract: Extensive research has been done to identify linguistic cues to deception, especially in the rapidly growing field of computer-mediated communication. However, most past research contains an important methodological flaw: the failure to break down deceptive and truthful topics into individual utterances. When assigning research participants to a deceptive role (say, asking them to lie to an unknowing receiver) previous studies have generally given the deceivers a topic to lie about and then asked them to go ahead and communicate with their partner. The deceivers were assumed to be lying whenever they were talking about the topic on which they were supposed to deceive their partners. However, in practice not all of the utterances within a deceptive conversation topic are lies. Some are truths used to support the overall lie. Past research has failed to make this distinction, drawing into question previous findings on linguistic cues. This study sought to validate four of the more well-known linguistic cues to deception by examining them at the utterance level. The results reveal that while there often is a distinction between the linguistic cues at the overall topical level (deceptive topics vs. truthful topics), those markers do not always hold true at the utterance level. Even more interestingly, there is often a large difference between truths told in support of an overall deceptive topic and truths told in support of an overall truthful topic. These findings open up new areas of research into the linguistic cues to deception.

It?s a Jungle Out There: A Real-World Analysis of Lying in Instant Messaging

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:22:30 GMT

Title: It?s a Jungle Out There: A Real-World Analysis of Lying in Instant Messaging

Authors: Perlin, Joshua

Abstract: Analysis of instant messaging deception has never been conducted using real-world data. This study tracked and analyzed deceptions in participants? real-life instant messaging conversations, analyzing them on a message-by-message basis instead of merely a conversation-by-conversation basis. The results show that people frequently deceive in instant messaging, and that the magnitude of these deceptions is positively correlated with instant messaging use. Deceptions are told in clusters, suggesting strategic usage of deception in instant messaging, and although people underestimate how frequently they deceive, they have a very good sense of how much they are straying from their normal deception rates.