csi undergraduate conference on research, scholarship ... - CSI Today

Research Poster PresentationsP O S T E R 3The Demise of Enron andArthur AndersenMichael FerrandinoFaculty Mentor: Professor Deborah BrickmanDepartment of BusinessEnron was one of the largest corporations inAmerica. Its stock increased 87% from 1999 to2000, Fortune magazine put Enron on its Fortune500 list as the seventh largest corporation in 2000and its CEO, Jeff Skilling, was rated the top CEO inAmerica. Arthur Anderson LLP, Enron’s auditor, wasa big five international accounting firm with $9billion in revenue, 85,000 staff around the worldand was known for its ethical accounting standards.Yet, in 2000, everything changed. Enron’s stockprice suddenly dropped, and its executives werequickly selling off their stock. Enron laterannounced that it was changing its financialstatements for previous and current years due to“accounting errors.” Investors lost millions in theirinvestments and 401(k) plans and thousands ofemployees lost their jobs. Arthur Andersenshredded important Enron documents uponhearing of the investigation. People from bothcompanies were brought up on charges such assecurities fraud, manipulating evidence and insidertrading. Eventually, Enron completely dissolved andArthur Andersen had its CPA license revoked. Afterall of this, people wondered: how could this havehappened? This is the question that my thesis triesto answer. By answering this question, we canfigure out how to avoid events such as these, whichhave significant negative impacts on individualsand the economy, from ever happening again.P O S T E R 4The Effects of Video-game Play onVarious Cognitive and InformationProcessing Skills: A Meta-AnalytMelissa Anne PalladinoFaculty Mentor: Dr. Patricia BrooksDepartment of PsychologyAs the controversy over excessive video game playgrows, so arises the demand for scientific researchfocusing on either positive or negative effects onplayers. The present research attempts to examinethe cognitive impact of video game play on players’information processing. An extensive literaturereview was conducted yielding 38 papers to beincluded in this meta-analysis (52 experiments with204 comparisons). We examined a variety ofoutcome measures: mental rotation and otheraspects of visual-spatial processing (multiple objecttracking, contrast sensitivity, hand-eye-motorcoordination, etc.), reaction time, and selectiveattention. Preliminary analyses of the 55 studies,using a random effects model, indicate that videogame playing enhances information processingskills, d = .68 (95% CI = .53/.84). Moderatorsinclude amount of video game play, game type,experiment type, and population, including age andgender. Findings will be discussed with attentionpaid to educational implications for multiplepopulations.30