Poster presented at 2014 Association for Psychological Science conference:
It is well documented that, beginning in adolescence, male and female psychopathologies follow distinct trajectories, with females exhibiting higher levels of depression and anxiety than males (Halbreich & Kahn, 2007). It is also well documented that females have a more complex ability of emotional expression than males (Barrett et al., 2000). This study seeks to explore if expressed emotions plays a role in gender differences on item endorsement of the depression scale in the SCL90-R (Derogatis, 1983).
Poster presented at 2014 meeting of Society for Research on Adolescence:
It is well documented that, beginning in adolescence, male and female psychopathologies follow distinct trajectories, with females exhibiting higher levels of depression and anxiety than males (Halbreich & Kahn, 2007). That stated, endorsing an item on a self administered psychiatric assessment is only as accurate as the reporting of the participant. In general, females have a more complex ability of emotional expression than males (Barrett et al., 2000). This study seeks to explore if expressed emotions plays a role in gender differences on item endorsement in the SCL90-R (Derogatis, 1983).
This study is designed to assess the impact of self professed skill proficiency and peer influences on substance usage. Three time points were assessed longitudinally, when the subjects were in seventh (n = 451), tenth (n = 404), and twelfth (n = 396) grades, in 1989, 1992, and 1994 to 1995 respectively. Participants rated their skill levels in comparison to other kids their age at sports, hobbies, artistic, and academic club activities. Additionally, participants reported on alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana usage. Peer influences were assessed through two self reported items, and regression analyses were utilized to measure statistical significance. Different drug use pattern emerged for some of the groups, though these were not consistent across all three time points. Friend’s actual substance usage emerged as a greater predictor of the participant’s substance usage than either their skill proficiency at various activities or their self stated levels of peer influence. There was some evidence that the sum total of activities the participants reported being proficient at had a negative association with substance usage, as well as evidence supporting an insulating effect of peer influence on marijuana usage.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contributions of the DRD4 gene on personality and motivational development, and how social support may moderate this association.
Language processing involves many different brain functions. An aspect of language is word concepts, which are stored and accessed separately from another aspect of language, the visual and auditory store of the word. Homonyms allow us to understand how these systems are set up better by giving us access to an individual word with more than one word concept. By employing studies that deal with homonym function, we are able to see homonym processing as a function of time, and by employing fMRI imaging, we are able to understand what types of processes the brain undergoes in comprehending a homonym as compared to a word with one sole meaning.
Attempts at quitting drinking for an alcoholic can be a substantial and lifelong hurdle, with relapse rates are as high as 80-95% in the year following an intervention (Hendershot, Witkiewitz, George, & Marlatt, 2011). There are three known cues that lead to relapse: consumption of a small amount of alcohol, cues that are associated with prior availability of alcohol, and stress (Hansson et al., 2006). A look at genes implicated in relapse can be an important step in creating efficacious individualized intervention treatment programs. In this review, two types of genes are inspected regarding their effects on alcohol relapse; those that involve the dopamine reward system as well as CRHR1, a gene that has been linked to stressful drinking of alcohol.
This paper offers an inspection of the similarities and differences in music and language processing. Evidence from multiple studies are utilized in an attempt to discern how entwined they are within the realm of neurological processing. While there are significant areas of overlap, points of divergence help to distinguish the order in which the brain processes the two auditory streams, and may also help in implicating which process was established first. This paper was written for a cognitive neuroscience course in 2011, though minor grammatical adjustments were made before posting on academese.com in 2013.
The foregoing essay was written by Benjamin Franklin after the Royal Society of Brussels sent out a call for scientific studies (Wikipedia, n.d.). In it, he describes a potential direction of study that’s aims would be to not only decrease the offensive smell of farts, but turn them as “agreeable as Perfume’s”. Never actually sent to the Royal Society, Franklin printed the essay and sent it out to several others with whom he held personal correspondence, which serves to highlight his sense of humor as well as his personal view on his perceived pretentiousness of the Royal Society (n.d.). Every attempt was made to preserve the formatting of the original essay, though access of the publication was limited to secondary sources of the printing (Franklin, 1987; TeachingAmericanHistory.org, 2012). May it serve as a reminder to all scholars that, while your work may be quite important, it is never as important at maintaining a sense of humor. Or at the very least at the glacial pace of science; 232 years and still no progress on those perfumed farts.
