The main argument developed in this thesis is that individuals are not only affected by their own experiences of intergroup contact, but also by the contact they perceive is occurring around them. A pivotal reason for this is a change in the perception of ingroup norms regarding…
"29" Result
Sort By:
Online social networks are understood to replicate the real life connections between people. As the technology matures, more people are joining social networking communities such as MySpace (www.myspace.com) and Facebook (www.facebook.com). These online communities provide the o…
The following work presents an exploration of human search behaviour both from biological and computational perspectives. Search behaviour is defined as the movements made by an organism while attempting to find a resource. This work describes some of the principal procedures us…
In the antisaccade task participants are required to saccade to the mirror image location of a sudden onset target. As such, the task provides a powerful tool with which to investigate the cognitive processes underlying goal-directed behaviour. In healthy participants antisaccad…
Expertise in topographic map reading is dependent on efficient processing of geographical information presented in a standardised map format. Studies have supported the proposition that expert map readers employ cognitive schemas in which prototypical configurations held in long…
Previous research has shown that we recognise faces similar in age to ourselves better than older or younger faces (e.g. Anastasi & Rhodes, 2006). The primary aim of this thesis was to investigate this phenomenon in young adults and children to gain further insight into the unde…
This thesis breaks new ground by attending to two contemporary developments in art and science. In art, computer-mediated interactive artworks comprise creative engagement between collaborating practitioners and a creatively participating audience, erasing all notions of a divid…
Peer interactions are recognised as playing a key role in the development of children, but we lack detailed analysis of individual differences in the early peer play of preschoolers. Five data sets are used to explore aspects of children's developing social competence between th…
Posttraumatic growth describes positive changes following challenging events. Although such changes are well documented there remain a number of important areas for further research, some of which are addressed in this thesis. In particular, this thesis aimed to clarify the rela…
Previous research has shown that high trait-anxious children, relative to low trait-anxious children, are at an increased risk of developing fear due to threatening information (Field, 2006b; Field and Price-Evans, 2009). However, the mechanism that underlies this relationship r…
Cognitive and behavioural theories of social anxiety and depression provide clear explanations for the links between these conditions and the strategies children use to cope with peer conflict situations. However, empirical research in the area has left several unresolved issues…
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is characterised by intrusions into conscious thinking by repetitive, personally abhorrent, absurd and alien thoughts (obsessions) which lead to endless repetitive acts or rehearsal of irrational and sometimes bizarre mental and behavioural ri…
Sentiment analysis focuses upon automatic classiffication of a document's sentiment (and more generally extraction of opinion from text). Ways of expressing sentiment have been shown to be dependent on what a document is about (domain-dependency). This complicates supervised met…
Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) offer the potential for new modes of social interaction for children with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC). Familiar objects that are embedded with digital technology may help children with autism understand the actions of others by providing feed…
This thesis applies self-categorization theory (SCT) to the behavioural and experiential dimensions of spatiality and crowding. A literature review in Chapter 2 will highlight the study of ‘personal space' as a dominant theoretical approach to understanding variable crowding exp…
Contrasting approaches to explaining the social-cognitive contributors to bullying in schools have stressed the importance of a child‘s social goals in determining whether he or she will bully. In spite of this, the social goals of bullies and victims have not been adequately in…
In human fear conditioning 'resistance to extinction' occurs when the removal of the aversive outcome fails to produce a reduction in conditioned responding. This phenomenon is important to understanding the persistence of anxiety disorders such as phobias. The research presente…
This thesis in part addressed a call by Hodapp, Glidden & Kaiser (2005) to focus on identifying potential mediators and moderators of the relationship between growing up with a sibling with an autism spectrum condition (ASC) and adverse outcomes such as poorer sibling relationsh…
The aim of this thesis was to investigate some of the processes that contribute to the effective comprehension of text in an adult population. The thesis begins with an assessment of component skills that are of theoretical relevance to reading comprehension skill. Experiment On…