Are children more accurate than adults? Spontaneous use of metaphor by children and adults

This study examined an observation in which children outscored adults on a series of test questions, which included unusual items such as, "Do you see with your ears?" We assumed that the adults were treating the questions metaphorically because the literally correct answer was so obvious, an assumption consistent with Grice's theory. In Study 1, we tested this assumption by manipulating pretest and test items so as to suggest, or not suggest, a metaphorical or factual response. In Study 2, we used a similar manipulation involving the order of questions of various sorts and we more directly tested the Gricean hypothesis by giving college students a reason to treat the question literally. The results replicated the previous finding in which college students' scores were lower than those of children, and the condition effects suggested that the college students' performance was due to their responding metaphorically.     

Young adults’ reactions to infant crying

AimTo determine whether young childless adults show negative emotions and cognitive disturbances when listening to infant crying, compared to other disturbing noises, and whether negative emotions and cognitive disturbances are associated.MethodsWe tested the cognitive performances and emotional reactions of 120 childless participants on a working memory task while being subjected to different disturbing noises including infant crying.ResultsParticipants had the least correct trials on the working memory task, and showed the most negative emotions, when hearing infant crying as compared to the other noises. Participants also showed less positive emotions when hearing infant crying as compared to working in silence. Overall, negative emotions were associated with less correct trials on the working memory task, except in the infant crying condition. Furthermore, cognitive performance and emotional reactions to infant crying were unrelated to personality characteristics.ConclusionNegative emotions and cognitive disturbances may be general adult responses to infant crying that are not limited to parents. These results suggest a broadly present human emotional and cognitive response to infant crying, that may underlie a general predisposition to care for infants in distress.     

Components of dental fear in adults?

The functional relatedness between dental fear and multiple other fears was studied in a normative sample of 285 undergraduates. Rachman and Lopatka's work on the inter-dependence of multiple fears within individuals, as well as Lang's bioinformational theory of emotion, provided a theoretical background for this investigation. Fears about social contact, pain, mutilation (e.g. injury, blood, disfigurement), and being closed-in were assessed within the realm of verbal report; they were studied as possible components and/or concomitants of the dental fear construct. Multiple regression analyses with these variables utilized the Dental Fear Survey total score as a criterion variable. Fear of pain was found to be the most significant predictor of dental fear in both males and females. For females only, mutilation fear was the next strongest determinant. Fear of being closed-in was an additional significant dental fear predictor for both sexes. The possible role of social fears in the manifestation of dental fear was not confirmed and awaits further investigation. Results were consistent with the idea that there may often be a moderate degree of functional dependence between dental fear and the other fears identified here.     

Work–family planning attitudes among emerging adults

Using social learning theory as a framework, we explore two sets of antecedents to work and family role planning attitudes among emerging adults: their work–family balance self-efficacy and their perceptions of their parents' work-to-family conflict. A total of 187 college students completed a questionnaire concerning their work–family balance self-efficacy, their perceptions of their parents' work-to-family conflict, and their work and family role planning attitudes. Participants' work–family balance self-efficacy was positively related to their knowledge of and commitment to future work and family roles. In addition, perceptions of their same-gender parent's work-to-family conflict were positively related to knowledge of, commitment to, and involvement in planning for future work and family roles. Results suggest that enhancing emerging adults' self-efficacy to balance work and family may improve their attitudes toward planning for future work and family roles. Also, emerging adults appear to be more knowledgeable of, involved in, and committed to planning for work and family roles when their same-gender parents expose them to, rather than shield them from, work-to-family conflict.     

Negative emotional outcomes impair older adults’ reversal learning

In a typical reversal-learning experiment, one learns stimulus–outcome contingencies that then switch without warning. For instance, participants might have to repeatedly choose between two faces, one of which yields points whereas the other does not, with a reversal at some point in which face yields points. The current study examined age differences in the effects of outcome type on reversal learning. In the first experiment, the participants’ task was either to select the person who would be in a better mood or to select the person who would yield more points. Reversals in which face was the correct option occurred several times. Older adults did worse in blocks in which the correct response was to select the person who would not be angry than in blocks in which the correct response was to select the person who would smile. Younger adults did not show a difference by emotional valence. In the second study, the negative condition was switched to have the same format as the positive condition (to select who will be angry). Again, older adults did worse with negative than positive outcomes, whereas younger adults did not show a difference by emotional valence. A third experiment replicated the lack of valence effects in younger adults with a harder probabilistic reversal-learning task. In the first two experiments, older adults performed about as well as younger adults in the positive conditions but performed worse in the negative conditions. These findings suggest that negative emotional outcomes selectively impair older adults’ reversal learning.     

Sociality and intergenerational transfer of older adults’ nostalgia

Interest in nostalgia has blossomed, yet its nature in older adulthood and potential for intergenerational transfer to younger adults has remained neglected. In Experiment 1, we focused on the content of older adults’ nostalgic (vs. ordinary) recollections and asked whether older adults’ nostalgia could be transferred to younger adults. We showed that nostalgia expressed in older adults’ narratives was positively associated with nostalgia reported by young-adult readers. In Experiment 2, undergraduates read a nostalgic or ordinary narrative written by an older adult. Then they rated their own nostalgia as well as their perceived social connectedness, self-continuity, and meaning in life. Exposure to older adults’ nostalgic (vs. ordinary) narratives promoted concurrent nostalgia among young adults, along with associated psychological benefits (social connectedness, self-continuity, meaning). The findings illustrate the potential for intergenerational transfer of nostalgia through written narratives, and attest to the universality of nostalgic themes across younger and older adults.     

Are the memories of older adults positively biased?

There is disagreement in the literature about whether a "positivity effect" in memory performance exists in older adults. To assess the generalizability of the effect, the authors examined memory for autobiographical, picture, and word information in a group of younger (17-29 years old) and older (60-84 years old) adults. For the autobiographical memory task, the authors asked participants to produce 4 positive, 4 negative, and 4 neutral recent autobiographical memories and to recall these a week later. For the picture and word tasks, participants studied photos or words of different valences (positive, negative, neutral) and later remembered them on a free-recall test. The authors found significant correlations in memory performance, across task material, for recall of both positive and neutral valence autobiographical events, pictures, and words. When the authors examined accurate memories, they failed to find consistent evidence, across the different types of material, of a positivity effect in either age group. However, the false memory findings offer more consistent support for a positivity effect in older adults. During recall of all 3 types of material, older participants recalled more false positive than false negative memories.     

Why do older adults have difficulty following conversations?

Age-related declines in understanding conversation may be largely a consequence of perceptual rather than cognitive declines. B. A. Schneider, M. Daneman, D. R. Murphy, and S. Kwong-See (2000) showed that age-related declines in comprehending single-talker discourse could be eliminated when adjustments were made to compensate for the poorer hearing of older adults. The authors used B. A. Schneider et al.'s methodology to investigate age-related differences in comprehending 2-person conversations. Compensating for hearing difficulties did not eliminate age-related differences when the 2 talkers were spatially separated by 9 degrees or 45 degrees azimuth, but it did when the talkers' contributions came from one central location. These findings suggest that dialogue poses more of a problem for older than for younger adults, not because of the additional cognitive requirements of having to follow 2 talkers rather than 1, but because older adults are not as good as younger adults at making use of the auditory cues that are available for helping listeners perceptually segregate the contributions of 2 spatially separated talkers.     

Top-down processing modulates older adults’ susceptibility to noise

The present study examined older and younger adults’ ability to use top-down processes to mitigate the effects of display noise during simple feature, visual search. As display noise levels increased, older adults (age 60–74 years, n = 32) exhibited greater top-down search reaction time (RT) benefits (bottom-up minus top-down search RT), compared to younger adults (age 18–27, n = 32). Older adults’ ability to mitigate the effects of noise was further assessed with RT variability, as measured by intra-individual standard deviations across trials. Older adults again exhibited larger top-down benefits (i.e., less RT variability) compared to younger adults, and more so when display noise was present vs. absent. These results suggest a sparing of top-down processes with age (Madden, Whiting, Spaniol, & Bucur, 2005; Psychology and Aging, 20, 317), and that top-down processes in older adults enhance search efficiency by optimizing signal-to-noise ratios.     

Memory improvement tapes: How effective for elderly adults?

Abstract

The effectiveness of two commercially available audiocassette memory improvement programs was evaluated in a sample of 32 healthy, community-living elderly adults. Participants were given a set of either Syber Vision's Neuropsychology of Memory Power tapes (Bornstein, 1989) or Nightingale-Conant's Mega Memory tapes (Trudeau, 1992), and a portable cassette player, and instructed to complete the programs within 10 weeks. All participants received a comprehensive battery of memory tests prior to and immediately following the memory improvement programs. Participants completing the memory improvement programs showed no greater gains in memory test performance than no-treatment control participants, but did report greater confidence in their memory abilities. Participants completing the Mega Memory program thought they were less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease after having completed it compared with participants in the other two conditions. Participants reported finding both tape programs acceptable and potentially useful for improving memory; those who completed the Memory Power program reported somewhat greater satisfaction than those completing the Mega Memory program. the claims about rapid, dramatic memory improvement with use of these products were not substantiated in this group of elderly adults and appear to be grossly exaggerated.     

The gendering of heterosexual religious young adults’ imagined futures

This article draws from a mixed-methods project that examined religion, youth, gender, and sexuality among young women and men aged between 18 and 25, from various religious traditions, and living in the UK. It charts how unmarried heterosexuals imagined their future lives in relation to marriage and parenthood. We deploy conceptual literature on ‘imagined future’, which is under-used in the sociology of religion, to explore what difference, if any, religious belonging makes to the futures the participants imagined. We assert that religion is part of their cultural tapestry, which broadly informed their values and actions. In other words, religion, as a component of culture, provides a ‘toolkit’ which they used in imagining futures that they deemed meaningful. This article contributes significantly to literature on gender and religious cultures and imagined future, highlighting the complex and interweaving role religion played in the way young adults in this study imagined their future gendered lives.     

Are feeling-of-knowing and judgment-of-learning different? Evidence from older adults

This study aims to assess age differences between Judgments-of-learning (JOLs) and Feeling-of-knowing (FOKs) as they are typically studied. The novel contribution of the present study is a comparison between these two metacognitive judgments in a within subject design. Young and older adults were tested on their JOL accuracy and were asked to predict future recall during learning. All participants were also asked to predict future recognition of unrecalled items (FOK judgments). Results showed that although older adults had similar low levels of memory performance in the JOL task and in the FOK task, metacognitive impairments were only found on the resolution of FOKs. Furthermore, an analysis of covariance showed that age differences on memory performance explained the age effect observed on the FOK, thus supporting the memory constraint hypothesis (Hertzog et al., 2010). Results are discussed in relation to contemporary models of memory.     

Do pointing gestures by infants provoke comments from adults?

In the field of developmental psychology, there is speculation that pointing gestures by infants are good precursors of infant language acquisition, and some researchers have found correlations between these pointing gestures and some indices of language acquisition. Infants’ pointing gestures are presumably related to language acquisition because they provoke verbal responses from adults. To test this, seven boys and six girls were observed during free play time in a nursery classroom, and post-pointing and matched-control data were collected. Comparison between these data confirmed that the nursery staff spoke to infants at a significantly earlier stage in post-pointing sequences, compared with control sequences, indicating that pointing gestures elicit verbal responses from adult caregivers.     

The role of music in young adults’ spiritual development

Abstract

This article focuses on the role of spiritual music in Finnish young adults’ spirituality formation. The research data consist of interviews (2013, N = 10) and questionnaire answers (2011, N = 278). Spiritual music refers to music that the young adults themselves experienced supportive for their spirituality. The article indicates that the spiritual music enhanced young adults’ spirituality formation as the music was well related to the young adults’ current life questions and to experiences of early life span. According to the data, music offered tools for constructing personal world view and was experienced to strengthen confidence on higher power or life itself. As a mental resource, music had an important role in coping with life. As entertainment, spiritual music enhanced experiencing life as satisfying. As a part of public spiritual life, music advanced spiritual connection with other people. The role of spiritual music in spirituality formation was related to questions of spiritual well-being.     

Why do older adults have difficulty with semantic fluency?

Aging involves many cognitive declines, particularly in fluid intelligence, with relative maintenance of crystallized intelligence. This paradox is evident in the language domain: lexical retrieval becomes slower and less accurate, despite well preserved vocabularies. Verbal fluency assesses both crystallized and fluid aspects of language. Semantic fluency hypothetically reflects semantic knowledge, while letter fluency putatively reflects executive functioning, which would predict a greater impact of aging on the latter. However, the opposite is typically observed.

To investigate factors contributing to such asymmetries, we examined verbal fluency in 86 adults (30-89 years). Multiple regression analyses indicated that semantic fluency depends largely on lexical retrieval speed, as well as visualization strategies to support controlled retrieval, skills which may disproportionately decline with age. By contrast, letter fluency relies heavily on vocabulary knowledge, providing some protection against age-related declines. These findings contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms of typical age-related declines in word retrieval.     

Increased susceptibility to proactive interference in adults with dyslexia?

Recent findings show that people with dyslexia have an impairment in serial-order memory. Based on these findings, the present study aimed to test the hypothesis that people with dyslexia have difficulties dealing with proactive interference (PI) in recognition memory. A group of 25 adults with dyslexia and a group of matched controls were subjected to a 2-back recognition task, which required participants to indicate whether an item (mis)matched the item that had been presented 2 trials before. PI was elicited using lure trials in which the item matched the item in the 3-back position instead of the targeted 2-back position. Our results demonstrate that the introduction of lure trials affected 2-back recognition performance more severely in the dyslexic group than in the control group, suggesting greater difficulty in resisting PI in dyslexia.     

Do young adults show conceptual knowledge of previous distractors?

Using implicit tests, older adults have been found to retain conceptual knowledge of previously seen task-irrelevant information. While younger adults typically do not show the same effect, evidence from one study [Gopie, N., Craik, F. I. M., & Hasher, L. (2011). A double dissociation of implicit and explicit memory in younger and older adults. Psychological Science, 22, 634–640. doi:10.1177/0956797611403321] suggests otherwise. In that study, young adults showed greater explicit than implicit memory for previous distractors on a word fragment completion task. This was interpreted as evidence for maintaining access to previous conceptual knowledge of the distractors. Here, we report two failures to replicate that original finding, followed by a third study designed to test directly whether young adults use conceptual-level information that was previously irrelevant. Our findings agree with others that young adults show weak to no evidence of conceptual knowledge of previously irrelevant information.