Valerie Sims
University of Central Florida, Psychology, Faculty Member
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VIDEO GAME CHARACTERISTICS AND PLAYER ABILITY James Cotton Daniel Mayes Florian Jentsch Valerie Sims University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Video game production has grown into a multi-billion dollar... more
... THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VIDEO GAME CHARACTERISTICS AND PLAYER ABILITY James Cotton Daniel Mayes Florian Jentsch Valerie Sims University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Video game production has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry. ...
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This research assessed the importance of rendering specific details when creating a virtual forest. Specifically, we examined memory for computer-generated trees using a modified recognition task in which participants were shown a target... more
This research assessed the importance of rendering specific details when creating a virtual forest. Specifically, we examined memory for computer-generated trees using a modified recognition task in which participants were shown a target tree, engaged in a distractor task, and then ranked the similarity of seven foils to the original tree they had seen. Five of the foils represented changes on only one dimension of the tree whereas the other two foils represented modifications to either five features previously identified as salient or all nine tree features. Results showed that similarity rankings were largely based on overall structural similarity of the trees as opposed to similarity on smaller details such as branch thickness or leaf size. Additionally, perceived similarity rankings varied as a function of the symmetry of the tree. Virtual forests need to show realism for different features depending on the forest type.
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... Valerie K. Sims Matthew G. Chin Hana S. Smith Tatiana Ballion David J. Sushil Michael Strand Sarah Mendoza University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Randall Shumaker Institute for Simulation and Training Orlando, Florida ...
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Research Interests:
Recent advances in CPU and commodity graphics hardware performance as well as head-mounted display (HMD) resolution allow for rendering of more realistic virtual environments. While in the past virtual environments were geometrically... more
Recent advances in CPU and commodity graphics hardware performance as well as head-mounted display (HMD) resolution allow for rendering of more realistic virtual environments. While in the past virtual environments were geometrically simple, complex geometry and ...
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Research Interests:
Anthropomorphism is the assignment of human traits to the behavior of computers. This may occur because humans are projecting their own mind onto the device. To measure this requires a direct comparison of mental traits, such as... more
Anthropomorphism is the assignment of human traits to the behavior of computers. This may occur because humans are projecting their own mind onto the device. To measure this requires a direct comparison of mental traits, such as personality. This study seeks to determine if a personality inventory used for humans has items that can also be used to describe the perceived personality of computers. Participants rated the 50-Item IPIP Big Five Personality inventory for whether each question could describe a computer. Results show that only 16 of the items were rated at or above neutral in their ability to describe a computer. These items were validated with a factor analysis to show that they correspond to the dimensions of Conscientiousness and Openness in humans. This indicates that it may be possible to directly compare the ‘minds’ of humans and computers, but only on certain personality dimensions.
Objective The purpose of the present research is to establish measurement equivalence and test differences in reliability between computerized and pencil-and-paper-based tests of spatial cognition. Background Researchers have increasingly... more
Objective The purpose of the present research is to establish measurement equivalence and test differences in reliability between computerized and pencil-and-paper-based tests of spatial cognition. Background Researchers have increasingly adopted computerized test formats, but few attempt to establish equivalence for computer-based and paper-based tests. The mixed results in the literature on the test mode effect, which occurs when performance differs as a function of test medium, highlight the need to test for, instead of assume, measurement equivalence. One domain that has been increasingly computerized and is thus in need of tests of measurement equivalence across test mode is spatial cognition. Method In the present study, 244 undergraduate students completed two measures of spatial ability (i.e., spatial visualization and cross-sectioning) in either computer- or paper-and-pencil-based format. Results Measurement equivalence was not supported across computer-based and paper-base...
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Research Interests:
Psychology, Logic, Cognition, Learning, Problem Solving, and 4 moreReasoning, Teaching Methods, Impact, and Recall
Page 1. PROCEEDINGS of the HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS SOCIETY 45th ANNUAL MEETING-2001 THE USEOF A ROUTEAND SURVEYCOMPOSITEDISPLAYFOR NAVIGATIONALTRAININGIN VIRTUALENVIRONMENTS Derek D. Diaz & Valerie Sims ...
The goals of this study were to assess the risk identification aspect of mental models using standard elicitation methods and how university campus alerts were related to these mental models. People fail to follow protective action... more
The goals of this study were to assess the risk identification aspect of mental models using standard elicitation methods and how university campus alerts were related to these mental models. People fail to follow protective action recommendations in emergency warnings. Past research has yet to examine cognitive processes that influence emergency decision-making. Study 1 examined 2 years of emergency alerts distributed by a large southeastern university. In Study 2, participants listed emergencies in a thought-listing task. Study 3 measured participants' time to decide if a situation was an emergency. The university distributed the most alerts about an armed person, theft, and fire. In Study 2, participants most frequently listed fire, car accident, heart attack, and theft. In Study 3, participants quickly decided a bomb, murder, fire, tornado, and rape were emergencies. They most slowly decided that a suspicious package and identify theft were emergencies. Recent interaction with warnings was only somewhat related to participants' mental models of emergencies. Risk identification precedes decision-making and applying protective actions. Examining these characteristics of people's mental representations of emergencies is fundamental to further understand why some emergency warnings go ignored. Someone must believe a situation is serious to categorize it as an emergency before taking the protective action recommendations in an emergency warning. Present-day research must continue to examine the problem of people ignoring warning communication, as there are important cognitive factors that have not yet been explored until the present research.
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ABSTRACT
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Page 1. 166 Anthrozoös, 15 (2) . 2002 Sims & Chin Responsiveness and perceived intelligence as predictors of speech addressed to cats Valerie K. Sims and Matthew G. Chin Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida, USA... more
Page 1. 166 Anthrozoös, 15 (2) . 2002 Sims & Chin Responsiveness and perceived intelligence as predictors of speech addressed to cats Valerie K. Sims and Matthew G. Chin Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida, USA Abstract ...
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There have been relatively few studies on the relationship between recent perceived environmental stress and cognitive performance, and the existing studies do not control for state anxiety during the cognitive testing. The current study... more
There have been relatively few studies on the relationship between recent perceived environmental stress and cognitive performance, and the existing studies do not control for state anxiety during the cognitive testing. The current study addressed this need by examining recent self-reported environmental stress and divided attention performance, while controlling for state anxiety. Fifty-four university undergraduates who self-reported a wide range of perceived recent stress (10-item perceived stress scale) completed both single and dual (simultaneous auditory and visual stimuli) continuous performance tests. Partial correlation analysis showed a statistically significant positive correlation between perceived stress and the auditory omission errors from the dual condition, after controlling for state anxiety and auditory omission errors from the single condition (r = 0.41). This suggests that increased environmental stress relates to decreased divided attention performance in auditory vigilance. In contrast, an increase in state anxiety (controlling for perceived stress) was related to a decrease in auditory omission errors from the dual condition (r = - 0.37), which suggests that state anxiety may improve divided attention performance. Results suggest that further examination of the neurobiological consequences of environmental stress on divided attention and other executive functioning tasks is needed.
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Research demonstrates the importance of early social interactions in the development of schemas and automatic thoughts. It does not appear, however, that the existing research examines intergenerational correlations in automatic thoughts.... more
Research demonstrates the importance of early social interactions in the development of schemas and automatic thoughts. It does not appear, however, that the existing research examines intergenerational correlations in automatic thoughts. As a result, this study explores the relationship between the automatic thoughts of parents and those of their college-age children in a sample of 252 college students and their mothers and fathers. Results of this study suggest that there are significant relationships between parents' and college students' positive automatic thoughts. Different trends by gender also are noted in the relationships among variables for male and female college students with their mothers and fathers. Further, mothers' positive ATs predicted the positive ATs of their college students, with mothers' ratings of their own communication with their college students mediating partially this relationship. Finally, college students' anxiety and self-esteem is predicted significantly by their mothers' anxiety and self-esteem (respectively) as well as their own positive and negative ATs. These findings suggest the possibility that ATs play a role in the intergenerational transmission of certain domains of psychological functioning.
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Research Interests:
Page 1. MULTIMODAL WORKING MEMORY: THE UNFOLDING STORY Shatha N. Samman 1 , Valerie Sims 2 , and Kay M. Stanney 2 ... ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work has been sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under Grant N00014-02-1-0927. ...
Page 1. CONFIRMATION BIAS IN SCIENTIFIC REASONING: THE ROLES OF GENDER, PERCEIVED COMPETENCE AND ACTUAL COMPETENCE Tatiana T. Ballion Valerie K. Sims Sidra I. Van de Car University of Central Florida ...
Page 1. The Mental Rotation Of Objects Presented In An Underwater Environment. Anthony R. Selkowitz and Valerie K. Sims University of Central Florida Fifty-Six undergraduates completed a series of mental rotation exercises ...
Abstract Participants rated machine “faces” which varied in terms of facial feature shape, face shape, and eight facial background textures. Ratings were made for aggression, friendliness, intelligence, trustworthiness, and degree of... more
Abstract Participants rated machine “faces” which varied in terms of facial feature shape, face shape, and eight facial background textures. Ratings were made for aggression, friendliness, intelligence, trustworthiness, and degree of animation. In addition, reaction ...
Page 1. Robot Features are Examined as Artifacts, not as Faces Valerie K. Sims, Matthew G. Chin, Linda U. Ellis, Aaron A. Pepe, Anne M. Sinatra Psychology Department, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL Neal Finkelstein ...
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... Moshe Feldman, Heather C. Lum, Valerie K. Sims, Kimberly Smith-Jentsch, & Nicholas Lagattuta University of Central Florida ... of Naval Research Collaboration and Knowledge Interoperability (CKI) Program and... more
... Moshe Feldman, Heather C. Lum, Valerie K. Sims, Kimberly Smith-Jentsch, & Nicholas Lagattuta University of Central Florida ... of Naval Research Collaboration and Knowledge Interoperability (CKI) Program and ONR MURI Grant #N000140610446 (Dr Michael Letsky, Program ...
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Page 1. Size Does Matter: Automobile Facial Features Predict Consumer Attitudes Heather Lum Anne Sinatra Valerie K. Sims Matthew G. Chin Hana S. Smith University of Central Florida Randall Shumaker Institute for Simulation and Training... more
Page 1. Size Does Matter: Automobile Facial Features Predict Consumer Attitudes Heather Lum Anne Sinatra Valerie K. Sims Matthew G. Chin Hana S. Smith University of Central Florida Randall Shumaker Institute for Simulation and Training ...
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Page 1. THOSE A-MAZE-ING ROBOTS: ATTRIBUTIONS OF ABILITY ARE BASED ON FORM, NOT BEHAVIOR Linda Upham Ellis, Valerie K. Sims, Matthew G. Chin, Aaron A. Pepe, Clint W. Owens, Michael J. Dolezal University of Central Florida, Orlando,... more
Page 1. THOSE A-MAZE-ING ROBOTS: ATTRIBUTIONS OF ABILITY ARE BASED ON FORM, NOT BEHAVIOR Linda Upham Ellis, Valerie K. Sims, Matthew G. Chin, Aaron A. Pepe, Clint W. Owens, Michael J. Dolezal University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida ...
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ABSTRACT
Research Interests:
In three experiments we tested the effects of spatial visualization ability on performance of a motion-verification task, in which subjects were shown a diagram of a mechanical system and were asked to verify a sentence stating ...
Research Interests:
Psychology, Cognitive Science, Physics, Individuality, Cognition, and 15 moreMotion perception, Imagination, Problem Solving, Humans, Mental Imagery, Sentence Comprehension, Reasoning, Orientation, Reaction Time, Aptitude, Motion, Mechanical systems, Individual Difference, Neurosciences, and Physical Phenomena
The current study investigated contradictory findings from recent experimental and meta-analytic studies concerning working memory deficits in ADHD. Working memory refers to the cognitive ability to temporarily store and mentally... more
The current study investigated contradictory findings from recent experimental and meta-analytic studies concerning working memory deficits in ADHD. Working memory refers to the cognitive ability to temporarily store and mentally manipulate limited amounts of information for use in guiding behavior. Phonological (verbal) and visuospatial (nonverbal) working memory were assessed across four memory load conditions in 23 boys (12 ADHD, 11 typically developing) using tasks based on Baddeley's (Working memory, thought, and action, Oxford University Press, New York, 2007) working memory model. The model posits separate phonological and visuospatial storage and rehearsal components that are controlled by a single attentional controller (CE: central executive). A latent variable approach was used to partial task performance related to three variables of interest: phonological buffer/rehearsal loop, visuospatial buffer/rehearsal loop, and the CE attentional controller. ADHD-related working memory deficits were apparent across all three cognitive systems—with the largest magnitude of deficits apparent in the CE—even after controlling for reading speed, nonverbal visual encoding, age, IQ, and SES.
Texting while driving is a dangerous behavior that is heavily researched. However, there are other problematic texting habits that are less well-researched. A study was performed to examine other potentially problematic texting behaviors... more
Texting while driving is a dangerous behavior that is heavily researched. However, there are other problematic texting habits that are less well-researched. A study was performed to examine other potentially problematic texting behaviors in addition to texting while driving. Furthermore, individual differences in cognition and feelings of control were examined in relation to these texting habits. Participants completed several self-report surveys assessing texting habits, cognitive wisdom, and locus of control. It was found that those who text while driving also tend to text more during a movie, while in class, and while stopped in the car at a red light or traffic jam. It was also found that a somewhat high proportion of participants endorsed potentially problematic texting behaviors such as texting while stopped in the car and texting while about to fall asleep. It was concluded that one of the major issues with problematic texting relates to reductions in situation awareness. Add...
Recently, robots and artificial intelligence have been utilized in situations that are hazardous to humans. This experiment examined differences in performance, communication and perception when humans work with human or non-human... more
Recently, robots and artificial intelligence have been utilized in situations that are hazardous to humans. This experiment examined differences in performance, communication and perception when humans work with human or non-human "intelligent agent" teammates while engaged in a simulated search and rescue mission. Participants were found to speak more when working with a non-human partner and when more information on their partners? progress was shared. Results suggest that sharing information on the status of a mission may lead participants to interact differently with a non-human "intelligent agent" than a human.