Browsing by Author "Kam, Julia W. Y."

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Children’s Sensitivity to Emotional Prosody in an Unfamiliar Language: The Role of Referential Context
    (2023-09-12) Waly, Yomna Khaled; Graham, Susan Annetta; Chambers, Craig Gary; Hughes, Kathleen M.; Kam, Julia W. Y.; Makarenko, Erica Marie
    Research suggests that preschoolers use emotional prosody to make sophisticated judgements, such as using a speaker’s tone of voice (happy vs. sad) to identify an intended referent (e.g., a broken vs. intact toy). However, 4-year-olds only make these associations in familiar, but not unfamiliar languages. Here, we sought to understand these discrepant findings by investigating the role of referential cues (i.e., cues that signal the speaker’s intended object) in children’s use of emotional prosody to resolve referential ambiguity. Results indicated that 4-year-old children did not use emotional prosody to modulate their looking nor pointing to the target object. Instead, they consistently fixated to the negative object whilst pointing to the positive object. Conversely, 8-year-olds looked at and point to the target object during sad-sounding trials. Their looking and pointing to the negative object was attenuated during happy-sounding trials such that they looked and pointed equally to both objects. Taken together, findings suggest that even in the presence of heightened referential cues, use of emotional prosody in an unfamiliar language remains an emergent skill during childhood.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Detecting neuroplastic changes in astronauts
    (2023-06) Berger, Lila; Iaria, Giuseppe; Lebel, Catherine; Williams, Rebecca Jayde; Kam, Julia W. Y.
    Understanding the impact of space travel on the brain has become increasingly important as the space industry plans to send humans to Mars within the next decade. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) research has indicated significant and inconsistent structural changes in the brains of astronauts as a result of spaceflight. Volumetric brain changes in astronauts have the potential to cause significant and even life-threatening consequences. Recently, research has demonstrated that reports of these volumetric changes may be corrupted by the upward shift of the brain within the skull and a redistribution of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) resulting from microgravity. This CSF shift may create errors in the classification of the dura mater from other various tissue types, producing erroneous claims of volumetric neuroplastic brain changes resulting from spaceflight. This research was developed with the aim of reducing these classification errors through the investigation of a variety of newer MRI scans and protocols that may better account for a physical displacement of the brain and CSF in the skull. Manual tissue segmentation was performed on the standard modality to provide a comparison measure. Automated tissue segmentation was performed in each modality. Dice coefficients were calculated, and a repeated measures factorial analysis of variance was performed, followed by paired-samples t-tests. Total grey matter volume measures were obtained, and a repeated-factorial analysis of variance as well as follow up comparisons were performed for this measure as well. The primary hypothesis for this work was not confirmed, as no certain modality consistently outperformed MPRAGE across all automated software. This research may help inform modality selection for astronauts, as well as caution reporting or interpreting neuroplastic brain changes in astronauts using standard methodology.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Task-unrelated thought increases after consumption of COVID-19 and general news
    (2022-07-25) Hart, Chelsie M.; Mills, Caitlin; Thiemann, Raela F.; Andrews-Hanna, Jessica R.; Tomfohr-Madsen, Lianne; Kam, Julia W. Y.
    Abstract Task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) are frequent distractions from our everyday tasks, which can reduce productivity and safety during task performance. This necessitates the examination of factors that modulate TUT occurrence in daily life. One factor that has previously been implicated as a source of TUT is personally salient concerns. External factors such as news media serve as cues for these concerns, potentially increasing TUT occurrence. However, this has not been thoroughly examined in everyday life settings. We thus utilized Ecological Momentary Assessment to survey participants throughout the day for ten days, on their TUTs and news consumption in two separate studies. Study 1 focused on the impact of news related to the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic, as a common and global concern. We found that TUT occurrence was significantly predicted by COVID-19 news consumption, such that TUT occurrence increased with COVID-19 news consumption. To extend these findings, we implemented Study 2 using similar methods, but focusing on the consumption of news media in general. TUT occurrence was predicted by general news consumption, with an increase in reports of TUT following consumption of news media in general. We thus extended the association found between TUT and COVID-19-related news in Study 1, to any news topic in Study 2. We speculate that the increase in TUTs was due to heightened salience of current concerns, cued by the news. These findings highlight the importance of considering when we choose to consume news media and the value of examining contextual factors when studying TUTs in daily life.