Long-term caregiving: what happens when it ends?

Data from a longitudinal study were used to examine what happens to caregivers in the years after their cognitively impaired spouse dies. Comparisons of 42 current caregivers, 49 former caregivers, and 52 noncaregivers over a 4-year period showed that former caregivers did not improve on several measures of psychological well-being. Although former caregivers experienced decreases in stress and negative affect, their scores on depression, loneliness, and positive affect did not rebound to levels comparable to noncaregivers and, in fact, remained similar to those of current caregivers up to 3 years after caregiving had ceased. The most consistent predictors of postcaregiving outcomes were social support and intrusive-avoidant thinking about caregiving. The data suggest that some consequences of long-term caregiving may be long-term as well. The needs of former spousal caregivers warrant greater attention both in research and in practice.     

Mirror-reflecting a picture of an object: what happens to the shape percept?

Although a two-dimensional picture never fully specifies the actual layout of the depicted three-dimensional scene, one is still able to make a three-dimensional interpretation. When a picture is mirror-reflected, the range of plausible scenes possibly corresponding with the depicted scene has not changed with respect to the original depiction. We were curious to find out whether the inherent picture ambiguities would be solved the same way or differently. Participants performed local attitude settings on three sets of pictures: (1) original pictures, (2) left-right mirrored pictures, and (3) up-down mirrored pictures. Pairwise comparison of the pictorial reliefs of the depicted object, reconstructed from the raw settings, revealed dissimilarities. The differences, however, could be drastically diminished by conducting an affine transformation correction taking into account not only the depths, but also the picture plane coordinates. The inherent ambiguities seemed thus to be solved differently between conditions. By factoring out different solutions to the ambiguities, the pictorial reliefs were found to be equivalent.     

Attending to objects: costs or benefits?

The single-object advantage is said to occur when performance is faster and/or more accurate when the two targets to be compared appear on one object than when they appear on two different objects. The single-object advantage has been interpreted to suggest that attention can select objects rather than unparsed regions of visual space. In five experiments we explored whether directing attention to one object rather than two objects produces a benefit or a minor cost. Participants were required to compare two target features that belonged to one object, to two objects, or did not belong to any object. In addition, we varied the relevance to the task of object-related global information, such as symmetry of the object and perceptual cluttering of the background. Results showed that attending to one object in comparison to attending to no object produced a benefit only when object-related global information was relevant to the task. In contrast, when object-related global information was irrelevant to the task, attending to one object produced a cost. Thus, it can be concluded that attending to an object does not produce an absolute benefit, but rather produces a smaller cost than attending to two objects.     

Can infants use video to update mental representations of absent objects?

Before their second birthday, infants can update their knowledge based on what someone tells them, but can they do so based on what a video shows them? The current study explored whether infants can update their representation of an absent object’s properties after seeing a video of something happening to it, following seminal work showing that they can update their representation after being told about something happening to it (Ganea et al., 2007). It thus adapted an existing paradigm for testing infants’ understanding of references to absent objects (using language) to investigate a different symbolic medium (video). Twenty-two-month-olds first played with a toy and later saw on video that the toy underwent a change in state while they were out of the room. Infants in the current study did not subsequently identify the toy based on this new information, whereas those in previous research did. Infants this age thus appear less likely to update their representation of an absent object’s properties using video than using language. This result is consistent with the possibility that infants may understand the representational function of symbolic objects later in development than they understand the representational function of language. It also aligns with evidence of the video deficit in which infants learn less effectively from video than from firsthand experience.     

Do 12.5-month-old infants consider what objects others can see when interpreting their actions?

The present research examined whether 12.5-month-old infants take into account what objects an agent knows to be present in a scene when interpreting the agent's actions. In two experiments, the infants watched a female human agent repeatedly reach for and grasp object-A as opposed to object-B on an apparatus floor. Object-B was either (1) visible to the agent through a transparent screen; (2) hidden from the agent (but not the infants) by an opaque screen; or (3) placed by the agent herself behind the opaque screen, so that even though she could no longer see object-B, she knew of its presence there. The infants interpreted the agent's repeated actions toward object-A as revealing a preference for object-A over object-B only when she could see object-B (1) or was aware of its presence in the scene (3). These results indicate that, when watching an agent act on objects in a scene, 12.5-month-old infants keep track of the agent's representation of the physical setting in which these actions occur. If the agent's representation is incomplete, because the agent is ignorant about some aspect of the setting, infants use the agent's representation, rather than their own more complete representation, to interpret the agent's actions.     

Taï chimpanzees use botanical skills to discover fruit: what we can learn from their mistakes

Fruit foragers are known to use spatial memory to relocate fruit, yet it is unclear how they manage to find fruit in the first place. In this study, we investigated whether chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in the Taï National Park make use of fruiting synchrony, the simultaneous emergence of fruit in trees of the same species, which can be used together with sensory cues, such as sight and smell, to discover fruit. We conducted observations of inspections, the visual checking of fruit availability in trees, and focused our analyses on inspections of empty trees, so to say “mistakes”. Learning from their “mistakes”, we found that chimpanzees had expectations of finding fruit days before feeding on it and significantly increased inspection activity after tasting the first fruit. Neither the duration of feeding nor density of fruit-bearing trees in the territory could account for the variation in inspection activity, which suggests chimpanzees did not simply develop a taste for specific fruit on which they had fed frequently. Instead, inspection activity was predicted by a botanical feature—the level of synchrony in fruit production of encountered trees. We conclude that chimpanzees make use of the synchronous emergence of rainforest fruits during daily foraging and base their expectations of finding fruit on a combination of botanical knowledge founded on the success rates of fruit discovery, and a categorization of fruit species. Our results provide new insights into the variety of food-finding strategies employed by primates and the adaptive value of categorization capacities.     

Ethics and rural healthcare: what really happens? What might help?

Relatively few articles discuss the ethical issues that accompany healthcare in rural areas. This article presents and discusses the key findings obtained from multi-method research studies conducted over a 9-year period of time in a multi-state rural area. It challenges the efficacy of current models for bioethics, shows what kinds of ethical issues develop in rural communities, and offers a framework for envisioning resources and approaches that may be more appropriate.     

What is it to lose hope?

This paper addresses the phenomenology of hopelessness. I distinguish two broad kinds of predicament that are easily confused: ‘loss of hopes’ and ‘loss of hope’. I argue that not all hope can be characterised as an intentional state of the form ‘I hope that p’. It is possible to lose all hopes of that kind and yet retain another kind of hope. The hope that remains is not an intentional state or a non-intentional bodily feeling. Rather, it is a ‘pre-intentional’ orientation or ‘existential feeling’, by which I mean something in the context of which certain kinds of intentional state, including intentional hope, are intelligible. I go on to discuss severe depression, lack of aspiration, demoralisation and loss of trust in the world, in order to distinguish some qualitatively different forms that loss of hope can take.     

Just do it? When to do what you judge you ought to do

While it is generally believed that justification is a fallible guide to the truth, there might be interesting exceptions to this general rule. In recent work on bridge-principles, an increasing number of authors have argued that truths about what a subject ought to do are truths we stand in some privileged epistemic relation to and that our justified normative beliefs are beliefs that will not lead us astray. If these bridge-principles hold, it suggests that justification might play an interesting role in our normative theories. In turn, this might help us understand the value of justification, a value that’s notoriously difficult to understand if we think of justification as but a fallible means to a desired end. We will argue that these bridge-principles will be incredibly difficult to defend. While we do not think that normative facts necessarily stand in any interesting relationship to our justified beliefs about them, there might well be a way of defending the idea that our justified beliefs about what to do won’t lead us astray. In turn, this might help us understand the value of justification, but this way of thinking about justification and its value comes with costs few would be willing to pay.     

Collaborative recall and collective memory: what happens when we remember together?

Studies of collective memory have traditionally been the domain of philosophers and sociologists, while cognitive psychologists have largely investigated memory at the level of the individual. However, within cognitive psychology there is a variety of psychological theories and experimental paradigms that have been used to study the process and outcomes of remembering in groups. In this paper we review the research on group remembering and draw together findings from different traditions. In doing so, we aim to answer a series of questions about the outcomes and consequences of recalling in groups, and the particular features of groups and of memories that may be conducive to the formation of a collective memory. In clarifying what we know and what is yet to be studied about group memory, we point the way forward for a cognitive psychological study of collective memory.     

Mixing metaphors in the cerebral hemispheres: what happens when careers collide?

Are processes of figurative comparison and figurative categorization different? An experiment combining alternative-sense and matched-sense metaphor priming with a divided visual field assessment technique sought to isolate processes of comparison and categorization in the 2 cerebral hemispheres. For target metaphors presented in the right visual field/left cerebral hemisphere (RVF/LH), only matched-sense primes were facilitative. Literal primes and alternative-sense primes had no effect on comprehension time compared to the unprimed baseline. The effects of matched-sense primes were additive with the rated conventionality of the targets. For target metaphors presented to the left visual field/right cerebral hemisphere (LVF/RH), matched-sense primes were again additively facilitative. However, alternative-sense primes, though facilitative overall, seemed to eliminate the preexisting advantages of conventional target metaphor senses in the LVF/RH in favor of metaphoric senses similar to those of the primes. These findings are consistent with tightly controlled categorical coding in the LH and coarse, flexible, context-dependent coding in the RH.     

You’re looking for what? Comparing search for familiar,nameable objects to search for unfamiliar,novel objects

Searching for items in one’s environment often includes considerable reliance on semantic knowledge. The present study examines the importance of semantic information in visual and memory search, especially with respect to whether the items reside in long-term or working memory. In Experiment 1, participants engaged in hybrid visual memory search for items that were either highly familiar or novel. Importantly, the relatively large number of targets in this hybrid search task necessitated that targets be stored in some form of long-term memory. We found that search for familiar objects was more efficient than search for novel objects. In Experiment 2, we investigated search for familiar versus novel objects when the number of targets was low enough to be stored in working memory. We also manipulated how often participants in Experiment 2 were required to update their target (every trial vs. every block) in order to control for target templates that were stored in long-term memory as a result of repeated exposure over trials. We found no differences in search efficiency for familiar versus novel objects when templates were stored in working memory. Our results suggest that while semantic information may provide additional individuating features that are useful for object recognition in hybrid search, this information could be irrelevant or even distracting when searching for targets stored in working memory.     

Philosophy: what is to be done?

The isolation and professionalization of philosophy is detrimental to it. The most interesting philosophical activity is conducted at the interface of philosophy and other disciplines. Thus philosophy must continue to cross boundaries and avoid fretting about what is and is not philosophy proper.     

Meaning in learning: Contextual cueing relies on objects’ visual features and not on objects’ meaning

People easily learn regularities embedded in the environment and utilize them to facilitate visual search. Using images of real-world objects, it has been recently shown that this learning, termed contextual cueing (CC), occurs even in complex, heterogeneous environments, but only when the same distractors are repeated at the same locations. Yet it is not clear what exactly is being learned under these conditions: the visual features of the objects or their meaning. In this study, Experiment 1 demonstrated that meaning is not necessary for this type of learning, as a similar pattern of results was found even when the objects’ meaning was largely removed. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that after learning meaningful objects, CC was not diminished by a manipulation that distorted the objects’ meaning but preserved most of their visual properties. By contrast, CC was eliminated when the learned objects were replaced with different category exemplars that preserved the objects’ meaning but altered their visual properties. Together, these data strongly suggest that the acquired context that facilitates real-world objects search relies primarily on the visual properties and the spatial locations of the objects, but not on their meaning.     

Listening to speech while retaining music: What happens to the right-ear advantage?

On each trial, subjects were played a dichotic pair of syllables differing in the consonant (/ba/, /da/, /ga/) or in the vowel (/ba/, /b?/, /bi/). The pair of syllables was preceded by a melody, or a sentence, and followed by the same or a different melody, or sentence. Subjects either had to retain the first piece of additional material or were free to ignore it. The different combinations of phonemic contrast, additional material, and instruction concerning the additional material were used in different sessions. In each case, the main task of the subjects was to respond to the presence or the absence of the target /ba/ on the ear previously indicated. There was no effect of context on relative ear accuracy, but the right-ear advantage observed for consonants in response latency when subjects retained a sentence gave way to a small nonsignificant left-ear advantage when subjects retained a melody. Right-ear advantage in response latencies was also observed for vowels in the verbal context, but the contextual effect, although in the same direction as for consonants, was very slight. The implications of contextual effects for a theory of the determinants of the auditory laterality effects are discussed.     

Do people use category-learning judgments to regulate their learning of natural categories?

Although research has established that people can accurately judge how well they have learned categories, no research has examined whether people use their category-learning judgments (CLJs) to regulate their restudy of natural categories. Thus, in five experiments we investigated the relationship between people’s CLJs and selections of categories for restudy. Participants first attempted to learn natural categories (bird families; e.g., finches, grosbeaks, and warblers) so that they could categorize new exemplars on a final test. After this initial study phase, participants made a CLJ for each category and then selected a subset of the categories for restudy. Across experiments, we also manipulated several variables (e.g., selecting either three or nine categories, or obtaining 30% vs. 80% performance on the final test) that were expected to influence restudy selections. However, the manipulations typically had minimal impact. More important, in all experiments we found an unexpected outcome: Some participants tended to select the categories they judged to be most well learned for restudy, and others tended to select those judged to be least well learned. We discovered these qualitative differences in the use of CLJs to make restudy selections by using post-hoc analyses in Experiments 1a and 1b, and hence we sought to (a) replicate them in Experiments 2, 3, and 4 and (b) provide preliminary evidence regarding factors that can (vs. cannot) account for them. Most important, evidence across all of the experiments supported the conclusion that people do use their CLJs to select categories for restudy.     

‘What meaning does somebody's death have,what meaning does somebody's life have?’ Psychotherapists’ stories of their work with suicidal clients

Working with suicidal clients is perceived to be demanding and anxiety provoking for psychotherapists. This investigation explores what it is like for psychotherapists who work with suicidal clients, particularly as within the prevailing culture there is an increasing focus on strategies aimed at suicide prevention. Five themes were identified through narrative analysis, with support systems such as supervision and peer support being seen as vital in surviving working with suicidal clients. However, there is also ambivalence about involving other professionals, such as mental health services, as there is a sense that to do so may be anti-therapeutic and unhelpful to the client. Overall, what emerges from this study is that it is important to challenge the prevailing culture in which a medical discourse is dominant, in order to find a different way of talking about suicide and despair.