The individual differences of bilingual readers when using phonological information in word identification

Two theories have been proposed to explain how readers access the mental lexicon through written words: phonological mediation theory suggests that the sound of words activates the meaning of words; direct access theory suggests that the orthographic representation of words activates the meaning. Prior work has demonstrated that readers rely on phonological mediation in both alphabetic languages (e.g., English), and in less phonologically predictable logographic languages (e.g., Chinese); however, little research has investigated the relationship between bilingual readers’ phonological activation in both languages. Therefore, the current study assessed bilingual readers’ reliance on the phonological route for both English and Chinese reading. We hypothesized that readers who show a strong reliance on the phonological route in one language will show a similarly strong reliance on it in their other language. Replicating prior work, our study showed that in both Chinese and English tasks, readers made slower and less accurate judgments on homophone distractors. However, we did not observe a significant correlation between individual’s reliance on phonological routes in different languages.Psychology & Educatio

Quantifying and Analyzing Plastic in Seabird Nests in the North Sea

Plastics in the environment are of increasing concern for many organisms including seabirds. In this study, I examined the nests of four seabird species – northern gannets, black-legged kittiwakes, great cormorants, and gulls (herring and lesser black-backed gulls) – on two small islands in the North Sea. I quantified the proportion of plastic in each nest following methods described by Thompson et al. (2020), and compared the types and colors of plastics in their nests to those found in the environment. I examined the proportion of nests of each species that contained plastic, and found that northern gannets (98%) and great cormorants (95%) were both more likely to include plastic in their nests than kittiwakes (44%) and gulls (28%). I also found that the average amount of plastic in nests differed across species (northern gannets 36%, great cormorants 9%, black-legged kittiwakes 2%, gulls 1%). These differences in proportions of nests containing plastic and average amount of plastic in nests are likely due to differences in materials used in nests and whether a species reuses nests each year. In comparing plastics in the environment to that in nests, I found that fibrous plastic, in particular dolly rope, a type of sacrificial chafing material used in commercial bottom trawling fishing, was highly preferred by all the studied seabird species. Orange dolly rope was also favored over other colors of dolly rope. Chemical testing of dolly rope pieces found that it was polyethylene, which is consistent with previous reports for the North Sea, and mechanical testing of dolly rope strands highlighted the dangers of entanglement posed by the material. There is a strong preference for orange dolly rope by nesting birds that may be due to morphological similarities to natural nesting material and an ease in locating the brightly colored material in the water. While seabird deaths by entanglement alone are not likely to lead to a population decrease, these deaths are often slow and painful and should be prevented if only for humanitarian reasons. I explore different methods of mitigating deaths by entanglement and reducing plastics in the marine environment, as well as ways in which plastic monitoring in seabird nests can provide information regarding the levels and types of pollution in the marine environment.Geolog

Investigating the Effects of Glial Subtype-Specific Tau Expression in Drosophila melanogaster

Tauopathies are a diverse group of neurodegenerative diseases characterized by the aggregation of a microtubule-associated protein, tau. Recent studies have revealed that a subset of tauopathies can be classified by tau aggregation primarily in glial cells. Glial cells play a significant role in regulating overall nervous system health and disease conditions through a variety of functions unique to each glial subtype. However, detailed mechanisms by which tau toxicity manifests into disease states in specific glial subtypes are yet unknown. In this study, we utilized Drosophila melanogaster and its collaborative glial network to develop a glial tauopathy model that allows for subtype-specific tau overexpression. We investigated how tau expression, specifically in astrocyte-like glia (ALG) or cortical glia (CG), affects glial viability during development and hypothesized that human tau overexpression would yield glial cell subtype-specific toxicity with a more extensive impact in ALG than in CG. Results showed that while ALG-specific tau expression led to ALG cell count increase in young female flies, CG-specific tau expression led to extensive CG cell death in both sexes. Our study demonstrates that glial cell types respond differently to tau overexpression, highlighting the importance of evaluating each cell type individually in disease conditions.Neuroscience and Behavio

Can't Help but Help: Should We Praise Good Deeds that Result from Mental Illnesses?

We hesitate to blame kleptomaniacs for stealing. Should we be similarly hesitant to praise people for doing good deeds if their actions are motivated by similar compulsions? My thesis project considers how to evaluate good deeds that are caused by mental illness. Specifically, I will focus on Scrupulosity OCD. Scrupulosity is a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder in which rather than feeling the urge to do something like wash their hands, the patient has the compulsion to help other people. Mental illnesses like this can cause conflicting intuitions when it comes to assigning praise. For example, if someone donates 30% of their income to charity because they want to help other people, it seems like we should praise them strongly. But if we find out they have Scrupulosity OCD and felt compelled to make donations, we might want to avoid praising their compulsive behavior. My project seeks to resolve these conflicting intuitions. I will start by confirming that it is possible to perform good deeds as a result of mental illness, and I will then carefully dismiss the possibility that such deeds can warrant neither praise nor blame due to mentally ill people having ‘no choice.’ Next, I will explore one influential account of praiseworthiness in which, roughly, a person is praiseworthy if they do the right thing for the right reasons. From this account, we might expect Scrupulous people not to be praiseworthy, but I discovered the opposite result: it follows from this account that a good deed resulting from Scrupulosity OCD is actually more praiseworthy than one that is not compulsive. I do not consider this a desirable result. Accordingly, I propose a way to alter the account to return a more plausible result: compulsive and non-compulsive actions are, in some circumstances, equally praiseworthy. I will finally conclude that when good deeds caused by Scrupulosity OCD are as praiseworthy as non-compulsive good deeds, it is because the person’s good deeds and the compulsions that caused them are an accurate reflection of that person’s real (praiseworthy) values.Philosoph

The Formation of the Mount Holyoke Missionaries Collection: Race, Redemption, and the Early Archive

What is an archive? Is it a place? An object or objects organized into collections? A mentality? How have the creators of archives determined what should be archived, and what ideas about history have their decisions preserved? My research centers these questions in a study of the creation, over time, of the Mount Holyoke Missionaries Collection, with its holdings related to the missionary work of alumnae from 1841 to the present. In the early years of Mount Holyoke’s history as a Female Seminary, its founders and teachers sought to disseminate Protestant values and create an alumnae body of pious teachers, mothers, and in time, missionaries. Its early archive—represented in published works, financial records, and objects sent to Mount Holyoke from missionary fields—produced histories centered on Christian action and salvation blended with colonial discourses of race and civilization that venerated missionaries’ role in saving and civilizing non-Christian peoples. At the turn of the century, once Mount Holyoke had become a college and moved to adopt more rigorous academic standards and empirical research practices, both its historical consciousness and its archive shifted. Librarians, students, and teachers reinterpreted archives as vital for understanding the human race and bringing about societal improvement. While this approach was more empirical, it reflected the religious mindset of previous generations as well as the Social Darwinism of the day. The Missionaries Collection grew to include more documents reflective of missionaries’ everyday life, such as missionary publications and newspaper articles. In doing so, it reproduced racist discourses and continued to venerate Christianity as a sign of racial and social progress. This project contextualizes the archive as a historical phenomenon that has been constructed, reinterpreted, and redesigned over time. The Mount Holyoke Missionaries Collection is a prime example of an archival collection reflecting the distinct images of its creators’ and archivists’ historical consciousness over its nearly two centuries of existence.Histor

Breaking the Cycle: In search of progressive representations of masculinity in Elena Ferrante's L'amica geniale

A great part of the scholarship surrounding the novels of the mysterious Italian author Elena Ferrante, including her best-selling quadrilogy My Brilliant Friend (originally published in Italian as L’amica geniale between 2011 and 2014), focuses on her unique writing of the feminine experience, her ability to reveal less-considered aspects of maternity, female friendship, and love. Ferrante’s prioritization of the feminine experience is particularly significant considering that most of her writing is set in the traditional and patriarchal society of Naples. Thus, it is fitting that most literary criticism of her work analyzes the masculine experience and the actions of male characters almost exclusively in terms of how they impact the female protagonists. The aim of my thesis is to extend the field of Ferrante Studies by instead considering masculinity as its focal point in a comprehensive study of the masculine experience in L’amica geniale. I argue that even the dominating class in the patriarchal society of Naples, the men, are restricted to a certain model of behavior or self-identity and thus struggle equally or in some cases even more to liberate themselves from societal pressures. After noting an almost uniformly negative fate of the male characters in My Brilliant Friend this research aimed to discover whether male characters who broke this mold existed in the tetralogy, and, upon identifying them, to understand what made them different and how exactly they broke that cycle. Incorporating primary textual evidence from Ferrante’s quadrilogy as well as the research of numerous scholars from Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this thesis demonstrates that, despite the relative uniformity of toxic masculinity in the books’ primary setting, and despite the many environmental and hereditary factors which trap the male characters in a seemingly unending cycle of violence, Ferrante has in fact created two male characters who succeed in liberating themselves from the weight of their cultural burdens. By identifying and analyzing these two male anomalies, this thesis identifies the small beacon of hope, the “blind spot” in Ferrante’s bleak portrayal of the male experience in southern Italy. Ferrante demonstrates that even in such a violent environment as the rione, a place generally resistant to change or individuality, there is always a way, and in fact more than one, to liberate oneself from one’s seemingly fixed destiny.Italia

Gendered Dispensationalism: An Analysis of Evangelical Prophecy Fiction and Gender Roles in the Twentieth Century United States

This thesis explores the role of gender in American prophecy fiction from the period 1900-2000. Prophecy fiction, or novels that present an imagined end of the world informed by evangelical readings of the Bible, has been popular with an evangelical audience since the genre’s inception in the late nineteenth century. By choosing who achieves salvation and through what means, authors of prophecy fiction engage in cultural interventions, indicating to readers what elements of larger American culture should be accepted or rejected in order to achieve eternal life in Heaven. In this work I focus on how gender has been understood by prophecy fiction authors and how these understandings have evolved over the twentieth century. I analyze two influential works of prophecy fiction: Joseph Birckbeck Burroughs’ Titan, Son of Saturn: The Coming World Emperor (1905) and Timothy LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ Left Behind (1995), to understand how their historical context informs their positions on gender roles for men and women during their life on earth with the goal to achieve eternal life after death. I find these novels reflect that evangelical women have experienced a decrease in public facing leadership and religious autonomy in the 90 years between the two publishings.Religio

Being Realistic About Reducing Incarceration: Political Approaches to Incarceration Reform in Michigan, What Works, and What Does Not

Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness took the criminal justice space by storm. Published in 2010 just as states began reversing War on Drugs policies, the book transformed the way activists and policymakers think about prison and the state’s role in incarceration. The book’s core premise posited that incarceration’s purpose is to systematically and intentionally disenfranchise African American men. My research challenges the dominance of Alexander’s narrative on the carceral system and aims to answer the question: what is the most effective political approach to getting criminal justice reform policy passed that significantly reduces the incarcerated population given existing political conditions in Michigan and other states with similar conditions? My research draws on interviews with state policymakers and activists, political messaging in newspaper articles, press releases, and legislative hearings, and successful and unsuccessful legislation passed in Michigan’s 100th and 101st state legislative sessions to create a comprehensive analysis of when and where certain political approaches succeed and fail. I argue that Alexander’s “race approach” is not the most effective political approach to reducing incarceration on a messaging or policy basis. I argue instead for the success of the “economic approach” in passing reform legislation. This economic approach aims to ameliorate the effects of the carceral system, both by making it easier for offenders to access socioeconomic resources after incarceration and through preventative but piecemeal measures before incarceration, such as increasing funding for an individual program or resource. I argue that while the economic approach has achieved the most success from a messaging and policy standpoint thus far, mass redistribution into working- and middle-class communities is needed to truly shrink the carceral state. This thesis categorizes and measures different political approaches to carceral reform, which previous scholars have not done, and creates a political framework for how legislators in purple states can get reform legislation passed.Politic

Experiences of Eldest Second-Generation Americans: Exploratory Study of Identity and Mental Health

An individual’s identity can be challenging to navigate, particularly for those from immigrant families. Coming from an immigrant family, there are certain roles and responsibilities expected of children, especially from the eldest; these added roles and responsibilities can result in negative mental health consequences for eldest children within immigrant families. This exploratory study investigated the lived experience of the eldest child within immigrant families through in-depth interviews, with a focus on their identity and mental health. This study used an inductive thematic analysis framework to conceptualize patterns of experiences among participants generated into themes. The results are organized by using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems (1979) and Berry’s acculturation model (2017) to provide a visual representation of the eldests’ overall human development. There are four main themes identified throughout the study: Who are you?, Eldest Responsibilities, Balancing Two Cultures, and Mental Health and Sources of Support. Responsibilities, identity, and acculturation were found to be the main sources of stress and pressure among this group of participants while navigating their identity in the United States.Psychology & Educatio

FEMALE SYMBOLISM: Translation and Interpretation of Selected Works of Mu Shiying

When it comes to the early 20th century, China—the forbidden land, the Eastern fantasy— was forced to open the gate and “welcome” its unpredictable future. On the one hand, the drastic social, political, and cultural changes paved the way for modernist thinking and lifestyle. Yet on the other hand, ongoing wars and ever-increasing tensions worldwide had broken down people’s perception of ordinary civil society and became the hotbed for hedonism, nihilism, and even hermeticism. In the early 20th century Shanghai, rapid modernization brought people a seemingly fantastic newborn world—a world full of awakened desire, love, and fleeting happiness. Thus, the notable change in lifestyle and outlook attracted many young writers, whose stories primarily focused on people’s turbulent city lives and romantic relationships with modern Chinese women. Among those talented young writers was Mu Shiying 穆時英 (1912-1940), the rising star of Chinese modernist writings, who vividly illustrated the bizarre and motley metropolitan life in his unrivaled avant-garde writings and deliberate depiction of sensations. Throwing himself into the world of literature, Mu lived a modest life while depicting the luxurious yet unsettled city life. Later some of his modernist stories, such as “Five in a Nightclub 夜總會裡的五個人,” “Shanghai Fox-trot 上海狐步舞,” and “Poles Apart 南北極” outstand in Chinese modern literary world. Because of Mu’s contentious political standing during wartime, a large part of his literary works remained undiscovered until the 1980s. However, it can never be denied that Mu is one of the most brilliant early Chinese modernist writers, who had a significant impact on later contemporary writers such as Eileen Chang and Mo Yan. When it comes to the 21th century, scholars such as Leo Ou-fan Lee and Shu-mei Shih have introduced Mu Shiying and his masterworks to Western audiences. In their researches, Lee and Shih thoroughly illustrated the short but unrivaled life of Mu Shiying and his adventure in literature, modernity, as well as a semi-apocalyptic world. Appreciating their works on Mu’s life and legacy, I have noticed that the images of female characters in Mu’s work have been rarely discussed or analyzed. Though female characters in Mu’s short stories vary from socialites to religious figures, they still naturally, consistently possess a strong sense of unreality. The unreality—even fantasy—has made Mu’s female characters divorced from reality and become literary symbols, which subtly blur the boundary between fantasy and reality, and profoundly embody sexuality, hedonism, and even serenity. Thus, I was encouraged to translate another four short stories of Mu, which profoundly involve the utilization of female symbolism. This thesis will provide a thorough explanation of the time and cultural condition of 1930s Shanghai as well as Mu’s extraordinary yet turbulent life. Through analyzing Mu’s depictions of women as symbols, allusions, and images, I argue that the female characters in Mu’s work are highly abstracted and become symbols of desire, of nostalgia, of peace, and of hedonism.Asian Studie