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Articles 3481 - 3510 of 6849

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Word Quality And Memory, Marshall Roedel, Dr. C. Brock Kirwan Apr 2014

Word Quality And Memory, Marshall Roedel, Dr. C. Brock Kirwan

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Current memory theory suggests that two separate processes contribute to recognition memory. Recollection is when recognition is accompanied by contextual information regarding the encoding event. Familiarity is when recognition is only a companied by a vague sense of having encountered something previously.

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Do Aid Donors Plant The Grassroots? Evidence From A Randomized Field Experiment In The Us And Uganda, Daniel Walker, Dr. Michael Findley Apr 2014

Do Aid Donors Plant The Grassroots? Evidence From A Randomized Field Experiment In The Us And Uganda, Daniel Walker, Dr. Michael Findley

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Recent literature dealing with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) claims that NGOs have little incentive to base their decisions and strategies on local needs and instead are governed largely by their current and prospective donors (McGann and Johnstone 2006; Prakash and Gugerty 2010; Bollen et al 2005). To test this claim, I used my ORCA grant to create a quantitative experiment in the US and Uganda in which organizations were randomly assigned to a control group or one of four treatment groups based on the main stakeholders of the NGO market—donors, local government officials, project beneficiaries, and NGO peers. In each group, …

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We The Evangelicals: Religion’S Effect On Individuals’ Populist Attitudes, Erin Lee Wells, Dr. Kirk Hawkins Apr 2014

We The Evangelicals: Religion’S Effect On Individuals’ Populist Attitudes, Erin Lee Wells, Dr. Kirk Hawkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Populism is a set of ideas that sees a strict dichotomy of corrupt elite suppressing the unified will of people (Hawkins 2009). From the Populist Party of the 1890’s to the current day Tea Party, populist ideas have a long history of use in America and have been used in a number of pressing political arguments (Kazin 1995). While populist attitudes have been very well documented and frequently studied in countries outside the United States, (Hawkins 2009) few scholars have documented populist attitudes in America. Further, little work has been done to explain where populist ideas come from. Despite all …

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Does Money Matter? A Case Study Of The Effect Of Economic Disparity On Support For Separatist Political Parties, Paul Russell, Dr. Wade Jacoby Apr 2014

Does Money Matter? A Case Study Of The Effect Of Economic Disparity On Support For Separatist Political Parties, Paul Russell, Dr. Wade Jacoby

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I was awarded an ORCA grant to study the causes of support for separatist political parties in Belgium. In January of 2011, I had the opportunity to travel to Belgium as an intern for a political party at the European Parliament in Brussels. The grant that I received helped to make this possible and gave me the chance to see the conflict between northern Belgium (Flanders) and southern Belgium (Wallonia) first hand. During my time in Belgium – and for months afterwards – the country had no viable central government. Political parties from the two main regions were unable to …

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Barriers To Civil Society Activity, Taylor Malia Richards, Dr. Darren Hawkins Apr 2014

Barriers To Civil Society Activity, Taylor Malia Richards, Dr. Darren Hawkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Foreign aid, and aid effectiveness, has been one of the most heated debates in international relations and US foreign policy in the past several decades. Is aid ever effective? Under what conditions? At stake are billions of dollars and, potentially, millions of lives and livelihoods. The most frequently cited concern is that much aid is “lost” in countries with poor governance; used up in corrupt, inefficient, and unprepared bureaucracies. The governance condition, while empirically contested, has nonetheless become conventional wisdom among donors. To avoid this loss, donors increasingly bypass poor governments by subcontracting projects to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). NGOs are …

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The Predictive Capabilities Of Ketamine Sensitivity For Future Alcohol Consumption, Andrea Sorenson, Dr. J. Dee Higley Apr 2014

The Predictive Capabilities Of Ketamine Sensitivity For Future Alcohol Consumption, Andrea Sorenson, Dr. J. Dee Higley

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Alcohol is one of the most abused drugs in the United States; with a large number of adolescents having used alcohol. A substantive portion of those adolescents (15%, about 7% females and 20% of males) will go on to become addicted to alcohol. Because alcoholism is such a large issue it is imperative that research is done to find a predictive measure for alcoholism (Kessler et al, 1994). This study proposed looking at the relationship alcohol drinking patterns and responses to the anesthetic ketamine in adolescent rhesus macaque monkeys. If there is a relationship between ketamine and alcohol consumption this …

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Perspective Taking In Autism Spectrum Disorders: An Analysis Of Neural Correlates And The Role Of Empathy, Whitney Worsham, Dr. Michael Larson, Dr. Mikle South Apr 2014

Perspective Taking In Autism Spectrum Disorders: An Analysis Of Neural Correlates And The Role Of Empathy, Whitney Worsham, Dr. Michael Larson, Dr. Mikle South

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this research project was to test the hypothesis that, when seeing individuals in distress, children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) displayed decreased neural activity and empathy towards others relative to typically developing children when seeing individuals in distress. In order to test this hypothesis, we utilized electroencephalogram (EEG) and eventrelated potentials (ERP) to measure the electrical activity of the brain while showing pictures of individuals in distress to children diagnosed with ASD and a sample of healthy children.

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A Meta-Analytic Evaluation Of The Ern As A Biological Marker Of Depression And Anxiety, David Rackham, Dr. Michael Larson Apr 2014

A Meta-Analytic Evaluation Of The Ern As A Biological Marker Of Depression And Anxiety, David Rackham, Dr. Michael Larson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Anxiety and depression disorders have a high rate of prevalence in the adult U.S. population (anxiety 18.1%; depression 9.5%; “Mental Disorders,” 2010). Indeed, it is estimated that by the year 2020 depression will be the second most prevalent health concern worldwide for all ages and both sexes (“Depression,” n.d., para. 2). Many disciplines are seeking effective treatment options, as well as exploring potential preventative solutions for these disorders. One such preventative possibility is the elucidation of endophenotypes, which are unobservable characteristics that are linked with a behavior known to be a phenotype of the disorder. Research on the etiology of …

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Electroencephalography Analysis Of Cognition In Multiple Sclerosis, James Price, Dr. Ramona Hopkins Apr 2014

Electroencephalography Analysis Of Cognition In Multiple Sclerosis, James Price, Dr. Ramona Hopkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. It is believed to be caused by an abnormal autoimmune response to cells in the brain responsible for insulating and supporting neuronal cells. The initial focal site of injury is the myelin sheath surrounding neuronal axons, which can lead to neuron damage through axonal dysfunction and destruction (Lassmann 2008). This damage presents a variety of symptoms. Common symptoms contain components of cognitive, motor, and emotional impairments. Studies indicate that 40-70% of individuals with MS have cognitive impairments including deficits in memory, processing speed, attention, and executive functioning (Rogers …

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Japanese Sentence Parsing In An Artificial Intelligence System, Nathan Glenn, Dr. Deryle Lonsdale Apr 2014

Japanese Sentence Parsing In An Artificial Intelligence System, Nathan Glenn, Dr. Deryle Lonsdale

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In this project, we created a Japanese sentence parser that functions within a cognitive modeling architecture known as Soar. It was created by modifying an existing English parser called XNL-Soar, which implements minimalist principles in syntactic parsing. Japanese lexical access is performed via GoSen and a Java interface to the Japanese WordNet, and syntactic and semantic processing is done within Soar. The ease with which the parser was modified to process Japanese input is extremely encouraging and lends support to its use as model of human sentence processing, as well as to the Minimalist Program in linguistics. The system is …

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A Study Of Second Language Acquisition Of Glottal Ejectives Through A Comparative Phonetic Analysis Of Mayan Q’Eqchi’ Native Speakers And English L2 Learners Of Q’Eqchi’, Karl Olaw Christian Wagner, Dr. Wendy Baker Smemoe Apr 2014

A Study Of Second Language Acquisition Of Glottal Ejectives Through A Comparative Phonetic Analysis Of Mayan Q’Eqchi’ Native Speakers And English L2 Learners Of Q’Eqchi’, Karl Olaw Christian Wagner, Dr. Wendy Baker Smemoe

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The research the grant from the Office of Research and Creative Activities has allowed me to perform has been a wonderful opportunity that has helped me to take my undergraduate work to a higher level. To be able to apply the linguistic knowledge I’ve gained in the classroom in real research, even research abroad at that has been of great worth to me. The entire process has been a learning experience and continues to be so as I finish my work on this project. This process, from the first rough sketches of a possible research project to the current work …

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Factors Influencing Language Gains For Chinese Speakers During Study Abroad, Spencer Ring, Andrew Westover, Dr. Dan Dewey Apr 2014

Factors Influencing Language Gains For Chinese Speakers During Study Abroad, Spencer Ring, Andrew Westover, Dr. Dan Dewey

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In this project, we aimed to investigate factors that influence study abroad students’ development of linguistic proficiency in Mandarin Chinese. We decided to focus on Mandarin Chinese because, as Dewey (2007) observes, an understanding of what factors affect the development of proficiency in Asian languages is limited compared with European languages, which have received more research focus in second language acquisition studies.

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Arabic Study Abroad: An Exploratory Study Of Connections Between Journal Writing And Language Gains, Kendon Kurzer, Dr. Dan Dewey Apr 2014

Arabic Study Abroad: An Exploratory Study Of Connections Between Journal Writing And Language Gains, Kendon Kurzer, Dr. Dan Dewey

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project explored connections between language gains and instances of positive and negative responses as recorded in pseudo-dialogue journals kept by second language learners of Arabic participating in a study abroad (SA) program to Jordan. Daily journals from seven of forty-four total participants were analyzed for this project: those of the four students who showed the most proficiency gains over the course of the program as determined by pre- and post-study abroad program Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) scores, and those of the three students who showed no proficiency gains between their pre- and post-program OPI scores. Trends noted included the …

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Ethnic Group Affiliation And Second Language Acquisition, Sarah Franklin, Dr. Wendy Baker-Smemoe Apr 2014

Ethnic Group Affiliation And Second Language Acquisition, Sarah Franklin, Dr. Wendy Baker-Smemoe

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Over the past forty years a significant amount of research has explored how to improve second language (L2) acquisition, most of which has examined factors that influence this ability. Little research, however, has examined how ethnic group affiliation (defined as how closely you feel attached to your native culture and language) affects this learning, especially in bilingual communities. It is hoped that the current research will not only help in understanding the many factors that influence L2 acquisition, but may also demonstrate how ethnic group affiliation can be used to preserve endangered languages throughout the world.

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Face Out: The Effect Of Book Displays On Collection Usage, Leticia Camacho, Andy Spackman, David Cluff Apr 2014

Face Out: The Effect Of Book Displays On Collection Usage, Leticia Camacho, Andy Spackman, David Cluff

Faculty Publications

Business librarians at Brigham Young University’s Harold B. Lee Library are confronted with considerable and consistent declines in usage of print books in business and economic disciplines. Inspired by commercial businesses, where in-store displays are commonly used to increase sales, business librarians decided to highlight the library’s business and economics collections by creating book displays. The study revealed that displays produced a substantial increase in circulation. Prior to the displays, featured books had an average usage of less than four times per year; after these books were featured in the displays, their usage per year increased by 58%

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Quasi-Maximum Likelihood Methods In Truncated Models, Patrick Turley, Dr. James B. Mcdonald Apr 2014

Quasi-Maximum Likelihood Methods In Truncated Models, Patrick Turley, Dr. James B. Mcdonald

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Data truncation is the source of econometric problems in many economic datasets. Truncation occurs when all observations below or above a certain threshold are systematically removed or are unavailable. For example, campaign contributions below a certain level are not usually publicly available, so any contribution below that level would not be included in the dataset. When such data is used in standard ordinary least squares analysis, the results of the analysis are biased and inconsistent. Many methods have been developed to try to correct for truncation bias with varying degrees of success. In my research, I examined a new estimation …

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James Demeo, Saharasia, The 4000 Bce Origins Of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare, And Social Violence In The Deserts Of The Old World, Laina Farhat-Holzman Apr 2014

James Demeo, Saharasia, The 4000 Bce Origins Of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare, And Social Violence In The Deserts Of The Old World, Laina Farhat-Holzman

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

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Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge Of Geography: What The Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts And The Battle Against Fate, Laina Farhat-Holzman Apr 2014

Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge Of Geography: What The Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts And The Battle Against Fate, Laina Farhat-Holzman

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

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Essay: An Observation On The Universal Significance Of Western Civilization, Laina Farhat-Holzman Apr 2014

Essay: An Observation On The Universal Significance Of Western Civilization, Laina Farhat-Holzman

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

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Close Spaces: Original Research On Attachment In Thai Orphans, Jenessa Halliday, Dr. Charles Nuckolls Mar 2014

Close Spaces: Original Research On Attachment In Thai Orphans, Jenessa Halliday, Dr. Charles Nuckolls

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This report evaluates attachment among twenty orphaned toddlers living in the Viengping Orphanage in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The report measures the attachment of the orphans towards their daily caregivers, using an adapted version of the Waters attachment q-set (AQS). Due to a correlation between orphans and insecure attachment, this report expected to find low levels of attachment between the children and their caregivers. Analysis of scores from the q-set test indicated that eleven of the twenty children experience insecure attachment.

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Stream Turbidity: A Variable To Co-Habitation Of Fish Predators And Prey?, Nicholas Davis, Dr. Ryan Jensen Mar 2014

Stream Turbidity: A Variable To Co-Habitation Of Fish Predators And Prey?, Nicholas Davis, Dr. Ryan Jensen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Global bio-diversity is being threatened by many different factors. Most of this is man induced. One of these factors is the introduction of non-native organisms to new locations. One hypothesis that explains why some non-native invasive organisms are so successful is that the native organisms have not evolved strategies to effectively interact with the new organism’s strategy (e.g. competition, predation impacts). Essentially, they are unprepared to defend themselves or deal with the novel threat.

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Advertising Ethical Products: Measuring The Effect Of Efficacy And Consumer Benefits In Ethical Advertisements, David Matthew Godfrey, Dr. John Davies Mar 2014

Advertising Ethical Products: Measuring The Effect Of Efficacy And Consumer Benefits In Ethical Advertisements, David Matthew Godfrey, Dr. John Davies

Journal of Undergraduate Research

As more and more brands attempt to position themselves as socially responsible, this research attempted to discover the impact of “ethical” advertising messages on sales. The world needs solutions to complex social problems and corporations can contribute, but can “ethical” branding increase profit by increasing purchases of “ethical” products?

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Melioration And The Behavioral Addiction Process, Joshua Kirton, Dr. Timothy Smith Mar 2014

Melioration And The Behavioral Addiction Process, Joshua Kirton, Dr. Timothy Smith

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project was undertaken to evaluate how melioration explain behavior addiction more robustly than more conventional models such as maximization. Suboptimal behavior, including addiction, can be conceptualized as the consequence of a decision strategy called melioration that is utilized in choice situations in which the value of an alternative is affected by the rate of its availability (Hernstein & Vaughan 1980; Lowenstein & Elster, 1992). The higher the rate of availability of an alternative, the lower the overall value. Melioration can result in negative consequences that are not recognized by the individual until their cumulative negative effect becomes unavoidable (Bickel …

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Reporting Bullying In Middle Schools: Are Students Willing To Use A Website?, Erin Anderson, Dr. Betty Y. Ashbaker Mar 2014

Reporting Bullying In Middle Schools: Are Students Willing To Use A Website?, Erin Anderson, Dr. Betty Y. Ashbaker

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Negative incidents occur in schools every day, many of which go unnoticed by the schools administration and staff. While many teachers and administrators are oblivious to the negative incidents, such as bullying, students are very aware of the bullying and other negative incidents that occur at their school. This is SchoolTipline’s third year and the purpose of this study was to identify any changes in students responses to a questionnaire regarding their willingness to use a website to report negative school incidences, focusing on bullying. As well as to identify gender differences, or similarities that were expressed from the data.

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Advanced Learners Project: Strategies Professors Use To Read Their Academic Texts, Jordan Gilbert, Dr. Marné Isakson Mar 2014

Advanced Learners Project: Strategies Professors Use To Read Their Academic Texts, Jordan Gilbert, Dr. Marné Isakson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Transitioning from high school to college is a challenging task. The rigorous demands of college are far more than most students have met in K-12. College students often find themselves overwhelmed as shown by data from the BYU Counseling and Career Center indicating that among the top stressors are the heavy academic demands. To help students learn to read challenging academic texts well, a course has been created, Student Development 270. But what should students be learning in such a course? The purpose of this ORCA study is to research how accomplished learners study their texts so we can identify …

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The Development Of Prosodic Structures In The Speech Of Young Children Establishing A Control Group, Darrell Matthews, Dr. Shawn Nissen Mar 2014

The Development Of Prosodic Structures In The Speech Of Young Children Establishing A Control Group, Darrell Matthews, Dr. Shawn Nissen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Acoustically, the speech characteristics of male and female speakers differ from one another. In adults, this variation is clearly caused by physiological differences between males and females. The size and shape of the vocal tract, as well as the length of the vocal folds have an impact on the sound of a person’s voice. Because adult males typically have a larger larynx and longer vocal folds than adult females, their voices tend to be lower.

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Establishing A Normative Base For Measures Of Auditory Processing, Amanda Fujiki, Dr. David Mcpherson Mar 2014

Establishing A Normative Base For Measures Of Auditory Processing, Amanda Fujiki, Dr. David Mcpherson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The term auditory processing disorder (APD) refers to a diverse collection of problems in the processing of auditory information. An individual with an APD may have hearing acuity within normal limits; that is, the middle ear (conductive) and inner ear (sensory) systems may function typically. The individual may demonstrate a breakdown occurring within the central nervous system, however, and this breakdown may limit the individual’s ability to understand, interpret, and use auditory information. Auditory processing disorders are thought to interfere with language development and literacy learning (Geffner, 2007, MacFarland & Cacace, 2009). The effects of APD may be highly variable …

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Interpreting Standard Usage Empirically, Jacob F. Frandsen Mar 2014

Interpreting Standard Usage Empirically, Jacob F. Frandsen

Theses and Dissertations

Writers, editors, and everyday language users look to dictionaries, style guides, usage guides, and other published works to help inform their language decisions. They want to know what is Standard English and what is not. Commentators have been prescribing and proscribing certain usages for centuries; however, their advice has traditionally been based on the subjective opinions of the authors. Recent works have analyzed usage by relying wholly or partly on statistical and descriptive data rather than traditional opinion alone; however, no work has presented statistical usage data in a user-friendly and consistent format. This study presents a statistically based methodology …

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Diversity And Inclusion: An Analysis Of The Best Companies To Work For And Fortune 100 Companies' Websites, Emma Peckham Nordquist Mar 2014

Diversity And Inclusion: An Analysis Of The Best Companies To Work For And Fortune 100 Companies' Websites, Emma Peckham Nordquist

Theses and Dissertations

Corporate websites provide outsiders with a glimpse into organizations. 200 companies from among Glassdoor's "Best Companies to Work For" lists for 2013 and 2014, along with a list of Fortune 100 companies were analyzed through a textual analysis for how a company communicates diversity on their corporate websites. Findings revealed six suggestions for organizations on how best to communicate diversity on their corporate websites. The suggestions include: Be transparent, dedicate a single webpage, use testimonials, title the web page "Diversity and Inclusion," have diversity reach beyond the corporate website, and provide realistic pictures. Using Geertz and Pacanowsky's Cultural Approach to …

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Automatic Readability Detection For Modern Standard Arabic, Jonathan Neil Forsyth Mar 2014

Automatic Readability Detection For Modern Standard Arabic, Jonathan Neil Forsyth

Theses and Dissertations

Research for automatic readability prediction of text has increased in the last decade and has shown that various machine learning methods can effectively address this problem. Many researchers have applied machine learning to readability prediction for English, while Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) has received little attention. Here I describe a system which leverages machine learning to automatically predict the readability of MSA. I gathered a corpus comprising 179 documents that were annotated with the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) levels. Then, I extracted lexical and discourse features from each document. Finally, I applied the Tilburg Memory-Based Learning (TiMBL) machine learning system …

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