Eric Bridge

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Laura Wagner

Title: Examining Confidence in Perceptions of ASL, Russian, and Portuguese

Abstract: There are common misconceptions about American Sign Language (ASL) such as it is mostly gesture or that it is easy to learn. These misconceptions can lead to parents delaying the teaching of ASL to their deaf children which could cause developmental delays and permanent problems. This project examined people’s confidence in guessing ASL signs and compared it to confidence in guessing words from an unknown foreign spoken language. An experiment was adapted from a study done by Sehyr and Emmory (2019) which asked participants to guess what ten different ASL signs meant in English. It was changed to also have the participants rate their confidence in their guess. This experiment was further adapted to replace ASL signs with words from Portuguese and Russian. Experiment 1 collected accuracy and confidence ratings from 713 participants across 425 signs. Participants were inaccurate and overconfident in their guesses. Confidence was correlated with accuracy but there was a higher correlation with dominant guess percentage and confidence which indicates that there is a hidden group consensus that leads to confidence. Experiment 2 (Portuguese) and 3 (Russian) collected accuracy and confidence ratings from 98 and 95 participants respectively across 30 words from each language. Both experiments had lower accuracy and confidence on average than ASL. However, both experiments had correlations between confidence and dominant guess which indicates that it is not just accuracy that contributes to confidence. Additionally, in experiment 2 and 3 participants were flatly asked whether they thought ASL was easier to learn than other languages. On average, participants thought ASL was easier to learn than spoken languages. This project indicates that on average people are disproportionately confident in ASL compared to spoken foreign languages, and that misconceptions of ASL still persist.

Emma Corbett

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Elizabeth Kirby

Title: Increased Trafficking of the Excitatory Amino Acid Transporter 1 (EAAT1) in Response to Glutamate Release

Abstract: Adult hippocampal neurogenesis is the process by which neural stem and progenitor cells give rise to mature granule cell neurons. This process occurs in the dentate gyrus region of the hippocampus in adult rodents, and possibly humans. This process is important to support the functions of the hippocampus, like learning and memory. The excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate is a stimulator of neural stem cell (NSC) proliferation in the adult dentate gyrus. Our lab recently has shown NSC regulation by glutamate is mediated by the excitatory amino acid transporter 1 (EAAT1), a transmembrane protein responsible for the reuptake of glutamate from the extracellular space. EAAT1 protein is expressed throughout the morphology of NSCs, including in the cell bodies in the subgranular (SGZ), along the fine apical process that extends through the densely packed granule cell layer, and in bushy terminals in the less cell-dense molecular layer. Those bushy terminals wrap around glutamatergic synapses in the molecular layer, providing NSCs with a particularly high potential exposure to glutamate. The cellular location of EAATs has been shown to be sensitive to local circuit activity in other cells that express these proteins, like astrocytes. Whether EAAT1 in NSCs is trafficked to synaptic contact points in the molecular layer in response to glutamatergic stimulation is still unknown. Therefore, the cellular location of EAAT1 within NSCs as a response to increased glutamate release in the molecular layer was observed. Glutamate release was initiated by injecting kainic acid (KA), a strong agonist of glutamate release into adult mice. Saline injection was used as the control. Nestin-GFP mice were used for this research. Nestin is a promoter that is active primarily in neural stem and progenitor cells. Thus, when the nestin promoter is expressed, this produces a green fluorescent protein (GFP) that will fill the intracellular space, helping to visualize the processes of NSCs. Mice were perfused 1 and 7 days after injections, then brains were then fixed and sliced for immunohistochemistry to visualize the EAAT1 protein and GFP signals. The DG of the hippocampus was imaged using confocal microscopy, and 3D reconstructions of high-resolution z-stack images were obtained on IMARIS. Here, Imaris is used to detect GFP and EAAT1 overlap.The overlap between EAAT1 and GFP in the inner molecular layer and subgranular zone will be observed at 1-day and 7-day after injections. The main effect of region (SGZ vs. iML) and treatment (KA vs. saline) will be examined, as will the interaction between treatment and region. Lastly, the differential expression of EAAT1 in the iML versus the SGZ will be examined. It was hypothesized there will be more EAAT1 protein present in the bushy terminals of NSCs in the group injected with KA, compared to the saline group. This suggest the EAAT1 proteins in neural stem cells were trafficked to bushy terminals in response to glutamate release.

Min Feldman

Faculty Advisor: Mack Briscoe

Title: Do children use action frequency to infer social closeness?: A Study in Developmental Social Cognition

Abstract: Our ability to infer the closeness between two people is a fundamental skill in the social world. Infants, children, and adults all recognize social closeness and distinguish between different kinds of relationships using nonverbal cues (Woo, 2024; Thomas, 2022; Fiske, 2004). But how do we know which nonverbal cue is associated with which relationship? For example, how do we know that we shake hands with strangers, but hold hands with significant others? One possibility is that we track how frequently they occur; we know that strangers (and therefore handshakes) are commonplace, but that a significant other (and therefore holding hands) is rarer. This study explores whether children 4-8 years old use the frequency of an action to infer whether two people are close. We also explore whether children prefer to befriend people who have fewer close relationships. Participants ages 4-8 watched a novel character going on a walk in the park, greeting five different people along the way. Four of these greetings featured the same novel action (e.g., toe-tapping), while one greeting featured a different novel action (e.g., hip-bumping). There were four total potential novel actions, which were counterbalanced across conditions. Participants were then asked to identify which action was done by “best friends”. If they identified the infrequent action as a “best friend” action, they were then asked about their friendship preferences. Pilot and real data (n=82) shows that children ages 6-8, but not children ages 4-6, believe that infrequent actions are done with “best friends”, suggesting that older children infer that close relationships are less frequently occurring. We also found that children prefer to befriend social partners who have fewer close friendships. We are currently collecting pilot data with 6-8 year olds as part of a follow-up study exploring if the same effect is present using sound greetings instead of touch greetings. These studies aim to contribute to an exciting new body of developmental research examining which nonverbal social cues of closeness are most salient and how children can learn about these cues.

Lina Kim

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Tzu-Jung Lin

Title: The Relationship Between Social Perspective-Taking and Social Self-Concept

Abstract: Early adolescence is an important developmental period for developing social relationships (Sebastian et al., 2008). Social relationship is significant since it has a big impact to growing children. Poor social relationship is likely to cause negative effect to early adolescence’s mental health, and major factors that are used to develop social relationship is social self-concept and social perspective-taking (Faust et al., 1985). Early adolescent relationships are compelling as adolescents strengthen sophistication in their interpersonal behaviors and broaden in sensitivity to others’ actual and distinguished appraisals of themselves (Pachucki et al., 2015). Therefore, social self-concept and social perspective taking is what to essentially notice relate to observing early adolescence’s developmental period.

Nick Kutz

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Bryon Hines

Title: Attractiveness Bias and Prejudice in Hiring Decisions

Abstract: Attractiveness bias has been well documented in social interactions, where individuals perceived as more attractive often possess an advantage over those perceived as less attractive. This advantage extends to hiring decisions, where a large body of literature indicates that more attractive individuals are more likely to be hired than less attractive individuals. However, the effect of gender on attractiveness biases in hiring decisions remains largely underexplored. In this study, we aimed to fill this gap in the literature by examining how gender influences hiring decisions between more or less attractive individuals. We predicted that male bosses would be more likely to hire more attractive female candidates over less attractive female candidates, and female bosses would be more likely to hire more attractive male candidates over less attractive male candidates. To test these hypotheses, we administered a Qualtrics survey to OSU students that presented the resume of a more attractive or less attractive individual. Participants then picked the candidate they would hire and rated how strong they thought the candidate’s application was. To avoid confounds, participants were matched on race, resumes were selected on similarity, and the candidates were assigned gender-neutral names. 

Lingwen Ren

Faculty Advisors: Dr. Ruchika Prakash; Dr. Jay Fournier

Title: Analysis of Temporal and Spatial Reliability of fMRI Signals in Emotion Regulation Task

Abstract: Recent research (Fröhner et al., 2019; Hajcak et al., 2017) raises serious concerns regarding the reliability of task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) metrics. Establishing the reliability of fMRI-based measurements is crucial for their clinical use, particularly in identifying meaningful biomarkers, tailoring personalized treatments, and guiding future research directions. Therefore, we evaluated three forms of reliability of a widely used emotion regulation fMRI task: split-half, test-retest, and spatial reliability. Our sample consisted of forty adult participants with no history of psychiatric or neurologic illness that underwent two fMRI scans 12 weeks apart. During both scans, participants completed an emotion regulation task instructing them to view neutral or distressing images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). In the (1) “Look Neutral” and the (2) “Look Negative” (i.e., Maintain) conditions, participants naturally viewed neutral or negative images, respectively, without attempting to change their emotional response. In the (3) “Reappraise Negative” participants were asked to change their thoughts about the image to alter their emotional response. Between each image, a fixation cross was shown. We extracted BOLD signal from a group of ROIs (10 ROIs) from a meta-analysis (Morawetz et al., 2020) of emotion regulation brain activation. From these ROIs, we then calculated split-half reliability at time 1, test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation between time 1 and 2), Euclidean distance between peak voxels (from time 1 and 2), and cluster overlap (dice coefficients). We found that split half reliability was highest for modelling Conditions alone, with the average falling in the “fair” range (average r=0.55, range= [-0.25, 0.82]). Both Condition-Fixation contrasts (average r =0.38, range= [-0.44, 0.74]) and the Condition-Look contrasts (average r =0.24, range= [-1.216, 0.616]) fell into the “poor” range (F (2,78) =13.66, p<0.001). Test-retest reliabilities showed a different pattern, such that the ICC for contrasts between active conditions – fixation were the highest (F(2,78)=20.51, p<0.001); average ICC = 0.40, range =[-0.26, 0.74]), followed by conditions alone (average ICC = 0.24, range =[-0.33, 0.54]), and active condition – look contrasts (average ICC = 0.07, range =[-0.31, 0.38]). We found higher spatial reliability when modelling Conditions alone, such that distances between peak activations during time 1 and 2 were shorter than for Contrasts (b = 2.01, SE = .37, t(704) = 5.45, p < 0.001). Discussion: Reliability of the BOLD signal from task Conditions alone showed higher internal consistency across condition/contrast comparisons within a given scan whereas contrasts between active conditions – fixation had greatest test-retest reliability. Euclidean distance results show that conditions alone hold higher spatial consistency values at the group level rom time 1 to time 2.

Eve Saltzman

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Mark Pitt

Title: Exploring the Role of Depression in Emotional Prosody Recognition Deficits

Abstract: The literature has found a negative relationship between depression and the ability to recognize emotion in others. These studies have examined this relationship using only facial expressions as stimuli to convey emotion. The current study examines how individuals with depression symptoms are able to recognize emotions by the prosody of speech. It was expected that the relationship would align with past research. Participants first completed a task in which they had to identify the emotions they heard in prerecorded, semantically neutral sentences. The emotions used included joy, sadness, anger, surprise, and neutral. Next, participants completed the PHQ-9, a tool used to assess depression symptoms. To assess the strength and direction of the linear relationship between PHQ-9 score and accuracy on the emotion identification task, a Pearson correlation analysis was conducted. Consistent with past studies, there was a statistically significant negative correlation between depression symptoms and accuracy on the prosody task. Participants who scored higher on the PHQ-9 had lower accuracy on the emotion identification task. This result suggests that depressed individuals exhibit a similar emotion recognition deficit for speech prosody as for facial expressions. However, these findings only reflect the existence of a general deficit in prosodic emotion recognition. Further research should explore potential impacts of this deficit, as well as the interaction between prosody and facial expressions.

Eve Shearer

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan

Title: Emerging Adults’ Perceptions of Mothers and Fathers

Abstract: Emerging adulthood, defined as a period of distinct development from ages 18 to 25, is a developmentally integral time. This period of instability allows individuals to make key transitions in their lives and prepare for adulthood. Parents can either help or hinder this process depending upon how their interactions with their children are perceived. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to investigate and compare emerging adults’ perceptions of their interactions and relationships with their mothers and fathers. The sample included 475 individuals aged 18-25 from The Ohio State University’s Psychology Department Research Experience Pool. Emerging adults completed a survey via Qualtrics software which measured their perceptions of parental involvement, overparenting, digital interactions, and relationship satisfaction for each parent. A subsample of 45 participants completed a semi-structured interview and answered open-ended questions about their interactions and relationships with their mothers and fathers. Correlation analysis yielded several statistically significant results. When emerging adults reported greater maternal overparenting, they reported lower relationship satisfaction with both mothers and fathers and vice versa. However, paired t-tests indicated that parental involvement, relationship satisfaction, overparenting, and digital interaction were higher for mothers than fathers. Parental involvement and relationship satisfaction were positively correlated but had a weaker correlation for mothers than fathers. A thematic analysis of the qualitative data indicated that emerging adults were more likely to seek out their mothers for emotional support whereas fathers were sought out for financial and career support. Even in half the cases where mothers were described as disciplinarians (i.e., more likely to set and apply rules), participants still described turning to their mothers for emotional support. In contrast, relationships with fathers were more frequently described as superficial with interactions centered around discussing routine topics. Furthermore, the transition to college was perceived as improving the mother-child relationship. Taken together, these findings suggest that emerging adults have differing expectations and perceptions of their relationships with mothers and fathers.

Anna Shenogina

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Vladimir Sloutsky

Title: The Effect of Word Learning from Context on Mapping onto Visual Referents

Abstract: One of the biggest challenges children must overcome in the process of word learning is the Mapping Problem, which involves understanding which words relate to which objects in the environment (Lewis & Frank, 2013). In the current study, we are interested in examining how linguistic context plays a role in solving this issue. In other words, does hearing new words in context facilitate solving the Mapping Problem of word learning? To answer this question, we exposed 4- to 5-year-old children to short stories with embedded pseudowords. After listening to the stories, participants underwent an intuition test that examined their initial understandings of the pseudoword meanings. Finally, we divided our participants into two conditions to complete a label extension task. In the Congruent Condition, the feedback given to the participants coincided with the implied pseudoword meanings, while the Incongruent Condition involved feedback that was contradictory to the linguistic context in the story phase. By comparing the learning trajectories across the two conditions, we will be able to assess how linguistic context affects children’s ability to map novel words onto specific objects. We anticipate that participants in the Congruent Condition will demonstrate a steeper increase in response accuracy during the label extension task, implying that children that can successfully implement meaning gleaned from linguistic context during later mapping onto visual referents. 

Emily Von Krosigk

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Stephen Petrill

Title: Reading Between the Lines: Exploring the Impact of Self-Identified Reading Struggles on College Students' Performance and Habits

Abstract: Although there has been extensive research on reading disability in children, there has been far fewer studies examining college aged students (Kuriakose & Amaresha, 2023). This is problematic because individuals in this population may enter university without a formal diagnosis but may experience barriers from underlying deficits from reading and related skills. We hypothesize that students who identify themselves as struggling readers will show poorer performance on vocabulary, reading comprehension, word reading, and nonword reading. Additionally, we hypothesize that students who struggle with reading will be less likely to engage in reading-related activities outside of the classroom. Methods: This study employed N = 30 students recruited from the Psychology Department Research Experience Program. Mean age of these students was M = 20 years, SD = 5.00 (n = 25 female, n = 4 male, n = 1 non-binary). Students identified as struggling readers via self-report. Students identified their reading preferences via questionnaire. Student reading performance was assessed through standardized measures including the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, Second Edition (CTOPP-2), and Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests, Third Edition (WRMT-III). Results: Preliminary analysis suggests that reading habits, such as frequency and enjoyment, are positively associated with proficiency in college-aged students. For instance, analysis of our first hypothesis revealed a moderate positive correlation (r=.47, p < 0.011) between participants’ reading and their WRMT-III scaled scores. We also identified a moderate negative correlation (r=-.36, p < 0.052) between participants' WMRT-III scaled scores and their self-reported reading difficulty. Regarding our second hypothesis, the analysis showed a moderate positive correlation (r=.48, p < 0.007) between the frequent use of e-Readers for reading books and students’ WRMT-III scores. Additionally, a positive correlation (r=.31, p < 0.1) was observed between subjects WRMT-III performance and the frequency with which they borrow reading materials from the library. Conclusion: This study suggests that reading performance in college is associated with not only standardized measures of reading-related skills but also behaviors that may reflect, promote, or inhibit reading success. It is our hope that this study will contribute valuable insights into how reading disabilities are expressed in college populations and inform strategies for supporting struggling readers in higher education. 

Victoria Williams

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Steven Spencer

Title: Stuck in Time: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Impacted College Students Subjective Age, Temporal Self Appraisal, and other Factors

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted college students in a number of ways (Birmingham et al., 2023). To better investigate this, we the researchers provided a survey to participants exploring the impact COVID-19 had on subjective age, temporal self-appraisal, and other areas of the participant life (e.g., social, psychological, financial, health, and academic). Participants (N=212), were asked to rate their experiences and feelings during and as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and were also asked numerous qualitative questions to build a deeper understanding of the effect of COVID-19 on current college students. Although the majority of our quantitative findings were not found to be significant, we did find that 57.6-58.5% of participants reported an impacted subjective age, and our qualitative findings supported this and helped paint a fuller picture of the experience of college students during COVID-19. Since the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is still something researchers are beginning to quantify and examine there are many future directions for this research such as comparing the results from this study to non-degree pursuing same age participants and diving deeper into the understanding of major milestone loss as a contributing factor to impacted subjective age.

Alexandria Woodard

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Steven Spencer

Title: Pronoun Peril: Evaluations of Nonbinary Instructors

Abstract: This study expands on the prejudice that nonbinary individuals face in society. The existing literature does not adequately distinguish nonbinary prejudice from the prejudice faced by trans men and women (Burke et al., 2023). Nonbinary individuals may trigger more negative evaluations than trans men and women because they challenge the gender binary (Worthen, 2021). The present study highlights nonbinary-specific prejudice in the context of academia. Given the previous knowledge that gender plays a significant role in student evaluations (MacNell et al., 2015), we seek to understand how students mitigate their gender expectations toward faculty members who do not use traditional, binary gender labels. Procedure: This study used a 3 (perceived instructor gender: male, female, nonbinary) x 2 (prime: binary gender, eye color) between-participants experimental design. 158 undergraduates (76% female; 54% White) participated in our remote Qualtrics study about “evaluating potential instructors.” After answering questionnaires to capture individual differences (social dominance orientation, gender identity, political ideology, need for cognitive closure, etc.), participants were randomly assigned to read a syllabus that stated the instructor’s pronouns as he/him, she/her, or they/them. Participants then viewed a PowerPoint lecture with an androgynous voiceover. Participants were randomly assigned a lecture that either stated, “50% of all babies are boys” (binary gender prime) or “50% of all babies are born with brown eyes” (control). Afterward, participants rated the instructor’s teaching quality, their likelihood to enroll in the course, warmth toward the instructor, and perceived instructor warmth and competence.  Hypothesis 1: Instructors perceived as nonbinary will receive more negative evaluations than instructors perceived as male or female. Hypothesis 2: When participants are primed to think of gender as binary, they will evaluate the nonbinary instructor more negatively than when participants are primed with a control. Results: A manipulation failure occurred: only 52.9% of participants correctly recalled the instructor’s gender. All instructor evaluation measures were separately run through a 3 (instructor gender) x 2 (prime) between-subjects ANOVA (α = .05). No significant interactions nor main effects were found. There was insufficient evidence to support the research hypotheses. Conclusions: We aimed to show barriers nonbinary individuals may face in academia by testing if they are evaluated differently by students than men and women. Unfortunately, participants did not notice the instructor gender manipulation, thus the results are inconclusive. Going forward, the study can be redesigned to make the instructor gender more salient, and attention can be placed on additional factors, like the instructor’s voice. Overall, further research needs to be conducted to better understand nonbinary prejudice.