electronic resource

Mistakes in combining components of stimuli are called binding or memory conjunction errors. They occur when people mistakenly associate two previously seen stimulus features that were not previously seen together. It is hypothesized that bizarre items will be better remembered than common items. Participants saw 18 continuous events, each containing four actions performed by four different actors. One week later they returned for a recognition test and were shown more video clips. There were old, new action, and conjunction items. A conjunction item was composed of a familiar actor performing a familiar action that had previously been performed by someone else. For each clip, participants were asked if they saw this person perform this action before. Participants responded "yes" to conjunction same context items more often than they did to conjunction different context items.

In the Eastern United States, the Florida coastline provides 85% of all nesting sites for the green (Chelonia mydas), leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), and loggerhead (Caretta caretta) sea turtles. Palm Beach County beaches experience some of the highest nesting frequencies, but recreational use of the beaches has increased threats like raccoon predation. The Gumbo Limbo Nature Center (GLNC) in Boca Raton (founded in 1984) keeps records of nests and predators to the nests. I analyzed 4554 GLNC nest records from 2002-2007 to examine whether raccoon predation of turtle nests was most prevalent in areas of high human impact. I found that raccoon predation occurred at significantly higher rates in areas with public access to the beach than in areas without such access (high access: 50.8%, low access: 14.4%, overall: 36.4%). This suggests the necessity of increased protection of nests in areas of high access for the preservation of nesting populations.

National Security Letters allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to obtain records on individuals from corporations without prior judicial intervention or approval. Statutory changes, most significantly those resulting from the passage of the United States Patriot Act in 2001, have substantially altered the four different federal statutes from which National Security Letters originate. In creating these National Security Letters the government intended to protect its citizens from national security threats. This goal has been regarded historically as legitimate, but the legislation potentially limits rights, which raises the question of whether these letters are acceptable. Drawing on relevant case law and scholarly opinion, I argue that use of these letters is unacceptable and may render the Fourth Amendment's protection of person and property from unreasonable searches meaningless in certain federal investigations.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's work is intrinsically connected to the American dream, which is the belief that through hard work and determination one can achieve success. The lives of the male protagonists in The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night, however, reveal the many flaws of the American dream. The most significant flaw, as Fitzgerald demonstrates, is that although a certain level of success is possible, a dreamer is never satisfied. Despite the passage of nine years between the publication of the two novels and the changes the nation underwent between 1925 and 1934, Fitzgerald's opinion is not altered; he remains pessimistic. He concludes in both novels that [the] American dream cannot be attained.

This study provides evidence for an age bias in face recognition. Younger adults viewed short video clips of young actors or of actors over the age of 60 performing everyday actions. One week later, participants were tested on their memory for these events. Recognition event types included same, completely new, and conjunction items. In conjunction items, a familiar actor performed a familiar action that had actually been performed by someone else during encoding. Participants performed well at picking out the new and old events, but had more difficulty distinguishing between the conjunction events. Younger adults were significantly worse at recognizing the conjunction items when the age of the actor was different from encoding to retrieval. This study supports the hypothesis that people are better able to recognize and distinguish others within a similar age range compared to people outside that range.

The Abacoa Greenway is a manmade artificial water system constructed in the late 1990s, and home to an array of aquatic flora and fauna. There has been no previous survey of the species residing in this area; therefore this will be a foundation for future samplings to compare to. The goal of this study was to compile a species list of fishes inhabiting the freshwater systems of the Abacoa Greenway Ranges IV and V, as well as a classification of exotic and native species inhabiting the area. A total of 11 species have been collected and identified between March 2007 and May 2008. Of these three species have been classified as exotic or introduced and the other eight as native species naturally existing in Florida.

My study focuses on oscillating political context to find what factors are conducive to the proposal and ultimate success of executive-generated, liberal health care policy. When it comes to initiating policy change, most of the existing literature concentrates on individuals in Congress or local level politicians. Beginning with the advent of the so-called "Modern Presidency" during the early years of the twentieth century, the President has increasingly played an active role in government, particularly with respect to legislation--he can be considered a "policy entrepreneur." I use data on variables from 1959 to 2004 and employ the Two-Stage Conditional Maximum Likelihood Model. I find that a more liberal President is likely to propose health care legislation that necessitates increased government involvement. I also determine that Congress is more likely to approve a liberal Presidential proposal when the government is unified and public opinion polls indicate people are more receptive to government intervention.

In Ford Madox Ford's 1915 novel The Good Soldier, John Dowell comments "I had never sounded the depths of an English heart," as he painstakingly reconstructs his "extreme intimacy" with his late wife and their two closest friends. Throughout his narrative, Dowell approaches the limits of language, struggling to connect with lost companions by bringing language into scenes of miscommunication and silence. By translating emotional impasses and wordless exchanges from memory into narrative, Dowell seems to make these wordless interactions wordful. Ludwig Wittgenstein's investigation into "private language" helps elucidate Dowell's realization that he cannot fill wordlessness with words to reconstruct his memories. If Dowell can't fill wordlessness with words, his failure to "sound the depths of an English heart" isn't a failure at all, but rather an exposition on "private language" as public language, demonstrating that misunderstandings can be our best attempts at understanding each other.

Culture Jammers, an activist guerilla-like movement, entered the global scene in the 1990s and, through public performances, attempt to draw attention to their claim that the US economic structure is facing a fundamental need to shift away from a consumer-oriented capitalist economy. As an alternative, the activists propose--True Cost economics, a model that would include the costs of negative production and consumption externalities in the pricing of commodities. In this paper, I focus on culture jammers' critique of neoclassical economics, more specifically, the clash of the--new paradigm (True Cost economics) and the old paradigm (neoclassical economics). In evaluating whether True Cost economics is a feasible alternative, I graphically examine how the True Cost solution and the neoclassical market model correct for negative externalities to reveal similarities in the two models.

In 1992, the State of Florida passed a constitutional amendment to cap the increase in the annual assessment of homestead properties. The amendment, known as Save Our Homes, has created a horizontal equity problem as neighboring homeowners may be paying substantially different amounts of property taxes on similar properties. In light of the recent property tax reform attempts, it is appropriate to analyze the effect of a change in Florida's homestead exemption and Save Our Homes provision in order to eliminate the inequity problem. In this paper I will show that by replacing the homestead exemption and Save Our Homes Cap with a property tax levy limit and adjusting the millage accordingly there exists the potential to alleviate the horizontal inequities associated with Florida's property tax system.