Date of Award

1-2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department/Program

Psychology

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Joshua Sandry

Committee Member

Sarah Lowe

Committee Member

Daniel Simonet

Abstract

Depression, Stress and disordered sleep have been found to negatively affect cognition. However, the specific mechanisms affected are still unclear. These clinical symptoms are all independently associated with the hippocampus, where a memory process called pattern separation is assumed to occur. The current study aimed to further investigate the association between depression and pattern separation by further examining the role that sleep and stress play in this relationship. This study is an expansion from Shelton and Kirwan (2013) where they used the Mnemonic Similarities Task to evaluate lure discrimination and depression. I expanded on this by also evaluating sleep quality and perceived stress. These data were assessed using depression, sleep, and stress as predictors in a regression model to predict lure discrimination. The overall model was not significant. Depression and sleep were both significant main effects and the results in regards to anti-depressant use warrant further investigation. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

File Format

PDF

Download

Included in

Psychology Commons

Share

COinS