Browsing by Author "Dr. Thomas Hess, Committee Member"

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Beneficial Effects of Expressive Writing in the Elderly
(2007-01-22) Weatherbee, Sarah Rose; Dr. Jason C. Allaire, Committee Chair; Dr. Thomas Hess, Committee Member; Dr. Katherine Klein, Committee Member
The current investigation examined whether expressive writing produced gains in elders' cognitive functioning. Given previous research, it was expected that expressive writing would reduce intrusive thoughts, which would lead to gains in cognitive performance. In the current study community dwelling elders (n = 61) with a mean age of 75 years (range = 61 — 94; SD = 7.70) were given a 2-hour pretest battery, which consisted of measures of basic cognitive ability, everyday cognition, and intrusive thinking. Following pretesting participants were randomly assigned to either the emotional expressive writing group or the non-emotional writing group where they were instructed to write for 20 minutes on five occasions over 10-days. Following the intervention all participants returned for post-testing, which occurred seven days after the writing period. Contrary to expectations, there was no evidence of a time by condition interaction for intrusive thinking. When cognitive change was examined a pretest to posttest gain was found for processing speed performance when collapsing across the two experimental groups. A similar pattern was also found for the measure of everyday cognitive functioning within the domain of memory. Discussion will focus on the fact that changes in cognitive performance may not necessarily be attributed entirely to the intervention; rather it could be mental exercise or mere practice effects.
The Impact of Event Familiarity on the Complexity and Coherence of Children's Narratives of Positive Events
(2004-11-05) Banks, Jonathan Britten; Dr. Thomas Hess, Committee Member; Dr. Katherine Klein, Committee Member; Dr. Lynne Baker-Ward, Committee Chair
The coherence of individuals' narratives of negative events has been shown to have significant positive effects on a variety of indicators of adaptive functioning (Klein & Boals, 2001; Pennebaker, Mayne, & Francis, 1997). Relatively little is known, however, about the processes through which individuals form coherent narratives of important personal experiences. This research examined the role of familiarity with the event on changes over time in the measures of narrative complexity, coherence and intrusive thoughts. In addition, the relationships among three previously used measures of coherence (a count of words in relevant categories, an overall rating, and a measure of causal connections between clauses) were examined, and the association between each measure and a criterion measure, Story Grammar, was explored. Two groups of 16 children participated in either a familiar event, a soccer tournament, or an unfamiliar event, soccer tryouts for a more competitive leaguer. All participants were interviewed within one week of the event and six weeks after the first interview. In contrast to expectations, familiarity with the event did not result in higher initial levels of coherence, and the coherence of the account of the less familiar event did not increase over time. The alternative measures of coherence were related to Story Grammar as expected, but were not correlated with each other.
Memory and Emotion: The Influence of Valence on Children's Memory for a Salient Event
(2004-01-20) Eaton, Kimberly L.; Dr. Amy Halberstadt, Committee Member; Dr. Thomas Hess, Committee Member; Dr. David Dickey, Committee Member; Dr. Lynne Baker-Ward, Committee Chair
Remembering is a constructive process. Children's memories for events have been shown to conform increasingly over time to script-based expectations, stereotypes and suggestions. Effects of personal, socio-emotional factors on children's recall, however, are less well understood and often juxtapose highly arousing negative events (e.g., stressful medical procedures) with benign positive events (e.g., family gatherings). This research is unique because both the positive and negative groups experienced the same event, thus controlling for differences in event structure and salience. Children were observed during the final game of an end-of-season soccer tournament. The event was scored for the presence or absence of central and peripheral components of the game, identified in previous research in consultation with peer experts. Recall was assessed immediately after the game and 6 weeks later, through interviews conducted at the field and in participants' homes. Extending previous work within this paradigm, the interview began with a free-recall component followed by elicited recall items. The protocol included misleading questions about plausible central and peripheral components. Participants' free-recall narratives about the event were coded for the proportion of central, peripheral, evaluative and mentalistic propositions in the narrative, and narrative cohesiveness. Emotional valence of the event was defined initially as event outcome (won/lost). Although event outcome has been shown to correlate with post-game emotion, previous work suggests children's post-event descriptions of pre-game emotions are independent of outcome and related to correct rejection of misleading questions. Ratings of event salience, perceived individual and team performance, and the point at which the participant was confident of the outcome were obtained. Narratives from participants in the positive condition included a greater proportion of cohesive devices than participants in the positive condition, and narratives contained a greater proportion of evaluative statements at the first interview but a greater proportion of mentalistic statements at the second interview. The proportion of statements about central and peripheral aspects of the event did not differ by time or outcome group. There was an outcome group by time interaction on elicited recall of present and absent features, where participants in the positive group did better on present feature questions and participants in the negative outcome group did better on correct denials of peripheral absent features, both at the first interview. Groups did not differ at the second interview. Participants who knew the outcome early in the event were less likely to correctly recall central event details than participants who did not know the outcome until the end, and there were few differences between the positive and negative outcome group when comparing participants who did not know the outcome until the end. This research provides further evidence that emotion at the time of encoding is related to recall and change over time in children's memories, and highlights the importance of controlling event structure when comparing recall for positive and negative stimuli.