M.A. Theses

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Cognitive dynamics of scientific curiosity
(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2009., 2009.) Subaşı, Ahmet.; İnan, İlhan.; Özsoy, A. Sumru.
The aim of this thesis is to develop an integrative perspective on the cognitive dynamics of scientific curiosity which influence and bias its motivational direction, i.e. its selectivity property. This perspective analyzes both individual dynamics and the outcomes of the interactions between these dynamics. In the thesis scientific curiosity is delimited as a particular type of specific epistemic curiosity and defined as an intrinsic motivation for systematically making sense of phenomena. It is argued that the compositional capacity of human mind, which finds its highest expression in language, makes possible the creation of meaning systems through which human mind systematically makes sense of phenomena. And the systematic aspect of making sense and its relationship to this compositional capacity is discussed. After elaborating on the definition of scientific curiosity, an inquiry is made into the emergence and processes of human symbolic capacity in order to reach findings as to the cognitive dynamics that influence the direction of scientific curiosity motivation. As the most basic definitional framework, compositional dynamic is defined as the creation of and activity within a dynamic system of meanings with a core and periphery the ultimate reference point of which is potentially everything. Other cognitive dynamics that function as subdynamics of this basic motivational dynamic are defined as interest dynamic, expansion dynamic, completion dynamic, hierarchical dynamic and perfection dynamic. The thesis aims to make the following four contributions to the literature: (1) Propose a comprehensive definition of the most basic dynamic of scientific curiosity which accounts for the diffuseness of children’s curiosity as well as the property of curiosity discussed under the title of ‘independence from interests’ in the philosophical literature; (2) hypothesize ‘hierarchical dynamic’ as a general selective tendency of scientific curiosity based on evidence from studies on children’s questions; (3) integrate the findings of the relevant theoretical perspectives under cognitive dynamics perspective that is offered in this thesis; and (4) analyze the interaction of individually studied dynamics and the nature of the research agenda this new perspective can offer.
ACT-R based memory models of iterated prisoner’s dilemma
(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2009., 2009.) Çetinkaya, Ayşegül.; Mungan, Esra.; Bilgiç, Taner,
Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game is an important tool for studying cooperation in social, biological and artificial environments. Various behavioral and neuroscientific experiments point to complex decision making and memory processes for human subjects. This thesis proposes four distinct memory models of Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game that are built upon ACT-R cognitive architecture. This work aims to overcome the shortcomings of a previous ACT-R based memory model by Lebiere et al. (2000), by providing extensive exploration of the parameter space and analysis of simulation results for all data points. Moreover, in contrast to previus work, this study introduces distinct declarative memory modules for each player. Third, model behavior is analyzed for the cases where it plays the game not only against itself, but against basic condional and unconditional strategies as well. Finally, by implementation of three new memory models for Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, this study intends to attain cooperation against teaching strategies. In decision making process, all memory models evaluate expected payoffs of possible moves according to the most likely outcome making that move. First model records game history in terms of frequency and recency of possible outcomes. Second memory model records outcome patterns that are experienced in the course of the game. Third model has a two step decision process where expected payoff is calculated according to both types of information about game history. Forth model employs an association mechanism between goal and declarative modules which enable the model to record outcome history in relation to contextual information that is kept in goal module. After parameter setting, simulations are conducted for the cases where each model plays iterated game with itself and with basic game strategies. According to simulation results, all models were successful in exploiting and defending against unconditional strategies. Against teaching strategies, although they presented learning behavior, all models except third model have failed to attain cooperative equilibrium. First, second and forth models have adapted their behavior to exploit learning Pavlovian strategy and forgiving teaching strategies. All models exhibited learning behavior against basic strategies. For the cases where each model plays the iterated game against itself, all models have successfully attained cooperation in a significant portion of the games. Apart from second model, all models exhibited a learning pattern consistent with human subjects. Moreover, similar to human subjects, simulated agents can be classified into teaching and learning groups according to their behavioral patterns.
Gigerenzer’s eclectic normativism
(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2009., 2009.) Selim, Aslı.; Kılınç, Berna.; Bilgiç, Taner,
This thesis examines Gigerenzer’s criticism of classical rationality and evaluates the adequacy of the ecological rationality view that he offers in its place. Classical rationality assumes that normative standards are determined by formal logic, probability theory, and decision theory. Several studies have demonstrated that people usually fail to conform to the norms of classical rationality and concluded that people are subject to various cognitive biases and fallacies. Gigerenzer rejects this view, claiming that classical rationality is not suitable for the study of human reasoning. First, I analyze Gigerenzer's criticism of the cognitive fallacy studies and the normative benchmarks of classical rationality. I argue that rational norms need not be descriptively correct and that formal logic, probability theory and decision theory should be retained as the normative benchmarks of rationality. Secondly, I discuss Gigerenzer’s ecological rationality view, in which it is assumed that instead of formal logic, probability theory, and decision theory, psychologically plausible heuristics can be used for describing human reasoning and prescribing rational norms. I argue that the heuristics that have been proven to be effective and are suitable for prescription are not psychologically plausible and the ones that are psychologically plausible do not perform well consistently enough to be suitable for prescriptive purposes. I conclude that the study of psychologically plausible heuristics should be confined to the description of human behaviour and that the heuristics that are suitable for prescription need not be psychologically plausible.
Detecting emotions during the application of skin conductance and heart rate measurement techniques
(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2009., 2009.) Çakar, Tuna.; Güçlü, Burak.; Soyhun, Karanfil.
Emotions have long been recognized as influential factors in human behavior and they have various influences on motivation, cognition and attention. A variety of empirical evidences have shown that emotions have been a vital component of cognitive processes. Although there is great interest in determining the role of emotions in cognitive processes, the application of physiological emotion measurement by experimental techniques is still limited. This research investigates the emotion through a series of psycho-physics experiments. One aim of this research is to demonstrate its use via an experimental design for investigating the role of emotions in external affection during affective picture viewing. Another aim is to apply the tools for measuring emotions in ways that will make them more accessible to researchers wishing to investigate the emotional determinants of subjective affection. In other words, the purpose of this study is to test the equipment whether it could be used to demonstrate the emotional affection and to characterize type of experienced emotions. These goals have been accomplished by adopting and refining a physiological technique of emotion measurement known as electro-dermal activity and heart rate measurement. Many of the studies involve the use of physiological equipment that is costly and difficult to implement. One of the main features of this research is to use a low-cost instrument for electro-dermal activity (EDA) measurement that has been non-invasive and widely used in psychophysiology as an indicator of emotional arousal. This measurement has been recorded during a sensitive measure of emotion-related sympathetic activity caused by presentation of a novel unexpected stimulus. A significant part of this research involves the implementation of MATLAB software that facilitates data acquisition and analysis. I have superimposed the EDA and HR data series and the list of events, thus, I have performed event-related analysis to examine whether particular stages of the experiment had emotional consequences. This thesis project has been implemented by using facilities available in the laboratory of Biomedical Engineering Faculty in Boğaziçi University. Each subject was presented a series of affective and non-affective pictures during the measurements of electro-dermal activity and heart rate. Subjects were told to think about the presented pictures that were shown for six seconds. Another method, as a complementary to EDA and HR techniques, has been self-assessment manikins (SAM) that has been well-known to be subjective and less accurate than physiological methods. Two methods have shown that emotional arousal and valence can be observed empirically but there are certain limitations in determining the type of affection experienced by the subject. The results of this study demonstrates that these tools can be used as a reliable one in psychophysics research as well as could possibly be used in experimental economics or experimental ethics research. In other words, affective picture demonstration influences the electro-dermal activity as well as heart rate of the subjects that give clue about the emotional arousal and valence of the participants but it is not possible to characterize and categorize the emotion experienced depending on the obtained physiological data.
Experience and insight under time pressure :|a study with race game
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Yalınkılınç, Duygu.; Ayhan, İnci.; Giritligil Kara, Ayça E.
In this paper, we experimentally study the effects of time constraints on learning efficient planning when subjects need to make sequential decisions. The subject is explored by utilizing a game theoretical tool called Race Game. In the context of race game efficient planning is achieved through backward induction which is considered to be a criteria that constitutes the ultimate rationality. Earlier studies demonstrated deviations from prescriptions of backward induction methodology, however more recent work demonstrated that subjects’ convergence to backward induction reasoning. Based on those studies, we examine whether and how time constraints affect learning backward induction methodology. We explore these questions by investigating subjects’ errors and response times in three different experimental time constraint conditions. The results indicate that time constraints, indeed, lead subjects to commit to more errors. Surprisingly, however, the solution process of subjects demonstrate a backwards order, resembling a convergence to using backward induction algorithm. The implications of this study may be beneficial for understanding how individuals learn effective planning and how deadlines should be set, for instance in the context of education and management.
Contribution of ventral pallidal cholinergic neurons to behavioral despair and fear learning
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Halim, Sahar.; Ünal, Güneş.; Schulz, Daniela.
Cholinergic neurons of the Ventral Pallidum (VP) densely innervate the Basolateral Complex (BLA) and Central Nucleus of Amygdala (CeA), and to a lesser extent project to the Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis (BNST). Although basal forebrain cholinergic projections have been heavily studied in relation to cognition and explicit memory, there are very few studies that investigate the role of this neuromodulatory pathway in affective processes. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the contribution of ventral pallidal cholinergic neurons to behavioral despair, anxiety, and fear learning. 192 IgG saporin, an immunotoxin selective to cells that contain p75 neurotrophin receptor, was bilaterally injected into the VP of eight adult male Wistar rats to eliminate cholinergic neurons. Lesioned animals were tested in the forced swim test (FST), open field test (OFT), elevated plus maze (EPM), Morris water maze (MWM) and Pavlovian fear conditioning. The results reveal that the elimination of VP cholinergic projections exhibit a reduction of behavioral despair, increased escape latency in MWM, and diminished freezing response in fear conditioning. These results indicate that elimination of VP cholinergic neurons have an antidepressant effect, while suppressing conditioned fear memory. VP cholinergic lesions also lead to deficits in hippocampus-dependent spatial learning. These results suggest that VP cholinergic neurons can be therapeutic targets in clinical depression and fear-related disorders.
The role of ventral pallidal gabaergic neurons in affective and cognitive processes
(Thesis (M.S.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Science and Engineering, 2022., 2022.) Akmeşe, Cemal.; Ünal, Güneş.; Thorpe, Lucas.
GABAergic projections from the ventral pallidum (VP) and the associated substantia innominata (SI) are relayed to two limbic structures respectively associated with acute and chronic forms of fear: the amygdala and the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST). This implicates a key role for VP GABAergic neurons in affective processing. I carried out selective lesion experiments to identify the role of VP GABAergic neurons in several implicit and explicit processes. To reveal the functional role of these neurons, bilateral injections of GAT1-Saporin or vehicle (saline) injections were made into the VP of adult male Wistar rats (n = 16). The animals were then assessed in the forced swim test (FST), open field test (OFT), elevated plus maze (EPM), Morris water maze (MWM) and Pavlovian fear conditioning. I found that VP GAT1-Saporin lesions reduced behavioral despair while not altering general locomotor activity. The experimental animals also exhibited a reduced freezing response and increased darting behavior through the fear conditioning acquisition trials. This indicates that selectively inactivating the GABAergic neurons in the VP have an antidepressant effect while active coping mechanisms are promoted. Despair and fear memory-related differences observed in the GAT1-Saporin group may be related to the local inhibition in the basal forebrain as well as long-range GABAergic projections to the amygdala and the extended amygdala. Silencing these long-range VP GABAergic neurons may prove useful in the treatment of depressive and fear-related disorders.
Interactions of body representations in rubber hand illusion and tool-use paradigms
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Erkent, Mahmut Alp.; Ayhan, İnci.; Uğur, Emre.
In neuropsychological literature, numerous case studies suggest two separate body representations in the brain; one for perception, called the body image, and one for action, called the body schema. Rubber hand illusion and tool-use paradigms have been used frequently to investigate these body representations, respectively. Although these experimental paradigms are thought to affect different body representations, interactions between them are inevitable, considering the common sensory modalities targeted by the techniques used for measuring their effects. Still, there has been minimal overlap between these related fields of study. In this thesis, we combined these paradigms in a novel experimental setup and comparatively examined the resulting changes in body representations. Specifically, after a tool-use task where subjects actively used a grabber tool with their right hand to move cubes close to or away from their body, we observed an increase in the metric representation of the right forearm length depending on the length of the tool used. Subsequently, the “tool-holding” rubber hand illusion also increased the forearm length representation if the subject saw a longer tool held by the rubber hand. Follow-up experiments showed that this effect in rubber hand illusion depends on prior active use of the tool, embodiment of the observed hand and tool, and a length disparity between the held and observed tools during RHI. Overall, these results reveal for the first time that the representation of forearm length, a component of body schema, can be modified through changes in body image.
Unsupervised learning of high-level invariant visual representations through temporal coherence
(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2008., 2008.) Orhan, Ahmed Emin.; Alpaydın, Ethem.
Temporal coherence principle is the idea of neglecting rapidly changing compo- nents of a temporal signal while keeping to the slowly varying ones, in order to extract useful invariances from the signal. We note that most of the applications of tempo- ral coherence principle to visual stimuli aim at modeling invariances in early vision (mostly deriving invariance properties of complex cells in primary visual cortex). Temporal coherence implementing networks that can accomplish the more challeng- ing task of modelling invariances in higher vision and perform reasonably well on real-world object data-sets requiring some such complex invariant recognition capa- bility are scarcely found. In this work, we try to address this issue by investigating whether a speci c variant of the idea of temporal coherence, i.e. slow feature analysis (SFA), can be used to build high-level visual representations that might be useful for invariant object recognition tasks. To date, we know of no network implementa- tion of SFA that is put to challenge on a real-world data-set, rather than on some toy sets of simple, arti cial stimuli. To this end, we use single SFA implementing nodes and very generic feed-forward network architectures to see whether SFA itself is capable of modeling high-level invariances in realistic object datasets. We test our models on two datasets that require some such capability for good recognition performance: rstly, on a dataset of letters undergoing translation, planar rotation and scale changes, and secondly on the COIL-20 dataset to see whether SFA can successfully learn view-point invariance. Our results suggest that SFA can yield sat- isfactory results on these datasets especially when used as a pre-processing step for even very simple supervised classi cation algorithms. The major limitations for the application of SFA to realistic object databases have been the requirement of large training sets for successful learning and the tendency to quickly over t the training data as the SFA models become slightly more complex (especially for SFA-3 and SFA-4).
The effects of smooth pursuit eye movements and abutting pattern motion on luminance contrast sensitivity
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2021., 2021.) Alaşhan, Didem.; Ayhan, İnci.; Uğur, Emre.
Spatiotemporal context alters the visibility. The detectability of a low-contrast luminance-modulated sinusoidal target abutting a high-contrast drifting grating is impaired when the two stimuli are out-of-phase, suppression being strongest at the leading than at the trailing edge of motion. This effect was attributed to the predictive signals (Roach, 2011) or a spatial summation process and inhibitory motion deblurring occurring at the trailing edge (Arnold, 2014). In the previous studies, however, eyes were steady and the grating envelopes were stationary. It was shown that smooth pursuit eye movements influence the luminance sensitivity in a directionally selective manner. To gain a better understanding of the phase dependent modulation of contrast sensitivity, I conducted a set of experiments, where the contextual modulation was investigated in the presence of smooth pursuit to examine the effects of pursuit velocity, directional congruence between the pursuit trajectory and the drifting gratings, and the contrast-dependency. Results indicated that the phase-dependent modulation occurs both at the leading and at the trailing edge under the fixation, although in different magnitudes contradicting the predictive model. During pursuit, the size of modulation at the leading edge depends both on the pursuit velocity and the directional congruency. Additionally, the magnitude of the modulation is contrast-dependent only at the leading edge. These findings are consistent with neither the predictive nor the spatial summation account but rather suggest different underlying mechanisms at the leading and trailing edges, which may be modulated by feedback connections from higher-order sensorimotor areas.
Action schemas :|understanding the social-cognitive skills of deaf adults through action-based units of cognition
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Can, Berke.; Thorpe, Lucas.; Allen, Jedediah W. P..
This thesis aims to apply action-based theoretical approaches to cognition to the empirical literature on the development of social-cognitive skills like mindreading through characterizing conceptual tools that can help interpret empirical findings. The first chapter looks at the empirical literatures on mindreading development, especially in relation to language development, as well as the arguments of action based theoretical approaches to cognition in general. The second chapter presents an original empirical study conducted with an uneducated deaf population who did not have access to conventionalized language during development and can present an interesting case of adults without mentalistic vocabulary. The findings generally support the literature that many uneducated adults, both deaf and hearing, have difficulties with passing the false belief test, and partially support the role of language in this development. The rest of the thesis aims to characterize conceptual tools that can be used to reinterpret such findings within an action-based framework. Chapter three defines the notion of “action schemas” as interactive and anticipative processes that can be applied in a general way across cognition and are especially powerful in modeling development. Chapter four reinterprets empirical findings presented in chapter two as well as other related findings in the literature through the lens of action schemas. Overall, it is argued that conceptual tools like action schemas can be beneficial for reinterpreting empirical findings within an action-based framework, which can then provide novel accounts of developmental processes.
In search of a syntactic relationship between rhythm and language
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Akkaya, Aziz Muhammed.; Mungan, Esra.; Logacev, Pavel.
Linguistic and musical syntax have been shown to rely on shared resources (Patel, 2003). In this study, we investigate the effect of an accompanying rhythm, another hierarchical domain, on sentence processing accuracy and speed. Two experiments were conducted to inspect the possible existence of shared processing of linguistic and rhythmic syntax. In the first experiment, sentences were manipulated to yield two levels of complexity: subject and object relative clauses. Rhythm was manipulated by using structured rhythms: sL, ssL, sssL, and sLL pulse sequences where “s” stands for a shorter inter-stimulus interval and L for a longer one. The s:L duration ratio was 1:2 (150ms:300ms). An isochronous (sssss..) control condition was also included. In the critical condition, the upbeat (s) that is heard right at the relative clause was presented 50 ms earlier. The dependent measure was participants’ correct response rates and response times on the subsequent comprehension questions. The second experiment was identical to the first experiment with the exception that distorted rhythms were replaced with random beats to eliminate any structure in that condition. It was hypothesized that the rhythmic deviation in Experiment 1 would create competition of syntactical processing resources and hence decrease linguistic comprehension performance. In Experiment 2, we expected the random but not the structured rhythm condition to debilitate semantic processing of the sentences due to a complete "disconnectedness" between rhythmic and linguistic syntax. All the findings were null. There was no main effect of sentence and rhythm and interaction between the two in either of the experiments. This may indicate that rhythm and harmony rely on a different mechanism.
Belief dynamics and the role of epistemic peership in identity construction
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Karatoprak, Mark Ohan.; Boduroğlu, Ayşecan.; Thorpe, Lucas.
The drive for social inclusion has been observed to impact both individual beliefs and their corresponding behaviors. An individual’s uncertainty regarding their position within their affiliated groups has been identified as a factor contributing to the spread of conspiratorial ideation and extreme beliefs. The following paper introduces a model of belief dynamics adapted from predictive brain models which attempts to consolidate a broad range of existing psychology literature. It predicts that individuals will attempt to resolve perceived divergence from the beliefs of their affiliated groups by adjustments to their ideological positions. The model defines this as one strategy of uncertainty mitigation in social contexts. In three experiments, participants were asked to indicate their beliefs regarding a range of topics and the importance of those topics to their identities. Their responses were used to generate the illusion of a group of participants with similar beliefs. Participants were shown fabricated results indicating their divergence in opinion on one particular topic out of the range of topics and then given the opportunity to change their position on that topic. We found participants were more likely to change their endorsement of particular statements to reflect group opinion if they identified strongly with the beliefs used to generate the group. These results suggest that individual endorsements are influenced by others with whom they share a range of ideological positions.
An lexicon for idiomatic compounds in Turkish
(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2007., 2007.) Eyigöz, Kadriye Elif.; Demiralp, Mine Nakipoğlu.; Say, Ahmet Celal Cem.
This work presents and comprises a constraint-based case-frame lexicon for idiomatic compounds headed by verbs in Turkish. The lexicon covers ten Turkish verbs with the highest number of senses to be used in natural language processing applications for representing and resolving senses of idiomatic compounds. This thesis gives detailed instructions, suggests conventions and describes a structure for organizing the data in the lexicon. It also provides a sample lexicon for ten verbs organized according to the structure proposed, in order to form a guideline for future lexicographic work based on this study.
MorphLaz :|a finite-state morphological analyzer for Laz
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2021., 2021.) Önal, Esra.; Özgür, Arzucan.; Öztürk, Balkız.
This thesis is a part of documentation and revitalization efforts of the endangered Laz language, a member of South Caucasian language family mainly spoken on the northeastern coastline of Turkey. It introduces the implementation of the first automatic language analysis tool for Laz, specifically for Pazar dialect designed as a rule-based morphological analyzer developed with two-level morphology using finite-state networks. Additional language resources such as lexicon and corpus were collected for the purposes of increasing the coverage power and evaluating the performance of the analyzer. Morphologically rich languages create many challenges for natural language processing (NLP) tasks. In order to develop high or low-level NLP systems such as lemmatization, part-of-speech-tagging, spelling correction and machine translation, in any NLP pipeline, the first aim is usually to do some sort of morphological analysis on text or speech. Among different approaches to the computational study of morphology, for this study, due to the low amount of language and computational resources, I chose a rule-based approach that is highly accepted and used for formalizing morphotactics and morphophonemics, namely two-level morphology and finite-state transducers. The evaluation is based on naïve coverage of the analyzer over text data and error analysis. The results show 78.2% of coverage over the unique tokens in Pazar Laz corpus (PLC), 92.1% of coverage over Laz Treebank and 74.3% on Fındıklı Laz corpus (FLC). Error analysis on PLC results indicates that most of the word forms that could not be analyzed are due to missing word stems
Effects of scaling shoulder width in virtual reality on reachability and pass-through-ability affordances
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2021., 2021.) Andaç, Safa.; Ayhan, İnci.; Uğur, Emre.
Perceiving affordances, the action-possibilities of a system in an environment, is a survival key for the system (Gibson, 1966). Changing invariants for the system shapes its affordance perception (Warren & Whang, 1987). Pass-through-ability of an aperture, as a perceived affordance, is determined by the fit between the apparent aspects of the environment (e.g., perceived gap) and the perceived body scale. Changing body perception in real life depends on using tools such as a wheelchair or a long stick (Higuchi, Cinelli, Greig, & Patla, 2006; Higuchi, Cinelli, & Patla, 2009). Here, in order to understand the effects of body scaling on the affordance of pass through-ability and reachability, we conducted a virtual reality and a simulation study. Participants were assigned to different virtual shoulder widths scaled to their real size (narrow, normal and wide). In the experiment, they were asked to walk naturally to pass through an aperture without colliding and reach a target on a table. The success rate of passing through an aperture and the speed were similar in all conditions, which implied that participants adapted their virtual bodies. We also showed that participants were closer to the target when assigned narrow compared to a normal-size shoulder, suggesting that participants thought their body became smaller, so they moved closer to the target. In order to control the adaptation for conditions, we also conducted a perceptual judgement experiment. Also reflected in the perceptual judgements, participants with narrow virtual shoulders thought that they had smaller shoulder width, an effect not observed in the wide shoulder condition, which together demonstrate an asymmetry in the effects of body scaling.
Morality-as-cooperation :|how it relates to construal levels and how the theory could improve
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2020., 2020.) Kılıç, Zafer.; Thorpe, Lucas.; Sarıbay, Adil.
This thesis is composed of two main parts. The first part involves an experimental study following Alper and Yilmaz (2020), who, informed by previous findings and construal level theory, hypothesized that experimentally evoking an abstract mindset would increase moral consistency and increase the valuation of individualizing moral foundations. However, their results did not support either of their hypotheses, adding to the mixed findings accumulated by previous research. I tested the same hypotheses as Alper and Yilmaz (2020) by using a more recent and sophisticated measure of morality based on morality-as-cooperation theory instead of moral foundations theory. However, the results again did not support the hypotheses. Additionally, I examined the possible influence of trait-level abstract-mindedness on the hypothesized effects. I failed to find any interaction effects other than that mindset manipulation increased the valuation of individualizing moral foundation only in the case of characteristically abstract-minded people. When combined, these findings indicate that the mindset manipulation may be overwhelmed by trait-level abstract/concrete mindedness, thus cannot influence moral attitudes. The second part comprises a critical assessment of morality-as-cooperation theory, which I employed in the experimental study. I attempted to show that the theory falls short of explaining certain aspects of human morality because it neglects the role of conformity to social norms. Then, I offer a theoretically grounded proposal supported by relevant empirical studies to improve the theory by integrating conformity as a moral foundation into morality-as-cooperation framework.
The effects of extensive musical training on time perception regarding hemispheric lateralization, different time ranges and generalization to different modalities
(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2007., 2007.) Sevinç, Emre.; Canbeyli, Reşit.
Time perception and estimation are very important aspects of human behavior. Whether these are based on a single internal clock or the result of distributed and emergent processes in the brain is still a matter of debate. The present thesis investigated the effects of lateralized presentation of auditory and tactile stimulation to assess whether time estimation is lateralized and affected by stimulus modality. Additionally, performances of both female and male trained musicians were compared to those of non-musicians to evaluate the effects of gender and training in time estimation. In an identical subject design, subjects attended a time duration comparison task for short (100 to 900 milliseconds in 50 milliseconds increments with a standard stimulus of 500 msec) and long ranges (1 to 5 seconds in 250 milliseconds increments with a standard of 3000 msec) in auditory and tactile modalities. Subjects listened to pairs of sounds either monaurally or binaurally and indicated whether the two stimuli were of equal duration. Tactile (vibratory) stimuli were applied on the top of either the right or the left hand. Stimulus pairs were presented in ascending or descending order. The results suggested a gender difference; males were more accurate in time estimation. Gender differences may be due to different corpus callosum sizes between males and females. Findings also suggested that musicians were more accurate except for the short tactile range. Better performance by musicians in both modalities suggests that time estimation in one modality can be generalized to others. Additionally, an analysis of estimation errors compared to the standard durations (percent of error) indicated that overall performance was better in the long range. There was no significant laterality effect except for long range tactile condition. Better overall performances of subjects in estimating the longer standard duration suggest that there may be different timing mechanisms in the brain, such as for long ranges which may include cognitive processes and for short ranges that are more low-level (sensory) and automatic. The present results also provide support for the view that the brain does not have a lateralized internal clock.
Effects of working memory and language proficiency on second language predictive inference generation :|an eye-movement study
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2019., 2019.) Sivridağ, Fatih.; Erçetin, Naciye Gülcan.; Dinçtopal, Nazik.
In this study, the effects of language proficiency and working memory capacity on predictive inference generation during reading in a second language (L2) were investigated by analysing L2 readers’ early and late eye-movements while they were reading predictive or neutral passages. The results suggested that while L2 readers can make predictive inferences on-line during reading regardless of their proficiency level or working memory (WM) capacity, these two factors and their interaction determine the time course of inference generation through different mechanisms. While WM capacity facilitates referent-antecedent resolution and readers with higher WM capacity can benefit para-foveal processing more, proficiency increases reading speed and makes lower level processes less resource consuming. As a result, high WM readers showed facilitation effects of prediction even before they encounter the to-be-predicted word, especially when the pre-target required referent-antecedent association. On the other hand, while high language proficiency readers can show the effect of prediction during early processing of the target word, low proficiency readers can show facilitation during late processing of pre-target word. During the late-processing of pre-target word, WM and language proficiency will have an interaction effect due to differences in mechanisms through which they contribute to predictive inference generation. Although all groups of readers showed facilitation effects relatively early, the greatest facilitation emerged during late processing of the sentence final word, where sentence wrap-up processes take place. This is in line with L1 studies and its implications for L2 reading were discussed.
Inconsistency and multiplicity in the self
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2019., 2019.) Tetik, Mehmet Abdulkerim.; Voss, Stephen,; Sarıbay, Adil.
This thesis consists of an empirical study and a philosophical discussion. The empirical part is based on the Multiple Self-Aspect Framework whose fundamental principle argues that the self-concept is not unitary and it is composed of multiple self-aspects which reflect important components of one’s personal life such as roles, social identities, relationships etc. Self-aspects are associated with attributes and when a self-aspect becomes activated via contextual inputs, its associated attributes become more accessible. The aim of the empirical study of this thesis was to investigate how one’s perception change when two different self-aspects that are associated with opposing attributes become activated at the same time. Results showed that (1) simultaneous self-aspect activation rendered both opposing attributes and both self-aspects more accessible than baseline levels; (2) yet one opposing attribute still received more accessibility boost than the other, similarly one selfaspect became more accessible than the other. Philosophical implications of this empirical study along with the whole body of work derived from the Multiple Self- Aspect Framework are discussed subsequently: (1) in terms of how these philosophical implications relate to philosophical discussions of unity - multiplicity in the self, especially to Korsgaard’s Constitution Model; (2) one of the crucial findings of the broad work related to the Multiple Self-Aspect Framework is that in general, people lack global traits. The implication of this finding is discussed in conjunction with the Situationism - Virtue Ethics debate.

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