Browsing by Subject "Cognitive"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    American Indian Vietnam combat veterans: how out-of-home placement and having a veteran primary care giver are associated with features and symptoms of trauma.
    (2008-12) Yaekel-Black Elk, Julie Kay
    It was the purpose of this study to examine the relationships among American Indian Vietnam combat veterans' childhood experiences: extra-cultural placement and having a veteran primary care giver, and features and symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Participants were 150 American Indian Vietnam combat veterans from the Midwest. This study examined scores from two dependent measures: Traumatic Attachment Belief Scale (TABS) and the Mississippi Combat PTSD Scale-Short Form (M-PTSD Short Form). The two independent measures were: veterans who experienced extra-cultural placement or those who did not experience extra-cultural placement, and veterans who had a veteran primary care giver as a child or who did not have a veteran primary care giver as a child. Research findings indicated that veterans who experienced extra-cultural placement were significantly more likely to have experienced incarceration and homelessness. There were no significant differences in alcohol and drug treatment between those who had experienced extra-cultural placement and those who had not. There were no significant differences found if participants had a veteran primary care giver or not in homelessness or treatment for alcohol or drug abuse. Those who had a veteran primary care giver were found to be significantly more likely to experience incarceration than those who did not. Research findings also showed that participants who experienced actual or threatened homelessness were also more likely to experience incarceration and alcohol or drug treatment. The impact of trauma on beliefs about others' safety was significantly greater than the impact of trauma on beliefs about self-safety, trust of others or of self-esteem toward others or toward self, and of intimacy with self or others. Other differences in these constructs were found. Significant differences were not found in the impact of trauma on features and symptoms of PTSD as a function of the absence of extra-cultural placement or extra-cultural placement or having a non-veteran or veteran primary care giver. Finally, there were significant associations between the impact of trauma on beliefs about self and others, features and symptoms of PTSD, no extra-cultural placement/extra-cultural placement, and having a non veteran or veteran primary care giver.
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    Human Cognitive Abilities: The Structure and Predictive Power of Group Factors
    (2019-04) Kostal, Jack
    General mental ability is one of the most powerful and venerable individual differences in I-O psychology. This project consists of two studies that provide comprehensive meta-analytic summaries of inter-correlations between cognitive abilities, and cognitive abilities’ validity for predicting a wide range of job performance criteria. The meta-analytic database created to address these questions consists of 2,356 independent samples from 1,030 separate studies (total N = 2,978,554). Results provide support for a newly developed compendium for classifying cognitive tests, which use would reduce idiosyncratic test classifications that are endemic to the I-O literature. Exploratory factor analyses produced solutions similar to the CHC model, albeit with important exceptions around visual processing, long-term retrieval, and quantitative knowledge. Results did not support age differentiation of cognitive abilities. Turning to validity against job performance criteria, this study found somewhat lower validities than previous work by Hunter and Schmidt. Contrary to previous work, no major differences in validity were observed between fluid and crystallized abilities.
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    Neurometric Encoding and Decoding: Using Multivariate Functional Connectivity Methods to Describe Cognitive States, Traits and Clinical Endophenotypes
    (2014-10) Moodie, Craig
    This research was undertaken for the purpose of demonstrating the neurometric utility of functional connectivity methods by combining metrics that utilize information derived from independent component analyses (ICAs) with traditional fMRI and graph theory analyses. The combination of these methodologies was used to establish traits and evaluate cognitive states from a behavioral genetics perspective, as well as to posit connectivity endophenotypes related to psychiatric and neurological diseases. The studies described below demonstrate that the metrics used to study intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs) are useful tools for studying the in vivo brain in states of normalcy and disease. For instance, by examining ICNs across tasks and monozygotic twins, it was possible to establish these brain networks as traits. The ICNs were stable across cognitive states, while still exhibiting sensitivity to specific demands. In addition, the state- dependent modulation of these ICNs, as well as their other characteristics, was shown to be influenced by genetic factors in two separate twin samples. In the second twin sample, and a study of connectivity phenotypes related to schizophrenia, ICNs were useful for establishing the relationships between ICNs and tasks in both cases. The task-related characteristics and resting state profiles of ICNs were also useful for establishing novel endophenotypes of the disease states of schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. Overall, this research serves to establish the study of the brain's intrinsic connectivity across the domains of both cognitive and clinical neuroscience and this work serves a contribution to the understanding of the dimensions along which normal and abnormal neurobiological functioning lie, and how intrinsic connectivity networks can be examined in both spheres.