Successful language comprehension requires the rapid deployment of working memory resources alongside the capacity to predict upcoming linguistic input. While previous research views these as competing factors, this dissertation explores a unified theory of processing complexity and evaluates the interaction between memory and prediction. The…

Bilinguals sometimes code-switch between their shared languages. While psycholinguistics research has focused on the challenges of comprehending code-switches compared to single-language utterances, bilinguals seem unhindered by code-switching in communication, suggesting benefits that offset the costs. I hypothesize that bilinguals orient their…

While the introduction of memory-safe programming languages into embedded, Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) offers an opportunity to eliminate many system vulnerabilities, a pragmatic adoption of memory-safe programming languages often necessitates incremental deployment due to practical development constraints, such as the size of many legacy code…

Focalization is such an intrinsic component of narrative that readers are often unaware of its effect. With internal focalization, an actor within the story narrates the events from their vantage point, flavoring the story with their perspective. While extant research demonstrates that many features of narrative structure influence how readers…

When a college student dies, student affairs professionals are often responsible for ensuring specific administrative processes are completed, providing emotional support for the campus community, and sponsoring memorials that facilitate formal mourning. This last responsibility has received little attention in the student affairs literature.…

The beneficial effects of nature and natural environments have been extensively researched and the findings generally support that nature and natural environments can reduce stress and improve cognitive function. To evaluate if self-reported stress levels are reduced, or if cognitive functions are enhanced among adult learners in the presence of a…

The present dissertation reports two experiments that investigate the processing of English wh-dependencies by including language-specific (experiment I) and domain-general (experiment II) factors. We looked into both event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and time-frequency representations (TFRs) of the EEG signal so as to obtain a more thorough…

It is well known that persons with aphasia (PWA) demonstrate deficits in sentence processing. Specifically, many show difficulties with syntactic re-analysis, or the ability to revise one's interpretation of a sentence due to a temporary ambiguity. Emerging evidence suggests that structural priming, individuals' tendency to unconsciously re-use a…

Anxiety in college students is at an all-time high, and the online learning environment can inadvertently add to that anxiety. Instructors and instructional designers play a vital role in supporting these online learners. While online learner anxiety around belonging and technology use have been studied, little research exists around course and…

The role that the information technology (IT) department serves is governed by the corporate culture and how it values the use of knowledge, including IT, to achieve a strategic competitive advantage. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the potential relationships between information acquisition, knowledge dissemination, shared…

Over the past two decades, we have witnessed an abundance of student protests at colleges and universities in the United States. Many of these protests cluster around the issues of white supremacy and anti-Black racism as they function in higher education settings--issues that have historically and contemporarily plagued United States colleges and…

As humans, we use language with ease and speed, solving the complex computational problem of processing form and meaning seemingly without effort. This dissertation studies how the properties of language enable us to achieve this, by investigating what is computationally difficult about language, and what is easy. We first investigate the…

Concept maps are a popular learning activity that have successfully demonstrated student learning outcomes. Research suggests that concept mapping has a positive effect on recognition, recall, and transfer. Likewise, researchers in cognitive psychology have shown the value of referencing oneself with a concept. Known as the self-reference effect,…

Segmentation is a cornerstone of language processing across levels of linguistic analysis, and yet, standard models of linguistic memory leave the role of higher-order segments in online comprehension understudied. This dissertation advances the Context-Sensitive Encoding (CSE) hypothesis: that implicit prosodic boundaries (Bader, 1998; J. Fodor,…

Prospective memory (PM), the ability to remember to execute an intention in the future, is critical for the performance of everyday tasks important for independence and quality of life. PM failures are associated with negative health, financial, and social outcomes, and are more frequent with increased age and can be even greater for older adults…