Date of Award

12-2016

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychological Sciences

First Advisor

Thomas S. Redick

Committee Chair

Thomas S. Redick

Committee Member 1

Robert W. Proctor

Committee Member 2

Darryl W. Schneider

Abstract

Seemingly minor task manipulations can have large and sometimes unpredicted effects on task performance. Despite this, single tasks are typical in both research and assessment applications. This series of experiments aims to systematically investigate the differences between various perceptual and semantic versions of go/no-go tasks and their relationships with working memory capacity (WMC) with the goal of determining the cause of inconsistencies in the literature. Because these versions of the go/no-go have not previously been systematically studied, the first experiment does so. After determining which performance differences exist based on versions of both task and decision, and noting that these performance measures did not differ in the critical relationship with WMC, other patterns in the literature were examined. Experiment 2 used these patterns to determine a potential cause of the differences in WMC relationships with go/no-go outcome measures, inter-stimulus interval (ISI). Manipulating ISI influenced the relationships with WMC, though the decision type still had effects above and beyond that of the ISI.

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