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About MacSphere

MacSphere is McMaster University's Institutional Repository (IR). The purpose of an IR is to bring together all of a University's research under one umbrella, with an aim to preserve and provide access to that research. The research and scholarly output included in MacSphere has been selected and deposited by the individual university departments and centres on campus.

To contribute to McMaster's Institutional Repository, please sign on to MacSphere with your MAC ID.

If you have any questions, please contact the MacSphere Support Team.

Students wishing to deposit their PhD or Masters thesis, please follow the instructions outlined by the School of Graduate Studies.

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Recent Submissions

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    CONDITIONING AND PERCEPTION: THE MCCOLLOUGH EFFECT AND THE INDIRECT MCCOLLOUGH EFFECT
    (1994-02) Thomas Evan Eissenberg
    According to a conditioning analysis ofthe orientation-contingent colour aftereffect (McCollough effect, ME), orientation stimuli (grids) become associated with colour. Challenges to this interpretation include the suggestion that specific patterned stimuli are required to elicit the effect, that the effect is not influenced by manipulations ofthe grid colour correlation, and that some colour aftereffects appear to be elicited by stimuli that are never paired with colour (i.e. the indirect ME). The present results indicate: (a) nonpattemed stimuli — the lightness of a frame surrounding a coloured area — can contingently elicit colour aftereffects; (b) this frame lightness contingent-colour aftereffect can be used to demonstrate that correlational manipulations affect the ME; and (c) that the indirect ME is elicited by form and frame stimuli that have been previously paired with colour. Thus the present results support a conditioning analysis of both the ME and the indirect ME.
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    "THE WRECK OF THE DEUTSCHLAND" AS POETIC MANIFESTO
    (1988-09) Lori-ann Bumstead
    Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem, "The Wreck of the Deutschland", breaks forth from a fairly lengthy period of self-imposed poetic silence, during which the poet struggled to reconcile his literary interests with his priestly vocation. That "The Wreck..." was written at all attests to the resolution of the conflicts which had led Hopkins to give up poetry, but the poem must be recognized as much more than a physical indication of Hopkins's resolution. In this thesis I examine the poem as a kind of joyous poetic manifesto, proclaiming and celebrating Hopkins's new-found conviction that "poetry proper" could name God, and that he, as poet, could thus serve and glorify God. Hopkins's unique understanding of the Incarnation played a crucial role in his development of poetic theory, and this understanding shapes and informs "The Wreck of the Deutschland" as well. Stanzas five to eight in particular demonstrate Hopkins's conviction that divine inspiration, manifested in two distinct ways, could move a poet to "word" God, and that such divinely inspired utterances could in turn, inspire the "hearers" of the poem. Hopkins's ambitions as an agent in the re-conversion of his beloved England to Roman Catholicism are the source of the curiously ecstatic mood of the poem which is ostensibly written in commemoration of the five Franciscan nuns who drowned in the shipwreck off the coast of England "between midnight and morning of Dec. 7th, 1875" (Poems 51).
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    Exploring the Feasibility of Self-Guided Neurofeedback Training in Trauma-Related Mental Health Conditions
    (2026) Levy, Yarden
    Posttraumatic stress disorder is a mental health disorder characterized by symptoms of re-experiencing, avoidance, increased arousal, and negative patterns affecting thoughts, feelings, and physical responses to stress. In a subgroup of individuals with the dissociative subtype (PTSD+DS), trauma can manifest as a significant disconnection from the body, leading to feelings of detachment and fogginess. The current gold-standard treatments for PTSD often yield poorer outcomes with dissociative presentations. Neurofeedback training (NFT), a technique that monitors neural rhythms in real time, has demonstrated significant improvement using both functional magnetic resonance imaging (blood flow through the brain) and electroencephalography (EEG; monitors changes in the brain’s electrical activity). However, less is known about the use of a portable EEG-NFT in real-world settings. This dissertation aims to fill that gap by conducting research examining the acceptability and feasibility of self-guided EEG-NFT as an adjunctive treatment, with a particular emphasis on trauma-related mental health conditions. The ultimate purpose is to see whether self-guided EEG-NFT enhances therapeutic outcomes beyond those achieved through standard therapy alone. Chapter 2 investigates the effectiveness of NFT combined with an aerobic training program in sedentary undergraduate students. Chapter 3 assesses the efficacy of adjunctive NFT in an inpatient trauma unit. Chapter 4 evaluates the effectiveness of NFT as an adjunctive treatment to a cognitive remediation training program.
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    Harms Associated with the Divide Between Social and Medical Understandings of Women's Reproductive Health
    (2026) Morawski, Izabella
    Epistemology and feminism have shown us many of the problems that exist within healthcare for women. What these two miss is the issue that the social communities and medical communities fail to inform each other when looking at women’s reproductive health. In other words, feminism and epistemology have missed that there is a disconnect, or divide, between these two groups which uniquely reinforces itself due to information not being completely transferred. Epistemology and feminism have proven that certain voices are not considered credible due to gender and racial biases (among others), and many individuals choose to minimize their interaction with the medical field. Medical research and clinical practice ignore key testimonies and (intentionally or unintentionally) gatekeep critical information about health from their patients through medical terminology or paywalls. Rather than interacting and building off of each other, a divide is formed about women and their reproductive health and is a reason why when it comes to women’s healthcare, medicine is not equal, science is behind, and women are left dismissed, misdiagnosed, and face inequitable health outcomes. This project includes case studies such as hormonal birth control (HBC) and menstrual blood colours to reinforce its position that lived experience is just as important as the biological experience to build a comprehensive overview of women’s health. This project will suggest a restructuring of the healthcare system to incorporate a more phenomenological approach that incorporates and validates both the personal and biological and which allows for a more fruitful collaboration between patient and physician. Without this collaboration, our system functions on differing levels of power dynamics, mistrust, misinformation, and isolation. The collaboration between the social and medical is imperative for medical advancement and social justice.
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