Oral Memoirs of Mavis Clark: an interview conducted on November 6, 2024

Includes transcript and two photographs.contained in: Greatest Generation Oral History ArchiveMavis Clark was born on April 5, 1932, and grew up in East Ardsley, Yorkshire, England during World War II. In her interview, she recalls how the Blitz affected her schooling, play, community, family, and mentally. She also talks about rationing, billeting soldiers in her family’s home, and the effects of war on her cousin, a British Navy seaman. Clark discusses what media she listened to on the radio, and how the war affected what was presented. Afterwards, she talks about life after the war–most notably her experience marrying an American soldier and living abroad as an American military wife in Greece, and moving to San Angelo, Texas in the 1960s. Notably, she found community in the local British Wives Club of Goodfellow Air Force Base.San Angelo Area Foundatio

Oral memoirs of Dr. Robert Legrand: an interview conducted on October 7th, 2024

Includes transcript and photograph.contained in: William and Don Griffis Vietnam War Oral History ArchiveRobert Legrand was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 19th, 1943. LeGrand enlisted in the Air Force in 1970 at 27 as an Officer and Physician and exited as a Major. Legrand comes from a military family and enlisted to take care of flying personnel. In this interview, Legrand discusses his time in Vietnam as a flight surgeon serving in the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing, race relations in the military, his experiences with the locals in Vietnam, his struggles when returning to civilian life, and his current thoughts on U.S. military conflicts.San Angelo Area Foundatio

The psychological effects of a perceived loss to an AI versus a human opponent

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integrated into competitive and evaluative domains, it is important to understand how individuals psychologically respond to AI opponents. This study examined the psychological effects of losing to an AI versus a human opponent in an emotion-recognition task. Participants were N = 77 undergraduate students from Angelo State University who were randomly assigned to compete against either an AI or a human opponent in an emotion-recognition task. Regardless of actual performance, all participants received standardized false feedback indicating they had lost to their opponent in a task involving identifying emotions in dance videos. Following the task, participants completed self-report measures of self-esteem, stress, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward AI. Independent-samples t-tests revealed no statistically significant differences between conditions; however, effect sizes were small to moderate for self-efficacy (d = .36) and attitudes toward AI (d = .33), with participants in the AI condition reporting greater self-efficacy and more positive attitudes toward AI following a loss to their AI opponent. These findings were contrary to the hypothesis that losing to an AI would produce negative psychological outcomes. Instead, the results suggest that participants may perceive AI opponents as less personally threatening and maintain a more favorable view of themselves and the AI system after a loss to AI. Future research should explore the effects of higher-stakes or more personally relevant tasks, as well as the long-term implications of human-AI competition for psychological well-being

OASIS 2025

Annual literary and artistic magazine edited by ASU students and published by the Natalie Zan Ryan Department of English and Modern Languages.Angelo State Universit

The prairie project: create, grow and maintain rangeland literacy

The Great Plains and natural grasslands are disappearing quickly because of woody plant encroachment. Education and understanding about conserving our grasslands and using rangeland management tools and processes to combat woody plant encroachment has been absent from most high school and college curriculums. In collaboration with the Prairie Project that focuses on creating rangeland literacy for students based on educating about woody plant encroachment challenges and opportunities; this study explored the effects of prior rangeland management education or experience and the potential influence on learning gains of K-12 students and participants ranging in ages from 14-41+. Surveys were administered that enquired information pertaining to participant s background and general questions involving rangeland management techniques such as prescribed fire, multi-species grazing, and pyric herbivory. Results showed differences in learning gains for all age groups based on prior experiences and previous knowledge. Results from participants also revealed that participants with either prior education or experience on rangelands were more understanding of methods used to combat woody plant encroachment on grasslands and savannas.These participants were also more likely to have positive attitudes towards rangeland management and encouraged adding rangeland management focused curriculums in high school. Based on the data from this study, rangeland education, specifically rangeland processes, should be integrated into high school curriculums to promote acceptance and understanding of prescribed burning, multi-species grazing, and pyric herbivory to conserve grasslands and savannas in the Great Plains. By incorporating a range science focused curriculum, high school education and experiences can influence youth engagement in pursing conservation and agricultural careers

Food novelty, consumption, and nutritional knowledge

This study examined the relationship between food neophobia (fear of trying new foods), food preferences, and nutritional knowledge among college undergraduate students. The mean age of participants was 20.26 (SD=5.65). Participants indicated their meal plan status, with 48% of the participants reporting that they had a campus meal plan. The Food Neophobia Scale (Pliner & Hobden, 1992) was used to measure levels of food neophobia with this population demonstrating moderate levels of food neophobia M=13.75 (Range=7-19). Participants completed the Food Attitude Scale (Raudenbush et al., 1995) where they were shown 74 food items and prompted to describe their preference (or lack thereof) for each food item. Of the 74 food items, some foods all participants had previously tried (ice cream), while other foods few participants had tried (muktuk). Nutritional knowledge was measured using the Consumer Nutritional Knowledge Scale (Spillmann-Dickson et al., 2011) with participants showing relatively high nutritional knowledge (M=15.33, Range=8-21). Participants also reported on their frequency of visiting on-campus food options with Chick-fil-A being the most popular on-campus dining option. Relationship between levels of neophobia and demographic factors such as age, sex, and academic classification were explored with a positive relationship being observed between food neophobia whereby males showed greater food neophobia (M=15.27, SD= 2.28) as well as greater nutritional knowledge (M=16.87, SD= 2.72)