Date of Project

4-19-2024

Document Type

Honors Thesis

School Name

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Major Advisor

Dr. Christy Wolfe

Abstract

The literature shows hemispheric asymmetry in individuals corresponding with temperamental style. Those with greater right-frontal activation tend towards withdrawal/inhibition and those with greater left-frontal activation tend towards approach/activation (e.g., Davidson, 1992). Other literature suggests that greater right-parietotemporal activation is associated with increased arousal (Heller, 1993; Wolfe & Bell, 2014). Temperamental style has been linked with cognitive performance with approach-oriented temperaments being associated with both higher and lower performance depending on the task requirements (Khan et al., 2024; Wolfe & Bell, 2007). Literature further suggests that postural position (e.g., sitting, standing, lying down) may influence feelings of approach/withdrawal and cognitive processing. To explore the combination of these variables, college student participants completed a series of cognitive tasks in seated and supine positions while wearing an EEG device. Participants also reported their temperamental style (i.e., ATQ; Evans & Rothbart, 2007). Results showed relationships between temperamental style and performance on all cognitive tasks. Low approach participants performed better in the color Stroop, emotion Stroop, and verbal fluency tasks. High approach participants performed better in the backwards digit span task. Further, there appeared to be trends toward larger temperamental style differences on cognitive tasks in the seated positions that were minimized in the supine conditions; however, due to the small sample size, our results should be interpreted with caution. Finally, findings from our single EEG participant were consistent with what might be expected based on the literature (i.e., higher arousal, anxious anticipation in the baseline condition and less aroused, attention focused during the task condition). These results suggest a viable research program and paradigm. Future research should replicate this study with increased sample size and functional EEG.

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