Date of Graduation

Spring 2013

Degree

Master of Science in Psychology

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

D. Wayne Mitchell

Abstract

Individual differences in Visual Scanning behavior, Heart Rate and Spatial Ability were examined on a Delay and Non-Delay Match-To-Sample task. Mitchell (2005) demonstrated that the direction (Heart Rate acceleration or deceleration) and the magnitude of Heart Rate change represent specific attending behaviors during visual discrimination learning; that is, Heart Rate deceleration is associated primarily with stimulus orientation, whereas Heart Rate acceleration corresponds to stimulus feature comparison. The data from this experiment support that Heart Rate is a valid indicator of attending behavior. Individuals who displayed greater Heart Rate change (acceleration) from baseline solved the Match-To-Sample problems more quickly (had shorter response latencies) and tended to score higher on an intelligence assessment of spatial ability. Also, systematic and exhaustive Visual Scanning resulted in faster Match-To-Sample learning on the Delay task.

Keywords

heart rate, acceleration, deceleration, visual scanning behavior, spatial ability, match-to-sample, cognitive processing

Subject Categories

Psychology

Copyright

© Bret Thomas Eschman

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