Title: Employment Decisions in Mothers of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Authors: Naomi Ekas, Ph.D., Deborah Rafferty, Allie Benson

Introduction: It is very common for at least one parent of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to quit their job to care for this child (Stoner & Stoner, 2016). Some research suggests that parents of children with ASD are four times as likely to quit, change, or not take a job compared to parents with typically developing children (Montes & Halterman, 2008). These high rates of career disruption can have effects on both the parent quitting their career and the one continuing their career. Typically, it is mothers of children with ASD whose careers are impacted the most. Mothers disproportionately quit their jobs compared to fathers to care for a child with ASD and the mothers who continue their professional career face issues at work such as working fewer hours, having to change jobs, and not accepting promotions (Baker & Drapela, 2010). However, there is a dearth of prior research that examines why parents of children with ASD decide to quit their jobs or remain working outside the home after their child’s diagnosis. Thus, the first goal of this current study is to determine the factors underlying the reason mothers of children with ASD decide to quit her job versus continuing to work outside of the home.

Due to the array of challenges mothers face in caring for a child with ASD, these mothers face several mental health challenges. In general, research suggests that mothers of children with ASD experience more stress, less self-efficacy and parental competence, and lower overall health ratings than parents of typically developing children and children with other special needs (Herring et al., 2006; Pisula, 2007; Yamada et al., 2007). However, there is a dearth of research on the effects staying in a career versus quitting work to care for a child with ASD have on a mother of a child with ASD’s mental health. Thus, the second goal of this research is to determine the effects quitting a job to care for a child with ASD has on a mother’s mental health versus the effects staying in a career while parenting a child with ASD have on a mother’s mental health.

Methods: We recruited mothers of children with ASD who chose to remain in the professional workforce while raising their child with ASD and who quit their job to care for their child with ASD. All mothers reside in the United States, are married, and have a child with ASD between the ages of 10 and 17. Participants completed a 45-60 minute online Qualtrics survey that included demographic measures, mental health measures, and questions about their employment decisions.

Results/Discussion: Data is still being collected for this study. We will utilize SPSS to perform statistical techniques.

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation satisfy biological needs or desires. Behavior that is intrinsically motivated is not followed by any apparent reward, except for the behavior itself. Behavior that is extrinsically motivated is followed a separate, observable reward. The overjustification hypothesis states that after engaging in behavior as a means to an extrinsic reward, there will be a reduction in one’s intrinsic motivation to engage the behavior. The current study observed whether the overjusitification effect occurs in rats when using lever pressing as a measure of intrinsic motivation. For all rats, intrinsic motivation was measured in Phase 1 by the number of lever presses made by each rat in the absence of any observable reward. In Phase 2, one group continued to lever press without reward (Control), while the other group received a sucrose pellet (extrinsic reward) for each lever press. Lever pressing in the absence of reward (intrinsically motivated) was again measured in Phase 3. The extrinsic reward group emitted more lever pressing in the sessions at the start of Phase 3. Lever pressing decreased thereafter, but stabilized at a higher rate than the control group. The groups were then switched before Phase 2 was repeated. The overjustification effect was not observed in our study, but rather, reinforcement protected the response from habituation.

Introduction: There is a vast range of deficits and behavioral issues associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which leads families with children with ASD to experience greater amounts of stress compared to families of neurotypical children (Bayat & Schuntermann, 2013). An additional factor that may exacerbate the stress families with children with ASD are under is the COVID-19 pandemic, which has contributed to disrupted routines and increased anxiety and can result in an increase in challenging behavior for some individuals with ASD (Autism Speaks, 2020). In addition to the stress of the pandemic, the current social unrest evident by national racial protests following the killing of George Floyd may exacerbate stress in families, particularly families of color. The current study aims to contribute to the paucity of research regarding parent mental health and family functioning in families of color with children with ASD. Due to the stress of raising a child with ASD being exacerbated by the pandemic and the racial inequality protests in families of color, I hypothesized that families of color with children with ASD would experience higher rates of stress and have poorer family functioning compared to White families.
Methods: Participants were caregivers of children with ASD who were recruited from the community through local schools, flyers, and online advertisements. Participants completed a Qualtrics survey in April and the second survey in July. The surveys included questions regarding parents’ stress, anxiety, and depression levels associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and how this impacted family function. To analyze stress-levels regarding the racial protests that began in May, the July survey included questions regarding levels of distress about the protests and how families perceived their interactions with the police.
Results/Discussion: The data for the current study is still being analyzed.

Previous research has found that people can become self-radicalized (i.e., adopt more extreme attitudes in the absence of new information) by merely thinking about a group. A number of studies in our research lab have also found that people can become self-radicalized when they engage in a specific type of thought strategy, namely extrapolating from known to unknown traits about a group. The current experiment examined whether differences in trait imageability, or the ability to form a mental image of a trait, influence the effects of extrapolation on self-radicalization toward a negatively perceived outgroup. We found that regardless of trait imageability, participants who extrapolated reported more extreme attitudes and behavioral intentions toward the outgroup compared to control participants. More importantly, however, participants who extrapolated to traits that were difficult to form a mental image of subsequently reported more extreme attitudes and behavioral intentions toward the outgroup, compared to participants who extrapolated to traits that were easy to form a mental image of and compared to control participants. The current results established an initial link between self-radicalization and thinking about trait information that is relatively difficult to process.

Previous work illustrates that people’s judgments of the memorability of stimuli is affected by the perceptual features of those stimuli, even when there is no actual difference in memory (Rhodes & Castel, 2008). There is, however, a gap in the research about how such metacognitive illusions relate to other common misconceptions about how memory works. The present study examined the connection between so-called perceptual fluency effects and the common misconception that students learn best when content is presented in line with their individualized learning styles (e.g., auditory learners, visual learners, etc.). Participants were asked questions to gauge their perceptions of learning styles, then studied and made judgments about words that were presented in either large or small fonts (a manipulation that has been shown to affect judgments, but not actual memory performance). After a delay, participants took a free recall test, and were asked to make a global judgment about whether they remembered the large or small words better. We found that 43.47% of participants endorsed visual learning styles, 21.75% endorsed kinesthetic learning styles, 8.69% endorsed auditory learning styles, and the other 26.09% did not endorse a specific learning style. We also examine the relationship between learning styles and fluency effects.
Keywords: individualized learning styles, fluency effects, judgments of learning, metacognitive biases

Influence of socioeconomic status on rhythm perception in children with and without dyslexia
Nathania Davis, Vishal Thakkar, John Solorzano Restrepo, Abby Engelhart, Tracy Centanni
Department of Psychology, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX 76129

Development of strong reading skills takes years of practice and instruction, but such skills are critical for future success academically, vocationally, and in everyday life. In spite of the early start to reading instruction in the United States, up to 15 percent of children fail to learn to read and approximately 21 percent of adults meet the Department of Education’s criteria for low English literacy (NCES, 2014). One risk factor for poor reading outcomes is the child’s socioeconomic status (SES). Previous research has demonstrated a significant and positive relationship between children’s SES and their reading abilities, such that children from more advantaged backgrounds develop better reading skills (Bowey, 1995), (Corso, 2016). Interestingly, reading skills may also be correlated with rhythm perception. Children who struggle to read also appear to struggle in the ability to detect slight changes in rhythmic patterns (Overy et al., 2003). It is currently unknown why these two skills are related and whether SES impacts the development of rhythm perception. The goal of the current study was to examine the SES-rhythm relationship among typically developing children (TD) and those with dyslexia (DYS). Data were collected from 36 TD children and 25 DYS children. Children completed a series of virtual reading assessments and information about the child’s history and home environment was collected from the parents. Children then completed a rhythm matching task (Dolloghan and Campbell, 1998) in which they heard two patterns and reported whether they were the same or different. Early analyses suggest that SES and rhythm processing are not significantly related. We discuss the implications of these findings on the development of rhythm-based interventions for children who are at risk for lower reading skills.

Delay of gratification refers to the ability to wait for a preferred reward over an immediate reward. For children, this ability serves as an important predictor of future outcomes (e.g., Mischel et al., 1989). Previous studies have identified several strategies that children utilize in order to delay gratification and most research points to cognitive processes as the key strategy for aiding in children’s ability to delay gratification. However, a newer body of research with adults suggests that emotions, such as gratitude, might be manipulated, and thus might serve as a constructive strategy for delaying gratification (DeSteno et al., 2011). This study is the first to examine whether positive emotions influence a child’s ability to delay gratification.

Four and five-year-old children (n = 74) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions - pride, gratitude, and control - and completed a drawing task prior to the delay of gratification task. In the pride group, children completed a drawing and then were given praise. In the gratitude group, children were instructed to draw something they were thankful for and then describe it when they finished. In the control group, children were given a single black crayon and asked to draw 5 lines and given no feedback. Children were then told they could have more of a preferred reward if they waited for 15 minutes in their chair, but to ring the bell if they wanted to stop and have less of the reward (e.g., marshmallows, goldfish crackers, fruit snacks, etc.). The total amount of time they waited was recorded. In additional, the frequency of performing various behaviors was coded. These included distraction (looking away from the reward), verbal (talking about the reward v. talking about other things), and interacting with the reward (touching, smelling, tasting, eating).

The three groups did not differ on any demographic characteristics (child age, child gender, ethnicity, household income, parent education). There were no significant differences between groups on the amount of time they delayed gratification, F(2, 72)=2.07, p=.13. Children in the praise (M=17.42, SD=7.18) and gratitude groups (M=16.92, SD=8.34) engaged in significantly greater amounts of distraction, F(2,72)=4.30, p=.017, compared to the control group (M=11.48, SD=8.18).

Research with adults has shown that positive emotions play an important role in delaying gratification. The current study provides evidence that this is also true for younger children. Although all groups of children performed equally well with respect to the time they waited, there were important differences in the types of strategies they used. Focusing attention away from the source of temptation is generally found to be an effective strategy and one that translates across situations. For example, distracting oneself during an anger-eliciting situation is also effective in reducing negative emotions. Therefore, teachers and parents should consider implementing interventions that focus on teaching children to generate positive emotions when encountering potentially challenging situations.

Alcohol consumption is a pervasive element of today’s culture with serious individual and social consequences. Consequently, understanding the effects of alcohol on behavior and the brain is vital to unpack the motivation for drinking and potentially help treat individuals with alcohol use disorder. This experiment utilized a rat model of voluntary alcohol consumption using a high (66%) concentration of ethanol. Traditionally, it has been thought that rats reject such high concentrations of alcohol. However, it has been repeatedly demonstrated in our lab that rats will drink such high concentrations of alcohol at a rate equal to water and will even work to have access to alcohol as a reward. In this study, rats were given access to either 66% ethanol or water in their home cages for 1-hour sessions. After some of these sessions, rats were placed in the open field chamber to assess locomotor activity and blood was drawn to measure blood alcohol content. After a final consumption session, brains were extracted to investigate differences in brain activity in specific regions of the brain. The results showed that after 66% alcohol consumption rats had increased activity in the periphery of the open field chamber, increased blood alcohol concentration, and increased brain activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, insular cortex, and nucleus accumbens. All together, these results suggest that rats will consume high concentrations of alcohol and find such concentrations rewarding.

Here, we examine the impact of one’s willingness to try new foods on others’ perceptions of sexual unrestrictedness and desirability as a sexual and romantic partner. Guided by insights from past research, we hypothesized that targets who are willing to try new foods would be perceived as being more desirable sexual and romantic partners (Study 1) and as being less sexually restricted (Studies 2-4) than targets who are unwilling to try new foods. Results supported this hypothesis (Studies 1-4) and indicated that this pattern is specific to willingness to try new foods, and not willingness to try new things, generally (Study 3). Additionally, results revealed that the relationship between willingness to try new food and perceptions of sexual unrestrictedness are driven by perceptions of target’s relatively lower levels of sexual disgust sensitivity and not by the belief that the target is in better health or has superior immune function (Study 4). Together, these results suggest that people’s willingness to try new foods may impact how they are perceived by prospective dates and mates.

Background: Adolescent depression and anxiety has adverse effects if not treated, such as substance abuse, educational underachievement, teen pregnancy, social isolation, and suicidal ideation (Kamin et al. 2014). The possible reoccurrence of these disorders further emphasizes the need for early identification and diagnosis for teens. Although the prevalence of adolescent depression is high, many adolescents do not receive mental health services, such as talk therapy or medication. One possibility is that parents are not correctly identifying their child’s depressive and anxiety symptoms and may dismiss symptoms as being normative adolescent behavior. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether parents of adolescents were able to accurately identify symptoms of depression and anxiety in hypothetical adolescents and the extent to which their accuracy predicted their ability to identify symptoms in their adolescent. Ethnic differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic parents were also examined.

Methods: Eighty-one mother-adolescent dyads participated in the current study (23% Hispanic). Dyads completed a series of surveys and clinical interviews in a laboratory setting. Adolescent depressive and anxiety symptoms were measured using the Child Depression Inventory (CDI) and Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED), which were completed by the mothers and adolescents. Mothers were presented with a series of vignettes which described the behaviors of hypothetical adolescents. Five of the vignettes described symptoms of anxiety and depression in male and female adolescents. After reading each vignette mothers were asked to identify the symptoms and whether they thought the adolescent had a problem and needed help. Responses were coded by trained research assistants (currently in progress) and a score reflecting the proportion of symptoms correctly identified will be calculated.

Analysis Plan: Separate discrepancy scores (mother v. child report) for child depressive and anxiety symptoms will be calculated. Higher discrepancy scores suggest that mothers and adolescents do not agree on the level of depressive and anxiety symptoms. Next, separate simple regressions will be performed to determine the extent to which mothers’ symptom identification accuracy on the vignettes predicts the discrepancy score. Any necessary covariates (e.g., child gender, age, etc.) will be included. Finally, parent ethnicity (Hispanic v. non-Hispanic) will be added as a moderator to determine whether the aforementioned relationship differs by ethnicity.

Implications:
These findings have essential implications for early identification in children who are at risk or may become depressed. Parents who are not able to see depressive symptoms early in their own children may never be able to give their child the help they desperately need. Equipping parents with the right information on depressive and anxiety symptoms is vital for early intervention to occur. Identifying possible ethnic differences will help as cultural differences can be a factor in early intervention. Parents can then be guided in better understanding their children’s individual signs and symptoms and be able to intervene before it is too serious. Overall this information will help more adolescents receive treatment as parents will be understanding of their own potential bias with their children.

Life history theory provides an evolutionary framework to explain why individuals from different ecologies (i.e., living environments) employ different strategies and behaviors to solve their adaptive problems. Research using life history theory consistently finds that individuals from harsh ecologies that are scarce, unpredictable, and high in morbidity risk are more likely to engage in fast life strategies (e.g., accelerated reproduction, impulsive behavior). In contrast, individuals from benign ecologies that are abundant, predictable, and low in morbidity are more likely to engage in slow life strategies (e.g., delayed reproduction, delayed gratification). Without the nuanced understanding of how living environments and socioeconomic status (SES) influences adaptive behaviors, one might perceive fast life strategies and behaviors as poor decision-making. Our first study, therefore, seeks to examine whether individuals from low SES backgrounds are more understanding of fast behaviors compared to those of high SES. The results supported our hypothesis, revealing that people from low SES neighborhoods were more likely to rate fast behaviors as wise and moral compared to people from high SES neighborhoods. Additionally, in our second study, we investigated whether having knowledge or cues of ecological contexts alters people’s perceptions of behaviors originating from those ecologies. The results revealed that people are more perceptive of behaviors that they consider congruent and adaptive to the subject's environment. Specifically, fast behaviors were rated as more wise and moral in harsh ecologies than in benign ecologies, while slow behaviors were rated as more wise and moral in benign ecologies compared to harsh. Overall, our findings indicate that having insight into one’s ecology significantly influences how people view that individual’s behaviors and life strategies.

Identity fusion is defined as a "visceral sense of oneness" between an individual and their in-group. It is distinct from in-group identification, in that fusion motivates the individual to personally sacrifice for the group and develop familial-like ties with members they don’t know. Strong identity fusion has often been linked to negative/anti-social behavior, such as violent extremism and persecution of others. However, further work has indicated identity fusion can motivate pro-social group behavior. The current study focuses on identity fusion through the lens of the hometown. It was hypothesized that high hometown-fusion would be associated with feelings of kinship, greater intention to act in benefit to the hometown, and increased intention to live in one’s hometown. Identity fusion was predicted to associate positively with well-being (measured via optimism, existential isolation, and positive affect). Results indicated hometown-fusion was positively associated with kinship, intention to act in favor of the hometown, and well-being. Fused participants were significantly more willing to act locally than not-fused. Fused participants also intended on living in their hometown for longer periods of time. These results support the hypothesis that identity fusion may engender positive group behavior without eliciting harm to out-groups.

Complex developmental trauma can lead to a host of psychological and behavioral issues in children. Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) is a therapeutic model that trains those who care for at-risk children to provide effective support and intervention. The one thing that almost all children experiencing trauma in any form have in common is that they are required to attend school. Teachers are the caregivers spending the most time with children second to their families, and in some cases, primary to their families. The effects of trauma are known to impact school behavior and performance. Children who have experienced trauma are more frequently referred for special education and disciplinary action, test lower than their peers, and fail out of school at a higher rates. Despite these unfortunate facts, research has shown that schools can help promote resilience to mitigate the effect trauma has on students by creating trauma-informed classrooms. The TBRI & Trauma-Informed Classroom training is an online training that is available to the general public. Participants who completed this training were surveyed in order to assess the quality and the outcomes of the training, as well as ways to improve comprehension and implementation. Understanding how this training is translating to practice is essential for future trainings. Creating trauma-informed classrooms that serve as places of healing for children who have experienced trauma is vital to the well-being of students who are in them.

Past research has shown that individuals can become self-radicalized (i.e., adopt more extreme attitudes in the absence of new information) by merely thinking about a group. The current experiment examined whether a specific type of thought, extrapolating from known to unknown group attributes, can also cause self-radicalization. To test this idea, half of the participants were instructed to extrapolate about attributes people who agreed and disagreed with them about a social topic might have, while a control group rated attributes unrelated to people who agreed and disagreed with them. Compared to control participants, extrapolators reported more negative attitudes toward people who disagreed with them and more positive attitudes toward people who agreed with them about whether abortion should be legal. Extremity of the extrapolated attributes also predicted more negative attitudes toward people who disagreed and more positive attitudes toward people who agreed with the extrapolator. The current findings add to past research and theory about the processes by which individuals can become self-radicalized.

Previous research in our lab has found that extrapolating from known to unknown attributes about a group can cause individuals to adopt more extreme attitudes (i.e., become self-radicalized) toward the group. The current study investigated whether individual differences in belief personification, or judging people based on their opinions, moderated the effects of extrapolation on self-radicalization toward people who agreed and disagreed with the extrapolator about a social topic. Compared to a control group, extrapolators reported more extreme attitudes toward people who agreed and disagreed with them about kneeling during the national anthem, and extremity of the extrapolated attributes predicted more extreme attitudes toward both groups. Self-radicalization was also strongest among extrapolators who expressed greater belief personification, whereas belief personification did not have an effect on the control condition. These results extend the understanding by which attitudes can become more extreme in the absence of new information.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common type of dementia, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease marked by memory loss and cognitive dysfunction due to protein aberrations in the brain. An estimated 5.8 million people in the U.S are currently living with this devastating disease, and no effective treatment exists. Furthermore, the etiology of AD remains largely unknown, though many risk factors have been identified. One such risk factor is experiencing chronic psychological stress. Over 77% of US adults report experiencing significant chronic stress. The current research aimed to explore the effects of chronic unpredictable stress on AD-like pathology in adult male C57BL/6 mice. Mice in the chronic unpredictable stress group were housed in isolation and were exposed to six different stressors presented at random for 21 consecutive days. These six stressors included being placed into a restraint tube, forced swimming in lukewarm water, being placed into an empty cage, cage being placed on a tilt, wet bedding, and removal of white bedding nestlet overnight. Mice in the control group remained in their group-housed cages and were not subjected to the stressors. During the final week of the paradigm, all mice received seven days of either lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or saline injections to explore whether an inflammatory insult would exacerbate the hypothesized detrimental effects of chronic unpredictable stress on AD-like pathology. Following the final day of stress and injections, all mice were trained in contextual fear conditioning, a Pavlovian learning paradigm to examine learning and memory. Following contextual fear conditioning, hippocampal tissue was collected to quantify amyloid-beta (Aβ), a protein which aggregates to form plaques that disrupt neuronal communication in AD. Although there were no effects of seven days of LPS injections on cognitive function or Aβ, chronic unpredictable stress was associated with impaired cognition and slightly increased hippocampal Aβ compared to the control condition. Further research is necessary to explore the mechanisms driving these observed differences. As the prevalence of AD is expected to continue to climb rapidly in the coming years, and, given the large percentage of the population reporting experiencing chronic stress, understanding how chronic stress may contribute to or exacerbate AD is crucial.

The current study aimed to investigate the neurobehavioral mechanisms underlying devaluation of expected rewards. In rats, frustration effects of reward loss are produced using the reward downshift (RD) situation. RD postshift phase involves two stages. After an initial suppression of sucrose consumption (Stage 1), behavior recovers to baseline levels (Stage 2). During Stage 1, nucleus accumbens (NAc) neurons release lower levels of dopamine, but it is not known whether they participate in the recovery process (Stage 2). We hypothesized that NAc activity would be important for the recovery process following a 32-2% sucrose downshift. The study explored the role of the NAc by selectively targeting both RD postshift stages using chemogenetics. Inhibitory or excitatory Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs (DREADDs) were delivered into the NAc of rats via intracranial infusion and activated prior to downshift sessions via intraperitoneal injection of Clozapine N-Oxide (CNO), the activator drug for DREADDs. Rats were assigned to one of three neural manipulation condition, inhibition (INH), excitation (EXC), or control (CON), and received either CNO or Vehicle (veh) on postshift sessions. Thus, there were two groups in each neural manipulation condition: INH/CNO, INH/Veh, EXC/CNO, EXC/Veh, Control/CNO, and Control/Veh. Preliminary results revealed that NAc inhibition does not disrupt sucrose consumption during RD postshift. However, NAc excitation increases consummatory suppression and slows the recovery process. This pattern of results suggests that the chemogenetic manipulation may be affecting GABAergic projection neurons within the NAc, increasing the suppression of dopamine release, and resulting in suppressed behavioral response.

There are many factors that can impact students’ evaluations of instructors’ teaching. Lecture fluency (i.e., the ease with which a lecture is delivered) is one factor that can impact students’ evaluations. Recently, researchers have examined how fluent lectures (very polished lectures during which the instructor makes appropriate eye contact and exudes confidence) compared to disfluent lectures (lectures during which the instructor does not make eye contact and does not display signs of confidence) impact students’ evaluations of instructors. Students who watch fluent lectures typically evaluate the instructor more favorably relative to those who watch disfluent lectures, even when the content in both lectures is identical (Carpenter, Mickes, Rahman, & Fernandez, 2016; Carpenter, Northern, Tauber, & Toftness, 2020; Carpenter, Wilford, Kornell, & Mullaney, 2013; Northern, Tauber, St. Hilaire, & Carpenter, in prep; Toftness, Carpenter, Geller, Lauber, Johnson, & Armstrong, 2017). All of the research on lecture fluency has focused on students’ evaluations of instructors, but the delivery of a lecture may also impact instructors’ evaluations of other instructors’ teaching. On the other hand, instructors have much experience both watching and delivering lectures, and it is possible that they may rely more on their experience when evaluating instructors rather than the fluency of a lecture. In this study, students and instructors watched a video of a lecture. The lecture was delivered either fluently or disfluently, and the content was the same in both lectures. After watching the lecture video, students and instructors rated the instructor on several evaluation items. Novel to the current study, instructors who watched a fluent lecture gave significantly higher instructor ratings compared to those who watched the disfluent lecture. Replicating prior work, students who watched a fluent lecture gave significantly higher instructor ratings relative to students who watched the disfluent lecture. Thus, the delivery of a lecture rather than the content of a lecture can have a strong impact on instructors’ evaluations of other instructors’ teaching.

Our research lab has found that individuals tend to adopt more extreme attitudes toward an outgroup (i.e., become self-radicalized) when they extrapolate from known to unknown traits about the outgroup. Recent lab findings have also suggested that trait imageability, or the ability to form a mental image of a trait, can influence the effects of extrapolation on self-radicalization, such that people were more likely to become self-radicalized when they extrapolated to traits that were relatively difficult, compared to relatively easy, to form a mental image of. The current experiment examined whether the effects of trait imageability on extrapolation also influence metacognitive outcomes. We found that participants who extrapolated to traits that were difficult to form a mental image of subsequently reported that they knew more about the outgroup, had greater confidence that they knew how the outgroup members would behave, and were more likely to believe the initial information about the outgroup was accurate, compared to participants who extrapolated to traits that were easy to form a mental image of and compared to control participants. The current findings established an important link between and the effects of trait imageability on extrapolation and subsequent metacognitive measures.

The growing population of Spanish speakers in the U.S. has created challenges related to translating and adapting interventions to serve this diverse population. This qualitative study examined how Trust-Based Relational Intervention® (TBRI®) practitioners currently handle challenges due to language and cultural issues among their primarily Spanish-speaking clients. Eight TBRI® practitioners in 4 different Latin American countries were recruited to complete an online background survey and a 30 to 45-minute virtual interview. Preliminary results indicate that TBRI® practitioners face challenges in regards to their clients’ education level, literacy rates, access to curriculum-related materials, and cultural views on the TBRI® correction principle. Practitioners handle these challenges by simplifying the language used in the materials, explaining content with culturally-relevant examples, creating items that can be used in lieu of ones used in the materials of curriculum, and having patience with clients as they learn a new way of parenting. The goal of this project is not only to bring awareness of translation language barriers and cultural issues with TBRI® materials but to help the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development adapt materials, so there is a more appropriate and easily received response to the material among primarily Spanish-speaking children and families.

A foreign language is a non-native language acquired outside of a natural linguistic community. The benefits of learning a foreign language include that it heightens employability, positively affects cognitive functioning, and increases cross-cultural awareness. The goal of this study was to compare the effects of a pair-test (PT) procedure and a high-density response construction (HDRC) procedure on foreign-language vocabulary acquisition. We used a within-subjects pretest-posttest design combined with a single-subject multielement design. Nine participants received instructions with 10 Arabic words; 5 words were taught via HDRC instruction, and 5 via pair-test. We hypothesized that participants would learn faster in the HDRC condition and perform better on transfer and retention tests. However, preliminary results suggest that there was no difference between conditions.

Previous research evaluated the extent to which equivalence-based instruction (EBI) is more efficient or produces stimulus classes with different properties than complete instruction (CI) in which all relations between stimuli in a class are taught directly. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the flexibility of the formed stimulus classes in EBI and CI procedures with a contingency reorganization. Forty-eight undergraduate students received training to establish 3 stimulus classes with 4 members in each class. The students were randomly assigned to two groups: EBI – in which they received training for some of the relations – and CI – that targeted all possible relations between the members of each class. After undergoing training and equivalence test (Phase 1), participants received contingency reorganization training (Phase 2). In the reorganization phase, the relations A1B2, A2B3, A3B1 were stablished as correct. Class flexibility was evaluated in an immediate contingency-reversal post-test. The EBI group required fewer training trials to complete ABCD training, and performed similarly to the CI group in the equivalence test. Additionally, EBI group required less training trials in the reorganization training, and performed better in the reorganization test when compared to CI group.

I examined the effects of disrupting verbal mediation in a task that models the effects of verbally presented information on conceptual behavior. The experiment was done asynchronously by sending participants a SuperLab 6.0 software experiment, requesting a screen recording using Zoom, and acquiring demographic, consent, and exit interview information using Qualtrics. Sixty-four participants were randomly assigned to four conditions. The tact-intraverbal (TI) groups first learned to match visual stimuli with verbal labels, and then to associate pairs of verbal labels. The intraverbal-tact (IT) groups received the opposite sequence. After training, all groups were tested for new relationships between the visual stimuli. One TI group and one IT group were given an additional verbal task during the test, which was predicted to disrupt the performance more in the IT than the TI condition, due to IT participants being more reliant on solving the task verbally. No significant differences in accuracy or reaction time were noted between groups. However, only 47% of those in the IT-V group and 13% of those in the TI-V group actually performed the additional verbal task. The experiment should be repeated through real-time video calls or in person, so that participant instruction-following can be monitored and intervened on.

COVID-19, an unprecedented virus that shifted into a global pandemic almost a year ago, has greatly impacted the human way of life. Recent research, however, has shown that in the United States discrimination towards people of Asian descent has risen dramatically. From a terror management perspective, this heightened discrimination might be due to a defense mechanism to buffer death-anxiety through enhancing one’s cultural belief. The current study evaluates whether priming thoughts of COVID-19 leads to heightened death-related thoughts and increased racism towards Asians (i.e., worldview defense). Data was collected from 175 Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers. Our findings suggest that COVID did not influence attitudes toward Asians and international communication through increased mortality awareness. The current work will discuss possible limitations and directions for further study.

The United States is an increasingly diverse country with respect to the number of languages spoken (Shin & Ortman, 2011). With this increase, many adults experience benefits in their personal or professional lives from learning to read in a new language. However, learning to read fluently is increasingly difficult in adulthood (Abadzi, 1996; 2012) Previous research has shown a general bilingual advantage for novel word learning, such that individuals who are fluently bilingual more easily acquire additional languages (Kaushanskaya & Marian, 2009). Given that the reading and language networks largely overlap (Monzalvo and Dehaene-Lambertz, 2013; Stevens et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2020), we hypothesized that reading fluently in multiple print systems (multiscripturalism) may provide a similar advantage. Thus, we investigated the effect of multiscripturalism on novel letter-sound learning in young adults. Data were collected from young adults at TCU and the larger DFW community. Participants were screened for eligibility through a background questionnaire and a short assessment session conducted over Zoom. Eligible participants completed a 30-minute training session to learn eight Hebrew consonants and vowels. Immediately after training and seven days later, participants completed multiple reading measures to assess letter-sound learning performance (Thakkar et al., 2020). We will present our findings from the first wave of data collection, including the impact of baseline reading on learning and whether existing print systems impacted learning and retention of novel letters. We will also discuss implications for this work on literacy education policies and impacts on those with poor reading skills.