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.     

Gendered norms for family size, employment, and occupation: Are there personal costs for violating them?

The present study investigated gendered stereotypes involving women’s family size, employment, and occupation. Eleven ratings of targets’ social and personality characteristics were ascribed by 400 undergraduates to a hypothetical married woman described as voluntarily childfree or the mother of one, two, or eight children, and as nonemployed or employed either part or full time in either a gender-appropriate or gender-inappropriate occupation. Women employed in gender-atypical occupations were considered less expressive and were socially distanced, but this factor did not interact with family size. Two-children mothers were regarded favorably as was employment. Prior findings denigrating single-child mothers and glorifying eight-children mothers were not replicated—both groups were rated similar to normative, two-children mothers. Consistent with prior research, childfree women were evaluated least favorably. Findings suggest that norms regarding both family size (two children) and employment exist among contemporary college students. The authors thank Pauline Beres for her help with data collection and entry. This paper was presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association in New York in 1995.     

Psychoanalysis--with whom, for what, and how? Comparisons with psychotherapy

If psychoanalytic treatment is to survive in the era of evidence-based medicine and managed care systems, empirical evidence is needed to demonstrate its unique nature and effectiveness. To address this need, comprehensive analyses were conducted of data from the Menninger Psychotherapy Research Project (Wallerstein 1986). These analyses addressed three questions: (1) What are the differences in outcome between psychoanalysis (PSA) and supportive-expressive psychotherapy (SEP)? (2) With what types of patient, and in what ways, are these two psychodynamic treatments differentially effective? (3) Are these differences in outcome the consequence of possibly different mechanisms of therapeutic action? PSA was found to contribute significantly to the development of adaptive interpersonal capacities and to the reduction of maladaptive interpersonal tendencies, especially with more ruminative, self-reflective, introjective patients, possibly by extending their associative capacities. SEP, by contrast, was effective only in reducing maladaptive interpersonal tendencies and only with dependent, unreflective, more affectively labile anaclitic patients, possibly by containing or limiting their associative capacities.     

Crisis,Biology, Ecology: A New Starting-Point for Phenomenology?

The crisis of European sciences in Husserl’s late work diagnoses Galilean science as specifically and necessarily losing touch with the intuitive evidence that would legitimate it due to its reliance on a formal-mathematical conceptual apparatus. While the vast majority of Husserl’s late work was focussed on a critique of the formal-mathematical paradigm of the physical science of nature, at several points the possibility of biology as the exemplary science is raised to suggest that the lack of a reliance on formal-mathematical conceptual language would mean that a systemic crisis would not occur in such a case. This investigation considers the grounds for the expectation that biology would not engender a crisis, suggests that a paradigmatic role for ecology would more adequately address this expectation, and finally claims that the question of the relation between a specific exemplary science and transcendental phenomenology is not fully resolved even in this case.     

Editorial board page for “Aging,Neuropsychology, and Cognition”, Volume 2, Number 3

Abstract

This is a scanned image of the original Editorial Board page(s) for this issue.     

Pox Parties for Grannies? Chickenpox,Exogenous Boosting,and Harmful Injustices

Abstract

Some societies tolerate or encourage high levels of chickenpox infection among children to reduce rates of shingles among older adults. This tradeoff is unethical. The varicella zoster virus (VZV) causes both chickenpox and shingles. After people recover from chickenpox, VZV remains in their nerve cells. If their immune systems become unable to suppress the virus, they develop shingles. According to the Exogenous Boosting Hypothesis (EBH), a person’s ability to keep VZV suppressed can be ‘boosted’ through exposure to active chickenpox infections. We argue that even if this hypothesis were true, immunization policies that discourage routine childhood varicella vaccination in order to prevent shingles for other people are unethical. Such policies harm children and treat them as mere means for the benefit of others, and are inconsistent with how parents should treat their children and physicians should treat their patients. These policies also seem incompatible with institutional transparency.     

Can a Lineup Procedure Designed for Child Witnesses Work for Adults? Comparing Simultaneous,Sequential, and Elimination Lineup Procedures

A study (N = 165) was conducted to examine whether the elimination lineup, an identification procedure developed for children to reduce their false‐positive responding, was effective for adult witnesses. Although the sequential lineup is available to help reduce adults’ false‐positive identifications, having different procedures for child and adult witnesses poses difficulty for the police and justice system. One procedure for all witnesses would be ideal. Simultaneous, sequential, and elimination procedures were compared. The elimination procedure produced a comparable correct rejection rate to the sequential procedure. Both the elimination and sequential procedure produced a higher correct rejection rate than did the simultaneous procedure. Correct identification rates were comparable across the 3 lineup procedures.     

Now for Me,Later for Us? Effects of Group Context on Temporal Discounting

Delayed rewards are less valuable than immediate rewards. This well‐established finding has focused almost entirely on individual outcomes. However, are delayed rewards similarly discounted if they are shared by a group? The current article reports on three experiments exploring the effect of group context on delay discounting. Results indicate that discount rates of individual and group rewards were highly correlated, but that respondents were more willing to wait (decreased discounting) for shared outcomes than for individual outcomes. An explanatory model is proposed suggesting that decreased discount rates in group contexts may be due to the way the effects of both delay and social discounting are combined. That is, in a group context, a person values both a future reward (discounted by delay) and a present reward to another person (discounted by the social distance between them). The results are explained by a combined discount function containing a delay factor and a factor representing the social distance between the decision maker and group members. Practical implications of the fact that shared consequences can increase individual self‐control are also discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Justice for whom, exactly? Beliefs in justice for the self and various others

The present studies examine why people think the world is more just to themselves than to others generally. Beliefs in justice for the self were uniquely associated with psychological adjustment, consistent with the theoretical motive to believe in justice for the self (Studies 1 and 2). However, this "justice motive" did not appear to affect the relative strength of justice beliefs. Instead, self-other differences in justice beliefs appeared to reflect objective assessments of the justice received by various demographics. Undergraduates believed the world to be more just to themselves than to others but not their undergraduate peers specifically (Study 1). Participants of both genders believed the world to be more just to men, and to themselves, than to women (Study 2). Women did not exempt themselves individually from injustice but believed, similar to men, that undergraduate women receive as much justice as men (Study 3).     

Islamophobia? Religion,Contact with Muslims,and the Respect for Islam

In the midst of growing reservations about Muslims in America, this study seeks to explore the factors accounting for Islamophobia by utilizing nationally representative data. The findings suggest that religious affiliations have differential effects on the degree to which one respects Islam, with Christians more likely to have low regard for Islam. The image of a God who punishes his followers for their sins has a positive association with the odds of Islam being least respected among all religions. While higher frequency of contact with Muslims predicts an overall improved opinion for Islam, evangelical and black Protestants present the opposite picture. Their increased exposure to Muslims leads to lower respect for Islam. I discuss the implications of these findings for theories of intergroup contact and subcultural identity.     

Speaker’s reference,stipulation, and a dilemma for conceptual engineers

Philosophical Studies - Advocates of conceptual engineering as a method of philosophy face a dilemma: either they are ignorant of how conceptual engineering can be implemented, or else it is...     

A Clash of Civilizations? Muslims,Christians, and Preferences for Democracy

The incompatibility of Islam with democracy has been the focal point of many public and scholarly debates. However, very few studies have attempted to investigate empirically whether the followers of Islam are less favorable to democracy than the followers of Christianity. This study extends previous research by conducting empirical and representative analyses of whether Muslims in general and religious and practicing Muslims in particular prefer democracy less than their Christian counterparts. Using country fixed effects regression and data from the World Values Survey (WVS6) that include 52,326 Muslims and Christians, the analyses show that Muslims in general, as well as religious and practicing Muslims, endorse democracy to the same extent as do Christians. Thereby, this study is the first to provide comparative, individual‐level evidence of the influence these religions may have on democratic attitudes.     

Speaker’s Intentions,Ambiguous Demonstrations,and Relativist Semantics for Demonstratives

Philosophia - In this paper, I do four things. First, I argue that Recanati’s recent argument for intentionalist semantics for demonstratives is erroneous. I do this partly by suggesting that...     

Should President Clinton be prosecuted for perjury? The effects of preference for consistency, self-esteem, and political party affiliation

Conducted in the fall of 2000, this study investigates personality and social variables that should predict attitudes regarding the desirability of prosecuting President Clinton for perjury following the expiration of his term (in January of 2001). Prosecution was favored by High Preference for Consistency (PFC) more than Low PFC individuals, by High Self-Esteem more than Low Self-Esteem individuals, and by Republicans more than Democrats. In addition, PFC and Party Affiliation interacted: High PFCs wanted Clinton prosecuted regardless of Party Affiliation, but Low PFCs desired prosecution strongly only if they were Republicans. Overall, the results are consistent with the general self-theory principle that human beings tend to adopt attitudes and positions that restore, maintain, or enhance self-esteem.     

Comments on Heller,Thompson, Trueba,Hogg, and Vlachos-Weber, “peer support telephone dyads for elderly women”

Comments on the support intervention study with elderly women by Heller et al. (1991). The study highlights the need to determine what aspects of social support are most effective for particular populations. I discuss what basic research on supportive functions suggests for this population, and what kinds of knowledge are needed to best translate epidemiologic findings into intervention research designs. Related research on the effects of family vs. peer support is discussed, and processes that may help or hinder family support are proposed. Finally, I note some implications for further research on social networks of elderly persons, and approaches to increasing social companionship and social integration.     

Perirhinal cortex is necessary for acquiring,but not for retrieving object–place paired association

Remembering events frequently involves associating objects and their associated locations in space, and it has been implicated that the areas associated with the hippocampus are important in this function. The current study examined the role of the perirhinal cortex in retrieving familiar object–place paired associates, as well as in acquiring novel ones. Rats were required to visit one of two locations of a radial-arm maze and choose one of the objects (from a pair of different toy objects) exclusively associated with a given arm. Excitotoxic lesions of the perirhinal cortex initially impaired the normal retrieval of object–place paired-associative memories that had been learned presurgically, but the animals relearned gradually to the level of controls. In contrast, when required to associate a novel pair of objects with the same locations of the maze, the same lesioned rats were severely impaired with minimal learning, if any, taking place throughout an extensive testing period. However, the lesioned rats were normal in discriminating two different objects presented in a fixed arm in the maze. The results suggest that the perirhinal cortex is indispensable to forming discrete representations for object–place paired associates. Its role, however, may be compensated for by other structures when familiar object–place paired associative memories need to be retrieved.Remembering an event in space often requires associating objects and their locations. Associating object and place information into a unitary event representation is believed to be a foundation of episodic memory (Cahusac et al. 1989; Gaffan 1994; Davachi 2006). It has been suggested that the hippocampus and its associated regions in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) are essential in this cognitive process, and amnesic patients with damage in the MTL structures exhibit severe deficits in associating object and place information (Smith and Milner 1981; Vargha-Khadem et al. 1997; Stepankova et al. 2004). Animal models produced by localized lesions in the hippocampus and other MTL structures also support the idea by showing that the lesioned animals are impaired in associating objects and places (Parkinson et al. 1988; Gaffan and Parker 1996; Sziklas et al. 1998; Bussey et al. 2001; Gilbert and Kesner 2003, 2004; Malkova and Mishkin 2003; Lee et al. 2005; Bachevalier and Nemanic 2008; Kesner et al. 2008; Lee and Solivan 2008). Although the theoretical importance of the MTL structures in object–place association has been well acknowledged, specific contributions of the MTL structures in object–place associative memory are poorly understood. The current study examined the role of the perirhinal cortex, one of the extra hippocampal regions in the MTL, using a behavioral paradigm previously shown to be dependent on the intact hippocampus (Lee and Solivan 2008).The literature suggests that the role of the hippocampus in the object–place paired-associate task is to put together object and place information into a unified and distinct event representation. It has been suggested that spatial information and nonspatial information (such as object information) may be streamed into the hippocampus in a relatively segregated fashion, the former information mostly fed through the medial entorhinal cortex to the hippocampus via the postrhinal cortex and the latter being fed through the lateral entorhinal cortex via the perirhinal cortex (Mishkin et al. 1997; Suzuki et al. 1997; Burwell 2000; Fyhn et al. 2004; Witter and Amaral 2004; Hafting et al. 2005; Hargreaves et al. 2005; Furtak et al. 2007; Kerr et al. 2007). In our previous study (Lee and Solivan 2008) in which rats were required to discriminate rewarding versus nonrewarding pairs of similar object–place paired associates, the hippocampal lesioned rats demonstrated severe and irrecoverable deficits. The results from the study not only corroborate the long-held view that the hippocampus associates object and place information, but also demonstrate that the hippocampus is critical for disambiguating similar object–place paired associates. However, it requires examining functions of other upstream structures of the hippocampus to conclusively assign the role of associating object and place information to the hippocampus. If, for example, lesions produced in the perirhinal cortex produce similar deficits, it would be premature to conclude that the association between object and place information uniquely occurs in the hippocampus.To elucidate the relative contributions of the MTL structures in the hippocampal-dependent object–place paired-associate task (Fig. 1), we manipulated the perirhinal cortex in the current study, one of the regions implicated as an object-information provider to the hippocampus (Knierim et al. 2006; Eichenbaum and Lipton 2008). Here we tested whether the perirhinal cortex was involved in the acquisition of new object–place paired associations. Importantly, we also tested the perirhinal cortical contributions to retrieving learned paired associates between objects and places. In the current study, the rats needed to pay attention to both object and place information. Therefore, if the perirhinal cortex is unique in its function for providing object information to the hippocampus, it is predicted that lesions in the perirhinal cortex will produce severe deficits as seen in the hippocampal lesioned animals in our previous study. A simple object-discrimination task that did not require spatial information was also employed to further examine the role of the perirhinal cortex only in specific conditions.Open in a separate windowFigure 1.Illustration of the radial arm maze and behavioral paradigms. (A) Phase 1: Two objects (Spider-Man and LEGO block) were presented on arms 3 and 5 in gray color. Only one of the objects was rewarded in arm 3 (Spider-Man) and arm 5 (LEGO block) irrespective of its locations in the choice platform. Possible configuration of objects and appropriate choices are provided for both arms. In each trial, only one arm was open in the maze and objects were available in that open arm. (B) Phase 2: For acquisition of novel object–place paired associations, a pair of new objects (Barney and Girl) was presented on arms 3 and 5. Possible locations of the objects are shown as in A. Each object was rewarded only in a particular arm (Barney in arm 3 and Girl in arm 5) irrespective of its location in the choice platform. (C) Phase 3: Illustration of the task using only one arm (arm 4) in the maze. Two new objects (Mr. Potatohead and Cylinder) were used and the Mr. Potatohead choice was rewarded regardless of its location in the choice platform.     

Selection for Some,Facilitation for Others? Self-Control Theory and the Gang–Violence Relationship

Although self-control theory has been thought to be entirely consistent with the gang selection model, key theoretical predictions of the general theory imply gang selection effects for those with lower self-control and gang facilitation effects for those with higher self-control. This new hypothesis is tested among a large sample of jail inmates. Results indicate that self-control did not render the gang–violence relationship spurious for the sample as a whole. Gang membership had a significantly greater impact on violent crime among those with very high self-control, but there were still statistically significant gang facilitation effects for the other three self-control groups.     

Are there pre-existing neural, cognitive, or motoric markers for musical ability?

Adult musician's brains show structural enlargements, but it is not known whether these are inborn or a consequence of long-term training. In addition, music training in childhood has been shown to have positive effects on visual-spatial and verbal outcomes. However, it is not known whether pre-existing advantages in these skills are found in children who choose to study a musical instrument nor is it known whether there are pre-existing associations between music and any of these outcome measures that could help explain the training effects. To answer these questions, we compared 5- to 7-year-olds beginning piano or string lessons (n=39) with 5- to 7-year-olds not beginning instrumental training (n=31). All children received a series of tests (visual-spatial, non-verbal reasoning, verbal, motor, and musical) and underwent magnetic resonance imaging. We found no pre-existing neural, cognitive, motor, or musical differences between groups and no correlations (after correction for multiple analyses) between music perceptual skills and any brain or visual-spatial measures. However, correlations were found between music perceptual skills and both non-verbal reasoning and phonemic awareness. Such pre-existing correlations suggest similarities in auditory and visual pattern recognition as well a sharing of the neural substrates for language and music processing, most likely due to innate abilities or implicit learning during early development. This baseline study lays the groundwork for an ongoing longitudinal study addressing the effects of intensive musical training on brain and cognitive development, and making it possible to look retroactively at the brain and cognitive development of those children who emerge showing exceptional musical talent.