Models of Human Causal Learning: Review, Synthesis, Generalization. (A Long Argument for a Short Rule)

Beam, Colin S University of Washington ProQuest Dissertations & 2017 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation is composed of three major components. The first reviews models of causal learning with special emphasis given to Bayesian approaches. The second component joins algorithmic and computational models by defining the free parameters of the former in terms of the theoretical constructs of the latter. Specifically, the weighted DeltaP model can be naturally expressed as an estimator of Cheng's (1997) causal power. This allows for a computational analysis of weighted DeltaP that results in a number of insights. The analysis suggests that previous formulations of preventive weighted DeltaP have been misspecified. With the correct specification, weighted DeltaP is shown to be the best fitting model when entered in to Perales and Shanks (2007) model competition study. The analysis also facilitates a novel derivation of a more general Rescorla-Wagner model that attains a causal power equilibrium. Weighted DeltaP is non-Bayesian, though it shares some characteristics with Bayesian estimators. Like the posterior mean, weighted Delta P can be interpreted as a compromise between a prior expectation and sample information. As such, it is also a low variance estimator of causal power. In contrast to Bayesian models, weighted DeltaP predicts deterministic strengths of 0 or 1 in certain experimental conditions. Experimental results support these predictions and lead to the discovery of a "deterministic bias" in causal judgments. This phenomenon is strongly inconsistent with Bayesian models, though it also poses problems for point prediction models more broadly. The third component of the dissertation proposes capacity and response probability (CARP), a latent variable framework for models of causal inference. Under CARP, causes are associated with latent capacities. Conjoined causes are assumed to combine additively in their capacities. A response function maps capacity to the judged probability of the effect. Different response functions imply different models of causal judgment. After establishing the framework, response functions are derived for the DeltaP rule and causal power, and a number of additional applications of CARP are proposed.

A Data-Driven Ontology of Brain Function: Engineered, Interrogated, and Clinically Applied

Beam, Elizabeth Helen ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Stanford Universit 2020 해외박사(DDOD)

Holistic Student Development Programming: DIII Athletes' Academic Success and Retention Rates

Beam, Danielle ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Saint Peter's Univ 2020 해외박사(DDOD)

Dyslexia and the Perception of Indexical Information in Speech

Beam, Gaylene Patrice ProQuest Dissertations & Theses The Ohio State Uni 2019 해외박사(DDOD)

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent written word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties are typically the result of a deficit in the phonological component of language. A variety of studies have pointed to an association of this impaired phonological processing ability with the perception of speech. This dissertation consists of three separate yet interrelated experiments designed to examine the roles that dyslexia and indexical features play in speech perception.The purpose of Experiment 1 was to determine whether the underlying phonological impairment seen in adults and children with dyslexia is associated with a deficit in the ability to categorize regional dialects. Our results confirmed our hypothesis that individuals with dyslexia would perform more poorly than average reading controls in regional dialect categorization tasks. In addition, we found that listeners’ phonological processing ability (in specific, phonological short-term memory) was associated with listeners’ sensitivity to dialect. Children performed more poorly than did adults. Children with dyslexia performed more poorly than did the child control group.Building on Experiment 1, Experiment 2 further inquired into sensitivity to indexical information (talker dialect and talker sex) in adults and children with dyslexia using stimuli that varied the nature and the redundancy of acoustic cues (namely, low-passfiltered speech and noise-vocoded speech). Our results supported our previous findings. Overall, listeners with dyslexia performed more poorly on categorization tasks than did controls. Children performed more poorly than adults in all conditions. We also found that for talker dialect identification, all listeners were most sensitive to dialect cues in clear speech, followed by vocoded speech. Listeners were least sensitive to dialect in low-pass filtered speech. For talker sex identification, listeners were again most sensitive to talker sex cues in the clear speech condition, yet for the degraded speech conditions the pattern was reversed. Listeners were more sensitive to talker sex cues in low-pass filtered speech than in the vocoded speech condition.Experiment 3 addressed the question of how adults with dyslexia differ from average- reading adults in their ability to categorize indexical information (talker dialect and talker sex) when speech samples are systematically degraded by noise-vocoding. Talker speech was presented in five stimulus conditions: unprocessed speech and four levels of noise- vocoding (16-channel, 12-channel, 8 channel, and 4-channel). We also examined the intelligibility of this systematically degraded speech for adults with dyslexia and average- reading adults. The results seen in the indexical cue sensitivity portion of this experiment did not support the findings of our first two experiments. Individuals with dyslexia did not demonstrate a decreased sensitivity to indexical features compared to controls. However, regarding speech intelligibility, our results did indicate that adults with dyslexia performed more poorly than controls in all stimuli conditions. In addition, all listeners demonstrated the native-dialect advantage, in that speech was more intelligible when talker and listener shared the same regional dialect.

Lights, Cameras, and Agricultural Documentaries: Understanding Viewers' Interpretation of Source Credibility in Food Documentary Films

Beam, Brooke W The Ohio State University ProQuest Dissertations & 2017 해외박사(DDOD)

The purpose of this research project was to analyze food documentaries further. This study sought to analyze opinion change of participants when exposed to a pro-agriculture based documentary film and also intended to help agricultural communicators better understand how the production of documentary films could assist or be detrimental to how viewers interpret source credibility of the narrator. Furthermore, this study analyzed how previous agricultural experiences and entertainment-viewing practices of participants influenced responses and opinions toward the experimental condition. There were four objectives of this study: Objective 1: To describe the relationship of attitudes toward modern agriculture as a function of previous background knowledge among Millennials. Objective 2: To describe Millennials' opinion change toward the agricultural industry as a function of exposure to a documentary portrayal of farming. Objective 3: To explain how Millennials' attitudes differ toward documentary filmmakers based on their relationship to agriculture. Objective 4: To explain how Millennials' attitudes toward the content of agricultural documentary films differ as a function of viewership of food documentaries. This research project utilized Campbell and Stanley's pretest-posttest control group design. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two 15-minute documentary films as the treatment variables. These films were Cornutopia and King Corn. The sample for this research project was obtained by a double-blind, online Qualtrics panel. Qualtrics was provided a list of criteria established by the United States Census Bureau for the participants to be as close as possible to a nationally representative sample of the Millennial generation. As this research utilized qualitative data, the findings of this study were only generalizable to the studied participants. Results showed the majority of participants were from metro areas and had no agricultural background. Nearly 60 percent of the participants had viewed a food documentary previously, with the majority of those participants having viewed more than one film. Overall, family farms were viewed positively. Participants described farms similarly to representations of the agrarian myth and in technical agricultural terms. Results indicated food documentaries had the potential to change viewer's opinions on agricultural topics. The participants perceived farmers as the most credible sources in both treatment variables. Gender was not a factor that was mentioned by any participants in their explanations of source credibility. It was concluded that food documentaries are a viable topic for further inquiry within agricultural communication research. Agricultural communicators should be proactive and develop food documentaries to use in future research projects and also for educational purposes. Farmers were found to be the most credible sources in this research project and in Telg et al.'s (2012) study which indicates farmers should be used in future food documentary productions. Recommendations from this research project include the replication of this study with a nationally representative population. Filmmaking should be integrated into existing agricultural communication and capstone coursework.

The analysis of inclusion versus pullout at the elementary level as determined by selected variables

Beam, Andrea Patterson The George Washington University 2005 해외박사(DDOD)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between placement in inclusive and pullout special education programs with regard to Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) achievement, and behavior outcomes for third-and fifth-grade students with learning disabilities. Data collection and analysis also addressed staff costs for the models reviewed. Demographic data such as age, gender, ethnicity, years of special education services, and years in the school division were comparable for the two groups of students. Quantitative methods were used to describe two schools and their special education service delivery models, both inclusive and pullout programs. Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals and objectives, classroom accommodations, and coteaching methods were reviewed to provide explicit definitions of the models. Results indicated that there were no significant differences between the two service delivery models for students with specific learning disabilities.

Leadership traits and practices supporting position longevity for urban school superintendents: A case study

Beam, Carla University of Southern California 2012 해외박사(DDOD)

The purpose of this study was to add to the research on position longevity for urban school superintendents by examining personal character traits and skills. The study explores how these traits translate to leadership behaviors. Additionally, relevant background and experience necessary to success were examined. This was a case study involving one superintendent and the school district he manages. The work of Bolman and Deal (2003) provides the conceptual framework by viewing leadership behaviors through structural, human resources, political and symbolic frames. This study utilized a quantitative research design through the use of surveys to all Board of Education members, the superintendent's cabinet and all union officers. Qualitatively, the research design involved interviews with the Superintendent, a Board member, a cabinet member and a union officer. Another superintendent was interviewed to add interest to this study and to add validity to the findings. Information was garnered from interviews, but too few surveys were completed to make the quantitative results significant. Findings in this study examine those traits and skills necessary for the successful superintendent, as identified by superintendents themselves and those around them and serves as recommendations for post-graduate study programs or for those wishing to hone their skills.

Purple pleasures: Highly wrought fiction by nineteenth-century American women writers

Beam, Dorri Rabung University of Virginia 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

<italic>Purple Pleasures</italic> shifts the contours of nineteenth-century literary history to reveal a landscape in which the sentimental novel and the domestic ethos compete with a viable, potentially radical mode of feminine expression that reviewers dubbed the “highly wrought novel.” Characterized by ornate, “purple” prose and intense passions, highly wrought novels challenge our monolithic notions of nineteenth-century white and black women's writing as domestic and passionless. More popular than domestic novels in terms of sales and longevity, these novels have received no critical attention because they are so foreign to the reigning paradigm that women wrote functional novels and relegated expression to promoting the feminine virtues of patience, obedience, and chastity. Novels by Ann Stephens, Caroline Chesebro, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Mary Clemmer Ames, Harriet Spofford, and Pauline Hopkins, which indeed dealt with pleasure, sex, and fantasy, reorient our sense of the possible in fiction by women. My account of the cultural politics of the highly wrought novel draws on the variety of discursive fields in which women participated: flower language, mesmerist science, spiritualism, homeopathic medicine, debates over free love, and feminism (particularly Margaret Fuller's). I emphasize the highly wrought novel as a space for reconceptualizing gender, for dreaming up new configurations of the body in a society that denied women autonomous sexuality. Sexuality is thematized not as something embodied, but as incorporeal pleasure experienced outside of the body. The highly wrought mode thus allowed women to claim sexuality yet escape burdens of reproduction, compulsory heterosexuality, and the racializing of erotic bodies. A current critical imperative in American cultural studies involves questioning the strict separation of gendered spheres, but I argue in addition that Lora Romero, Amy Kaplan, and others reify the domestic paradigm even as they interrogate it. This unrelieved focus on domesticity, inherited from an earlier generation of such feminist scholars as Ann Douglas, Nina Baym, and Claudia Tate, limits our understanding of women writers. By contrast, “Purple Pleasures” recharts the imaginative life of both black and white women and shows that aesthetic experiment, fantasy, adventure, and sex were the province of women as well as men in nineteenth-century America.

The socioecological risk model for youth problem behavior and the mediating role of internalized values: A comparison of three ethnic groups

Beam, Margaret Ruth University of California, Irvine 2000 해외박사(DDOD)

This study tested a socioecological model of adolescent problem behavior that emphasizes risk factors from multiple contexts of adolescents' lives; a perceptual deterrence model that emphasizes the mediating role of internalized values in the relations between social control factors and problem behavior, and a third model that integrates these two perspectives. In the integrated model, I hypothesized that risk factors would have direct relations to problem behavior, and that relations between social control factors and problem behavior would be mediated by internalized values. I also hypothesized that the strength of association between problem behavior and certain factors would vary as a function of ethnicity, due to differences in cultural values and historical circumstances of Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and European Americans. The study also assessed the stability of social control factors, internalized values, and problem behavior over two years (i.e., from grade 6 to 8 and from grade 8 to 10), and examined relations between social control factors measured at Time 1 versus Time 2 and problem behavior at Time 2, as well as the moderating effects of age. Participants in Part I of the study completed a survey that assessed adolescent-relevant predictors of problem behavior, the extent to which they had internalized mainstream values, and their frequency of involvement in problem behavior. Respondents were 2,400 sixth, eighth, and tenth graders from an urban school district. Part II, the longitudinal component of this study, comprised approximately 40% (<italic>n</italic> = 1,034) of students from Part I. Structural equation modeling was used to test the socioecological and perceptual deterrence models of adolescent problem behavior. Findings revealed direct relations between risk and problem behavior and mediated relations between social control factors and problem behavior. Findings also revealed that the strength of association between certain risk factors and problem behavior and between certain social control factors and internalized values varied across ethnic groups. When ethnic group comparisons were tested in the integrated model, however, these differences became nonsignificant. Findings of the longitudinal component demonstrated moderate stability of study variables over the two-year period, and revealed that relations between current social control and internalized values were stronger than relations between prior social control and current internalized values. Implications of this study are discussed.

AUCTIONING AND BIDDING IN ELECTRONIC COMMERCE: THE ONLINE AUCTION

BEAM, CAROLINE MCHOLME UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 1999 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation investigates commercially feasible automated negotiation in electronic commerce. Three types of automated negotiation are investigated: automated bargaining, the online auction, and the online broker. A three-layered framework explains why multi-dimensional automated bargaining is not currently possible with existing electronic commerce technology. The framework also explains why automated price negotiation through the online auction is a thriving sector of electronic commerce, and why, despite some difficulties, online brokered marketspaces are partially feasible. An overview of online auction activity during 1997–1998 is presented, and different business strategies are outlined. Within the framework of the online auction, a novel Markov chain model of the progression of the price vector of an online auction is presented. Extensions to multiple-item auctions and applications to dynamic inventory management are also given. The predictions of the model are compared to the results of actual online auctions, using data from a leading online auctioneer, Onsale, Inc. The online brokered marketspace is also investigated. Using a continuous double auction as the matchmaking mechanism, a simulation of a dynamic brokered marketspace is created. This marketspace is used to investigate the effect of search costs and brokerage fees upon marketspace dynamics. A key finding is that when search costs are moderate, the online broker executes the most transactions, yields the highest sale prices, and can charge the highest brokerage fees. To summarize, automated negotiation in electronic commerce is an emerging business phenomenon which is, in places, highly quantitative. Online auctions and online brokerages offer buyers, sellers, and middlemen many more degrees of freedom than do traditional channels, and hence new optimization problems arise. This dissertation applies the tools of operations research to help better understand and manage the online auction and the online broker.