Browsing by Author "Leal, Stephanie L"
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Item Effects of Memorability on Mnemonic Discrimination(2023-10-10) Morales Calva, Fernanda; Leal, Stephanie LSome events are consistently better remembered or forgotten by most people; this intrinsic ability of certain elements is known as memorability. Memorability can help explain up to 75% of the variability in memory performance. Memorability appears to be an inherent feature of episodic memory, or memory for events and experiences. However, what type of information drives certain experiences to be more memorable or forgettable remains unclear. Image memorability has solely been investigated using recognition memory tasks, yet we know other tasks may provide more nuanced measures of memory as well as a mechanistic account for how memorability may be observed in the brain. The hippocampus, a brain region important for episodic memory, plays a key role in reducing interference across memory for similar events. Hippocampal pattern separation permits the differentiation between similar experiences, while pattern completion allows for the reconstruction of experiences from partial cues. However, these hippocampal computations have yet to be examined in the context of memorability. To this end, we developed a novel stimulus set and conducted two mnemonic discrimination experiments to tax hippocampal pattern separation, manipulating both image memorability and interference. These findings have important implications toward a better understanding of episodic memory and will provide an improved characterization of the effects that memorability has on memory performance.Item Examining the role of psychological distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic(2022-04-19) Dicker, Eva Ellen; Denny, Bryan T; Leal, Stephanie LThe COVID-19 pandemic has been profoundly taxing. Psychological distancing is an emotion regulation strategy where one takes an objective, distant perspective, and is uniquely suited to addressing COVID-19 stress. My first aim was to examine how emotion regulation strategy use is associated with pandemic-related stress across individual differences. Study 1 found that psychological distancing predicts lower overall COVID-19 stress. My second aim was to examine causality between psychological distancing and COVID-19 stress. Study 2, a remote emotion regulation training, showed no significant effects. My third and fourth aims were to examine how perceived vulnerability and emotion polyregulation may moderate emotion regulation success. Exploratory Analysis 1 found that fear of COVID-19 moderated the impact of emotion regulation on COVID-19 stress. Exploratory Analysis 2 found that multiple strategy use reduced the impact of psychological distancing on COVID-19 stress. The studies discussed here offer psychological distancing as a generalizable, adaptive tool during COVID-19.Item Embargo Let Me Count the Ways: Untangling Adaptive Emotion Polyregulation Across Contexts(2023-10-06) Dicker, Eva Ellen; Denny, Bryan T; Leal, Stephanie LEmotion polyregulation is an essential aspect of responding to stressful events by employing multiple strategies to influence one’s emotions. However, the specific patterns of emotion polyregulation that effectively mitigate negative affect remain largely unknown. I attempted to identify adaptive profiles of emotion polyregulation and its effectiveness compared to general strategy variability in a series of five studies. This research investigates global reports of emotion polyregulation and their association with high-stress adult populations in real-word settings, such as bereaved spouses and individuals quarantining during the COVID-19 pandemic (Studies 1-2; Aim A). Additionally, this research examines daily momentary reports of emotion polyregulation in a university sample and explores how they are influenced by cognitive, psychological, and physiological individual differences (Study 3; Aim B). Furthermore, this study reviews the utilization of emotion polyregulation in current psychointerventions for clinically relevant populations, specifically family caregivers for individuals with Alzheimer's Disease and related dementias. It also introduces an emotion polyregulation training paradigm to investigate the impact of cognitive reappraisal and its tactics on the success of emotion polyregulation (Studies 4-5; Aim C). The findings of these studies provide insights into successful patterns of emotion polyregulation and compare the impact of different polyregulation profiles on negative affect, in contrast to general strategy variability.