孤独症群体的孤岛能力

孤岛能力是个体在一般能力普遍落后的情况下某一个或几个领域表现出来的与其整体能力极不匹配的超常能力。令人惊讶的是,人类近一半的孤岛能力产自于孤独症谱系障碍。本文系统回顾了孤独症孤岛能力的特征、传统的各种心理学解释和当前最有力的认知神经科学发现:脑病理性优势假说和孤独症特质假说。在此基础上,本文认为脑优势中心的转移和混乱的大脑连接可能是孤岛能力产生的前提,而特定技能的遗传和后天的反复练习则是孤岛能力得以强化和巩固的重要因素。     

Proper Name Hypermnesia in an Autistic Subject

The case study of an autistic “savant” subject with person names hypermnesia is presented. NM's performance in memorizing person names is compared to that of normal controls, IQ-matched controls, and one overtrained control. The data show a selective hypermnesia for both the free recall of person names and the recognition of faces. Recall of common names and of biographical informations linked to faces is unremarkable. NM's hypermnesia is restricted to list learning as low performance is observed in face-name learning tasks. A comparison of the data with that of the overtrained control indicates that training is not responsible for NM's pattern of results. These findings, when combined with previous results involving proper names, demonstrate a double dissociation between proper names and other types of semantic and referential information. However, aspects of NM's performance pattern are more compatible with a network model of proper names than with a sequential model. We propose that the contextual regularity of proper names in ecological situations can be responsible for their high memorization by NM.     

Incidence of Savant Syndrome in Finland

The general incidence of Savant Syndrome was assessed in Finland. First, a survey was made of all 583 facilities which served people with mental retardation. Second, letters asking for information regarding people with Savant Syndrome were published in two key Finnish journals of the field. We received reports of 45 cases of Savant Syndrome. This makes an incidence rate of 1.4 per 1,000 people with mental retardation. The most common form of exceptional skills was calendar calculation, followed by feats of memory.     

The Role of Typical and Atypical Events in Story Memory

To understand how viewers or readers process and remember media narratives such as entertainment, news, and information is critical to our understanding of the mental processing of television and other media. Media stories contain both typical and atypical events and people, but little is known about how readers or viewers process and remember these two types of information. Participants in 2 experiments remembered atypical story items much better even a week later. However, the conservative way they treated atypical memories could give the illusion that typical items are better remembered than they really are. The results have implications for both mass media theory and theories of memory.     

Eyewitness Memory for Typical and Atypical Weapons in Cognitive Context

The present research addressed eyewitness memory for weapons, specifically for a modern semi‐automatic pistol and an antique flintlock, in order to address the influence of weapon novelty on recall for the given weapon. Additionally, the effect of explanatory backstory was examined in the same context; respondents were given prior information, which was either consistent or inconsistent with the presence of the flintlock in the scene, in order to gauge the influence of appropriate or inappropriate explanatory cognitive context. Finally, the effects of these variables on line‐up identification of the ‘suspect’ holding the given weapon were addressed. The results showed that weapon type did not influence recall accuracy for given weapons, although explanatory backstory did have a significant effect here, as initially predicted. Both weapon type and explanatory backstory produced significant effects on weapon recall errors, with the exotic weapon and the more prosaic backstory producing larger numbers of mistakes. Neither of these variables was associated with significant differences in line‐up performance. These results indicate the importance of prior cognitive context, as well as the physical appearance of weapons, in a full understanding of eyewitness processing of scenes involving firearms. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sequence Memory in Music Performance

Abstract— How do people remember and produce complex sequences like music or speech? Music provides an example of excellent sequence memory under fast performance conditions; novices as well as skilled musicians can perform memorized music rapidly, without making mistakes. In addition, musical pitches repeat often within a melodic sequence in different orders, yet people do not confuse the sequential ordering; temporal properties of musical pitches aid sequence memory. I describe a contextual model of sequence memory that is sensitive to the rate at which musical sequences are produced and to individual differences among performers. Age and musical experience differentiate adults' and children's memory for musical sequences during performance. Performers' memory for the sequential structure of one melody transfers or generalizes to other melodies in terms of the sequence of pitch events, their temporal properties, and their movements. Motion-analysis techniques provide further views of the time course of the cognitive processes that make sequence memory for music so accurate.     

When Children's Knowledge of Memory Improves Children's Performance in Memory

One of the strongest hypotheses in the field of metacognition research involves the positive effect of metamemory on memory performance. However, owing to the lack of appropriate instruments to appraise knowledge of memory, few studies have examined this effect among children. This study was conducted to create and validate an instrument to assess children's metamemory knowledge and link this knowledge with their memory performance and strategy use. A sample of 166 children was given a new three‐factor metamemory interview, and its psychometric properties were investigated. Regression analyses were carried out to investigate the link between metamemory and memory performance in a subgroup of 128 children from the validation study. Results confirmed the scale's good psychometric properties and revealed its ability to predict children's memory performance. However, none of the scale's factors could predict children's use of memory strategies. Implications for the study of children's metamemory development are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Word Memory Test Performance in Children

One-hundred and thirty-five children between the ages of 7 and 18 years were evaluated clinically. Their diagnoses included Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) or Effects, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Mood Disorder, various neurological diseases, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Conduct Disorder, Oppositional-Defiant Disorder and learning disabilities. As part of a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment, the children were given the Word Memory Test (WMT; Green, Allen, & Astner, 1996; Green & Astner, 1995), containing various subtests which measure, respectively, effort and verbal memory. Although age and verbal intelligence are known to affect scores on most ability tests, they were not found to be significant determinants of WMT effort scores. Younger children did not score any lower on the effort subtests than older children. The children scored as well as a group of parents seeking custody of their children and they scored higher than adult patients with mild head injuries. The computerized WMT requires some basic reading skills and some children with lower than a grade 3 reading level scored at a relatively low level on the effort subtests. The current data suggest that most children with at least a grade 3 reading level can pass the WMT using the adult criteria. It is concluded that the WMT is potentially useful in the evaluation of effort during pediatric neuropsychological evaluations. Further research is needed to replicate these findings and to develop child norms for the memory subtests.     

Memory Performance and Socio-Economic Status

Memory ability is affected by the physical, educational and health environments. The nature of these environments, in turn, differs across people with different socio-economic status (SES). Thus, it would be expected that memory performance would vary systematically with SES. However, memory researchers have yet to examine the relationship between economic variables and memory performance. This paper reviews several literatures (medical, public health, IQ, sociological and memory) to assess the relationship—if any—of socio-economic status to memory performance. The results of the review revealed that memory performance is strongly and directly correlated with SES. However, the results were not strong enough to determine whether the extent of this relationship differs across different kinds of memory. These results suggest that memory researchers should investigate further the nature of the relationship between SES and memory performance and take account of the possible influence of SES in the design and interpretation of memory data. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aging and Memory in Skilled Language Performance

The issue of irreversible decrements versus developmental plasticity with aging was explored for skilled language users. Fifteen English teachers (22 to 31 years of age) and 15 retired English teachers (50 to 83 years of age) were tested for language memory, using a 2 × 2 × 2 (Recall vs. Recognition × Meaningful vs. Nonmeaningful × Incidental vs. Intentional) design, and for overall grammar-skill memory, using speed and error measures. On the language-memory test, experimental variables (but not the age variable) were related to performance. On the grammar-skill test, the older subjects showed longer completion times but no decrements in accuracy. The results provided support for developmental plasticity in language memory and suggested an optimistic view of memory for skilled content areas.     

"白痴学者"之谜的哲学思考

提出解释白痴学者之谜的"左右脑发育不平衡假说".假说认为,白痴学者的独特思维特征源于左右脑的不平衡发育--白痴学者的左脑发育不全,偿补性地促使右脑得到充足发育,在一定环境条件下,诱发产生了白痴学者这一异常思维现象.根据假说,文章对白痴学者所表现的种种事实特征逐一加以解析说明.     

Protecting and Enhancing Eyewitness Memory: The Impact of an Initial Recall Attempt on Performance in an Investigative Interview

Evidence‐gathering begins at the scene of an incident. Available witnesses may be asked to provide an account of what happened, either in response to an open request for information or, in some regions, by completing a Self‐Administered Interview (SAI©). In both cases, an investigative interview may be conducted at some later date. This study sought to determine the impact of an initial retrieval attempt on a subsequent interview. After exposure to a mock crime, participants completed an SAI© or a free recall (FR), or did not engage in an initial retrieval (Control). One week later, participants were interviewed with a Cognitive Interview. SAI© participants reported more correct information and maintained higher accuracy than FR and Control participants. Consistency analyses revealed that the SAI© was effective because it preserved more of the originally recalled items (Time 1) than did an initial FR, and not because it yielded new recollections at Time 2. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Atypical memory performance in an autistic savant.

This study explored the mechanisms underlying the hypermnesia of an autistic savant (NM) through three experiments. The first two served to assess whether absence of interference was responsible for NM's exceptional list memory. The third investigated the type of cues used in recall. Results indicated absence of retroactive interference but presence of slight proactive interference in list recall of proper names. Normal interference effects were found, however, in list recall of common nouns. Exceptional performance was also demonstrated in a missing-name task involving spatial and verbal recall cues. The findings suggest that the outstanding episodic memory presented by some savant persons with autism might be related to an abnormally high resistance to interference.     

Appraisal of Memory Functioning and Memory Performance in Healthy Ageing and Early-Stage Alzheimer's Disease

ABSTRACT

Background/Aims: To compare memory evaluations in healthy older people and people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and present standardised individual and dyadic methods for classifying degree of memory awareness in the participants with dementia. Methods: Cross-sectional study evaluating awareness of memory functioning and performance and providing normative data for healthy individuals and couples, together with comparison data from people with AD. Results: As a group, older people are reasonably accurate raters of their own memory functioning and performance, although considerable individual differences can be observed, and control dyads show good comparative accuracy. Comparing normative data from the control group to data from participants with AD confirms that significant overestimation is a frequent feature among people with dementia, with approximately two-thirds showing this pattern, although significant under-estimation is also reliably observed in a small proportion of people with dementia. Different types of measure elicit different profiles of memory awareness in participants with dementia. Conclusion: Normative data from older individuals and couples provides useful percentile-based indices for determining level of memory awareness in people with dementia.     

Age-Related Changes in Neural Activation During Working Memory Performance

Changes in frontal lobe functions are a typical part of aging of the brain. There are age-related declines in working memory performance, a skill requiring frontal lobe activation. This study examined neural activation, using [15 O] water positron emission tomography (PET) methodology, during performance on two verbal working memory tasks in younger and older participants. The results demonstrated the typical areas of activation associated with working memory performance (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and inferior parietal cortex) in both groups. However, the younger participants utilized the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate gyrus significantly more than the older participants. In turn, the older participants used the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex significantly more than the younger participants and maintained material-specific lateralization in their pattern of activation. These findings are consistent with a previous report of different age-related patterns of frontal activation during working memory.     

Using Participant Choice to Enhance Memory Performance

When patients are involved in deciding the course of treatment for their ailment and are given a chance to choose between different treatment options, the success of the intervention typically increases. In our study we transferred this approach to a cognitive psychology task and investigated whether treatment choice can enhance participants' memory performance. Participants who were free to choose one out of a selection of alleged cognitive enhancers showed better performance than those who were assigned an enhancer. We also found that performance‐expectations have a stronger impact when triggered prior to the encoding as opposed to the retrieval stage and thus appear to be more effective at a point when participants exercise a greater degree of cognitive control. The findings are of relevance in contexts where it can be assumed that participants have knowledge about their own needs and can in turn capitalize on this knowledge when given the opportunity. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Regression in Autistic Spectrum Disorders

A significant proportion of children diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder experience a developmental regression characterized by a loss of previously-acquired skills. This may involve a loss of speech or social responsitivity, but often entails both. This paper critically reviews the phenomena of regression in autistic spectrum disorders, highlighting the characteristics of regression, age of onset, temporal course, and long-term outcome. Important considerations for diagnosis are discussed and multiple etiological factors currently hypothesized to underlie the phenomenon are reviewed. It is argued that regressive autistic spectrum disorders can be conceptualized on a spectrum with other regressive disorders that may share common pathophysiological features. The implications of this viewpoint are discussed.     

Developing the Receptive and Productive Use of Pronouns in an Autistic Child:

In Experiment I, a preschooler with language delays and unable to answer “my-your” questions was successfully trained to answer “my-your” questions when reinforced for modeling an adult's answers to questions about possessive pronouns. Despite acquisition of the expressive use of the possessive case, generalization probes under conditions of nonmodeling and nonreinforcement showed no transfer at the receptive and expressive levels. Modeling and reinforcement training procedures in Experiment II improved the receptive use of “my-your” performance, but generalization probes revealed no receptive transfer. These same procedures in Experiment III improved the expressive use of “his-her” answers and, this time, immediate generalization of training for “his-her” occurred at the expressive and receptive levels. To facilitate generalization from the expressive to the receptive level, special programming-for-generalization procedures were used, involving reduced rated of reinforcement during training (Experiment I) and intermixing training trails with generalization probe trails (Experiment II).     

The Use of an Aversive Smell to Eliminate Autistic Self-Stimulatory Behavior

Commercially available smelling salts were used to provide an aversive smell which was compared with a time-out procedure in the modification of self-stimulation in an autistic child. The aversive smell was much more effective that time out whether applied on an FR 1 or VR 3 schedule. The FR 1 schedule of the aversive smell was also associated with a marked decline in self-stimulation in non-experimental environments. The effectiveness, ease of application, and acceptability of smellin salts all indicate the value of continued research with this stimulus in the elimination of self-stimulatory and other autistic responses.     

Word-List-Learning Performance in Younger and Older Adults: Intra-Individual Performance Variability and False Memory

ABSTRACT

We investigated the word-list-learning performance of younger and older adults over 4 consecutive days at different times of day to study age-related differences in consistency of performance over time and the influence of circadian variation on performance. Eighteen younger (M age, 23.4 years) and 18 older (M age, 73.3 years) men and women participated. The start time of testing alternated between morning and early evening across the 4 days of testing. On each test day, participants learned a different list of 15 unrelated words over four learning trials. As expected, younger adults performed better than older adults on immediate recall, delayed recall, and recognition. Contrary to our expectations, time of day did not significantly influence recall or recognition performance in either the older or younger adults. Older adults did show a greater incidence of false memory (i.e., previously learned list intrusions in free recall and false alarms in recognition) than younger adults. Older adults also exhibited greater intra-individual performance variability on the measures of false memory across test days. This variability was not related to circadian variation. False memory and variability of performance have both been linked to frontal systems dysfunction. The findings presented here are consistent with the notion that changes in cognition with aging in part reflect age-related decline in frontal lobe function.