Mind racing: The influence of exercise on long-term memory consolidation

Over time, regular exercise can lower the risk for age-related decline in cognition. However, the immediate effects of exercise on memory consolidation in younger adults have not been fully investigated. In two experiments, the effects of exercise were assessed on three different memory tasks. These included paired-associate learning, procedural learning and text memory. Results indicate that performance on procedural learning and situation model memory was increased with exercise, regardless of if participants exercised before or after encoding. No benefit of exercise was found for paired-associate learning. These findings suggest that intense exercise may benefit certain types of memory consolidation.     

Memory systems of the brain: a brief history and current perspective

The idea that memory is composed of distinct systems has a long history but became a topic of experimental inquiry only after the middle of the 20th century. Beginning about 1980, evidence from normal subjects, amnesic patients, and experimental animals converged on the view that a fundamental distinction could be drawn between a kind of memory that is accessible to conscious recollection and another kind that is not. Subsequent work shifted thinking beyond dichotomies to a view, grounded in biology, that memory is composed of multiple separate systems supported, for example, by the hippocampus and related structures, the amygdala, the neostriatum, and the cerebellum. This article traces the development of these ideas and provides a current perspective on how these brain systems operate to support behavior.     

Memory impairment and Benign Epilepsy with centrotemporal spike (BECTS): A growing suspicion

Benign Epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BECTS) is considered a benign type of epilepsy; nevertheless a significant number of children present clear and heterogeneous cognitive deficits such as memory disturbances. Thus far, evidence about memory impairment has been less than conclusive. To clarify the quality of memory functioning in BECTS children, an analysis of existing findings has been conducted trying to identify the type of memory deficits and their underlying factors. Short- and long-term declarative memory are impaired in BECTS children, with both verbal and non-verbal material; co-occurrence of attentional, linguistic and behavioral disturbances is reported. In children with continuous spikes and waves during the slow-wave sleep pattern the normal downscaling of slow-wave activity is absent, disrupting plastic brain processes of sleep-related memory consolidation. In BECTS children, NREM sleep interictal epileptiform discharges (IED) may interfere in the dialogue between temporal and frontal cortex, causing declarative memory deficits: the role of NREM sleep IED acquires a special importance, leading to methodological guidance and suggesting aims for future researches in the field of childhood neuroscience.     

Honeybee Memory: Navigation by Associative Grouping and Recall of Visual Stimuli

Studies of navigation in bees and ants are beginning to reveal that foraging insects traveling repeatedly to a food source navigate by using a series of visual images of the environment acquired en route (Collett, 1996; Collett et al., 1993; Judd & Collett, 1998; Wehner et al., 1990, 1996). By comparing the currently viewed scene with the appropriate stored image, the insect is able to ascertain whether or not it is on the correct path and make any necessary corrections. If a bee happens to forage at more than one site, then she needs not only to memorize a separate set of images for each route that she has learned but also to retrieve the set of images that is appropriate to each route. Here we examine the bee's capacity to learn and later retrieve from memory two different sets of visual stimuli. Bees were trained to fly through a compound Y-maze where they were presented alternately with two different sequences of visual stimuli on their route to a food reward. We find that bees can indeed store two different sequences of images simultaneously. Furthermore, the trained bees are able to classify the memorized images into two groups, one pertaining to each three-stimulus set. Exposure to any of the images pertaining to one set triggers recall of all of the other images associated with that set. Associative grouping and recall of visual stimuli, demonstrated here for the first time in honeybees, provide an effective means of retrieving the appropriate navigational information from memory.     

Exercise and Movement as an Adjunct to Group Therapy for Women with Chronic Mental Illness

Abstract

Feminist therapists value the empowerment of clients and the appropriate sharing of the therapist's institutionalized power. As therapists who are also “mandated reporters,” we are obligated under certain circumstances to use our power to warn potential victims of harm, to prevent clients from harm to self or others, or make reports to institutions which have a great impact on clients' lives. Using four case examples, this paper will present clinical situations where the use of the therapist's power interfaces with homophobia, racism, and paternalism in the lives of low-income clients.     

Failing to Recall: Examining the Effects of Trace Decay and Interference on Memory for Campaign Information

Voters are continuously bombarded with information during political campaigns, yet a consistent conclusion from research on voter learning is that individuals remember far less information about political candidates than one might expect. What remains unclear is why memory for campaign information is so poor. The present study examines two explanations for memory failure. Using an experimental design, the present study explores whether campaign information fades from memory (trace decay) or whether extraneous information impedes an individual's subsequent ability to recall campaign information (interference). The results suggest that examining the ways in which the larger information environment influences recall of campaign information has important implications for the importance we attribute to campaign information in models of voter decision making.     

Memory retrieval as a self-propagating process

Retrieval of a subset of studied items and the presentation of those items as retrieval cues typically impair retrieval of the other items. Previous research on this self-limiting property of memory retrieval has relied heavily on short retention intervals and similar context between encoding and test. Here, we examined retrieval dynamics also after a prolonged retention interval with different spatial and social context between encoding and test, conditions that mimic people’s remembering in many situations of daily life. For both unrelated word lists and more integrated prose material, we found retrieval and cuing to impair recall of other studied items after a short retention interval, but to improve recall in the prolonged retention interval condition. The results demonstrate that retrieval dynamics depend critically on situation, indicating that quite often in daily life, retrieval may be a self-propagating, rather than a self-limiting process.     

Memory as a cognitive representation of post-traumatic growth

Background and objectives: Previous studies on traumatic memory have primarily focused on the correlation between traumatic symptoms and negative memories, often utilizing the directed forgetting paradigm. Different from previous research, this study aimed to examine the correlation of post-traumatic growth (PTG) and positive memories, with the objective to explore the directed forgetting effect of positive material and its relationship with PTG.

Design: A 2 (PTG level: high vs. low)?×?2 (instructions: To-Be-Forgotten vs. To-Be-Remembered)?×?3 (word valence: positive vs. neutral vs. trauma related) mixed-factorial-designed experiment was applied.

Methods: Participants were 46 senior high-school students who had survived in the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. Participants were divided into two groups based on PTG: high (n?=?24) and low (n?=?22). Both groups were presented, and asked to recall, three word categories (positive, trauma-related, and neutral) following the directed forgetting paradigm.

Results: A mixed-design factorial ANOVA yielded a significant interaction effect of word valence and PTG group, with the high-PTG group recalling more positive words than the low-PTG group.

Conclusions: This was the first study to identify a key cognitive process of PTG by integrating the directed forgetting paradigm into an investigation of PTG.     

Long–Term Recall Memory: Behavioral and Neuro–Developmental Changes in the First 2 Years of Life

Until not long ago, psychologists conceptually and methodologically linked the capacity for recall of the past to developments in language. With the advent of a nonverbal measure of recall, this association has been challenged. It now is apparent that the capacity for long–term recall emerges well before the verbal ability to describe past experiences. Long–term recall is newly (or recently) emergent late in the 1st year of life; over the 2nd year, it consolidates and becomes reliable. The course of age–related changes in mnemonic behavior is consistent with current understanding of developments in the neural substrate implicated in recall memory.     

Stress Reduction for Family Caregivers in Chronic Mental Illness: Implications of a Work Stress Management Perspective

In several studies involving a total of 291 family caregivers for schizophrenia sufferers, the stressors that arise from caregiving were identified. Also identified were the outcomes for caregivers, which often include psychological distress. Caregivers develop various stress-reduction techniques, but this article explores the utility of applying the principles of work stress management to caregiver well-being. An organizational psychology perspective suggests that a comprehensive focus must include not only how individuals can learn to manage the emotional demands of their work, but also how the work of caregiving can be made less stressful for them. Suggestions from a work stress management perspective highlight the possible contributions of worker participation in policy formulation and a collaborative relationship between family and professional caregivers. Potentially fruitful research directions are noted.     

Retelling Is Not the Same as Recalling: Implications for Memory

ABSTRACT— In contrast to laboratory free recall (which emphasizes detailed and accurate remembering), conversational retellings depend upon the speaker's goals, the audience, and the social context more generally. Because memories are frequently retrieved in social contexts, retellings of events are often incomplete or distorted, with consequences for later memory. Selective rehearsal contributes to the memory effects, as does the schema activated during retelling. Retellings can be linked to memory errors observed in domains such as eyewitness testimony and flashbulb memories; in all of these situations, people retell events rather than engage in verbatim remembering.     

Beliefs about Memory as a Mediator of Relations between Metacognitive Beliefs and Actual Memory Performance

The goal of the present study was to investigate relationships between personal beliefs about memory, metacognitive beliefs, and actual memory performance. One hundred thirty-seven participants' (aged 20 to 60 years) metacognitive beliefs were measured using the Metacognition Questionnaire (MCQ-30), memory beliefs were measured using the Personal Beliefs about Memory Instrument (PBMI), and an episodic memory task was used to measure actual memory performance, memory predictions, and postdictions. Younger adults had lower scores on the positive beliefs subfactor of the MCQ-30, higher scores on retrospective change and control subfactors of the PBMI, and outperformed middle-aged adults on recall and recall postdiction. Path analysis showed that individuals' beliefs about memory mediate the relationship between metacognitive beliefs and actual memory performance. Specifically, low lack of confidence (or less worry) in one's own memory and attentional capabilities was related to higher memory performance and positive personal beliefs regarding specific memory ability mediated relationship.     

Predicting Successful Employment in the Community for People with a History of Chronic Mental Illness

Much work has been done to prepare people with a history of chronic mental illness for vocational placement. Evaluation tools can select some who are likely to be successful in competitive or sheltered work. Many whose psychiatric disability is so severe it interferes seriously with their capacity for work have need for more pre-vocational or vocational skills training. A literature survey shows many programs designed to help this population but little specific outcome data. Other articles state the need for empirical research. With limited funds and a large underserved population, further research is important.     

数字-空间联结的内在机制：基于工作记忆的视角

已有研究证实数字-空间联结是普遍存在的现象，但关于这种联结的解释仍存在争论。当前对数字-空间联结主要有两种解释。其中，心理数字线假设数字的心理表征是一条从左到右方向的水平线，而工作记忆假设认为数字-空间联结是任务执行期间暂时的工作记忆表征。本文通过分析心理数字线不能解释的数字-空间联结现象及局限性，来探讨工作记忆解释的适用性，并通过工作记忆的核心观点来解释数字-空间联结现象，以期更好地揭示数字-空间联结的内在机制。但关于工作记忆解释仍有亟待解决的问题，还需实证研究探讨。     

Remote Odor Memory in Alzheimer's Disease: Deficits as Measured by Familiarity

Deficit in olfaction and remote nonolfactory memory in Alzheimer's disease (AD) motivated the present study of remote memory for odors and faces, operationally defined as rated familiarity, in patients with AD and controls. Uncommon engineering symbols were rated for familiarity to ensure task comprehension. Results showed that patients with AD rate odors, but not faces, as significantly less familiar than do controls, which is indicative of deficit in remote odor memory. Follow-up testing 1 year later again showed this result. Poor odor-detection sensitivity in patients, with AD, but lack of significant correspondence between sensitivity and familiarity, suggests an existing but limited effect of sensitivity on familiarity. The findings provide further evidence that olfaction may be a useful modality for early identification of AD.     

Memory for Words as a Function of Spelling Transparency

The authors investigated the impact of spelling transparency on memory for words written in Persian orthography. Adult Persian university students (N = 212) performed in a memory recall experiment on 160 monosyllabic words printed on 8 cards (20 on each card) manipulated for spelling transparency, frequency, and imageability. Each card was presented randomly to the participants and they were asked to read the words aloud as quickly as possible. After reading each card, the participants were asked to engage in a digital addition task for 20 s (as a distracter), which was immediately followed by a request to write down as many words as possible from the cards in 40 s. No significant difference was found in the time to name aloud the opaque and transparent words, whereas on the memory recall task there were main effects for spelling, frequency, and imageability and significant 2-way and 3-way interactions. The effects were greatest for transparent spellings when they were of high frequency and high imageability or low frequency and low imageability. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Cognitive Underpinnings of Continuous Identity: Higher Episodic Memory Recall and Lower Heuristic Usage Predicts Highest Levels of Self-Continuity

Continuous identity (CI) is a sense of persistent identity wherein the present self is seen as overlapping with the past and future selves. This study addressed the hypothesis that judgments of CI require successful retrieval of information by examining the relationship between varying levels of CI and two forms of memory recall. The pattern of findings indicated that high levels of cued memory recall combined with low levels of heuristic usage were associated with higher levels of CI, and this occurred for both past-to-present CI and present-to-future CI. We propose that to achieve high levels of CI, individuals need to access and analyze a fund of stored autobiographical information.