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Title: A Test of Evolutionary and Sociocultural Explanations of Reactions to Sexual Harassment.
Creator: Bourgeois, Martin, Perkins, James E.
Abstract / Description: Although the field of evolutionary psychology has been perceived to generate predictions that are untestable, one potentially falsifiable prediction of the evolutionary approach is that women should be less upset by unwanted sexual advances from high than from low status men. Three experiments tested this hypothesis within a workplace and an academic setting. Across the first two experiments, women and men were actually more upset by perceived sexual harassment from higher than lower status...
Show moreAlthough the field of evolutionary psychology has been perceived to generate predictions that are untestable, one potentially falsifiable prediction of the evolutionary approach is that women should be less upset by unwanted sexual advances from high than from low status men. Three experiments tested this hypothesis within a workplace and an academic setting. Across the first two experiments, women and men were actually more upset by perceived sexual harassment from higher than lower status members of the other sex. Results of Study 3 suggested that women only showed this difference when there was a power relationship involved. These results conflict with the evolutionary prediction and support a sociocultural explanation of reactions to sexual harassment; that is, that they are influenced by power differentials.
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Date Issued: 2003-10-01
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000871
Format: Citation

Title: Action orientation, consistency and feelings of regret.
Creator: McElroy, Todd, Dowd, Keith
Abstract / Description: Previous research has demonstrated that consistency between people's behavior and their dispositions has predictive validity for judgments of regret. Research has also shown that differences in the personality variable of action orientation can influence ability to regulate negative affect. The present set of studies was designed to investigate how both consistency factors and action-state personality orientation influence judgments of regret. In Study 1, we used a recalled life event to...
Show morePrevious research has demonstrated that consistency between people's behavior and their dispositions has predictive validity for judgments of regret. Research has also shown that differences in the personality variable of action orientation can influence ability to regulate negative affect. The present set of studies was designed to investigate how both consistency factors and action-state personality orientation influence judgments of regret. In Study 1, we used a recalled life event to provide a situation in which the person had experienced either an action or inaction. Individuals with an action orientation experienced more regret for situations involving inaction (staying home) than situations involving action (going out). State-oriented individuals, however, maintained high levels of regret and did not differ in their regret ratings across either the action or inaction situations. In Study 2, participants made realistic choices involving either an action or inaction. Our findings revealed the same pattern of results: action-oriented individuals who chose an option that involved not acting (inaction) had more regret that individuals who chose an option that involved acting (action). State-oriented individuals experienced high levels of regret regardless of whether they chose to act or not to act.
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Date Issued: 2007-12-01
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000830
Format: Citation

Title: Active Data Collection for Efficient Estimation and Comparison of Nonlinear Neural Models.
Creator: DiMattina, Christopher, Zhang, Kechen
Abstract / Description: The stimulus-response relationship of many sensory neurons is nonlinear, but fully quantifying this relationship by a complex nonlinear model may require too much data to be experimentally tractable. Here we present a theoretical study of a general two-stage computational method that may help to significantly reduce the number of stimuli needed to obtain an accurate mathematical description of nonlinear neural responses. Our method of active data collection first adaptively generates stimuli...
Show moreThe stimulus-response relationship of many sensory neurons is nonlinear, but fully quantifying this relationship by a complex nonlinear model may require too much data to be experimentally tractable. Here we present a theoretical study of a general two-stage computational method that may help to significantly reduce the number of stimuli needed to obtain an accurate mathematical description of nonlinear neural responses. Our method of active data collection first adaptively generates stimuli that are optimal for estimating the parameters of competing nonlinear models and then uses these estimates to generate stimuli online that are optimal for discriminating these models.We applied our method to simple hierarchical circuit models, including nonlinear networks built on the spatiotemporal or spectral-temporal receptive fields, and confirmed that collecting data using our two-stage adaptive algorithm was far more effective for estimating and comparing competing nonlinear sensory processing models than standard nonadaptive methods using random stimuli.
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Date Issued: 2011-09-01
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000851
Format: Citation

Title: Adaptive stimulus optimization for sensory systems neuroscience.
Creator: DiMattina, Christopher, Zhang, Kechen
Abstract / Description: In this paper, we review several lines of recent work aimed at developing practical methods for adaptive on-line stimulus generation for sensory neurophysiology. We consider various experimental paradigms where on-line stimulus optimization is utilized, including the classical optimal stimulus paradigm where the goal of experiments is to identify a stimulus which maximizes neural responses, the iso-response paradigm which finds sets of stimuli giving rise to constant responses, and the system...
Show moreIn this paper, we review several lines of recent work aimed at developing practical methods for adaptive on-line stimulus generation for sensory neurophysiology. We consider various experimental paradigms where on-line stimulus optimization is utilized, including the classical optimal stimulus paradigm where the goal of experiments is to identify a stimulus which maximizes neural responses, the iso-response paradigm which finds sets of stimuli giving rise to constant responses, and the system identification paradigm where the experimental goal is to estimate and possibly compare sensory processing models. We discuss various theoretical and practical aspects of adaptive firing rate optimization, including optimization with stimulus space constraints, firing rate adaptation, and possible network constraints on the optimal stimulus. We consider the problem of system identification, and show how accurate estimation of non-linear models can be highly dependent on the stimulus set used to probe the network. We suggest that optimizing stimuli for accurate model estimation may make it possible to successfully identify non-linear models which are otherwise intractable, and summarize several recent studies of this type. Finally, we present a two-stage stimulus design procedure which combines the dual goals of model estimation and model comparison and may be especially useful for system identification experiments where the appropriate model is unknown beforehand. We propose that fast, on-line stimulus optimization enabled by increasing computer power can make it practical to move sensory neuroscience away from a descriptive paradigm and toward a new paradigm of real-time model estimation and comparison.
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Date Issued: 2013-06-06
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000849
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Adaptive stimulus optimization for sensory systems neuroscience.
Creator: DiMattina, Christopher, Zhang, Kechen
Abstract / Description: In this paper, we review several lines of recent work aimed at developing practical methods for adaptive on-line stimulus generation for sensory neurophysiology. We consider various experimental paradigms where on-line stimulus optimization is utilized, including the classical optimal stimulus paradigm where the goal of experiments is to identify a stimulus which maximizes neural responses, the iso-response paradigm which finds sets of stimuli giving rise to constant responses, and the system...
Show moreIn this paper, we review several lines of recent work aimed at developing practical methods for adaptive on-line stimulus generation for sensory neurophysiology. We consider various experimental paradigms where on-line stimulus optimization is utilized, including the classical optimal stimulus paradigm where the goal of experiments is to identify a stimulus which maximizes neural responses, the iso-response paradigm which finds sets of stimuli giving rise to constant responses, and the system identification paradigm where the experimental goal is to estimate and possibly compare sensory processing models. We discuss various theoretical and practical aspects of adaptive firing rate optimization, including optimization with stimulus space constraints, firing rate adaptation, and possible network constraints on the optimal stimulus. We consider the problem of system identification, and show how accurate estimation of non-linear models can be highly dependent on the stimulus set used to probe the network. We suggest that optimizing stimuli for accurate model estimation may make it possible to successfully identify non-linear models which are otherwise intractable, and summarize several recent studies of this type. Finally, we present a two-stage stimulus design procedure which combines the dual goals of model estimation and model comparison and may be especially useful for system identification experiments where the appropriate model is unknown beforehand. We propose that fast, on-line stimulus optimization enabled by increasing computer power can make it practical to move sensory neuroscience away from a descriptive paradigm and toward a new paradigm of real-time model estimation and comparison.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: 10.3389/fncir.2013.00101, fgcu_ir_000066, http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fncir.2013.00101/abstract
Format: Citation

Title: Affective Imposition Influences Risky-Choice: Handedness Points to the Hemispheres.
Creator: McElroy, Todd, Corbin, Jonathan
Abstract / Description: The study of risk preference has become a widely investigated area of research. The current study is designed to investigate the relationship between handedness, hemispheric predominance and valence imposition in a risky-choice decision task. Research into the valence hypothesis (e.g., Ahern & Schwartz, 1985; Davidson, 1984) has shown that the left hemisphere is more active in processing positively valenced stimuli, whereas the right hemisphere is more active in processing negatively valenced...
Show moreThe study of risk preference has become a widely investigated area of research. The current study is designed to investigate the relationship between handedness, hemispheric predominance and valence imposition in a risky-choice decision task. Research into the valence hypothesis (e.g., Ahern & Schwartz, 1985; Davidson, 1984) has shown that the left hemisphere is more active in processing positively valenced stimuli, whereas the right hemisphere is more active in processing negatively valenced stimuli. A total of 520 individuals (343 female, 117 male) participated in a self-imposed framing task and took a degree of handedness questionnaire. The results of the framing task and handedness questionnaire showed that participants’ degree of handedness significantly influenced the positive/ negative valence they imposed onto the framing task as well as their level of risk preference.
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Date Issued: 2010-07-01
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000826
Format: Citation

Title: Age-Related Attribution Biases in Errors Involving Instrumental Activities of Daily Living.
Creator: Kimbler, Kristopher
Abstract / Description: Previous research has demonstrated biases, such as the correspondence bias and an age-based double standard, related to causal attributions throughout adulthood. Much of this research has focused on memory errors, and little attention has been paid to instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) errors. Due to the social context of IADL tasks combined with the importance of these tasks in maintaining independence, the current study attempts to establish the extent that causal attribution...
Show morePrevious research has demonstrated biases, such as the correspondence bias and an age-based double standard, related to causal attributions throughout adulthood. Much of this research has focused on memory errors, and little attention has been paid to instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) errors. Due to the social context of IADL tasks combined with the importance of these tasks in maintaining independence, the current study attempts to establish the extent that causal attribution biases occur in this domain. The current study used vignettes describing both memory and IADL errors to assess the types of attributions participants (young, middle-aged, and older adults) made when explaining the cause of these errors. This between-subjects design manipulated the age (young, middle-aged, and old) and gender of the targets committing the errors. Similar to the memory domain, participants exhibited an age-based double standard when describing the cause of IADL errors. Specifically, older targets were thought to commit errors due to ‘mental difficulty.’ This study revealed initial evidence that age-related biases in causal attributions may extend to IADL domains. The findings do suggest, however, that these biases may be less pronounced compared to memory domains, as support for age-related increases in the correspondence bias was found in the memory but not the IADL domain.
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Date Issued: 2014-09-19
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000844
Format: Citation

Title: An investigation of measurement validity for a hemispheric activation scale.
Creator: McElroy, Todd, McCormick, Michael, Stroh, Nathan, Seta, John J.
Abstract / Description: In this paper we report the outcomes of two attempts to correlate the Zenhausern Preference Questionnaire (PT) with the Polarity Questionnaire (PQ). Across two laboratories we consistently found no correlation between these two scales. Our findings are consistent with a previous attempt to validate the PQ (Genovese, 2005). We conclude that researchers attempting to use the PQ should take note of this validity question.
Date Issued: 2011-11-29
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000821
Format: Citation

Title: Anger as a cue to truthfulness.
Creator: Bourgeois, Martin, Hatz, Jessica L.
Abstract / Description: A fairly robust finding in the deception literature is that lie-tellers show more negative emotion than truth-tellers. Ekman (1985), however, has reasoned that a specific type of negative emotion – anger – is especially difficult to feign and therefore should be more prevalent in truth-tellers who are falsely accused of a transgression than in lie-tellers who are guilty. To our knowledge, Ekman’s prediction has not yet been empirically tested. By comparing the verbal and nonverbal cues...
Show moreA fairly robust finding in the deception literature is that lie-tellers show more negative emotion than truth-tellers. Ekman (1985), however, has reasoned that a specific type of negative emotion – anger – is especially difficult to feign and therefore should be more prevalent in truth-tellers who are falsely accused of a transgression than in lie-tellers who are guilty. To our knowledge, Ekman’s prediction has not yet been empirically tested. By comparing the verbal and nonverbal cues associated with truths and lies across a number of lie-eliciting situations, we demonstrate that truth-tellers accused of a wrongdoing do show more anger, both verbally and nonverbally, than lie-tellers accused of the same act, but only in situations where students choose to commit a transgression (or not) and actually believe themselves to be in trouble. Results underlie the importance of taking into consideration the type of lie being told in order to accurately predict deceptive cues.
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Date Issued: 2010-07-01
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000866
Format: Citation

Title: Anger, aggression, and psychology: Personal and professional reflections on the Virginia Tech tragedy.
Creator: Cox, David
Abstract / Description: Anger and aggression make up one of the most substantial bodies of literature within the behavioral sciences. The importance of fully understanding the nature of these phenomena are made painfully clear in the wake of violent tragedies such as the one that occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech. Inevitably, the question is how may we, as social scientists, do a better job at predicting and preventing such events? Although a definitive answer to this question may not be immediately obtainable...
Show moreAnger and aggression make up one of the most substantial bodies of literature within the behavioral sciences. The importance of fully understanding the nature of these phenomena are made painfully clear in the wake of violent tragedies such as the one that occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech. Inevitably, the question is how may we, as social scientists, do a better job at predicting and preventing such events? Although a definitive answer to this question may not be immediately obtainable, the current review and discussion attempts to illuminate how the integration of the diverse concentration areas of psychology may provide a starting point. Neuropsychology, social psychology, and clinical psychology (in all manifestations) can be utilized in a cohesive manner that will improve the prediction and prevention of aggression. The events of April 16th are examined from personal and professional viewpoints to provide relevant and salient examples.
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Date Issued: 2008-03-01
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000858
Format: Citation

Title: Are Older Adults Less Subject to the Sunk-Cost Fallacy Than Younger Adults?.
Creator: Schuller, Kelly, Strough, JoNell, McFall, Joseph P., Mehta, Clare M.
Abstract / Description: The sunk-cost fallacy is a decision-making bias that reflects the tendency to invest more future resources in a situation in which a prior investment has been made, as compared with a similar situation in which a prior investment has not been made (e.g., the tendency to spend more time watching a boring movie one paid to watch than to watch a boring, but free, movie). Most research on this fallacy has been conducted with college students (Arkes & Ayton, 1999). Although a growing number of...
Show moreThe sunk-cost fallacy is a decision-making bias that reflects the tendency to invest more future resources in a situation in which a prior investment has been made, as compared with a similar situation in which a prior investment has not been made (e.g., the tendency to spend more time watching a boring movie one paid to watch than to watch a boring, but free, movie). Most research on this fallacy has been conducted with college students (Arkes & Ayton, 1999). Although a growing number of studies have investigated the sunk-cost fallacy in children, adolescents (Klaczynski, 2001), and nonhuman animals (Navarro & Fantino, 2005), no research has investigated whether older adults are less likely than younger adults to commit the sunk-cost fallacy (cf. Bruine de Bruin, Parker, & Fischhoff, 2007). Drawing from prior research on age differences in negativity and positivity biases in information processing, we hypothesized that older adults would be less likely than younger adults to commit the sunk-cost fallacy.
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Date Issued: 2008-07-01
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000809
Format: Citation

Title: Attitudes Toward Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual College Students: The Contribution of Pluralistic Ignorance, Dynamic Social Impact, and Contact Theories.
Creator: Bourgeois, Martin, Bowen, Anne
Abstract / Description: Social psychology theories may be useful in developing new interventions to reduce prejudice against lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) college students. For this preliminary study, the authors surveyed 109 college dormitory residents to determine their personal comfort with LGB students and their perceptions of other students' comfort with these individuals. They found widespread evidence of pluralistic ignorance—the students rated themselves as significantly less anti-gay than either their...
Show moreSocial psychology theories may be useful in developing new interventions to reduce prejudice against lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) college students. For this preliminary study, the authors surveyed 109 college dormitory residents to determine their personal comfort with LGB students and their perceptions of other students' comfort with these individuals. They found widespread evidence of pluralistic ignorance—the students rated themselves as significantly less anti-gay than either their friends or the typical student. Students' attitudes showed geographic clustering, with the building of residence a significant predictor of students' attitudes. Finally, consistent with the contact hypothesis, the perception that 1 or 2 LGB students lived on the same floor or in the same building was associated with more positive attitudes.
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Date Issued: 2010-03-24
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000875
Format: Citation

Title: Attributional Biases in the Service of Stereotype Maintenance: A Schema- Maintenance Through Compensation Analysis.
Creator: McElroy, Todd, Seta, John J., Seta, Catherine E.
Abstract / Description: Six experiments were conducted to test assumptions of a schema-maintenance through compensation analysis. The results of these experiments indicated that perceivers can compensate for the inconsistent action of one individual (the target) by altering their attribution concerning the action of a fellow group member. When the target performed an inconsistent behavior, perceivers compensated by making especially extreme stereotypically consistent attributions concerning a fellow group member’s...
Show moreSix experiments were conducted to test assumptions of a schema-maintenance through compensation analysis. The results of these experiments indicated that perceivers can compensate for the inconsistent action of one individual (the target) by altering their attribution concerning the action of a fellow group member. When the target performed an inconsistent behavior, perceivers compensated by making especially extreme stereotypically consistent attributions concerning a fellow group member’s subsequent action. In addition, in Experiment 5, perceivers compensated via a fellow group member for a target’s inconsistent action while maintaining their general view of group members. Experiments also provided tests of the capability and motivation assumptions of the schema-maintenance through compensation analyses.
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Date Issued: 2003-02-01
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000840
Format: Citation

Title: Better than better-than-average (or not): Elevated and depressed self-evaluations following unfavorable social comparisons.
Creator: McElroy, Todd, Seta, John J., Seta, Catherine E.
Abstract / Description: Two experiments were designed to investigate perceivers' self-evaluations when they received objectively positive above-average performance feedback but were told about another coactor who performed either moderately or much better than the participant. Results indicated that participants responded negatively to this comparison information even though they received better-than-average performance feedback. Participants were given the opportunity to evaluate themselves relative to another...
Show moreTwo experiments were designed to investigate perceivers' self-evaluations when they received objectively positive above-average performance feedback but were told about another coactor who performed either moderately or much better than the participant. Results indicated that participants responded negatively to this comparison information even though they received better-than-average performance feedback. Participants were given the opportunity to evaluate themselves relative to another coactor who was described as performing at an average level. When the negative implications of the unfavorable social comparisons were relatively mild, both low and high self-esteem participants raised their self-evaluations vis-à-vis the inferior coactor who performed at an average level on the task. However, when the upward comparisons were especially unfavorable (i.e., when there was a large discrepancy between the performance level of the participant and the coactor—the comparison target), only high self-esteem participants raised their self-evaluations. Results provided evidence for active compensation and relatively passive spreading activation, supporting a schema-maintenance through compensation model
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Date Issued: 2007-02-17
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000837
Format: Citation

Title: Characteristics of the old and homeless: identifying distinct service needs.
Creator: Kimbler, Kristopher, Harris, Ashley N., DeWees, Mari
Abstract / Description: The number of older homeless individuals has been increasing for the past several decades (Culhane, Metraux, Byrne, Stino, & Bainbridge, 2013Culhane, D.P., Metraux, S., Byrne, T., Stino, M., & Bainbridge, J. (2013). The age structure of contemporary homelessness: Evidence and implications for public policy. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 13, 228–244. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]). In a report for the National Alliance to End Homelessness , Sermons and Henry ...
Show moreThe number of older homeless individuals has been increasing for the past several decades (Culhane, Metraux, Byrne, Stino, & Bainbridge, 2013Culhane, D.P., Metraux, S., Byrne, T., Stino, M., & Bainbridge, J. (2013). The age structure of contemporary homelessness: Evidence and implications for public policy. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 13, 228–244. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]). In a report for the National Alliance to End Homelessness , Sermons and Henry (2010Sermons, M.W., & Henry, M. (2010). Demographics of homelessness series: The rising elderly population. Washington, DC: National Alliance to End Homelessness. [Google Scholar]) state that although the demographic information regarding homelessness is limited, there is evidence that the percentage of older adults that are homeless has remained stable during the last several decades. The rapidly increasing number of older adults in the United States, however, suggests a parallel increase in the aging homeless. Based on these trends, the estimated number of older homeless individuals in 2010 (44,172) is anticipated to increase over 33% to 58,772 by 2020. Other data, however, suggest that these estimates may be conservative, as the younger half of the baby boomer generation may be at a higher risk of being homeless resulting in the homeless population aging at a faster rate than the general population (e.g., Culhane et al., 2013Culhane, D.P., Metraux, S., Byrne, T., Stino, M., & Bainbridge, J. (2013). The age structure of contemporary homelessness: Evidence and implications for public policy. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 13, 228–244. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]; Hahn, Kushel, Bangsberg, Riley, & Moss, 2006Hahn, J.A., Kushel, M.B., Bangsberg, D.R., Riley, E., & Moss, A.R. (2006). The aging of the homeless population: Fourteen-year trends in San Francisco. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 21, 775–778. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]). The nature of these demographic shifts related to homelessness suggests an increasing need to study contextual factors associated with this quickly growing population to better meet their specific needs. The potential dual disadvantage of being older and homeless creates a situation that is uniquely problematic and warrants attention.
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Date Issued: 2015-09-24
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000780
Format: Citation

Title: Circadian effects on strategic reasoning.
Creator: McElroy, Todd, Dickenson, David L.
Abstract / Description: The ability to strategically reason is important in many competitive environments. In this paper, we examine how relatively mild temporal variations in cognition affect reasoning in the Beauty Contest. The source of temporal cognition variation that we explore is the time-of-day that decisions are made. Our first result is that circadian mismatched subjects (i.e., those making decisions at off-peak time of day) display lower levels of strategic reasoning in the p1 game. This suggests that a...
Show moreThe ability to strategically reason is important in many competitive environments. In this paper, we examine how relatively mild temporal variations in cognition affect reasoning in the Beauty Contest. The source of temporal cognition variation that we explore is the time-of-day that decisions are made. Our first result is that circadian mismatched subjects (i.e., those making decisions at off-peak time of day) display lower levels of strategic reasoning in the p<1 Beauty Contest but not in the p>1 game. This suggests that a cognitively more challenging environment is required for circadian mismatch to harm strategic reasoning. A second result is that choice adaptation or mimicry (i.e., a more automatic type of responding than what is typically considered to be “learning”) during repeated play is not significantly affected by circadian mismatch. This is consistent with the hypothesis that automatic thought is more resilient to cognitive resource depletion than controlled-thought decision making.
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Date Issued: 2011-11-05
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000820
Format: Citation

Title: Collaborative everyday problem solving among same-gender friends in early and later adulthood.
Creator: Schuller, Kelly, Strough, JoNell, McFall, Joseph P., Flinn, Jennifer A.
Abstract / Description: To investigate potential age-related differences in performance gains (compensation and optimization) and losses (failure to actualize potential) of collaboration with a familiar partner, the authors compared pairs of older (N = 75; 69% women) and younger (N = 75; 52% women) age-homogeneous same-gender friends who interacted or worked alone to generate strategies for solving interpersonal and instrumental problems. Two indexes of strategy fluency (total and unique number of strategies) and 2...
Show moreTo investigate potential age-related differences in performance gains (compensation and optimization) and losses (failure to actualize potential) of collaboration with a familiar partner, the authors compared pairs of older (N = 75; 69% women) and younger (N = 75; 52% women) age-homogeneous same-gender friends who interacted or worked alone to generate strategies for solving interpersonal and instrumental problems. Two indexes of strategy fluency (total and unique number of strategies) and 2 indexes of strategy type (content of strategy repertoires and strategy selected as most effective by older and younger adults) were examined. Strategies generated by interacting pairs were compared with nominal pair scores. Nominal pair scores indexed dyadic potential and were created by pooling the performance of 2 individuals who worked alone. Age differences in strategy fluency and type were largely similar to prior research based on individual problem solvers. Interacting pairs produced fewer strategies than nominal pairs, but there were no differences in strategy type. For interpersonal problems, older adults were relatively more likely to actualize their dyadic potential.
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Date Issued: 2008-08-01
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000808
Format: Citation

Title: Comparing models of contrast gain using psychophysical experiments.
Creator: DiMattina, Christopher
Abstract / Description: In a wide variety of neural systems, neurons tuned to a primary dimension of interest often have responses that are modulated in a multiplicative manner by other features such as stimulus intensity or contrast. In this methodological study, we present a demonstration that it is possible to use psychophysical experiments to compare competing hypotheses of multiplicative gain modulation in a neural population, using the specific example of contrast gain modulation in orientation-tuned visual...
Show moreIn a wide variety of neural systems, neurons tuned to a primary dimension of interest often have responses that are modulated in a multiplicative manner by other features such as stimulus intensity or contrast. In this methodological study, we present a demonstration that it is possible to use psychophysical experiments to compare competing hypotheses of multiplicative gain modulation in a neural population, using the specific example of contrast gain modulation in orientation-tuned visual neurons. We demonstrate that fitting biologically interpretable models to psychophysical data yields physiologically accurate estimates of contrast tuning parameters and allows us to compare competing hypotheses of contrast tuning. We demonstrate a powerful methodology for comparing competing neural models using adaptively generated psychophysical stimuli and demonstrate that such stimuli can be highly effective for distinguishing qualitatively similar hypotheses. We relate our work to the growing body of literature that uses fits of neural models to behavioral data to gain insight into neural coding and suggest directions for future research.
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Date Issued: 2016-07-01
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000779
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Deciding mental retardation and mental illness in capital cases: The effects of procedure, evidence, and attitudes.
Creator: O'Neil, Kevin, Reardon, Margaret C., Levett, Lora M.
Abstract / Description: When finding unconstitutional the execution of defendants who were mentally retarded at the time of their crime in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the US Supreme Court left the States to decide on procedures for deciding a defendant's mental retardation. This has and will lead to substantial variation, and will include juries being responsible for these verdicts. Two studies are presented that test procedural, evidentiary, and attitudinal effects on mock juror verdicts as to a capital defendant's...
Show moreWhen finding unconstitutional the execution of defendants who were mentally retarded at the time of their crime in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the US Supreme Court left the States to decide on procedures for deciding a defendant's mental retardation. This has and will lead to substantial variation, and will include juries being responsible for these verdicts. Two studies are presented that test procedural, evidentiary, and attitudinal effects on mock juror verdicts as to a capital defendant's mental retardation. Both studies show significant effects of procedural variables. Making the retardation and death decision at the same trial phase changed jurors’ interpretation of evidence, including severity of mental problems. Jurors were insensitive to differences in the burden of proof on mental retardation verdicts, although demanding proof beyond a reasonable doubt may make jurors more sensitive to retardation evidence when deciding on a death sentence. Areas for future research are outlined.
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Date Issued: 2007-12-07
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000782
Format: Citation

Title: Detecting natural occlusion boundaries using local cues.
Creator: DiMattina, Christopher, Fox, Sean A., Lewicki, Michael S.
Abstract / Description: Occlusion boundaries and junctions provide important cues for inferring three-dimensional scene organization from twodimensional images. Although several investigators in machine vision have developed algorithms for detecting occlusions and other edges in natural images, relatively few psychophysics or neurophysiology studies have investigated what features are used by the visual system to detect natural occlusions. In this study, we addressed this question using a psychophysical experiment...
Show moreOcclusion boundaries and junctions provide important cues for inferring three-dimensional scene organization from twodimensional images. Although several investigators in machine vision have developed algorithms for detecting occlusions and other edges in natural images, relatively few psychophysics or neurophysiology studies have investigated what features are used by the visual system to detect natural occlusions. In this study, we addressed this question using a psychophysical experiment where subjects discriminated image patches containing occlusions from patches containing surfaces. Image patches were drawn from a novel occlusion database containing labeled occlusion boundaries and textured surfaces in a variety of natural scenes. Consistent with related previous work, we found that relatively large image patches were needed to attain reliable performance, suggesting that human subjects integrate complex information over a large spatial region to detect natural occlusions. By defining machine observers using a set of previously studied features measured from natural occlusions and surfaces, we demonstrate that simple features defined at the spatial scale of the image patch are insufficient to account for human performance in the task. To define machine observers using a more biologically plausible multiscale feature set, we trained standard linear and neural network classifiers on the rectified outputs of a Gabor filter bank applied to the image patches. We found that simple linear classifiers could not match human performance, while a neural network classifier combining filter information across location and spatial scale compared well. These results demonstrate the importance of combining a variety of cues defined at multiple spatial scales for detecting natural occlusions.
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Date Issued: 2012-12-01
Identifier: fgcu_ir_000850
Format: Document (PDF)

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Judgement. (7)	+ -
Cognition. (5)	+ -
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everyday problem solving (4)	+ -
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